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This is one of the zoomorphe ornaments of the gate on the Saint Bénezet bridge, in Avignon.
It's a strange palce, beautiful, imponent and broken! From the last arch of the bridge, just in the middle of the branch of the Rohn river, you have a great view of the Palais des Papes and the olt citadel! In a sunnt day it's a pleasure to walk on the bridge, but when it rains you have a gothic and magic atmosphere to repay you of the wetness! When you look at the fast waters of the Rohn with the wind in your ears you coan easily believe you've just jumped back in the spelndour of medieval Avignon.
The bridge (with the Palis des Papes) belong to World Heritage Centre since 1995.

The legend about it says that a young shepherd, Bénezet, dreamed God ordering him to build a bridge, down in Avignon. The guy came down from Ardčche mountains in 1177 and told the archbishop about his mission. The archbishop thought he wanted to be a popular leader and told him to bring an enormous stone on the palce where he want to buid the bridge.If Bénezet succeded he would give the money for the bridge. Bénezet take the stone and bringing it up, with the aid of some angels, throwed it in the Rohn! So the archbishop payed workers and stones for the bridge.
In fact, a bridge was there in Roma time yet, buit in stone and wood, but the spates of the Rohn river ruined it several times. The present bridge is the gothic one, constructed with the money of the tolls and the collections by the San Bénezet fraternal order,"l’oeuvre du pont", after the distruction of the previous one in a siege. The new bridge was 900 metres long, on 22 arches. In 1377 the cardinal Blandiac ordered to pave it to avoid the frequent slithers and fall in the Rohn of people and waggonies.
The bridge was one of the most important bridges along the road from Rome to Santiago in Compostela, in Spain, and vital for the pope's city of Avignon.
With the slow decadence of the city there were no more money to restore and enforce it, even Luis the XIVth didn't want to pay for it when he crossed the bridge seeing the poor condition of the ancient bridge. So in XVII century a last spate ruined it and nobody rebuilted it anymore.
Now the bridge is a museum: with the four arches and the Saint Bénezet chapel, where the popes stayed to pray and to give an offer everytime they crossed the bridge.