By her resolute severity, she incurred the danger of ceasing to be the object of his attachment, and of losing the gift of an immortal name, which he has conferred upon her. But Petrarch's constancy was proof against hopelessness and time. He had too fervent an admiration of her qualities ever to change: he controlled the vivacity of his feelings, and they became deeper rooted. "Untouched by my prayers," he says, "unvanquished by my arguments, unmoved by my flattery, she remained faithful to her sex's honor; she resisted her own young heart, and mine, and a thousand, thousand things, which must have conquered any other. She remained unshaken. A woman taught me the duty of a man! to persuade me to keep the path of virtue, her conduct was at once an example and a reproach."
But whether, in this long conflict, Laura preserved her heart untouched, as well as her virtue immaculate; whether she shared the love she inspired; or whether she escaped from the captivating assiduities and intoxicating homage of her lover, "fancy free;" whether coldness, or prudence, or pride, or virtue, or the mere heartless love of admiration, or a mixture of all together, dictated her conduct, is at least as well worth inquiry as the color of her eyes, or the form of her nose, upon which we have pages of grave discussion. She might have been coquette par instinct, if not par calent; she might have felt, with feminine tacte, that to preserve her influence over Petrarch, it was necessary to preserve his respect. She was evidently proud of her conquest: she had else been more or less than woman; and at every hazard, but that of self-respect, she was resolved to retain him. If Petrarch absented himself for a few days, he was generally better treated on his return. If he avoided her, then her eye followed him with a softer expression. When he looked pale from sickness of heart and agitation of spirits, Laura would address him with a few words of pitying tenderness. When he presumed on this benignity, he was again repulsed with frowns. He flew to solitude,—solitude! Never let the proud and torn heart, wrung with the sense of injury, and sick with unrequited passion, seek that worst resource against pain, for there grief grows by contemplating itself, and every feeling is sharpened by collision. Petrarch sought to "mitigate the fever of his heart" amid the shades of Vaucluse, a spot so gloomy, and so solitary, that his very servants forsook him; and Vaucluse, its fountains, its forests, and its hanging cliffs, reflected only the image of Laura.
He passed several years thus, cut off from society; his books were his great resource; he was never without one in his hand. Often he remained in silence from morning till night, wandering among the hills when the sun was yet low; and taking refuge, during the heat of the day, in his shady garden. At night, after performing his clerical duties (for he was canon of Lombes), he rambled among the hills; often entering, at midnight, the cavern, whose gloom, even during the day, struck his soul with awe. "Fool that I was!" he exclaims in after life, "not to have remembered the first school-boy lesson—that solitude is the nurse of love!"
While living at Vaucluse, Petrarch, invited to Rome by the Roman Senate, repaired thither to receive the laurel crown of poesy. The ceremony was performed in the Capitol with great solemnity, in presence of all the nobles and high-born ladies of the city. Leaving Rome soon after his coronation, he repaired to Parma, where Clement VI. rewarded him for subsequent political services by naming him prior of Migliarino in the diocese of Pisa.
Petrarch returned to Avignon. The sight of Laura gave fresh energy to a passion which had survived the lapse of fifteen years. She was no longer the blooming girl who had first charmed him. The cares of life had dimmed her beauty. She was the mother of many children, and had been afflicted at various times by illness. Her home was not happy. Her husband, without loving or appreciating her, was ill-tempered and jealous. Petrarch acknowledged that if her personal charms had been her sole attraction he had already ceased to love her. But his passion was nourished by sympathy and esteem; and, above all, by that mysterious tyranny of love, which, while it exists, the mind of man seems to have no power of resisting, though in feebler minds it sometimes vanishes like a dream. Petrarch was also changed in personal appearance. His hair was sprinkled with gray, and lines of care and sorrow trenched his face. On both sides the tenderness of affection began to replace, in him the violence of passion, in her the coyness and severity she had found necessary to check his pursuit. The jealousy of her husband opposed obstacles to their seeing each other. They met as they could in public walks and assemblies. Laura sang to him, and a soothing familiarity grew up between them as her fears became allayed, and he looked forward to the time when they might sit together and converse without dread.
At length he resolved to leave Laura and Avignon forever; and instead of plunging into solitude, to seek the wiser resource of travel and society. Laura saw him depart with regret. When he went to take leave of her, he found her surrounded by a circle of her ladies. Her mien was dejected; a cloud overcast her face, whose expression seemed to say, "Who takes my faithful friend from me?" Petrarch was struck to the heart by a sad presentiment: the emotion was mutual; they both seemed to feel that they should never meet again.
Petrarch departed. The plague, which had been extending its ravages over Asia, entered Europe. It spread far and wide: nearly one half the population of the world became its prey. Petrarch saw thousands die around him, and he trembled for his friends. He heard that it was at Avignon. A thousand sad presentiments haunted his mind. At last the fatal truth reached him, Laura was dead! By a singular coincidence, she died on the anniversary of the day when he first saw her. She was taken ill on the third of April, and languished but three days. As soon as the symptoms of the plague declared themselves, she prepared to die: she made her will, which is dated on the third of April, and received the sacraments of the church. On the sixth she died, surrounded by her friends and the noble ladies of Avignon, who braved the dangers of infection to attend on one so lovely and so beloved. On the evening of the same day on which she died, she was interred in the chapel of the Cross which her husband had lately built in the church of the Minor Friars at Avignon.
Her tomb was discovered and opened in 1533, in the presence of Francis the First, whose celebrated stanzas on the occasion are well known.
Of the fame which, even in her lifetime, love and poetical adoration of Petrarch had thrown around his Laura, a curious instance is given which will characterize the manners of the age. When Charles of Luxembourg (afterwards Emperor) was at Avignon, a grand fête was given, in his honor, at which all the noblesse were present. He desired that Petrarch's Laura should be pointed out to him; and when she was introduced, he made a sign with his hand that the other ladies present should fall back; then going up to Laura, and for a moment contemplating her with interest, he kissed her respectively on the forehead and on the eyelids.
Petrarch survived her twenty-six years, dying in 1374. He was found lifeless one morning in his study, his hand resting on a book.