Petrarch received some show of complacency from Laura, which his imagination magnified; and it was some sort of consolation, at least, that his idol was courteous to him; but even this scanty solace was interrupted.  Some malicious person communicated to Laura that Petrarch was imposing upon her, and that he was secretly addressing his love and his poetry to another lady under a borrowed name.  Laura gave ear to the calumny, and, for a time, debarred him from her presence.  If she had been wholly indifferent to him, this misunderstanding would have never existed; for jealousy and indifference are a contradiction in terms.  I mean true jealousy.  There is a pseudo species of it, with which many wives are troubled who care nothing about their husbands’ affection; a plant of ill nature that is reared merely to be a rod of conjugal castigation.  Laura, however, discovered at last, that her admirer was playing no double part.  She was too reasonable to protract so unjust a quarrel, and received him again as usual.

I have already mentioned that Clement VI. had made Petrarch Canon of Modena, which benefice he resigned in favour of his friend, Luca Christino, and that this year his Holiness had also conferred upon him the prebend of Parma.  This preferment excited the envy of some persons, who endeavoured to prejudice Ugolino de’ Rossi, the bishop of the diocese, against him.  Ugolino was of that family which had disputed for the sovereignty of Parma with the Correggios, and against whom Petrarch had pleaded in favour of their rivals.  From this circumstance it was feared that Ugolino might be inclined to listen to those maligners who accused Petrarch of having gone to Avignon for the purpose of undermining the Bishop in the Pope’s favour.  Petrarch, upon his promotion, wrote a letter to Ugolino, strongly repelling this accusation.  This is one of the manliest epistles that ever issued from his pen.  “Allow me to assure you,” he says, “that I would not exchange my tranquillity for your troubles, nor my poverty for your riches.  Do not imagine, however, that I despise your particular situation.  I only mean that there is no person of your rank whose preferment I desire; nor would I accept such preferment if it were offered to me.  I should not say thus much, if my familiar intercourse with the Pope and the Cardinals had not convinced me that happiness in that rank is more a shadow than a substance.  It was a memorable saying of Pope Adrian IV., ’that he knew no one more unhappy than the Sovereign Pontiff; his throne is a seat of thorns; his mantle is an oppressive weight; his tiara shines splendidly indeed, but it is not without a devouring fire.’  If I had been ambitious,” continues Petrarch, “I might have been preferred to a benefice of more value than yours;” and he refers to the fact of the Pope having given him his choice of several high preferments.

Petrarch passed the winter of 1346-47 chiefly at Avignon, and made but few and short excursions to Vaucluse.  In one of these, at the beginning of 1347, when he had Socrates to keep him company at Vaucluse, the Bishop of Cavaillon invited them to his castle.  Petrarch returned the following answer:—­