of the Abbe de S A D E. 145 



the' fSta^''d\lt!i6f abl^'bvi^l^a^^s, tfife- rarf'cbiic(Jti!^fedf ftrangers 

 had neceflarily introduced every fpecies of voluptuoufnefs and 

 debauchery *. 



But fuppoGng for a moment that Avignon, thus populous, 

 fplendid and hixUrious, really feemed a picciol borgo in the eyes 

 of Petrarch, whofe mind, as the Abbe fays, was filled with 

 the great idea of the cities of Italy, (what we have indeed fhewn 

 to be only an idea, as he had never feen them), we cannot allow 

 the fame falfe eftimate in the mind of Laura, with refpedl to 

 the moft confiderable city which, for certain, yZ'^ had ever feen. 

 If Ihe had been born at Avignon, it certainly mull have merited 

 in her eyes a very different eftimation from that of an umil ter- 

 reno, which Ihe was afliamed to avow as the place of her nativi- 

 ty. Yet fuch, we have feen, the poet defcribes to have been 

 her eftimation of the place of her birth ; the only circumftance, 

 fhe fays, reipedling her origin, of which flie had reafon to be 

 afliamed f . 



But the picciol borgo and the umil terrene, fays the Abbe, was 

 not properly the city of Avignon itfelf ; it was only a fuburb, 

 2i fauxbourg oi xh.2it city, and thus might well have merited thofe 



epithets. 



avec lui des grands interSts de leurs etats. Le Roi de Mayorque et le Dauphin de 

 Viennois y avoient meme des demeures fixes. — Le palais du Roi de Naples itb\t oii 

 I'on voit a--pr^fent le monaftere de S" Ursule, qu'bn appelle les Royales, parcequ'elles 

 habitent le palais d'un Roi. Un grand concours d'^trangers dans une ville, y entftine 

 neceflairement la licence et la d^bauche," Uc. Mem. de Pet. torn. i. p. 68. 



* Of the very great populoufnefs of this city at that time, we may form a general 

 idea from a remarkable and melancholy proof. The peftilence which ravaged Italy 

 and the fouth of France in the year 1348, and of which Boccacio has given, in the 

 inti'oduflton to his Decamerone, a moft eloqaent and imprefSve defcription, cut off, in 

 the fp-ice of three nionths, a hundred and twenty thoufand of the inhabitants of 

 Avignon. Hijl. Pi/lol. Mem. deFETS.. torn. ii.p.^S6. 



i Sez /uprd, p.ljz. 



