Joan reassured the archbishop and the deputation from her good town of Aix with a melancholy smile, and promised that she would always cherish the memory of their affection.  For this time she could not be deceived as to the real sentiments of the nobles and people; and a fidelity so uncommon, revealed with sincere tears, touched her heart and made her reflect bitterly upon her past.  But a league’s distance from Avignon a magnificent triumphal reception awaited her.  Louis of Tarentum and all the cardinals present at the court had come out to meet her.  Pages in dazzling dress carried above Joan’s head a canopy of scarlet velvet, ornamented with fleur-de-lys in gold and plumes.  Handsome youths and lovely girls, their heads crowned with flowers, went before her singing her praise.  The streets were bordered with a living hedge of people; the houses were decked out; the bells rang a triple peal, as at the great Church festivals.  Clement VI first received the queen at the castle of Avignon with all the pomp he knew so well how to employ on solemn occasions, then she was lodged in the palace of Cardinal Napoleon of the Orsini, who on his return from the Conclave at Perugia had built this regal dwelling at Villeneuve, inhabited later by the popes.

No words could give an idea of the strangely disturbed condition of Avignon at this period.  Since Clement V had transported the seat of the papacy to Provence, there had sprung up, in this rival to Rome, squares, churches, cardinals’ palaces, of unparalleled splendour.  All the business of nations and kings was transacted at the castle of Avignon.  Ambassadors from every court, merchants of every nation, adventurers of all kinds, Italians, Spaniards, Hungarians, Arabs, Jews, soldiers, Bohemians, jesters, poets, monks, courtesans, swarmed and clustered here, and hustled one another in the streets.  There was confusion of tongues, customs, and costumes, an inextricable mixture of splendour and rags, riches and misery, debasement and grandeur.  The austere poets of the Middle Ages stigmatised the accursed city in their writings under the name of the New Babylon.

There is one curious monument of Joan’s sojourn at Avignon and the exercise of her authority as sovereign.  She was indignant at the effrontery of the women of the town, who elbowed everybody shamelessly in the streets, and published a notable edict, the first of its kind, which has since served as a model in like cases, to compel all unfortunate women who trafficked in their honour to live shut up together in a house, that was bound to be open every day in the year except the last three days of Holy Week, the entrance to be barred to Jews at all times.  An abbess, chosen once a year, had the supreme control over this strange convent.  Rules were established for the maintenance of order, and severe penalties inflicted for any infringement of discipline.  The lawyers of the period gained a great reputation by this salutary institution; the