This Last Operation, Called The
Douche, However, Is More Effectually Undergone In The Private
Bath, Where The Stream Is Much More Powerful.
The natural warmth
of this water, as nearly as I can judge from recollection, is
about the same degree of temperature with that in the Queen's
Bath, at Bath in Somersetshire.
It is perfectly transparent,
sparkling in the glass, light and agreeable to the taste, and may
be drank without any preparation, to the quantity of three or
four pints at a time. There are many people at Aix who swallow
fourteen half pint glasses every morning, during the season,
which is in the month of May, though it may be taken with equal
benefit all the year round. It has no sensible operation but by
urine, an effect which pure water would produce, if drank in the
same quantity.
If we may believe those who have published their experiments,
this water produces neither agitation, cloud, or change of
colour, when mixed with acids, alkalies, tincture of galls, syrup
of violets, or solution of silver. The residue, after boiling,
evaporation, and filtration, affords a very small proportion of
purging salt, and calcarious earth, which last ferments with
strong acids. As I had neither hydrometer nor thermometer to
ascertain the weight and warmth of this water; nor time to
procure the proper utensils, to make the preparations, and repeat
the experiments necessary to exhibit a complete analysis, I did
not pretend to enter upon this process; but contented myself with
drinking, bathing, and using the douche, which perfectly answered
my expectation, having, in eight days, almost cured an ugly
scorbutic tetter, which had for some time deprived me of the use
of my right hand. I observed that the water, when used
externally, left always a kind of oily appearance on the skin:
that when, we boiled it at home, in an earthen pot, the steams
smelled like those of sulphur, and even affected my lungs in the
same manner: but the bath itself smelled strong of a lime-kiln.
The water, after standing all night in a bottle, yielded a
remarkably vinous taste and odour, something analogous to that of
dulcified spirit of nitre. Whether the active particles consist
of a volatile vitriol, or a very fine petroleum, or a mixture of
both, I shall not pretend to determine: but the best way I know
of discovering whether it is really impregnated with a vitriolic
principle, too subtil and fugitive for the usual operations of
chymistry, is to place bottles, filled with wine, in the bath, or
adjacent room, which wine, if there is really a volatile acid, in
any considerable quantity, will be pricked in eight and forty
hours.
Having ordered our coach to be refitted, and provided with fresh
horses, as well as with another postilion, in consequence of
which improvements, I payed at the rate of a loui'dore per diem
to Lyons and back again, we departed from Aix, and the second day
of our journey passing the Durance in a boat, lay at Avignon.
This river, the Druentia of the antients, is a considerable
stream, extremely rapid, which descends from the mountains, and
discharges itself in the Rhone. After violent rains it extends
its channel, so as to be impassable, and often overflows the
country to a great extent. In the middle of a plain, betwixt
Orgon and this river, we met the coach in which we had travelled
eighteen months before, from Lyons to Montpellier, conducted by
our old driver Joseph, who no sooner recognized my servant at a
distance, by his musquetoon, than he came running towards our
carriage, and seizing my hand, even shed tears of joy. Joseph had
been travelling through Spain, and was so imbrowned by the sun,
that he might have passed for an Iroquois. I was much pleased
with the marks of gratitude which the poor fellow expressed
towards his benefactors. He had some private conversation with
our voiturier, whose name was Claude, to whom he gave such a
favourable character of us, as in all probability induced him to
be wonderfully obliging during the whole journey.
You know Avignon is a large city belonging to the pope. It was
the Avenio Cavarum of the antients, and changed masters several
times, belonging successively to the Romans, Burgundians, Franks,
the kingdom of Arles, the counts of Provence, and the sovereigns
of Naples. It was sold in the fourteenth century, by queen Jane
I. of Naples, to Pope Clement VI. for the sum of eighty thousand
florins, and since that period has continued under the dominion
of the see of Rome. Not but that when the duc de Crequi, the
French ambassador, was insulted at Rome in the year 1662, the
parliament of Provence passed an arret, declaring the city of
Avignon, and the county Venaiss in part of the ancient domain of
Provence; and therefore reunited it to the crown of France, which
accordingly took possession; though it was afterwards restored to
the Roman see at the peace of Pisa. The pope, however, holds it
by a precarious title, at the mercy of the French king, who may
one day be induced to resume it, upon payment of the original
purchase-money. As a succession of popes resided here for the
space of seventy years, the city could not fail to be adorned
with a great number of magnificent churches and convents, which
are richly embellished with painting, sculpture, shrines,
reliques, and tombs. Among the last, is that of the celebrated
Laura, whom Petrarch has immortalized by his poetry, and for whom
Francis I. of France took the trouble to write an epitaph.
Avignon is governed by a vice-legate from the pope, and the
police of the city is regulated by the consuls.
It is a large place, situated in a fruitful plain, surrounded by
high walls built of hewn stone, which on the west side are washed
by the Rhone. Here was a noble bridge over the river, but it is
now in ruins.
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