Ere long, however, our travellers found less agreeable objects of curiosity, that formed a sad contrast with the chivalric manners, the floral games, and the gay poetry of southern France.  Bishop Colonna and Petrarch had intended to remain for some time at Toulouse; but their sojourn was abridged by their horror at a tragic event[D] in the principal monastery of the place.  There lived in that monastery a young monk, named Augustin, who was expert in music, and accompanied the psalmody of the religious brothers with beautiful touches on the organ.  The superior of the convent, relaxing its discipline, permitted Augustin frequently to mix with the world, in order to teach music, and to improve himself in the art.  The young monk was in the habit of familiarly visiting the house of a respectable citizen:  he was frequently in the society of his daughter, and, by the express encouragement of her father, undertook to exercise her in the practice of music.  Another young man, who was in love with the girl, grew jealous of the monk, who was allowed to converse so familiarly with her, whilst he, her lay admirer, could only have stolen glimpses of her as she passed to church or to public spectacles.  He set about the ruin of his supposed rival with cunning atrocity; and, finding that the young woman was infirm in health, suborned a physician, as worthless as himself, to declare that she was pregnant.  Her credulous father, without inquiring whether the intelligence was true or false, went to the superior of the convent, and accused Augustin, who, though thunderstruck at the accusation, denied it firmly, and defended himself intrepidly.  But the superior was deaf to his plea of innocence, and ordered him to be shut up in his cell, that he might await his punishment.  Thither the poor young man was conducted, and threw himself on his bed in a state of horror.

The superior and the elders among the friars thought it a meet fate for the accused that he should be buried alive in a subterranean dungeon, after receiving the terrific sentence of “Vade in pace.”  At the end of several days the victim dashed out his brains against the walls of his sepulchre.  Bishop Colonna, who, it would appear, had no power to oppose this hideous transaction, when he was informed of it, determined to leave the place immediately; and Petrarch in his indignation exclaimed—­

     “Heu! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum.”—­VIRG.

On the 26th of May, 1330, the Bishop of Lombes and Petrarch quitted Toulouse, and arrived at the mansion of the diocese.  Lombes—­in Latin, Lombarium—­lies at the foot of the Pyrenees, only eight leagues from Toulouse.  It is small and ill-built, and offers no allurement to the curiosity of the traveller.  Till lately it had been a simple abbey of the Augustine monks.  The whole of the clergy of the little city, singing psalms, issued out of Lombes to meet their new pastor, who, under a rich canopy, was conducted