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Minor Queries.
_Petrarch's Laura._--Mr. Mathews, in his _Diary of an Invalid in Italy,
&c._, p. 380., in speaking of the outrages and indignities which, during
the Revolution, were committed throughout France on the remains of the
dead, and were amongst the most revolting of its horrors, mentions, on the
authority of a fellow-passenger, an eye-witness, that the body of
Petrarch's Laura had been seen exposed to the most brutal indignities in
the streets of Avignon. He told Mr. Mathews that {563} it had been
embalmed, and was found in a mummy state, of a dark brown colour. I have
not met with any mention of these these circumstances elsewhere. Laura is
stated to have died of the plague (which seems to render it unlikely that
her body was embalmed): and according to Petrarch's famous note on his MS.
of Virgil, she was buried the same day, after vespers, in the church of the
Cordeliers. The date was April 1, 1348. That church was long celebrated for
her tomb, which contained also the body of Hugues de Sade, her husband. The
edifice is stated to be ruined, its very site being converted into a
fruit-garden; but the tomb is said to be still entire under the ground: and
more than twenty years after the French Revolution, a small cypress was
pointed out as marking the spot where Laura was interred.
Is the circumstance of the desecration of her tomb mentioned by any other
writer? If it really took place, are we to conclude that the tree--if it
still exists--marks only the place where she had been interred: for, that
the body was rescued and recommitted to the tomb, can hardly be supposed?