Page:Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892).djvu/693

Rh at the least, according to history, were here consecrated to the service of the church. Avignon especially illustrates what I have said of the general character of the country through which we passed on our way to the Eternal City. It is surrounded by a wall flanked by thirty-nine towers and is entered through four great gates. Though this wall is twelve feet high and is thus flanked by towers, and though it was doubtless at one time a means of defense, it would be nothing against the projectiles of modern warfare. Like many other things, it has survived the use for which it was erected. The object of chief interest in Avignon, its palace of the popes, is certainly a very striking feature. In its appointments it justifies the German proverb, "They who have the cross will bless themselves." Situated on an eminence proudly overlooking the city and its surroundings, the grounds large and beautiful, the popes who resided there no doubt found it a very pleasant abode. In looking at the situation of the palace, it was evident to me that Catholics have long known how to select locations for their churches and other buildings. They are masters of geographical and topographical conditions as well as of things ecclesiastical. This famous old building was not only a palace, or a strictly religious institution, but it was at once a palace and a prison. Many a poor soul is said to have endured within its walls the agony of a trial and the still greater one of torture for opinion's sake. If it was a place of prayer, it was also a place of punishment. The holy men who ruled at that day could be lions as well as lambs. In this building were many halls,—halls of judgment, halls of inquisition, halls of torture, and halls of banqueting. In the day of its palatial glory, religion stood no such nonsense as freedom of thought. Believe with the church