Now, as bells toll across St ... known as the Avignon Papacy, when the pope ruled from France instead of the Vatican. From 1309 to 1377, seven popes - all French - governed the Church from Avignon.

Before the French Revolution, at the end of the 1700s, the Catholic Church had a strong presence in France ... Saint Pierre places it close to other key sites, like the Palais des Papes. Avignon ...