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Updated: June 26, 2025
That exile reached the haven of Avignon, to be received there not only without any of the annoyance of suspicious espionage, but with all the courtesies that could be paid to an honoured guest. The Vice-Legate and the Archbishop vied with one another in the formal stateliness of their reception.
But an Italian who had read and enjoyed the divine Petrarch would naturally wish to see the place made divine by the poet's love for Laura. I went to the theatre, where I saw the vice-legate Salviati, women of fashion, neither fair nor foul, and a wretched comic opera; but I neither saw Astrodi nor any other actor from the Comedie Italienne at Paris.
I found the Astrodi at the door, and giving her my sixteen tickets, I sat down near the box of the vice-legate Salviati, who came in a little later, surrounded by a numerous train of ladies and gentlemen bedizened with orders and gold lace. The so-called father of the false Astrodi came and whispered that his daughter begged me to say that she was the celebrated Astrodi I had known at Paris.
In the end three small towns and twenty-two villages were completely sacked; seven hundred and sixty-three houses, eighty-nine cattle-sheds, and thirty-one barns burned; three thousand persons massacred; two hundred and fifty-five executed subsequently to the massacre, after a mockery of trial; six or seven hundred sent to the galleys; many children sold for slaves; and the victors, on retiring, left behind them a double ordinance, from the Parliament of Aix and the vice-legate of Avignon, dated the 24th of April, 1545, forbidding "that any one, on pain of death, should dare to give asylum, aid, or succor, or furnish money or victuals, to any Vaudian or heretic."
Cardinal Buon Compagni, the legate, sent from Rome here, is gone home; and the vice-legate officiated in his place, much to the consolation of the inhabitants, who observed with little delight or gratitude his endeavours to improve their trade, or his care to maintain their privileges; while his natural disinclination to hypocritical manners, or what we so emphatically call cant, gave them an aversion to his person and dislike of his government, which he might have prevented by formality of look, and very trifling compliances.
I replied that I would call on her in the afternoon, and that my answer would depend on my welcome, I went in due course, and after a lively discussion, she gave way, and I signified my willingness to sell the carriage for the sum offered by the vice-legate.
Being in need of money, and preferring to get rid of my carriage than of anything else, I announced it for sale at the price of three hundred and fifty Roman crowns. It was a comfortable and handsome carriage, and was well worth the price. I was told that the vice-legate offered three hundred crowns, and I felt a real pleasure in contradicting my favoured rival's desires.
I had besieged her for three weeks without any success, and when I made any attempts she repulsed me laughingly. Monsignor Buoncompagni, the vice-legate, was her lover in secret, though all the town knew it, but this sort of conventional secrecy is common enough in Italy. As as ecclesiastic he could not court her openly, but the hussy made no mystery whatever of his visits.
The Vice-legate caused a great fire to be lighted at the entrance: five years afterwards the bones of the victims were found in the inmost recesses. La Coste had the same fate; the promise made and immediately violated, and then all the terrors of hell.
I told the man that I had stated my price and meant to adhere to it, as I was not accustomed to bargaining. I went to see my carriage at noon one day to make sure that it was in good condition, and met the vice-legate who knew me from meeting me at the legate's, and must have been aware that I was poaching on his preserves.
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