I only mean that there is no person of your rank whose preferment I desire; nor would I accept such preferment if it were offered to me.

I should not say thus much, if my familiar intercourse with the Pope and the Cardinals had not convinced me that happiness in that rank is more a shadow than a substance.

It was a memorable saying of Pope Adrian IV., 'that he knew no one more unhappy than the Sovereign Pontiff; his throne is a seat of thorns; his mantle is an oppressive weight; his tiara shines splendidly indeed, but it is not without a devouring fire.' If I had been ambitious," continues Petrarch, "I might have been preferred to a benefice of more value than yours;" and he refers to the fact of the Pope having given him his choice of several high preferments.
Petrarch passed the winter of 1346-47 chiefly at Avignon, and made but few and short excursions to Vaucluse.

In one of these, at the beginning of 1347, when he had Socrates to keep him company at Vaucluse, the Bishop of Cavaillon invited them to his castle.

Petrarch returned the following answer:-- "Yesterday we quitted the city of storms to take refuge in this harbour, and taste the sweets of repose.