This letter, dated April, 1339, is, according to De Sade’s opinion, full of powerful persuasion.  I cannot say that it strikes me as such.  After calling Christ to witness that he writes to the Dauphin in the spirit of friendship, he reminds him that Europe had never exhibited so mighty and interesting a war as that which had now sprung up between the kings of France and England, nor one that opened so vast a field of glory for the brave.  “All the princes and their people,” he says, “are anxious about its issue, especially those between the Alps and the ocean, who take arms at the crash of the neighbouring tumult; whilst you alone go to sleep amidst the clouds of the coming storm.  To say the truth, if there was nothing more than shame to awaken you, it ought to rouse you from this lethargy.  I had thought you,” he continues, “a man desirous of glory.  You are young and in the strength of life.  What, then, in the name of God, keeps you inactive?  Do you fear fatigue?  Remember what Sallust says—­’Idle enjoyments were made for women, fatigue was made for men.’  Do you fear death?  Death is the last debt we owe to nature, and man ought not to fear it; certainly he ought not to fear it more than sleep and sluggishness.  Aristotle, it is true, calls death the last of horrible things; but, mind, he does not call it the most horrible of things.”  In this manner, our poet goes on moralizing on the blessings of an early death, and the great advantage that it would have afforded to some excellent Roman heroes if they had met with it sooner.  The only thing like a sensible argument that he urges is, that Humbert could not expect to save himself even by neutrality, but must ultimately become the prey of the victor, and be punished like the Alban Metius, whom Tullus Hostilius caused to be torn asunder by horses that pulled his limbs in different directions.  The pedantic epistle had no effect on Humbert.

Meanwhile, Italy had no repose more than the rest of Europe, but its troubles gave a happy occasion to Petrarch to see once more his friend, Guglielmo Pastrengo, who, in 1338, came to Avignon, from Mastino della Scala, lord of Verona.

The moment Petrarch heard of his friend’s arrival he left his hermitage to welcome him; but scarcely had he reached the fatal city when he saw the danger of so near an approach to the woman he so madly loved, and was aware that he had no escape from the eyes of Laura but by flight.  He returned, therefore, all of a sudden to Vaucluse, without waiting for a sight of Pastrengo.  Shortly after he had quitted the house of Laelius, where he usually lodged when he went to Avignon, Guglielmo, expecting to find him there, knocked at the door, but no one opened it—­called out, but no one answered him.  He therefore wrote him a little billet, saying, “My dear Petrarch, where have you hid yourself, and whither have you vanished?  What is the meaning of all this?” The poet received this note at Vaucluse, and sent an explanation of his flight, sincere indeed as to good feelings, but prolix as usual in the expression of them.  Pastrengo sent him a kind reply, and soon afterwards did him the still greater favour of visiting him at Vaucluse, and helping him to cultivate his garden.