For three years this passion had reigned over him without control: he now combated it; but his struggles saddened, while they sobered him. Again he turned his eyes from his own heart to the scene around. As the sun declined, he regarded the vast expanse of the distant Mediterranean, the long chain of mountains which divides France from Spain, and the Rhone which flowed at his feet. He feasted his eyes long on this glorious spectacle, while pious emotions filled his bosom. He had taken with him (for Petrarch was never without a book) the volume of St. Augustin's Confessions: he opened it by chance, and his eyes fell on the following passage:---"Men make journeys to visit the summits of mountains, the waves of the sea, the course of rivers, and the immensity of ocean, while they neglect their own souls." Struck by the coincidence, Petrarch turned his thoughts inward, and prayed that he might be enabled to vanquish himself. The moon shone upon their descent from the mountain (he was accompanied by his brother Gerard, whom he had selected from among his friends to join him in his excursion); and arriving at Maulaçene, a town at the foot of Mont Ventoux, Petrarch relieved his mind by pouring out his heart in a letter to Dionisio Robertis. The immediate result of the reflections thus awakened, was his retirement to Vaucluse. When a boy, he had visited this picturesque valley and its fountain, in company with his father, mother, and brother. He had then been charmed by its beauty and seclusion: and now, weary of travelling, and resolved to fly from Laura, he took refuge in the solitude he could here command.