The morning light suits Laura. The sun adds luster to the golden hair on her forehead and a tint of pink to her snowy complexion. Accompanying her this morning is her very proper-looking husband, chevalier Hugues de Sade. In a neat twist of history, M. de Sade is an ancestor of Petrarch’s most eminent eighteenth-century biographer, the Abbé J. F. X. de Sade, who, in turn, is an uncle of the diabolical marquis of the same name. The de Sades are a prominent Avignon family. Wealthy gentry, they own several spinning mills in the region. The Pont d’Avignon has borne the de Sade family coat of arms
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