transported into Gascony." Nothing is more beautiful than the patient
endurance of our destiny; yet there are many priests who would suffer
translation to a well-paid, though mountainous bishopric, with patience
and piety.

The vicinity of the Pyrenees renders the climate of Lombes very severe;
and the character and conversation of the inhabitants were scarcely more
genial than their climate. But Petrarch found in the bishop's abode
friends who consoled him in this exile among the Lombesians. Two young
and familiar inmates of the Bishop's house attracted and returned his
attachment. The first of these was Lello di Stefani, a youth of a noble
and ancient family in Rome, long attached to the Colonnas. Lello's
gifted understanding was improved by study; so Petrarch tells us; and he
could have been no ordinary man whom our accomplished poet so highly
valued. In his youth he had quitted his studies for the profession of
arms; but the return of peace restored him to his literary pursuits.
Such was the attachment between Petrarch and Lello, that Petrarch gave
him the name of Lælius, the most attached companion of Scipio. The other
friend to whom Petrarch attached himself in the house of James Colonna
was a young German, extremely accomplished in music. De Sade says that
his name was Louis, without mentioning his cognomen. He was a native of
Ham, near Bois le Duc, on the left bank of the Rhine between Brabant and
Holland. Petrarch, with his Italian prejudices, regarded him as a
barbarian by birth; but he was so fascinated by his serene temper and
strong judgment, that he singled him out to be the chief of all his
friends, and gave him the name of Socrates, noting him as an example
that Nature can sometimes produce geniuses in the most unpropitious
regions.

After having passed the summer of 1330 at Lombes, the Bishop returned to