But would the chevalier feel threatened? M. de Sade “cannot have taken [Petrarch] very seriously,” says Professor Bishop; otherwise he would never have tolerated the poet’s relationship with Laura. Besides, adds the professor, “de Sade knew very well the Provençal tradition of the infatuate poet suppliant. Whenever Petrarch went too far, he would lock up poor Laura, but otherwise, if the poet wanted to sigh at dawn beneath his wife’s window, there was no great harm done.”
