Of the Abbe de S A D E. 145 



the fame author acknowledges, the van: concourfe of ftrangers 

 had neceffarily introduced every fpecies of voluptuoufnefs and 

 debauchery *. 



But fuppofing for a moment that Avignon, thus populous, 

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

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

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

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

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

 the mod considerable city which, for certain,/*? had ever feen. 

 If !he had been born at Avignon, it certainly muft have merited 

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

 reno, which {he 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, 

 Ihe fays, reflecting her origin, of which {he had reafon to be 

 afhamed f. 



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

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

 a fauxbourg of that city, and thus might well have merited thofe 



epithets. 



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

 Vlennois y avoient meme des demeures fixes — Le palais du Roi de Naples itbit ou 

 Ton voit a--prefentle monaftere de S te Ursule, qu'bn appelle les Roj/ales, parcequ'elles 

 habitent le palais d'un Roi. Un grand concours d'etrangers dans une ville, y entfcine 

 neceflairement la licence et la debauche," l£c. Mem. de Pet. torn. i. p. 68. 



* Of the very great populouthefs 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 

 introduftion to his Decamerone, a mod eloquent and impreffive defcription, cut off, in 

 the fpace of three months, a hundred and twenty thoufand of the inhabitants of 

 Avignon. Hift. Pijiol. Mem. de Petr. torn. ii. p. 456. 



f SEE fopra, p. i$z. 



