Romantic Cities of Provence

by Mona Caird

In the singular dialogue between the poet and the saint, the poet, while making a brave stand for the unconquerable sentiment, finally allows the saint to have the best of the argument.

Barbara flatly refused to listen to the theory that Petrarch and Laura never exchanged so much as a word in their lives, but it is believed by many. The poet is said to have worshipped the lady at a distance across the golden shadows of the Church of St. Clara at Avignon, where she used to come for the celebration of Mass. Her family—if to the family of de Noves she really belonged—owned a château in the neighbourhood. She married into the house of De Sades (or so runs the story) and she was a niece of the famous Fanette, who was President of the renowned Court of Love at the Château of Romanin in the Alpilles: those strange little limestone mountains that we saw to the south as we looked over the country from the Rocher du Dom.

Some writers, on the other hand, speak of a passionate history, clandestine meetings, tragedy and despair. But of this there is not a hint in the poet's own writings. Nothing certain seems to be known about the matter, and it is even regarded as entirely fabulous by some sceptics who would banish from history all its charming stories, the mere fact of a romantic flavour seeming to them to prove a legend untrue. As if real life were constructed on such dull and unimaginative lines!

If, however, the story of Petrarch and Laura be well founded, he must have been the very prince of lovers, for his love was well-nigh untiring, although seemingly hopeless, uncheered by even an occasional meeting; and it remained in his heart obstinately and irrevocably, in spite of the most persistent efforts of his intellect and his religious sense to oust it; in spite of a life among the Courts of Europe the most brilliant and varied that can be imagined.

Petrarch possessed also the genius of friendship, and had swarms of friends. When Pope Clement VI., one of the number, lay dying in his fortress palace, the poet sent a message: "Remember the epitaph of the Roman Emperor Hadrian: 'Turba Medicorum Perii.'" And he wrote a letter to the Pope in the same strain: "What makes me really tremble is to see your bed surrounded with physicians who never agree."...

One likes to picture him in these old halls and to know that he possessed the genial faculty of making people feel the happier for his presence. Yet it is recorded that "deep remorse and profound melancholy afflicted the poet's soul."

Perhaps his hopeless love may have clouded his spirit, for this does happen in exceptional natures; or is it that, in truth, there are untold agonies, late or soon, in the hearts of all who have the power to move and to delight?

Certain it is that Petrarch possessed an immense attraction for almost every type of mind and character. He must indeed have been a man of infinite charm. He was the friend of kings, scholars, Popes, princes, soldiers, statesmen. He ardently championed the cause of Rienzi, and of the Emperor Charles IV.; for the idea of keeping up the succession of the Holy Roman Empire appealed powerfully to his imagination, and when that monarch gave up his campaign before he had made good his imperial claims on Italy, Petrarch wrote bitterly reproaching him for abandoning so sacred a heritage.

In Avignon, among hosts of devoted friends, were the Princes of the House of Colonna; and the friendship was not destroyed even when Petrarch sided warmly with Rienzi against the turbulent nobles of Rome, among whom the Colonna were pre-eminent.

But in spite of his popularity in the Papal city, Petrarch heartily detested this Gallic Babylon, as he called it, and loved to retire from its splendours to Vaucluse, not far off, where he tried to regain serenity in the silence of that strangely romantic spot. A sad-looking little house is still pointed out as the home of the poet; with a shady, wild garden running down to the waters of the Sorgue as they rush foaming from the narrow vale, whose stupendous cliffs are as gloomy and hope-destroying as St. Augustine himself!—St. Augustine as represented in the "Segreto" at any rate.