“The banks of the river were crowded with a considerable number of women, their persons comely, and their dress elegant.  This great concourse of people seemed to create no confusion.  A number of these women, with cheerful countenances, crowned with flowers, bathed their hands and arms in the stream, and uttered, at the same time, some harmonious expressions in a language which I did not understand.  I inquired into the cause of this ceremony, and was informed that it arose from a tradition among the people, and particularly among the women, that the impending calamities of the year were carried away by this ablution, and that blessings succeeded in their place.  Hence this ceremony is annually renewed, and the ablution performed with unremitting diligence.”

The ceremony being finished, Petrarch smiled at their superstition, and exclaimed, “O happy inhabitants of the Rhine, whose waters wash out your miseries, whilst neither the Po nor the Tiber can wash out ours!  You transmit your evils to the Britons by means of this river, whilst we send off ours to the Illyrians and the Africans.  It seems that our rivers have a slower course.”

Petrarch shortened his excursion that he might return the sooner to Avignon, where the Bishop of Lombes had promised to await his return, and take him to Rome.

When he arrived at Lyons, however, he was informed that the Bishop had departed from Avignon for Rome.  In the first paroxysm of his disappointment he wrote a letter to his friend, which portrays strongly affectionate feelings, but at the same time an irascible temper.  When he came to Avignon, the Cardinal Colonna relieved him from his irritation by acquainting him with the real cause of his brother’s departure.  The flames of civil dissension had been kindled at Rome between the rival families of Colonna and Orsini.  The latter had made great preparations to carry on the war with vigour.  In this crisis of affairs, James Colonna had been summoned to Rome to support the interests of his family, and, by his courage and influence, to procure them the succour which they so much required.

Petrarch continued to reside at Avignon for several years after returning from his travels in France and Flanders.  It does not appear from his sonnets, during those years, either that his passion for Laura had abated, or that she had given him any more encouragement than heretofore.  But in the year 1334, an accident renewed the utmost tenderness of his affections.  A terrible affliction visited the city of Avignon.  The heat and the drought were so excessive that almost the whole of the common people went about naked to the waist, and, with frenzy and miserable cries, implored Heaven to put an end to their calamities.  Persons of both sexes and of all ages had their bodies covered with scales, and changed their skins like serpents.

Laura’s constitution was too delicate to resist this infectious malady, and her illness greatly alarmed Petrarch.  One day he asked her physician how she was, and was told by him that her condition was very dangerous:  on that occasion he composed the following sonnet:[E]—­