There were gilded virgins, too, and much other quaint
device that produced an effect that I rather liked than otherwise. At
the end of the church, farthest from the high altar, there were four
columns of exceedingly rich marble, and a good deal more of such precious
material was wrought into the chapels and altars. There was an old stone
seat, also, of some former pope or prelate. The church was dim enough to
cause the lamps in the shrines to become points of vivid light, and,
looking from end to end, it was a long, venerable, tarnished, Old World
vista, not at all tampered with by modern taste.
We now went on our way through the village, and, emerging from a gate,
went clambering towards the castle of St. Andre, which stands, perhaps, a
quarter of a mile beyond it. This castle was built by Philip le Bel, as
a restraint to the people of Avignon in extending their power on this
side of the Rhone. We happened not to take the most direct way, and so
approached the castle on the farther side and were obliged to go nearly
round the hill on which it stands, before striking into the path which
leads to its gate.
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