fer the fonndhi^ <f a. C»^gi> St thh Ca/oxjf"

° ILIlIBISAIFllf "

Gift of
Mrs. Julia Royael McKay
1912

LJiM

B^

^^^¦B

HI •'^

-p!

a

'^^m

^^^

!£;»«

^^

,^^^4j, j:V-^^

(^ :;„;,,;??;,;/¦'";:

H^WH'

^^toi

®r

^yv^^^:¦'¦;^v¦;

;':.;#-$;•;?;' ,/,;.,'

¦¦:^<V,;,iii.'^v/;,^^>i

MARSARET O. W. OLIPHANT

... He caused US bearers io set down tlie litter on the ground, and, tumi,i<r
to laiere Assisi, the home of his youth, rose ¦white iifon the hill, gave his blZit^
to the town ¦which had nurtured and cherished him. P "T"

FRANCIS OF ASSISI

BY
Mrs. OLIPHANT
Author of " The Life of Edivard Irving," " The Makers of Florence.'
" The Makers of Vejiice." <S^c.

Eon^ttin
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK : THB MACMILLAN COMPANY
1898
All rights reso'ved

Still young, he for his lady's love forswore
His father ; for a bride ivhont none approves.
But rathery as on Death, would close the door,
hi sight of all the heavenly coitrt that moves
ArouJid the Etemal Father, they were ived.
And tnore from day to day increased their loves.
She of her first love long bereft, had led
A thousand years and yet a hu7idred more
By no man sought, life hard and sore bested.
But lest my hidden words the truth should veil,
Francis and Poverty these lovers ivere.
Of ivhom I vueave at too great length my tale :
Their concord, of dear love the minister.
Their joy fil air, their loving looks and kind;
Did holy thoughts in every spirit stir.
Il Paradiso, Canto IL

Me35 S70

-r r

First Edition, 1870.
Reprinted, 1871, 1873, 1877, 1879, 1882, 1885, 1B87, 1889, 1892, 1894, 1898.

INTRODUCTION.

The principal events of the following history took
place in the beginning of the thirteenth century, of
which it seems advisable to give a slight sketch at the
commencement, that the reader may be able to place
St. Francis in his proper chronological place among
those events and personages, which occupy a larger
space in history than historians generally are willing
to allow, to a man who wielded only a moral influence,
and was nothing more than a reformer and a saint.
This will be found all the more necessary that it has
been the aim of the writer in the work itself, rather to
follow, as far as modern custom and authentic facts
permit, the simplicity of the popular legend than to
attempt any elaborate historical picture.
The thirteenth century opened in the midst of one
of those periods of transition of which so many occur
in the history of the world — great crises up to which
the universe has been working through an entire
age, which change all the foundations of society, and
settle the nations anew upon an altered basis ; against
which, the moment it is established, new forces begin
to work, mining its foundations, and preparing the
b

INTRODUCTION.

way for yet another change. The reign of the great
Emperor Frederick Barbarossa was over in Germany
with all its conflicts ; and his less remarkable son had
just died, leaving an infant successor king of Naples,
and possible heir of the great title of the Roman
Emperors, to the guardianship of the P9pe. Philip
Augustus reigned in France, and King John in Eng
land. The Third Crusade, with all its harvest of
disappointed hopes and lost lives, was still in progress ;
and the faithful and orthodox knights of Christendom
were taking the Cross, not only against Saladin and
his Mahommedan hordes, but against the heretic
Albigeois, who were hunted down with greater ferocity
than could be employed against the warlike Turks.
A certain rude and literal faith, not spiritual, nor even
exercising much influence upon morals, yet very
true and very intense, was general in Christendom.
Philosophy was not current in those days, and
scepticism was unknown. The most ferocious noble
was capable, in some sudden impulse, of enrolling
himself among the Crusaders — making the sacrifice of
his home and such domestic aff'ections as he possessed,
of his country, and the prosecution of those personal
feuds which probably were sweeter to him than any
other employment — ^in order to make up for some
great sin he had done, or by way of excusing him to
himself for serving God no better. It was still the
age of conquest, of miracles, of warfare and strife
everywhere, of revolution and counter-revolution,
putting down one and raising up another. In Italy,
the cities which had been gradually sucking in and
subduing the surrounding nobles, and which had but
lately won a reluctant admission of their liberties from

IN TROD UCTION.

the hands of Barbarossa, were building themselves up
in proud combativeness, each a power in itself, remorse
less, vindictive, easily provoked, prone to attack and
to be attacked. The most insignificant among them
waged independent war against its neighbour, as if it
had been a sovereign state, and all that force and
fierce individuality of municipal life which so long dis
tinguished Italy, and which has cost her so much, had
already come into being. The long and bitter strife
between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the party of
the Church and that of the Empire, was also in active
existence. But for the moment victory was largely
on the side of the Church. A succession of ambitious
and able popes had gradually extended the preten
sions of the See of Rome from that of a simple
Patriarchate to that of supreme authority not only over
the Church but over the world. It would be unjust not
to allow that this supremacy, most fully attained by
Innocent III., who reigned, with much splendour and
not without benefit to the world, over Christendom for
the first sixteen years of the thirteenth century, was
founded upon a great primitive ideal conception of the
ofiice of the priest in the world. As in the first humble
communities of Christians the pastor was the natural
referee in all difficulties, the natural adviser, arbiter,
and friend, preventing, by his impartial judgment be
tween "brother and brother, the hateful appeal to law
and public tribunals which Scripture continually dis
courages ; so it cannot be doubted the devout imagina
tion of a supreme pastor, to be consulted in the same
way by kings and nations, preventing by his influence
the still more disastrous appeal to war, watching over
the moral character of sovereigns ^and the tendencies
b 2

INTRODUCTION.

of their reign as the humble parish priest watches over
his flock, was but a development of the early ideal of
a priest's duties, and was in itself a great and noble, if
utterly Utopian and unrealizable conception. Secular
historians, imbued with that faith in the worst aspect
of human nature which unfortunately is so often
justified, have utterly ignored the possibility of any
greater motive than ambition influencing the Gre
gories and Innocents; while historians on their own
side of the question have been apt to claim for them a
superhuman purity and loftiness of aim just as far
removed from the truth. We may be permitted to
believe, however, that the popes were men of their
age, like their contemporaries ; that they were not so
far in advance of every other intelligence of the time
as to see through their own pretensions, and that some
honest belief in the moral advantage of an eccle
siastical Court of Appeal, and (supposably) impartial
judge between king and king, between nation and
nation, was, in them, mingled with their ambition.
However this may be, it is undeniably certain that
the Church in the time of Innocent III. was at its
highest pinnacle of political greatness, interfering, and
having a real power to interfere, in the affairs of
nations, giving and taking away crowns almost at its
pleasure, holding the terrible threat of excommunica
tion over the head of rebels, doing justice upon some
princely culprits whom no other authority could have
ruled, and on the other hand, no doubt, intruding into
many matters of the highest importance where its
Influence was useless and mischievous. This influence
was objected to, as we find in history, prinapally by
those to whom it was adverse. The prince, or the

INTRODUCTION.

noble, or the nation in favour of whom the Pope's
decisions were made, never made any remonstrance
against the exercise of his power ; they believed in it,
as probably he did, and thought it a very good thing
for the world. He was not to them an impertinent
priest, interfering in matters that did not concern him,
as, were he taking the same part upon him, he would,
in his impotence, appear now. And this fact ought
to be taken into consideration by all readers of history.
The nineteenth century, when it studies the thirteenth,
must consent to put itself, as far as possible, at the
point of view held by the latter. To judge it by our
present lights, by our present habits of thought, would
be of all things the most futile — for there is nothing
which so completely hinders a man from understand
ing his neighbour as the foregone conclusion that
that neighbour must be an impostor, a criminal, or
a fool. Religious faith was intense in this age of the world,
which by some is regarded as an age of darkness,
and by others as one of piety. It was both. It
possessed few of the virtues of civilization, had little
time for thought and none for speculation, and was
marked by all the rudeness of manners and morals,
indifference to human life and callousness to suffering
which are almost inseparable from continuous and
oft-repeated wars. It had, however, one strange ad
vantage over us, in so far that the perennial human
worship of Self existed then in so rude and blood
thirsty a form that the most subtle self-excuser could
scarcely delude himself, as it is possible to do now in
our milder forms of the same vice, that it was a virtue.
The robber-baron might find many good reasons foi

INTRODUCTION.

possessing himself of the domains of his neighbour,
or killing him when he met him ; but he could
scarcely persuade himself that in so doing he had
been actuated by the highest motives, and meant
nothing but good to his neighbour. The common
and general evils of the time were crimes such as
no man could mistake or veil, and for which hell-fiie
blazed visible, or at least purgatory with all its tor
ments. A man would have as soon doubted his own
existence as doubted the violent and awful recompense
which, if he could not make interest with some pitiful
saint, or acquire for himself the intercessions of the
Church, awaited him hereafter ; and thus to the rude
imagination of the common masses the Church was
the recognized seller of salvation at a lower or
greater price, the only means of escape from the
devils and the eternal flames. The very univer
sality, however, and depth of the common faith
debased the Church which was recognized by all
as the mediator between earth and heaven. The
gifts which men poured into her lap to buy her
intercessions, her absolutions, the mystic words with
which she propitiated an angry God, the rites which
were dear to Him upon His cloudy, distant throne —
involved the recipient in all the grosser temptations
which distinguished her clients, with the additional
drawback that proud priests and rich communities
professed purity and temperance and humility, virtues
to which laymen laid little claim. The lands and
legacies and rich donations of many a guilty
penitent buying ease to his conscience, and, as he
thought, deliverance to his soul, infected as with a
moral contagion the ecclesiastic who sold his sacred

INTRO D UCTION.

services at such a price ; and thus the very materiahsm
of faith, if we may use words which are so paradox
ical, wrought its own destruction. The convents
were goiged with wealth, the bishops were as great
nobles in the land, wielding secular as well as spiritual
authority, and even the parish priest, secure in his
official influence, was often indifferent of adding to
it any spiritual influence over the people, who were
already under thrall to him, as their only hope of
escape from the terrors of the unseen world.
It was at this moment that Francis of Assisi arose
to give a new tone and colour, and develop a new
power in the Church. She was at her highest pitch
of power, but she might have been also at the last
step between triumph and decadence but for the two
new apostles — Francis in Italy and Dominic in Spain
— who came full of the primitive spirit of the Gospel
to renew the religious life, and bring a fresh flood of
genuine spiritual influence upon the world. They
were very different men, but in their various ways
they were both stirred by the same absolute devotion
to that Saviour who had come penniless and homeless
into the world He was to save, and who had lived the
life of a poor man and died the death of a slave.
Their mission did not take the form of violent
indignation and disgust against the abuses of the
Church, and the corruption of her constitution, as
has been the way of reformers, chiefly because the
influence which moved them was wholly evangelical.
They were impelled to follow their Master, literally
making, as near as they could in the simplicity of
their age, a material copy of His life and work, rather
than to demolish the works of others, or point out

INTRODUCTION.

how they had gone astray. They were not destruc
tive but constructive reformers. Their mission was to
make clear their own path, not to encumber the paths
of others. And more especially in the case of the
holy man whose life is the subject of this volume,
the new path was framed on principles so entirely
different from any followed either in the world or the
Church, that it was at once a warning and reproach
to the latter, a wonder and prodigy to the former, and
as such produced such results on Christendom, both
secular and ecclesiastical, as it has fallen to the lot
of very few individuals to produce.
It will be our attempt in the following pages to
show what manner of life it was which Francis lived
in the heart of Italy in the thirteenth century, in
imitation of his Lord. The sources from which we
have drawn are the three original biographies pre
served by the Church, and carefully edited by the
Bollandist fathers in the Acta Sanctorum. The first,
by Thomas of Celano, a brother of the Franciscan
Order, a man of distinguished attainments, and to
whom the noble Latin hymn, the Dies Ircz, has been
often attributed, was written only three years after the
death of Francis, and is therefore the work of a con
temporary. The second, written by three of his
disciples, calling themselves the Three Companions
(Tres Socii) of Francis, is in the nature of an ap
pendix to Celano's narrative, but recapitulates the
entire life of the saint, adding some particulars
which are wanting in the first biography. Its
authors were Rufifino, Angelo, and Leo, brethren
in constant communication with Francis, the sharers
of his life, and his attendants to the very moment

INTROD UCTION.

of his death — ^witnesses, accordingly, of the most
trustworthy description. The third narrative, written
thirty-seven years after his death, is by the dis
tinguished and eloquent Bonaventura, one of the
greatest ornaments of the Franciscan Order, who had
himself in his childhood seen Francis, and who, being
commissioned by the Order to write his life, had the
fullest access to all documents on the subject. It
will be apparent that there are very few historical
personages of whom we have such full and trust
worthy records. The following extracts from the
statements which these three writers prefix to their
several histories will give the reader their own expla
nation of their motives and the means they possessed
of accurate information : —
" I desire to relate," says Thomas of Celano, " the acts
and life of our most blessed father, Francis, with pious devo
tion, truth being my guide and master ; and since no single
memory fully retains the recollection of all things that he
taught or did, I have endeavoured to set forth, at the bid
ding of our gracious lord. Pope Gregory, as far as I have
been able, though unskilled in virords, those things at least
which I have heard from his own mouth, or have learned
from faithful and approved witnesses. But would that I
were a worthy disciple of him, who ever avoided all ob
scurities of speech, and brooked no rhetorical ornaments ! "
This last prayer is so much the more necessary
that good brother Thomas is much addicted to
eloquence, and loves to pile epithet upon epithet
and high-sounding phrase on phrase. Nothing can
be more simple than his narrative of facts ; but
whenever he has an opportunity for an apostrophe
or outbreak of monkish rhetoric, he seizes upon it
with effusion. The Three Companions are more sober

xiv INTRODUCTION.

in their style. It is thus they announce the purpose
which moved them : —
" To the reverend father in Christ, Brother Crescentius,
by the grace of God, General Minister (of the Order),
Brother Leo, Brother Ruffino, and Brother Angelo, for
merly companions, though unworthy, of the most blessed
Father Francis, offer their devout and dutiful reverence,
in the name of the Lord. Since, by the command of
Christ, of the last General Council, and of yourself, the
brethren are required to make known such signs and
wonders of the most blessed Francis as may be known to
them, it has seemed good to us, who, though unworthy,
were long conversant with him, to make known to your
Holiness, truth being our guide, a few of the many deeds
which we have ourselves seen, or have learned through
other holy brethren — especially through BrOther Giovaimi,
visitor of the poor Ladies (poor Clares), Brother Illumi-
nato of Arco, Brother Masseo of Marignano, and Brother
Giovanni, the companion of the venerable Brother Egidio
— who received many of these things from the same holy
brother, Egidio — and brother Bernardo of holy memory,
the first companions of the blessed Francis. In this we
wUl not content ourselves with narrating only the miracles,"
which do not constitute, but are simply a proof of holiness,
but desire to set forth the chief acts of his life, and the
purpose of his pious goodness to the praise and glory of
Almighty God." • ,
This was written in 1247, twenty-one years after the
death of Francis ; the names of the writers, and the
brethren to whose authority they refer, the reader
will find through all the life of Francis as his con
stant associates. Bonaventura, who comes last, who
had little personal knowledge of the facts, and whose
work is confessedly a compilation, is more diffuse.
This is how he prefaces his work : —
"Feeling myself unworthy and unable to set forth the
life of so venerable a man, most worthy of all imitation, I
should in no wise have attempted it, had not the fervent

INTROD UCTION.

affection of the brethren urged me on, and the unanimous
•wish of the General Chapter induced me, and that reverence
which I am bound to bear to the holy father compelled me,
inasmuch as having been through his prayers and merits, as
I ever cherish in my memory, snatched in my childhood
from the jaws of death— should I be silent in publishing his
praise, I fear the charge of wickedness, as ungrateful. I
have too this chief cause of taking upon me this labour,
that I, who recognize the fife of body and soul as preserved
to me by God through him, and know his virtue through my
own experience, although I may not fully be able, shall
collect as far as possible the virtues of his life, his acts, and
words, as fragments partly neglected, partly scattered, that
they might not perish with the death of those who had lived
with the servant of God.
" In order, then, that the truth of his life, to be handed
down to posterity, should appear to me more certainly and
clearly, going to the place of the birth, life, and death
(departure) of the holy man, I held frequent and diligent
conference -with his companions who still survive, and
especially with certain who knew him well, and were
chief followers of his holiness, to whom, on account of
their known truth and approved virtue, unhesitating credit
must be given."
This is the last of the biographies which can be
called contemporary. From those which are simply
legendary, produced by the gradually expanding
superstition of the Order, and its desire to raise
its Founder to the highest fabulous rank of saint
hood, or rather of semi-deity, we have not quoted
at all. It is needless to desecrate a fine and noble
life with any shadow of such impious attempts at a
false glorification ; and the authentic materials are
abundant enough to take away all temptation on the
part of the student to draw from their profane and
polluted sources. The only legendary authority
from which we have taken anything is the beautiful

INTRODUCTION.

collection of popular stories read and loved in Italy
to this day, which is called the Fioretti di San
Francesco — the Little Flowers of St. Francis. The
tiny little unbound volume in the worst type and
rudest paper, costing a few bajocchi only, from which
we have quoted, is in itself evidence enough how
these most touching chronicles have kept hold of the
heart of the Italian people. This book is not con
temporary ; it is generally believed to belong in its
present form to the first half of the fourteenth century,
but has every appearance of having existed under the
form of oral legend long before. In quoting from it
we have been scrupulous never to build upon its facts
as authentic, but simply to take advantage of the
fresh and delightful variety of life and circumstance
which it throws upon the tale.
It would be unjust not to acknowledge, at the same
time, the service rendered to the student by the
painstaking labours of the Bollandist father who has
edited the three contemporary biographies of Francis
as they appear in the Acta Sanctorum, — collating
them with the further information contained in the
Annals of the Order, compiled by the learned priest
Luke Wadding — and examining every fact and every
inference with a calm elaboration, not to say tedious
ness, of critical judgment which are simply invalu
able. Father Suysken is not so interesting as Celano,
as Leo and his brothers, or the poetic and eloquent
Bonaventura, but his careful discussion over and over
of every incident, his elaborate comparisons and ex
aminations of date and evidence, are of the highest
importance, and cannot be over-estimated.
Of modern works on the subject, the chief referred

INTROD UCTION.

to have been the Life of Francis of Assisi, by Dr,
Karl Hase, a painstaking and valuable volume : and
Ozanam's eloquent sketches, Les Poetes Franciscains.
This is perhaps scarcely the place in which to
render private acknowledgments , but the writer
cannot end this introductory note without offering
her thanks, and more than thanks, to the inde
fatigable and kindest friend who has aided her
ignorance in many a tedious hour's reading and
weary night's work — who even nov/ will not wish
to be named — ^but to whom she owes the deepest
gratitude.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE
HIS EARLY DAYS  . ... ... I

CHAPTER n.
HIS FIRST STRUGGLES ... ... .... 22
CHAPTER in.
His COMPANIONS  . . . 38
CHAPTER IV.
BEGINNING OF THE RULE .... .... 6^
CHAPTER V.
LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA . . . .  74
CHAPTER VI.
THE SECOND ORDER  92
CHAPTER VII.
PROGRESS . .  I°2

CHAPTER VIII.
MIRACLES AND WONDERS . .  I18
CHAPTER IX.
POVERTY AND FRANCIS .  135
CHAPTER X.
THE CHAPTER STOREARUM  149

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XI. PAGE
THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA  162
CHAPTER XII.
THE FIRST INNOVATIONS .  1 79
CHAPTER XIII.
THE THIRD ORDER ... .  I97
CHAPTER XIV.
FINAL CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE . .... 211
CHAPTER XV.
POETRY ... . .  . 228
CHAPTER XVI.
MONTE ALVERNO  . . . . 244
CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST YEARS . .  269
CHAPTER XVIII.
HIS DEATH-BED  .  283
CHAPTER XIX.
CONCLUSION  296

FRANCIS OF ASSISI.

CHAPTER I.

HIS EARLY DAYS.

Towards the end of the twelfth century, in the
year 1182, Francis Bernardone, the son of Pietro
Bernardone and Madonna Pica his wife, was born
in the little town of Assisi, which has since become
illustrious through his name and memory. The vale
of Umbria, the very heart and centre of Italy, with
its rich fields and woods and pleasant streams — a
garden of Eden situated between two seas, yet, un
conscious of either, shut in by hills which stretch
upward through vineyards and olive-gardens to the
dark foliage of the oak and fir on the crest of
Apennine — lay at the feet of the little mountain
borough, then quite undistinguished among the
other fierce little independent towns that shone on
the neighbouring slopes within sight of its watch-
towers. It is difficult to form even an imagination
of Assisi apart from the great man who has been
its glory for six centuries, and has made of it at
once a monument and a shrine. But yet it existed,
with less difference than it is easy to conceive,
walled and defended on its sunny height, a warlike
municipality, no doubt ready to defy Perugia opposite,
B

2 HIS EARL Y DA YS. [chap,
or Foligno ; prepared to ring its bells in loud alarum,
and pour forth its excited burghers, on the smallest
provocation, for the defence of those narrow streets
and lofty houses, which to them were both home
and country. No larger patriotism existed at the time
in Italy. The city, not the country, was the object of
every man's devotion. The world within those walls
was big enough for public spirit and enterprise, for
faction and party, for making of war without and
many a tumult within. The walls exist still, though the
gates are guarded only by the homely officers of the
Dogana ; and all the curious precautions of the past,
like the intricacies of an old-fashioned lock, are inno
cently open to the eyes of the peaceable traveller. But
the narrow lofty streets into which, when any passing
commotion arises, the people throng out like bees,
while those who remain at home scream at each other
from the high windows just as they might have
done when the tocsin was sounding, and the great
Cathedral bells giving forth warning notes of danger,
remain curiously unchanged. Probably the very
shops — dark caverns, with one vast door giving all the
hght that can penetrate even from Italian skies to the
pround floor of a seven or eight storied building deep
down in the depths of a narrow lane — look very much
like that shop to which Messer Pietro came home
from his journey into France, and where he first
heard that his son was born. But such a man as
Pietro Bernardone was of a very different class from
the shopkeepers of the nineteenth century. To
seek the costly stuffs which he sold to his rich
townsfolk and to the great feudal lords and their
households, he had to travel far, and to accumulate
many experiences ; and in a commonwealth so limited,
the position of the substantial citizen was one of no

'¦] HIS EARL Y DA YS.

small importance. The cliances were that he knew
a great deal more, and possessed a more real
influence, than the noble in his palace, poor and
proud, who could do little to further the enterprises
of the vigorous, tumultuous community. And the
merchant's son was born to a position more distinct
and assured, if less elevated, than that of the young
count or penniless chevalier.
Pietro was in France when his son was born, and
the mother, in his absence, called the boy Giovanni ; but
when the merchant returned, and unpacked his bales,
and had time to look at his baby, he changed its name
to that of Francesco, for love, it is said, of the land
he had just quitted. Probably he had made some
specially good bargain or found some fortunate
invention on the other side of the Alps, which inspired
him with gratitude, and it was in this quaint manner
that he expressed it. So far as the indications
of his character that remain to us show, he must
have been a man of considerable individuality, fond
of money, yet never grudging its expenditure in
a creditable way. He could be liberal even, it is
apparent, on occasions, and only closed his hand
fast upon his purse-strings when the manner of dis
pensing his money displeased him. He loved honour
and importance better than gold ; but he loved his
gold better than to let it be squandered at the will of
a foolish boy gone mad with fanatical zeal and over-
religiousness. We are not told if Francis was his
eldest son, though, from the important position he
seems to have assumed in the household, it is mo.st
probable that he was so. The boy would seem to
have been educated like others of his class. He learnt
a little Latin from the priests of San Giorgio, enough
to give him in after-years the profound and almost
B 2

4 HIS EARL Y DA YS. [cHAP.
superstitious respect ofthe partially educated for every
thing that was written ; while at the same time a
certain practical sense that literature was not always
to the profit or improvement of its possessor led him
almost to discourage the pursuit of it among his
followers. But the knowledge of which he seems
to have been most proud, which was probably
a distinction among his young companions, was
that of the French language, for which, during all
the earlier part of his life, Francis retained a
touching partiality. He spoke it imperfectly; but
yet it was his choice to speak it, and he seems to
have had recourse to it at various important moments
of his life.
The language thus dear to him was not, however,
pure French, but Proven9a], which was in those days
the special language of poetry, carried everywhere
by the wandering Troubadours, who diffused the
love of song and the mingled gaiety and sentiment
of their own picturesque-fantastic life wherever they
went. Nowhere had their influence produced a greater
enthusiasm than in the congenial air of Italy ; and
never was there young citizen more ready to embrace
all the delights of youth than Francesco Bernardone.
He grew up, not disdainful of the shop or the merchan
dise which were habitual to his race, but fond of plea
sure and finery, and everything that makes life sweet.
His imagination would seem to have been captivated
by the foreign minstrels and their graceful ways. He
had plenty of money, plenty of freedom, evidently a
fine voice and the most genial and gay temperament.
When one of the gay societies called Corti, copied
from the Provengal model, was formed in Assisi, he was
among its earliest members. It was their custom to
roam about the streets, singing the romantic ballads

I-] HIS EARLY DAYS. 5
and soft serenades which they derived from their
teachers ; and the young Francesco was always fore
most among the performers. Some of his biographers,
with that curious instinct common to religious writers
in all ages, which throws doubk shades of darkness
on the beginning of a saint's career, in order to bring
out more brightly the lights of the after-picture, have
attributed a certain licence and wantonness to the
young man in his secular state ; but, so far as we can
make out, without the least warrant for so doing.
He was fond of society, of fine clothes and merry
entertainments, of music and song, and pleasure
generally ; but these are not sins, and, among all the
details that are given to us, we find no record of any
disgraceful or painful episode. He was magnificent
in the feasts over which he presided, but he was also
lavish in his charities, and his inclination towards
everything that was beautiful and costly was accom
panied by a general bountifulness not always consistent
with the fine tastes of the connoisseur.
" He is like the son of a, prince, not like our son,''
Pietro and his wife said to each other, with the fond,
wondering pride of humdrum people, scarcely able to
understand how so dazzhng a figure should come out
of their humble house. But when the neighbours,
less fond, took up the words and threw them back
with that changed meaning which makes so great a
difference in the aspect of the simplest saying, the
mother was moved by love of her boy to an enigmati
cal speech, which afterwards counted as a prophecy —
"If he lives like the son of a prince now, he shall
hereafter be a child of God," she said, defending her
prodigal ; and it is evident that the pair did nothing
to stop their son in his gay career, but kept his boun
tiful hand supplied, and grudged neither his splendour

6 HIS EARL Y DA YS. [CHAP.
nor his charities. Whatever gaiety might be afloat
among the young men of Assisi, Francis was the
ringleader ; to him, as to the best instructed in such
matters, was left the ordering of the revels, and of the
costly suppers that followed. The brief formal narra
tives of his historians, carefully as all humanity has
been strained out of them, and anxious as the writers are
to describe a saint and not a man, still cannot quite con
ceal from us that happy, genial figure. His eyes dancine
with life and gay spirits, his hand and his heart open
as the day, he went singing about the steep Assisi
streets at the head of his young comrades, through
those glorious nights of Italy ; yet was ever ready to
pause if some poor creature thrust out a supplicating
hand by the wayside, with that sweet compunction
of superior happiness which is so beautiful in youth.
No beggar ever asked from him in vain ; and when we
remember what Italian beggars are now, and what
they must have been then, it is very evident that
Pietro's son cannot have lacked for anything, and that
the scarsella or pouch attached to his girdle must have
been almost as well supplied as Fortunatus's purse.
But, amid all his gaiety, another thread of life was
already visible by glimpses, weaving itself into the
young man's joyous days ; a certain fanciful, humour
ous, half-pathetic sense of the unreality of existence
showed itself by times amid his merrymaking. As one
instance of this, he would sometimes have the fine
clothes, in which he delighted, lined with the coarsest
stuff that could be procured, as if in mockery of his own
daintiness. And there is an incident recorded of him
at this period, which gives the most curious glimpse
into his twofold life. He was standing one day in the
market-place, selling, according to the fashion of the
time, cloth and velvet and fine embroideries, the wares

!¦] HIS EARL Y DA YS.

his father dealt in. Such a figure— a young man,
himself so splendid, so lavish, and so graceful — is very
hard to realize in that booth in the Piazza among all
those wrangling rustic customers ; but Francesco was
neither above nor before his age. l^He was too busy
to attend to a beggar, who appealed to him no doubt
with some pitiful plaint, in the midst of his work ; but
a moment after, probably when the bargain was made.
and his mind free, he bethought himself, with deep
compunction, of the man whom he had permitted to
stray away unrelieved. No sooner had this thought
entered his mind than he abandoned his stall and
goods, and rushed after the beggar through the wind
ings of the crowd. When he had bestowed his alms,
no doubt doubled, Francis returned thoughtfully to
his merchandise, knd " made a solemn promise to God
that from that day forth he would never refuse an
alms to any who should ask it of him, for the love of
God." But no doubt that same night, or shortly after,
he would spend a great deal more upon a supper to
his friends. Such was the young man's nature, answer
ing to every appeal, responsive as the leaves are to
the breeze, or the flowers to the sun — all gladness and
gay freedom above, Liberalis et hilaris, as say his
Three Companions; yet possessed by a persistent
feeling, for which he could scarcely account to himself
of the sadder depths of existence, the tragic and awful
elements that lay below.
Francis, however, it is evident, was no mere
reveller, even during this butterfly period 9i his hfe.
That he must have fought for his city, and been
among the most energetic of its defenders, is apparent
from the fact that he lay for a whole year in prison at
Perugia, having been taken captive in a war between
Assisi and that city. Whether this was a simple broil

8 HIS EARL Y DA YS. [chap.
between the armed neighbours, or whether some higher
principle was involved, we are left in ignorance, tUc
chroniclers being concerned only with the demeanour
of their hero in this gloomy interruption of his for
tunate life. It is recorded of him that while all his
comrades were sunk in the deepest despondency, he
alone kept his courage up, and retained his cheerful
ness ; and that when some quarrel among themselves
arose, and a certain individual of the party was
avoided by the rest, on account of some real or fancied
crime against his comrades, Francis alone declined
to aggravate the pains of the prison by social excom
munication of one of his fellow-sufferers. His courtesy
and sweetness of temper had already begun to be
remarked among his townsfolk, and a vague sense of
something to come, which was greater than his present
state, stirred even the gloom and depression of the
dungeon at Perugia. When his companions there,
seeing his cheerful looks, upbraided him with callous
ness and indifference, he is said to have answered
them, with a certain youthful magniloquence. " What
have you to say to me .'"' he cried, no doubt worn out
with their melancholy and repining, and contempt of
his own courageous lightheartedness : " the time will
come when the world shall adore me." The chances
are, however, that these words, which his biographers
seize upon eagerly as a prophecy of his future canon
ization, only came to the mind of his old comrades
after that canonization had been accomplished ; for
they are strangely unlike the always humble, friendly,
and sympathetic soul of the future saint.
This first epoch of his life, with all its joyousness and
freedom, lasted till he was twenty-five. He had full
time to make himself known and noted in the httle
town, where every man had known his neighbour from

I-i HIS EARL Y DA YS. 0
the cradle ; and the character of the young exquisite,
the gay Trovatore, the lavish, good-hearted, extra
vagant youth whose voice rang through the streets
by night, and whose fine clothes and sunny looks
dazzled his townsfolk by day, was as well known
among them as that of any prince among his people.
He was " the flower of youth " in Assisi, where, even
while they shook their heads over his pranks, the
elder people prophesied that something more than
the common fate would come of Pietro's son. Through
all these years of pleasure-making, he never found time
for a rough word, but was courteous to all, and full
of charity and toleration. When any evil sugges
tions were made to him, or temptations to sin held
out by any of his comrades, we are told that he
made little reply. He rejected the proposal, but he
did not preach nor place himself on any platform of
superior virtue ; and this unusual union of purity
and charity impressed, as was natural, the popular
mind, so sensible everywhere, and especially in Italy,
to the influence of courtesy and gracious manners.
When he had reached the age of twenty-five, Francis
fell ill. What his malady was, or whether it was of
long duration, we are not informed ; but it was serious
enough to change the current of his thoughts, and
to become the turning-point of his life. His earHest
biographer, Thomas of Celano, here pauses in his narra
tive, and affords us a glimpse of the young man at
this important moment, in the weakness of his con
valescence. On one of the earliest days of his recovery,
he dragged himself panting and wearied with the exer
tion, to the door of the house in which he was living,
and gazed out curiously upon the well-known scene.
Most likely, long shut up in a sick chamber, he had
been longing for a sight of that wonderful landscape

10

HIS EARL Y DA YS. [chap.

which might well charm even eyes and hearts which
were not acquainted, as Francis was, with every
clump of foliage on every hill. With wistful, serious
eyes which had looked death in the face, he looked
down upon the fertile valley at his feet ; but its
beauty and sweetness, says the chronicler, delighted
him no longer. " Henceforward he held that in con
tempt which he had hitherto held in admiration and
love,'' Brother Thomas adds, with a determination
to represent his entire life as changed in his con
version, which is as far from the truth, as no
doubt the simple fact he records is consistent with
it. Francis crept back to his chair with the depression
which accompanies weakness, and the feeling that
his illness had revealed mysteries to him, which
made the simple enjoyment of that lovely landscape
henceforward an impos.sibility. He threw himself
down with that impatient longing in his heart after
the best and highest, and disdain of his own past
and its frivolities, which so serious a pause in a young
life often brings. He could not be again simply what
he had been — a merchant and citizen laying up treasure
which moth and rust could corrupt, and throwing
his whole strength into pleasures which might be
lost to him in a moment. But as yet no light
as to what he was to do seems to have fallen on
his path. The impression upon his mind even would
not seem to have been strictly religious. His real
vocation had not occurred to him ; but only a sense
of the deeper seriousness, importance, and use of life,
blended with something of that ambition which
belongs to manhood in its maturer form.
And it was entirely natural, though so curiously out
of accordance with the life that was so soon to dawn
upon him. that the first thought of Francis after this

I.] HIS EARLY DAYS. tr
crisis was to make himself a soldier. It was still the
age of chivalry, when every armed man was bound to
redress wrongs and succour weakness, at least in
theory ; and, perhaps, this great ideal may have
charmed the young man's dreamy mind ; or, perhaps,
contact with the practical in its most violent form was
his best remedy in the state of over-consciousness and
over-thought into which he had fallen. And in the pro
fession of arms, above all others, there was the chance
of doing something which would be worth doing, and
leaving his mark on the world, as well as of finding
personal advancement, honour, and glory — matters to
which his mind was not yet by any means indifferent
Opportunity was never wanting in that age for any
young soldier of fortune, and at this moment, we are
told, a certain noble citizen of Assisi was preparing a
band to march into Apulia, to sustain the pretensions
to the kingdom of Sicily of Gauthier de Brienne, a
personage described by Bonaventura as "a certain
count of great magnificence and liberality." This enter
prise fired the mind of Francis. It held out before him
a good cause — the cause of a rightful heir — and at
the same time unlimited hopes of advancement, and
power of doing service to his generation. This merely
external aspect of the question was enough to charm a
young man still in the age to which adventure is sweet,
and bent upon somehow making more of his life than
he could do in the shop and market-place of Assisi. And
other arguments still more potent were not v/anting.
While the project was shaping in his mind, he went
out one day in the delight of returning health, dressed
in a new suit of the handsome clothes for which he had
a carnal inclination — glad no doubt to put them on,
and feel himself free of the bright world again after
his long confinement indoors. On the way he met

12 HIS EARL Y DA YS. [cHAP.
" a certain soldier of honour and courage, but poor
and vilely clad." The charity which was habitual to
him, and the feeling of brotherhood towards an old
man-at-arms, which his new-born military ardour
naturally inspired, moved him to sudden enthu
siasm. He took off his fine clothes and gave them
to the poor old warrior, with effusive sympathy and
kindness. "Thus he at once fulfilled two offices of
pity," says Bonaventura, " by covering the shame of
a noble cavalier and relieving a poor man's penury."
This charitable deed was rewarded on the very next
night by a dream of glory. Before Francis, while he
slept, there rose a goodly palace, with an armoury
filled with every kind of weapon, each of which was
marked by the sign of the cross ; and fiags and sym
bols of military triumph were hung about the walls.
While he admired and wondered within himself for
whom this place was prepared, he heard a voice, which
announced to him that it was for himself and his
soldiers. Francis rose, light-hearted and full of the
warmest confidence of faith. That he should be thus
divinely directed was no wonder to him, nor would it
have been to any man of his age. It seemed natural,
on the contrary, that God should interfere — that divine
direction should be given; more natural a great deal
than that the world should be left to its own guidance.
Francis, for his part, had no longer any difficulty ;
his course was clear before him. He immediately
provided himself with a horse and armour, and set
out joyfully on the path which God had thus dis
tinctly indicated. His aspect was so radiant that he
was questioned on all sides what good thing had
happened to him. " I shall yet be a great prince," he
replied, in his sanguine delight, and so left Assisi
with the most brilliant hopes in his heart. It would

1.] HIS EARL Y DA YS. 1 3
not appear that his family made any opposition to
this change of career. Probably they, like himself, had
faith enough in the brilliant social qualities of Francis,
and in his energetic and straightforward character,
to feel that he could not fail of finding a place for
himself in the ranks of an army of adventurers.
The young Cavalier went as far as Spoleto, on
his way to the South; but, when he reached that
town, fell ill once more, most probably with a
relapse of the intermittent fever which pursued him
more or less all his life, and which haunts like a
ghost the fairest parts of Italy. While he lay thus
one night, no doubt chafing over the delay, in the
feverish successions of heat and cold, half asleep, half
stupefied, he suddenly heard a voice, which questioned
him. " Francesco," said the unseen speaker, " which
can do the most good — the master or the servant .¦' "
"The master," he answered, without apparently any
alarm at this strange nocturnal examination. " Why
then," continued the voice, " do you leave the master
for the servant, and the prince for the follower .¦' "
As undoubting as Samuel or Saul of Tarsus, the
young Assisan immediately asked, " Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do .' " " Return to thy country," was
the answer, " and there it will be told thee what
to do; for thou hast mistaken the meaning, and
wrongly interpreted the vision vouchsafed to thee by
God." For all the rest of the night Francis, startled
out of the dreamy stupor of his weakness, lay awake
pondering this communication. The reader will re
mark in it the curious adoption of scriptural precedent,
which is so common in mediaeval legend, as if God in
such a matter must needs repeat Himself Like Paul,
Francis v/as to be kept in suspense till he should
reach his home. There is no record afforded us of the

14 HIS EARL Y DA YS. [CHAP.
sharp pang it must have given to the young man thus
to relinquish his hopes and ambition. The historian
in those days did not pause to analyse, or even to
realize, the feelings of hjs hero ; but it can scarcely
be supposed that such a sudden return, after so proud
and joyful a setting out, done in the eyes of the whole
city, could be other than a bitter mortification to the
young man who loved the sympathy of his kind, and
had been used to it from his cradle. Nevertheless, as
soon as morning came, he mounted his horse and
turned back on the way to Assisi with the same readi
ness and confidence, his biographer tells us, that marked
his setting out. To ride up that stony causeway, and
go in at the gate, and make his way to his father's
door, amid the flutter of wondering salutations, and
all the comments of the neighbours, must have been
the hardest passage that as yet had occurred in his
life. But whatever his feelings were, he hid them in
his own breast, and returned to the shop and all
his humbler duties without complaint or hesitation —
though it is impossible to believe without many a
mortifying criticism and jibe which it would be hard
to bear.
This curious episode was followed by a lingering
interval of suspense and mental disturbance. His old
habits were resumed, but not with his old energy. He
even went back languidly and fitfully to his old
amusements, with now and then a wild impulse of
gaiety, and now a sudden disgust with all his pursuits.
On one such occasion, we are told, he had been, as in
his gayer days, the king of the feast among his
usual companions. When the supper was over, the
party sallied out as usual, Cecco the leader and
head of all, to sing their songs about the streets,
doubtless with eyes open for any chance of frolic

I-] HIS EARL Y DA YS.

15

which might occur. The noise and laughter were at
their loudest, when they plunged down the dark
staircase, and issued forth into the soft voluptuous
Umbrian night. When he came out into that sweet
ail, into the serene silence, a sudden hush fell upon
the master of the revels. He stood still suddenly,
abstracted from these noisy human delights by the
sight of heaven and the touch of nature. " What ails
you, Francesco .? " cried the boisterous youths about
him, amazed at this pause and change. "Are you
thinking of a wife .¦' " said some bold jester. " Yes,"
answered the dreamer, " of a wife more noble, more
beautiful, more rich, than anything your imagination
can conceive." It was Religion he meant, say some ;
or Poverty, as others think ; his historians gazing
wistfully, like his comrades, at the young reveller thus
suddenly stopping short in the midst of the mirth,
are almost as much puzzled as they were. We doubt
much whether it was either Religion or Poverty.
What arrested him was, no doubt, that startled sense
of incongruity which strikes the finer-toned and more
sensitive mind when thus suddenly, in the midst of
human din, brought face to face with that everlasting
contrast — the blue sky overhead so profound and
serene, the dark shadow of those high roofs which
framed it in, and which hid so many sufferings and
sorrows — the heaven above so calm and distant, and
the aching, moaning earth below. Which of us has
not felt some passing prick of that contrast in the
midst of the frivolities of life .' It struck Francis like
a sudden arrow while thus he stood, at the crisis of his
being, waiting to know God's pleasure, and struggling
with the beginning of his fate.
Whether this was the last of his revels we are not
told — though there is something in such a pause of

1 6 HIS EARLY DAYS. [CHAP.

self-disgust and heart-sickness which might well mark
the moment at which he threw aside pleasures so
unsatisfactory and vain — nor is it apparent how long
the interval was before he found his true vocation.
He was drawn gradually, as by the setting in of a
tide, towards that life of utter self-abnegation which
was preparing for him. In the first place, it would
seem to have been by his natural charity that he was
attracted towards that narrow path. Amid all his
lavish gifts to others, there had been one class of the
miserable whom Francis, with his love of everything
beautiful, had constantly avoided and shrunk from.
These were the lepers — mysterious sufferers, whose
awful typical malady has always been regarded with
double horror wherever it has been known, and who
were then to be seen about the Italian plains, abject
and abandoned, as they once were in Judaea. One day,
while he was riding across the valley, Francis met one
of these wretched beings. His heart was very soft at
the moment, and full of an emotion which he himself
scarcely understood. A new principle of life was
growing within him, turning him from all the in
dulgences of the past, and, no doubt, already sug
gesting a hundred sacrifices. " Remembering that if
he would be a soldier of Christ he must first over
come himself" says Bonaventura, "he dismounted
from his horse, and went to meet the leper, that he
might embrace him ; and when the poor man stretched
out his hand for alms, he kissed it and filled it with
money." The reader who is acquainted with the
legends of the saints will expect what follows. When
Francis, having gone on his way, looked back along
the level road, and over the open valley, there was
no trace of any leper far or near. It was the same
leper whom Elizabeth of Hungary put in her own

I-] HIS EARLY DAYS. 17
bed after she had filled all the other chambers in her
palace with the suffering poor : it was He who said,
" Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.''
Perhaps it was the glow of feeling which followed
this solemn adventure, perhaps only (and this, which
is not problematical, is the safest reason to give) the
determination to overcome himself, which is the first
duty of the Christian knight, that moved him to the
last extremity of self-devotion known to the mediaeval
world. He began to visit the lazar-houses, which he
had hitherto held in horror, not only bestowing alms,
but personal services of the humblest description, and
adding the kiss of human kindness to console the
miserable whose touch was dreaded by all the world.
While he was still in a state of profound uncer
tainty, the transition as from one existence to another,
he went to Rome, most likely upon his ordinary
business, which he would seem to have pursued all
through this crisis of the inner life. Nothing can be
more significant of the strange confusion and chaos of
the young man's mind, his overwhelming sense of
some great convulsion ^ibout to come, and pathetic
doubt as to what he was to do, or how to shape hi3
existence, than the wild, half-fantastic narrative of the
day he spent in the great Cathedral of St. Peter, the
centre of Christianity. A sick heart, with all its fever
ish sudden impulses, is apparent in all he does. As
he wandered about St. Peter's (not, it is unnecessary
to say, the great but questionable edifice which now
bears that name, but an earher building), his eye was
caught by the poverty of the offerings made at the
altars, which were in such strange contrast with the
importance of the metropolitan church of Chris
tendom. With impetuous indignation he thrust his
C

1 8 HIS EARLY DAYS. [chap.
hand into his purse, and drawing it out full of money
threw the contents in " at the window," as the Three
Companions describe it — probably by the narrow
railed-off entrance of some chapel. The offering thus
strangely made in youthful heat and impatience, fell
with a great noise upon the marble floor, and filled the
bystanders with amazement ; while Francis, probably
half ashamed of his violence, and of the crash of the
money on the chapel floor, hurried out to the steps of
the church, always dissatisfied, with that ache of dis
content gnawing at his heart. The sight he saw there
gave another direction to his fitful, troubled thoughts.
All round the church-door, on the broad steps, and
about the sunny piazza, were groups of beggars asking
alms from the faithful as they came and went to their
devotions. No doubt the contrast between his own
wild ostentation of a moment since and this absolute
penury must have struck the sick fancy of the young
Assisan. With an impulse like that of Saul when
he prophesied among the mystics of Israel, in the
excitement of a crisis not unsimilar, Francis threw
off his own gay garments and exchanged them for
the rags of one of the poorest beggars on the
cathedral steps. There could be no more striking
indication of the chaos of all his ideas, and the
vague jumble of everything before and around him,
than the succession of impulses so different and
so immediately obeyed. He remained there all day
begging among the other wretches who crowded
the steps— begging in French, with the most curious
adherence to his own identity and his own fancies.
Such an incident defies explanation. Across all
the difference of the ages it may still be compre
hended by those who are conscious what wild and
strange suggestions sometimes present themselves

r-] HIS EARLY DAYS.

19

before a mind suddenly disturbed in the confidence of
youth, and loosed from the anchors of use and wont ;
but it is not to be explained in words. This was the
way in which he made his visit to Rome remarkable,
The chances are he went about his business as skil
fully, as shrewdly as ever, and that no one found out,
till long after, the strange mad way in which the fire
which burned in his heart had expended itself Pro
bably at this early period the longing of his life to give
up everything for Christ had dawned within him — a
longing which as yet had taken no form, and was as
far removed as possible from any vocation towards
conventual life, with its individual poverty, but cor
porate comfort. Such an impulse never seems to have
entered into his mind. To be a monk was never his
desire at any time of his existence ; but only how to
serve Christ most utterly, to give up all for Him, to
follow His steps. His day at St. Peter's may pro
bably have given the definite religious turn to his
anxious, inquiring, and unsettled soul ; but even yet
enlightenment as to what he was to do had not
been given.
But the joyous, careless days of youth were over,
never to return. When he went home after this, the
current of his life gradually, imperceptibly, swept into
the new channel of piety ; not charity and almsgiving
alone, but profound thought of the Divine mysteries
began to occupy his mind. The sublime life of our
Lord, in all its humility and simplicity, and the death
which concluded that long sacrifice, seized upon his
soul, as sometimes the influence of a living leader
suddenly seizes a young imagination. No " count of
great magnificence and liberality," no royal young
Pretender ready to reward his adherents with gifts
and honours, but the Lord of all sorrow and sacrifice,
C 2

20 HIS EARL Y DA YS. [chaP.
the Redeemer of all bonds and slavery, gradually
grew manifest to the dreaming eyes, which were
capable of comprehending the Divine generosity, so
unspeakable and infinite, of His life on earth. This
is the one point which is prominent in the narrative of
what is technically called the conversion of Francis.
It is not an eager desire for his own salvation which
moves him. So far as is apparent, he is not at all
troubled about his salvation, nor has his mind been
roused to any definite thought on the subject. It is
that his own nature, so generous and lavish, is struck
and captivated by the wonder of Christ's sublime
generosity. He not only adores, but he admires, with
an ecstasy of wonder and human approbation, the
character of the Saviour. He weeps over the Passion
as if it had happened in his sight, with all that vivid
sense of reality which constant custom and over-fami
liarity are so apt to deaden in our minds. To Francis
it was so real that he longed to follow every step
literally of that life of lives. As this thought possessed
him more and more, he retired into secret places,
finding, no doubt, seclusion impossible in his father's
house. One of his friends, whose name is not given, but
to whom it is evident Francis himself had become the
hero to be worshipped and followed, went with him
often in his walks, probably, like many another humble
follower, unable to understand how his adoring com
pany could hamper or hinder the object of 'his faithful
friendship. When they had reached the cave or thicket
of which Francis had made an oratory, the young
saint left his friend outside, telling him that he had
found a treasure which he kept within ; and leaving
his devoted companion to guard the entrance. If
there was a touch of pious deception in this, it may
well be forgiven to the gentle soul, who could not be

I.] HIS EARLY DAYS. 21
discourteous at any price, and yet had a necessity upon
him to escape and be alone with his God. Here he
would spend hours of rapt devotion, sometimes seeing
visions, hearing the voice of Christ himself, but never
in words which he could understand. When he came
out of his cave, to the delight of the humble sentinel
outside, his countenance was so changed, so pale anc
worn, and marked with the terrors of his conflict,
that he could scarcely be recognized. He was walk
ing in darkness, not knowing where to turn or what to
do. The old ways were impossible to him, his land
marks removed, his path lost. He could not go back,
nor could he yet see any way for himself through the
new world which dawned before him. It was his
hour in the wilderness ; and so far as his friends and
neighbours could see, an eclipse had fallen upon the
brilliant promise of his you1:li.

CHAPTER IL

HIS FIRST STRUGGLES.

This strange interval of pain and uncertainty could
not last for ever, and its crisis came in a manner not
less strange. There was in Assisi an old church
dedicated to St. Damiano, which had fallen into
disrepair. It was one of the lonely places which
Francis sought for his devotions. Kneeling in the
crumbling old church before an image of the Crucified,
the object above all others of his ecstatic adora
tion, he heard a voice saying to him, " Francis, seest
thou not that my house is in ruins .-' Go and restore
it for me." — "With good-will. Lord," said the eager
supplicant. Here was at last an indication of what
he ought to do. All that he thought of in his anxious
literalness was the little ancient sanctuary with its
defaced decorations and mouldering walls ; not of the
Catholic Church for which Christ died, and which,
according to the interpretation given afterwards to
the Divine message, he was called upon to reform and
restore. There is no notice taken in the chronicle of
the curious misinterpretation which in both these
cases the young penitent gave to the words which he
believed to come from God. And it is not our part,
in repeating the touching story of his life, to enforce
any secondary lesson ; yet a forcible comment might
thus be made upon the doubtfulness of all such visions

CHAP. II.] HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. 23
It is not our intention, either here or elsewhere, to
discuss the reality of these communications as matters
of fact. Every true revival of religion is unquestionably
accompanied by signs which are not trickery, and
cannot be entirely the creation of morbid fancy and
enthusiasm. At a more fitting point of our narrative we
shall be compelled to return to this subject, but in the
meantime it is enough to note that no great popular
return to the habits of piety has ever been made, from
the time of the Apostles, without the occurrence of
certain spiritual phenomena which cannot be entirely
explained away by any theory. We do not, therefore,
attempt to give any judgment as to the nature of
those voices which within his own heart or to his
bodily ear spoke to Francis ; that he himself had the
most perfect faith in them there can be no doubt.
We would but point out the curious fact that twice
over he mistook them, once in his hasty adoption of
secular warfare instead of the spiritual conflict that
had been indicated to him ; and, again, in his literal
application of the expression " my house " to the old
church in which he knelt ; which shows how liable
human interpretation would still be to error, even were
it in fact and reality directly taught from heaven.
Francis sprang from his knees, too joyful of the task
which he supposed had been committed to him to take
any time for deliberation ; he sought the priest, who
held the cure of St. Damiano, and, taking out what
money was in his purse, begged that it might be spent
in keeping a lamp perpetually burning at the foot of
the Crucifix which had given him his commission ; then
he hastened home with all the mingled energy and
anxiety natural to the situation. To have a work at
once so important and so congenial thus confided by
God himself to His servant's hand must have swelltjf?

24 HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. [CHAP.
his heart with unspeakable exultation ; but the work
was a great one, demanding more care and thought
than anything he had as yet attempted. Whether
there arose any questions in the mind of Francis as
to the step he was about to take, we are not told ; or
whether he did it hastily, in the fervour and impatience
of his mind, without due consideration of right and
wrong. It is probable that the latter was the case,
and that, fortified by the command of God, he did not
pause to think what would be the opinion of his
father, who it would appear up to this time had never
stinted him in any extravagance. We might add, that
he was now a man over twenty-five, had been engaged
in his father's business for years, and might naturally
be supposed to have some individual power in the
matter, and interest in the stock-in-trade. However
this may have been, Francis took action with all the
impetuosity of his character. He rushed home,
selected certain bales of cloth, as many as his horse
could carry, from the stores in the shop, and, mount
ing, hastily rode off to the fair at Foligno with his
merchandise. He made the sign of the cross over
his goods when he set out, fondly hoping, perhaps,
that by thus dedicating them to God he was silencing
all objections on the part of men. At Foligno he
took his stand in the Mercato, as, no doubt, he was
used to do, and sold at once the cloth and the horse
which had carried it. The "happy merchant," as
Celano and Bonaventura both call him, at this moment
of satisfaction yet doubt, returned immediately to
Assisi ; and the young reader who has not yet outHved
that mingled sense of goodness and guilt, that alarmed
consciousness that parental disapprobation may pos
sibly follow an action which is felt to be virtuous in
itself will be able to realize the feelings of Francis as

II.] HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. 25
he walked silently home, or perhaps found a corner
in which he could sit abstracted, in some waggon full
of pleasure-loving townsfolk who were returning, like
himself from the fair at FoHgno.
As soon as he reached Assisi, he hastened to St.
Damiano, and, entering "with fear and reverence,"
offered to the priest the money which he had thus
doubtfully acquired, begging at the same time permis
sion to remain with him. By this time fear must have
got the better of confidence, and the young man must
have felt that it was safer not to return for the moment
to his father's house. The offering, so much greater
than under any other circumstances he could have
given, and the story which no doubt the Curato of
St. Damian's succeeded in eliciting from his visitor,
filled the priest with alarm and perplexity. He was
very willing to take Francis in, and give him shelter ;
but he was afraid to receive the money, which might
embroil him with the young man's father, and lead to
greater mischief still. Poor Francis, weary, dis
couraged, and sick at heart, feeling himself rebuffed in
the very spot where at least he had made sure of
sympathy, took the purse which the priest declined,
and, in his passionate disappointment, tossed it down
into the corner of a built-up window, there to lie
among the dust and rubbish which were as valueless
as it had proved to be. Such a sudden check must
have plunged him suddenly back on himself, and left
him a prey to all the doubts and terrors which had
been staved off by the thought that he was doing
God service. The priest, whose honesty and good-
feeling had thus triumphed over the temptation to
which, above all, priests were susceptible — the chance
of restoring and re-beautifying his church — received
the disturbed and downcast young man as his

26 HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. [chap.
guest, though he rejected his gifts ; and there Francis
remained, for some days, having, it would seem, lost
heart and courage, afraid to face his father, and too
sick at heart to make any attempt to restore the
money, or set himself right.
Old Bernadone soon found out where his son
was. He had been much enraged, as was natural, by
the exploit at Foligno, and evidently did not allow
any right on the part of his son to dispose of his
goods. Pietro's feelings on the occasion seem to have
been very much the same as those with which an
incensed father of the present time might batter at
the gates of a convent in which he believed his child
to be illegally shut up. He gathered his neighbours
together and made a raid upon St. Damiano to
recover his money and his son. Francis, however,
shrank from the meeting. The noise and threats of
the crowd which accompanied his father, the prospect
of a violent scene, and much mortification to his own
pride, are scarcely enough to account for his sudden
cowardice. But no doubt these were heightened by
his own sense of indiscretion akin to guilt, and the
good Curato's desire to avoid a public scandal. He took
refuge in a dark cellar, where he lived miserably in
hiding for a whole month, the earlier biographers say,
though Bonaventura restricts the term to a few days.
He stayed there long enough, at all events, to reach to
the very depths, and in utter self-abasement to recover
his natural courage. When he had at last made up
his mind that the difficulty must be faced, and could
not be escaped in this miserable way, he came out of
his voluntary dungeon. Pale and worn by his seclu
sion, the poor fare with which he had been scantily
supplied, the absence of light and comfort, and the
exhaustion of unceasing prayer, he left St. Damiano a

II.] HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. 27
very different figure from that of the " Felix mercator,"
the happy and eager servant of Christ, who had
carried his money and his heart to God's house so
short a time before.
i When he appeared in the streets, and it was per
ceived who he was, a popular tumult arose. The
townsfolk, among whom he had been so great a
favourite, crowded round him with threats and insults.
They called him mad, and stoned him, and followed
him with shouts of malice and derision. It must
have been a hard moment for Francis, whose tender
soul was deeply penetrated with that love of love which
belongs more or less to every generous nature. Here
was no love, none of the admiration and homage of
the past, but abuse and contempt, and something like
hatred. He said not a word of remonstrance or
complaint, made no resistance, accepted the bitter
welcome, and held on his way as best he could, with
such feelings as may be conceived. The tumult was
so great that by and by it came to the ears of Pietro
in his dark shop, at whose heart no doubt was
burning that madness which is wrought by rage
against those we love. This was the son whom he had
declared in proud pretence of reproof to be more like
the son of a prince than of a plain man like himself —
the accomplished, cherished, bright-faced boy, who
had been the pride of his house and the dehght of
Assisi. And now, such was the maddening downfall
brought about by his own folly, that he was being
hooted about those very streets which had once
hailed him with universal smiles and welcome. It
would be hard to give nothing but blame to poor
Pietro. He rushed out from his shop, mad with
rage and shame, and a hundred bitter feelings, and
falling upon Francis with all the fury of outraged

28 HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. [cHAP.
love and pride, drove him home with -blows and curses
to the house in which he was born. A miserable:
house no doubt at that moment ; for there was his
mother, who was of softer nature, and whose heart
melted over her boy. And they had all been so
proud of him ! They shut him up in a dark prison,
say the historians, with that curious absolutism of
authority which parents seem to have possessed in
those days. Here he was bound as if he had been a
criminal, and thus incapable of escape, had all the
vials of paternal wrath poured on his head. It was
the moment in which the father could avenge himself,
having everything in his power, and he seems to have
taken the fullest advantage of the privilege.
There came a day, however, on which Pietro was
compelled to go out for the transaction of his busi
ness, and Madonna Pica was left alone. She was
Francis's mother, which was something, and she was
evidently of a milder nature than her obdurate hus
band. She went to her boy in his prison and spoke
gently to him. Most probably, the explanations
which the father would not listen to were given to
her ; but, at all events, her heart yearned over her son,
and she loosed his chains and let him go. Though his
departure was hastened not by malice but by fear and
love, still it was the young man's expulsion from his
home. He went back to St. Damiano without a
word of complaint, having thus had the bonds of
nature snapt from him one by one. Henceforward
there was no choice for him, or way of escape had he
wished it. The little presbytery, the poor priest, the
old church falling to ruin — such was the only friend
and refuge left to him in the world.
When Pietro returned and found his prisoner gone,
his wrath against his wife was great, and he was not

II.] His FIRST STRUGGLES. 29
softened towards his son, but pursued him with
unwavering virulence. The next step in this painful
struggle was an appeal by the angry father to the
rulers of the city, requiring of them to recover his
money which his son had appropriated. Francis
by this time seems to have recovered his courage.
There is something in undue violence which does
much to weaken penitence, and even, if that be
possible, to neutralize the most just ground of com
plaint. The young man had repented, but had
been punished bitterly, and at last, though he said
no word of answering wrath, his spirit was roused
He replied to the summons of the magistrates that
he was now a servant of God, and independent of
their jurisdiction — a statement which sounds strangely
to modern ears, but was quite in accordance with
the spirit of the time, though, indeed, it could
scarcely be of any legal weight, as Francis was not
in orders. The magistrates, however, touched by his
sufferings and constancy, refused to proceed further
against him, and Pietro, evidently remorseless in
his pursuit of the son who had so disappointed all
his hopes, had recourse to the bishop as the final
judge. " I will come willingly to the bishop, who is
the father and lord of souls," said Francis ; and
accordingly in the episcopal palace he met, so far as
history informs us, for the last time, his unyielding
father. By this time, of course, his story must have been well
known, and public opinion no doubt had begun to turn
against the harsh Pietro, who demanded not only the
restoration of his money, but a public renunciation of
all claim to any share of the family inheritance from
his once favourite boy. The bishop, who no doubt
beheld in Francis a brand plucked from the burning,

30 HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. [chap.
and felt for him that special tenderness with which
the heart of a good priest regards a convert, received
him most kindly, and made him a sensible and judi
cious address. He exhorted him to restore the
money (which all this time, say some, had been lying
neglected, like the dross it was, on the old window-
ledge at St. Damiano, among the rubbish — though
others tell us, with more show of reason, that the
Curato had put it carefully by to be in readiness
when claimed). "Restore it to him, if you would
serve God," said the bishop ; " for whatever is acquired
by unjust means God will have none of it ; it cannot
be employed in the work of the Church, and by
retaining it you cause your father to sin. Therefore,
my son, have faith in God, and act like a man. Be
not afraid ; for He will help you, and give you all
that is necessary for the work of His Church."
These words soothed and encouraged the young
penitent ; but there was something in the relentless
character of the persecution to which he had been
subjected which evidently had roused the indignation
and almost contempt of Francis. The same father
who pursued him so cruelly, exacting a renunciation
of every natural right, had grudged him no extra
vagance of outlay in his days of vanity, and had been
ostentatiously proud of his popularity, his splendour,
and even his youthful follies. Only now, when his
pride was touched, had rancour taken the place of love.
" Not only the money," cried Francis, in the vehe
mence of outraged nature, " but everything that can
be called his, even the clothes he has given me, I will
restore." And throwing off the gay garments, which
no doubt were soiled and frayed with his imprison
ment and misery, he piled them in a heap before
the astonished assembly, placing the money on the

II.] HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. 31
top of all. Underneath his fine clothes he had been
wearing, unknown to any one, a hair shirt, that instru
ment of torture so dear to the mediaeval mind, clothed
with which he now stood, inspired by pain and sudden
passion, in the midst of the eager crowd. A pale
ghost, worn with fasting and mortification, yet burn
ing with all the vigour of youthful energy and ve
hemence, he turned to the bystanders, half naked,
yet delivered by his passion from all sensitiveness or
shame. ", Bear witness all present," he cried, " up to
this time I have called Pietro Bernardone father, but
now I am the servant of God. I have restored to him
the money which he sought with so much fury, and
even the clothes I have had from him ; and hence
forward I will say only, 'My Father which art in heaven,'
— no more my father Pietro Bernardone." At such
a moment there can be little question on which side
were the sympathies of the bystanders. The bishop
took the young man into his arms, tenderly throwing
over him his own pallium or episcopal mantle. And
a scene so strange and touching moved every heart.
The father, meanwhile, on his side equally indignant
and full of bitterness, collected the money and the
clothes with such feelings as may be imagined, and
went out, carrying the remains of the son who was
henceforward dead to him. How poor Pica, in her
solitude, must have wept over those last tokens of her
boy ! She must have seen him a hundred times after
treading the stony streets with bare feet, braving every
anguish of poverty ; but he had ceased to be hers
from that terrible day. He was the child of God,
as she had herself all unconsciously predicted ; his
quips and jests, the gay Provengal songs he loved, his
untimely exits and entrances, all the tumult of youth
which a mother reproves and exults in, were over foi

32 HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. fcHAP.
ever. No doubt the hard old merchant, among his
bales, felt it too, and perhaps had a yearning at his
heart which he would not confess, when Fra Francesco
went by. But the paternal love had cast him forth,
and another father had received him ; the place that
had known him was to know him no more.
When Francis was thus left " naked," as says his
biographer, " of every earthly thing," but strengthened
by the bishop's blessing, and clothed with the rough
frock of apoor labourer, which had been hastilyobtained
for him, there are two different accounts given of his
proceedings. According to the Three Companions
he returned at once to St. Damiano ; but Celano and
Bonaventura both agree in describing a temporary
pause and break in his existence, such as appears
very natural after so supreme a crisis. He went out
confused and shaken by so many emotions, and hid
himself in the wintry woods, in that excited state
which makes the body well-nigh impervious to external
influences. There was snow on the ground, they tell us,
and winter does not jest upon the slopes of Apennine,
from which blows the bitter Tramontana, curdling the
blood in Tuscan veins. But as he wandered, not
knowing where he went, the pilgrim lifted his voice
and sang. In the heart of Italy, through the
crackling leafless woods, with nothing upon him but
his hair shirt covered with a peasant's frock, the vision
ary went singing God's praises in the gay tongue of
France. What reason there was, or whether there
was any reason, for this preference, no one can tell.
It was probably one of those simple caprices by which
a great soul now and then makes manifest its near
ness, in its greatness, to a child. His own sonorous
and stately language would have seemed the fitter for
such a purpose, or if not that, at least the Latin — Ian-

"•] HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. 33
guage of sacred tradition and Catholic breadth, in which
over the whole world — with a grand sentiment which
we are too apt to forget in our care for literal under
standing — the praises of God were being sung; but
to Francis, the French, although imperfectly known,
the language of song, with which all his early de
lights were associated, was still the sweetest. It is said
that he encountered robbers in the wood, who, startled
by the foreign singing, and disappointed by the
absolute poverty of the wayfarer, threw him into a
ditch among the snow ; at which further hardship he
rejoiced, praising God with yet louder and louder voice.
He then found refuge in a monastery, where for some
time he laboured in the kitchen, doing the humblest
offices. He stayed here till his one garment wore out,
and he was compelled to make a journey to the city
of Gubbio to obtain another tunic from an old friend.
After this follows an indefinite period of wandering,
we are not told how long, during which he gave
himself up to the nursing of lepers, and entire sub
jection of his own will and carnal inclination in all
things. When he had gained complete rnastery of himself
and felt that he no longer shrank from anything that
had to be done, but rather sought every occupation
that had once disgusted him, he felt himself worthy
to return to St. Damiano to commence the work which
he had never abandoned in heart. This, which he had
sinned for — if sin it was — and at least suffered for as if
it had been sin, had now to be done without any aid of
the filthy lucre which, in his simplicity, he had got for
it so cunningly. How far behind him must that life
have looked, in which he stood eager in the market
place at Foligno selling the cloth which was not his
for the love of God ! Francis had passed through

34 HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. [CHAP.
many a strait since then ; he had relinquished every
thing the world could give him for God's service;
and now he had God's Church to build, and His
work to do, out of nothing — out of the greatness of
his heart. If he ever wished for the money which had
lain so long on the window-ledge as dust, he never
gave vent to the evil thought. He begged stones
from the people in the city, promising blessings
to those who gave them ; he carried them on his
shoulders, panting and joyous, to St. Damiano ; he
built the walls with his own hands, collected the
materials, worked, and rejoiced, and prayed with all
the contempt of youth for the willing but weary body,
which with a certain tender humour he called Brother
Ass, sometimes confessing that he was too hard upon
the docile, humble flesh which he had conquered.
Brother Ass had much to bear in those early days —
not only the labour to which he was all unaccustomed,
and the hard fare which he did not love, but long
hours of prayer superadded, and fasts which he had
little strength to support ; yet trudged on and did his
work, sustained by the buoyant, exuberant vitality
of the soul.
The townsfolk would seem to have looked on
amazed while this work was progressing. Was this
Francesco Bernardone, the first gallant of the city —
he who had led the revellers about their streets so
often, and ridden through the gates with flashing
armour and waving plumes > No one had ever heard a
hard word from the gay Cecco ^ in his time of sunshine.
Man nor maid could bring up against him anything
' Cecco (pronounced Chekko), or Checco (pronounced Kekko), is the
universal contraction in Italian for the name Francesco. It appears
with the spelling Cicca (as the name was not then so familiar to Italian
tars) in some of the contemporary legends.

ir.] HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. 35
that savoured of discourtesy. He had been the
dibonnair Frangois, as he is called in an old French
version of his life, from his boyhood : the courtesy
of the heart — the only true politeness — had been his
conspicuous quality. When he met the men on
the roads who had sometimes applauded, sometimes
hooted and scorned him, it was still with the smile
of ancient kindness on his face. And such a
sight could be seen by no human folk without
movements of compunction, compassion, and shame.
Eventually the hootings died away ; a certain silence,
and reverence, and awe came over Assisi at the sight.
" Many were moved to tears," say the Three Com
panions; while Francis worked on with cheerful
simplicity, begging his materials, stone by stone,
singing psalms about the s'-reets of the city, promising
the blessing of God to those who helped on God's
work, and taking no notice of any lingering cries
of " madman " which might still reach his ear.
Finally, his patience and unobtrusive cheerfulness
so won upon all men, that he was largely assisted,
Bonaventura informs us, by the devotion of his
fellow-citizens. It is pleasant to know that in this
Church of St. Damiano, so associated with the first
grand crisis of his life, Francis afterwards established
the female branch of his order, and that his friend
Chiara, the foundress under him of the order of Poor
Clares, and the sister and devout companion of his life,
so far as the walls of her cloister would permit, here
lived and died.
There remains but one other incident to note in
this preface of his life. While he was thus labouring
hard at the restoration of St. Damiano, the priest who
had been so strangely entangled in his history,
and who by this time no doubt had learned to love
D 2

36 HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. [chap.
the fervent and tender-hearted young man, makes
his appearance once more in a kindly fashion that
attracts to him all the reader's sympathies. Poor
curate of a poor church, his heart was moved within
him by the voluntary hardships of his young lodger.
Knowing what his life and habits had been, with the
intimate knowledge of each other possessed by the
inhabitants of a little town, he set himself with friendly
wiles to provide for his guest, who worked so hard
and took so little thought of his own comfort, some
special delicacies of food such as he had been used to.
Possibly he saw that Francis at first had hard ado to
accustom himself to the poor fare which was all the
presbytery could afford him. " For," say the Three
Companions, with devout simplicity, " the man of God
often confessed afterwards that he had been fond of
electuaries (.-') and confectionary, and abstained from
common food." Curiously, with a kind of infantine
softness which brings tears to our eyes, this confession
occurs in the very midst of all the hard and stern
circumstances of the life of Francis. He who had
given up name and fame, father and mother, every
thing, down to the very clothes he wore, abandoning
comfort and praise, and home and friends, for the
love of God, had he still a lingering, boyish liking for
those wonders of sugar and pastry which still make
the Italian confectioner the first in his trade .'' The
good priest, it is evident, thought so, and did what he
could to procure for his young companion these
homely consolations. It may well have been that
Francis himself was shocked by the discovery of this
tiny and innocent self-indulgence, which he had not
been aware of In his fervour he almost rebuked the
kindness of his fatherly friend : — "You, a priest," he
said, " and thus lend yourself to human weakness I "

n.] HIS FIRST STRUGGLES. 37
And in the excitement caused by this sudden discovery
he seized a dish or plate from the humble kitchen ofthe
presbytery, and hastening into the town, went from door
to door begging from his wondering neighbours such
scraps from their table as they would have bestowed
upon a beggar. It was madness, fanaticism, folly, no
doubt — and yet at that moment, in that age, it was one
of the most sublime of lessons. The Assisan house
wives who, with an amazement beyond words, gave
their alms to that strange petitioner, knew all his story ;
they knew his daintiness of old, his love of feasting and
gaiety, and they knew also for what reason he had
renounced them all. When he had collected scraps
enough for his meal, the once fastidious Francis went
back to the presbytery with the broken crusts upon his
plate, to eat with what appetite he miglit. At first,
it is allowed, disgust took possession of him, and he
turned from the unpalatable meal — but afterwards
going back to it with renewed courage, found that
his favourite dainties had never pleased him more.
Then he rose up with joyful heart, praising God who
had made the bitter sweet, and told his friend, the
priest, that henceforward it would be unnecessary to
make any provision for him ; he had found the
means to provide for his bodily wants, without inter
fering with his work for God,

CHAPTER III.

HIS COMPANIONS.

It was thus, as may be said, by hazard, that Francis
established for himself the first principle of his Rule.
But no idea of any Rule was then in his mind. When
the Church of St. Damiano was finished, he repaired,
Bonaventura tells us, another church dedicated to St.
Peter, and afterwards the little Church of St. Maria
degli Angeli, at the Portiuncula, which became
from that time forth his home. This work occupied
him for two years ; and Bonaventura does not fail
to remark on the mystical number of three churches
rebuilt before the time came for the disclosure
of his real mission to Francis. Up to this time
he had lived a curious semi-ecclesiastical life. But
he was still a layman, bearing neither tonsure nor
orders, and having no right to be considered a clerk.
It does not seem to have occurred to him to make
himself a monk of any of the existing Rules. He
Jived alone, free to follow his own counsel, and
searching in his own fashion for the way of perfect-
ness. The year of his conversion, as it is called, or of
the great crisis we have just described, has been
decided to be the year 1206 ; so that it was now 1208,
when, hearing mass one day in the little church
he loved, and made his home, something in the
Gospel struck him as it had never done before. When

chap. III.] HIS COMPANIONS. 39
the Mass was over, he begged of the priest to expound
it to him. The words which, suddenly rising up out
of the dimness of familiarity into all the force of a
new and special message, had caught the attention
of Francis were these : " Provide neither gold, nor
silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your
journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet
staves. And as ye go, preach, saying. The kingdom
of heaven is at hand." " Here is what I wanted," he
cried suddenly — " here is what I have sought ; " and
leaving the church, he put off his shoes, threw aside
his staff, loosed the leathern girdle from his waist
(which no doubt had the scarsella or purse hanging to
it, after the fashion of the times), and took a rope —
probably the first and meanest thing that came to his
hand — to bind his tunic round him. Once more the
literalness and simplicity of the man bursts through
all conventional compromises. What was to him the
difference between the hot Syrian plains and those
snow-laden slopes of Apennine .'' Christ had com
manded, and here was a heart only too joyful, too
eager, to obey.
Thus once more, half by accident, another distinction
of the unformed Order came into being. And what was
yet more important, after these two years of silence,
and patience, and toil, after all his painful and all his
joyful experiences, his mouth was suddenly opened,
and his future work revealed to him. The passage is
marked in the Roman breviary as the Gospel for the
nth of June, the feast of St. Barnabas ; but at such
a distance of time, and after so many changes, this is
of course but a doubtful indication. He must have
heard it often before, taking no thought that in it lay
the secret of his life. But, once awakened, Francis
paused not a moment. The message, every word of

40 HIS COMPANIONS. [chap.
it, was for him. Out of his little sanctuary at the
Portiuncula he sallied forth barefooted, with his brown
woollen gown bound by a rope, and his head uncovered,
as the traveller in Italy now sees the poor brother oi
his Order, after six hundred years have come and
gone. At a later period it was his choice that the
gown should be made with wide and long sleeves,
and a great hood, which, when opened out, formed the
figure of the cross. It was the common garb of the
poorest labourers when the Order began.
We may here quote the sketch of Francis's personal
appearance, as given by Thomas de Celano, with a
quaint building up of quality after quality, and descrip
tion on description, which is characteristic of his style.
"Oh, how lovely, how splendid, how glorious he
appeared in innocence of life, in simplicity of speech,
in purity of heart, in divine delight, in fraternal charity,
in frequent obedience, in amiable harmony, in angelical
aspect!" cries the enthusiastic biographer; but by
and by comes down to details less vaguely splendid.
" He was of middle stature, rather under than over, with
an oval face, and full but low forehead ; his eyes dark
and clear, his hair thick, his eyebrows straight ; a
straight and delicate nose, a voice soft yet keen and
fiery ; close, equal, and white teeth ; lips modest yet
subtle ; a black beard not thickly grown ; a thin neck,
square shoulders, short arms, thin hands with long
fingers, small feet, delicate skin, and little flesh;
roughly clothed ; sleeping little ; his hand ever open
in charity." Such was the fashion ofthe man who set
out from the gates of the church at the Portiuncula,
in the year 1208, intent upon obeying literally his
Lord's command, and all unwitting of the Franciscan
Order or its after-grandeur. He was bidden to preach,
and he preached, as he would have done anything

III.] FRA BERNARDO. 4 =
else commanded of him, without pause or hesitation ;
and thus, unaware, set out upon a mission which was
to move whole kingdoms and dominate the lives of
multitudes of men. Nobody could be less aware of
it than the humble Francis. He began his preaching
everywhere with the salutation which God, he said,
had revealed to him, — " The peace of God be with
you ; " and from that day gave himself up to the work
of extending God's peace among men.
" His words were like fire," says Celano, " pene
trating the heart ; " and even men and women who
loved not peace, moved by his salutation, listened
and repented, and were reconciled to God. His first
disciple, according to Celano and the Three Com
panions, was a certain nameless boy of Assisi, of
whose history no particulars are given, and who is not
mentioned in any after-record. Bonaventura, how
ever, gives this position to a personage of very
different calibre, who has found a permanent place by
the side of his leader. This was Messer Bernardo
di Quintavalle, a well-known citizen, " one of the most
noble, rich, and learned of the city." A brief account
of his conversion is given by Celano, the Three Com
panions, and Bonaventura ; but there is a fuller
narrative in the Fioretti di San Francesco, which is
so quaintly characteristic of the times, that we quote
it at length. Bernardo, who had long known Francis,
and watched him through all his vicissitudes, con
cluded, with good reason, that a man so constant and
patient, who had persevered through so many trials,
must indeed possess the grace of God ; but, with a
truly mediaeval determination to test the piety which
looked so real, adopted the following expedient. The
reader will smile at its mingled simplicity and crafti
ness ; but it was thoroughly in keeping with the

42 HIS COMPANIONS. [chap.
manners of the age. He invited Francis to sup with
him, and remain all night, in order to apply his test.
"Messer Bemardo," according to the Fioretti, "having
set his heart on seeing the sanctity of Francesco, had pre
pared a bed for him in his own chamber, in which a lamp
was always burning. But Francesco, to conceal his own
holiness, as soon as he had entered the room threw himself
upon the bed, and pretended to be asleep. Bemardo, after
a little while, lay do-wn in the same manner, and began to
snore as one who sleeps profoundly. As soon as Francesco
perceived that Bemardo was asleep, he rose from the bed
and began to pray, raising his eyes and his hands to heaven,
and with great devotion and fervour crying, ' My God, my
God ! ' He remained thus with much weeping until the
morning, always repeating, ' My God, my God,' and nothing
more. And thus he spoke in contemplation and admiration
ofthe excellence ofthe Divine Majesty, which had deigned
to descend into a perishing world, and had moved the poor
Francesco to seek the salvation of his own soul and of
others ; and therefore illuminated by the Holy Spirit, and
considering the great things which God should do by him
and by his order, and considering his own insufficiency and
weakness, he called upon God and besought Him -srith His
strength and pity, without which human weakness can do
nothing, to help and supply and complete that which he
could not do of himself. Bemardo, seeing his devotion by
the light of the lamp, and considering devoutly the words
which he said, was inspired by the Holy Spirit to change his
life. When the morning came, he called Francesco, and
spoke thus : ' Brother Francesco, my heart is entirely made
up to abandon the world and to follow thee in whatsoever
thou shalt command me.' Hearing this, Francesco was
glad in spirit, and answered thus : ' Messer Bernardo, that
which thou sayest is a work so great and difficult that we
must ask counsel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and pray Him
that it would please Him to show us, above all, His will,
and teach us how we can execute it ; and therefore let us
go to the bishop's palace, where there is a good priest, and
have mass said, and there remain in prayer till the hour of
tierce, praying God that by three openings of the Missal
He would show us the way that pleases Him, that we may

III.] FRA BERNARDO. 43
follow it.' Messer Bemardo answered that he would do
this gladly.
" Accordingly they went to the Vescovado, heard mass,
and remained in prayer till tierce ; thi priest then, at the
prayer of Francesco, took the Missal, aiid, making over it
the sign of the holy cross, opened it three times in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ. The first opening was
upon that word which Christ said in the Gospel to the
young man who asked of Him the way of perfection — ' Go,
sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor.' The second
opening was upon the words which Christ said to the
Aposdes when He sent them out to preach — ' Take nothing
for your joumey.' The third opening of the Missal was
upon the word which Christ said — ' He who will come after
me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow
me.' Then said Francesco to Bernardo, ' Behold the coun
sel which Christ gives us : go then and do that which thou
hast heard, and blessed be our Lord Jesus Christ, who has
deigned to show to us the way of the Gospel.' Bemardo,
as soon as he had heard these words, went away and sold
that which he had, for he was very rich, and with great
gladness distributed everything to the poor, especially
vridows and orphans. And in everything Francesco faith
fully and carefully aided him. A priest called Messer Sal-
vestro, seeing that Francesco gave so much to the poor,
being himself very avaricious, said, ' You did not pay me
fully for those stones which you bought of me to repair the
church, and therefore, now that you have money, pay me.'
Then Francesco, wondering at his avarice, but like a true
servant of the Gospel not wishing to contend with him, put
his hands into the lap of Bernardo, and filling them with
money, threw it into the lap of Salvestro, saying, ' If more
you will have, more shall be given you.' Salvestro went
away with great content, and retumed to his house ; but
in the evening, thinking over what he had done that day,
and reproving himself for his avarice, while remembering
the fervour of Bernardo, -and the sanctity of Francesco,
he had a vision from God, the foUowing and two other
nights, in which he saw a cross of gold coming out of the
mouth of Francesco, the top of which touched the heaven,
and the arms stretched from the east to the west. By
which vision he was moved to give to God all that he had,
and afterwards showed so much holiness and grace in the

44 HIS COMPANIONS. [chap.
Order that he spoke with God as one friend speaks with
another."
' The whole course of this narrative — the devout spy
in his bed watching the secret devotions of the saint —
the quaint solemnity in the bishop's chapel — that con
sultation of God, as of an oracle, through His Word,
in which the Scotch Covenanter and the EngHsh
Methodist, all unconscious, have so closely followed
the steps of the mediaeval monk, none of the three,
apparently, having the slightest consciousness of the
pagan origin of the custom — and the equally quaint
freedom with which Francis put his hand into the
lap of his friend, to pay, with lavish contempt of the
dross, the demand of the avaricious priest — has a
characteristic air of reality. But we are bound to
add, for the sake of Salvestro, that this story of his
greed and untimely demand rests chiefly upon the
authority of the Fioretti. His name and the vision
vouchsafed to him are recorded by all the early biogra
phers ; but only the Three Companions notice this
incident, and that in a milder fashion. " Have you
yet enough. Sir priest.'"' Francis calls to him, in their
version, with a certain irrepressible contempt. " I
have enough, my brother," he answers meekly, with
compunction already rising in his mind. The other
historians take no notice of his cupidity ; but we have
a curious instance of the state of affairs, against which
the mission of Francis was a great protest and re
bellion, in this anecdote, which shows how the priest,
bound to serve the altar, had his hands full of worldly
business, and bought and sold, extorting the last
penny even from the generous revolutionary who had
stepped forth to do what should have been his work.
It was thus into a world sadly out of tune, and un
conscious how far it had dropped from the true way,

Ill-] FRA PIETRO. 45
that Francis was born, to be a sign and wonder in the
midst of all its self-seekings,its fightings, its traffickings,
its dominion of the strong, and oppression of the poor.
While Francis and his new disciple were making
their way to the church in which, by appeal to the
oracles of God, the fate of Bernard was to be decided,
they were joined by a canon of the cathedral at
Assisi, Pietro de Catanio, a man who, like Bernard,
had watched the comings and goings of Francis with
a gradually growing curiosity and interest. In all
likelihood, they had both known him from his cradle,
and been spectators of his early frolics and the
wonderful change which had come upon his life.
Pietro perhaps, by right of his clerical character,
which gave him some experience of the reality or
unreality of conversions, did not require such absolute
evidence of sanctity as that which Bernard in simple
cunning had procured for himself; or perhaps he
was a man of greater faith and more insight than the
worthy citizen. He joined himself to Francis and
his companion on the way, and at once declared his
intention to share Bernard's appeal to the Holy Scrip
tures, and if it was successful to throw in his lot with
the poor solitary, who, up to this moment, does not
seem to have dreamt of attaching any disciples to
himself Whether the idea of a community of poor
servants of God flashed at once on his imagination
we cannot tell, or if it was merely that tender
natural courtesy in which he was always so strong,
which made him accept at once, subject only to
the issue of the appeal about to be made, the offer
of this new follower. The answer was equally ap
plicable to Bernard and to Pietro ; and while Francis
returned to his humble hut, the two men of substance
and position hastened home, one to sell all his goods

46 HIS COMPANIONS. [chap.

and collect everything which belonged to him, to give
to the poor ; and the other not only to make that
sacrifice, but at the same time to throw up his
ecclesiastical rank, to resign his canonry, and put off
his dignified clerical garb, in order to put himself
under the sway, and to receive with gratitude the
miserable dress, of the young fellow who had, half
the town thought, grown mad with over-fervour and
religious zeal. Even in those days, when religion had
so strong a hold upon the popular mind, and received
so much more literal an obedience than now, such
a decision must have been hard to make; and still
more hard must the sacrifice have been to the clerk
than to the layman. It is clear that there is very
little to tell about Pietro in the records of the Order ;
no wonders of holiness, no quaint personal incidents,
are recorded of him. Probably he was older than any
of his companions, and the real history of his life was
past ; or perhaps the educated and mature priest was
more conventional and less picturesque than the other
simple mediaeval men whom Francis attracted to him ;
at all events, he leaves but few traces in the popular
history. He was vicar of the Order when it grew
into an army of men, and one quaint story is told of
him after his death ; but Pietro himself as an indi
vidual, makes no marked appearance either in legend
or history. His early adhesion, however, is a proof
how all classes of society and all manner of men were
moved by the startling figure of the young reformer
coming and going about those familiar ways, teaching
flot by word, but by life.
Bernard is a character more accordant with the
popular fancy, and makes his appearance in various
scenes. We will not break the link of the story
by introducing here the touching picture of his first

III.] FRA EGIDIO. 47
appearance at Bologna, which will find its natural
place in the narrative at a later period. But that
he was the familiar and trusted friend of Francis
throughout all the rest of his life is very apparent.
No great office was ever confided to him, probably
from his own modest objections to such distinction,
but it was he who was selected to tend the sick man
found on the wayside, to bear the rudeness of many
a humble mission, and to receive his master's latest
blessing. He was the first-born, acknowledged by
the tender heart of Francis, even when the superior
claims of others had raised them above the elder
brethren of the Order. It was, according to the
Fioretti, near a hospital for lepers that the little
sorry hut which was the first habitation of the
brethren was situated : and it may well be imagined
that the sight of the wealthy burgher and the learned
canon, dispossessed of all things, inhabiting, along
with their leader, that miserable abode, must have
. been a marvellous lesson to the town which knew
them all so well, and all their past history.
Eight days after the reception of these two
brethren, and after the wonderful commotion which
must have been made in the neighbourhood by the
distribution of their goods to the poor — on the eve of
St. George — the 22d of April — another citizen of Assisi,
called Egidio, set out early in the morning, with
eager yet suppressed desires, half fearful of half longing
after the mysterious life into which his townsmen had
gone. He went to the church of San Gregorio, which
was half-way on the road to the sacred little dwelling,
the hut or Tugurio in which, sequestered from the
world, Francis lived with his companions. When the
new-comer had said his morning prayers in the church,
he turned with wistful looks towards the lower slopes

48 HIS COMPANIONS. [chaP.
which hid the hospital and the hut. By and by
two roads branched off on either hand, and Egidio
stood troubled, not knowing which to take. His
timidity and wistfulness the desire and fear that
contended in him, could not be better expressed.
Eagerness, however, got the better of doubt, as he
stood and contemplated those several paths into
the unknown ; and as he stood he prayed that Christ
would guide him which of the ways to take. He was
still absorbed in this act of anxious devotion when
Francis himself made his appearance, coming from the
wood in which it was his custom to pray. He was to
the new disciple as a messenger from heaven. Egidio
threw himself at his feet, and humbly begged to be
received into his society for the love of God. Look
ing at him with kind and penetrating eyes, Francis
at once saw the soul in his face. " Carissimo fratello,"
dearest brother, he said, with that caressing familiarity
which then, as now, was so natural to an Italian,
" God has given you great grace ; " and with these
friendly words he led him to the hut. " God has sent
us a good brother," he said to Bernard and Pietro as
he led the stranger in. "Let us all rejoice in the
Lord, and eat together in brotherly love." It is not
to be supposed that the new brother thus introduced
was a stranger to the other Assisans ; but in all pro
bability he was a man of a totally different class. A
French narrative, which we have before us, describes
him as living an easy and prosperous Hfe ; but all the
indications of the early writers are in favour of his
having been a labouring man. He lived by his
work, "as he was accustomed always to do," says
the Fioretti, describing his after-life ; and there is no
mention in his case, as in the others, of that selling all
and giving to the poor which always attends the

in.] FRA EGIDIO. 49

conversion of those who have anything to give up.
Francis, indeed, makes trial of his liberality in a
totally different way. " When they had eaten," says
the simple narrative, " Francis went with this Egidio
into Assisi to procure cloth to make him a habit. A
poor woman met them by the way, who asked alms
from them, for the love of God ; and not knowing
where to find anything to give her, Francis turned to
Egidio with an angelic look (' una faccia angelica'), and
said, "For the love of God, carissimo fratello, give
your cloak to this poor creature." And Brother
Egidio obeyed, with a heart so ready, that Francis
seemed to see the alms fly at once to heaven, and
Egidio with it, so that he was filled with unspeak
able emotion and joy." When Egidio had received
the brown gown, the habit of the new Order, Francis
took him as his companion on an apostoHc journey
into the march of Ancona. And here the simple
narrative furnishes us with a clue to the gradual pro
gress of the saint, from the unlearned simplicity of
his youth into that full development of natural power
which made him at length so successful as a preacher.
The two brethren went singing along the sunny roads
in the sweet early summer, " magnificently praising
the Lord of heaven and earth ;" and, "as it happened
that St. Francis had not yet begun pubHcly to preach
to the people, he went along admonishing and reprov
ing men and women by the way, saying simply, with
tenderness, 'Love and serve God, and do worthy
penance for your sins ;' and Brother Egidio said,
' Do what my spiritual father says to you, because
what he says is the best.' "
How charming, how simple, is this childlike strophe
and antistrophe ! The two thus answered to each
other, while the villagers crowded round them, won-
£

50 HIS COMPANIONS. [chaj:'.
dering at the strange, unusual figures who travelled,
not for their own business or profit, but to carry that
simple tender message to the souls of strangers. The
Umbrians and the Anconese no doubt found it very
hard to understand. And when the brethren had passed
the immediate town or village, and come out again
upon those long solitary roads, they resumed their
song, with sonorous, clear-toned voices, in all the force
and sweetness of early manhood, or talked of the
wonderful things which were to be, which Egidio
found it hard to understand. " Son {'figliuolo ' — the
word is more caressing than ' son,' but not translateable
otherwise), our Order will be Hke the fisher, who puts
his net in the water and takes a great multitude of
fishes, keeping the larger ones and leaving the smaller."
At this, we are told, Egidio marvelled much ; for the
whole Order consisted but of himself Bernard, Pietro,
and their founder — a little group not likely, so far
as appeared on the surface, to move the world.
There is some uncertainty as to the order of the
disciples who followed that first group. The Three
Companions give the names of Sabatino, Morito, and
Giovanni de Capello as following close upon Egidio ;
but there is scarcely any mention of these names in the
after-story of the life of Francis. Neither do we hear
much of Philip, described by Celano as the seventh in
succession, who was a man of great oratorical power,
" sweet and mellifluous " in preaching. We prefer
therefore to take the better known among the early
members of the Order, without vouching for the
chronology of their admission. Some of those we are
about to describe may have been the children of a
more advanced period, but they were, at all events,
the disciples, companions, and friends of Francis
through the remaining portion of his life.

in.] FRA RUFFINO. 51
One of the next in succession was Ruffino, who, we
are told, belonged to one of the noblest families of
Assisi, and was a relation of St. Clare. He, too, had
felt the irresistible attraction of that Epistle of God,
known and read of all men, which Francis presented
to the Umbrian world. Fra Ruffino was, however,
a man of a distinct type from the others. It was
the Hfe of contemplation, not that of active labour,
which was most congenial to him. His temptations
were not th^^p of the flesh, but those of the spirit —
painful questionings as to his own salvation and the
ways of God to man. For days together, we are told,
he was absorbed in meditation, lost to all recollection
of this world, " almost insensible and dumb " — un
willing, when he could help it, to pronounce a single
word. " He had neither grace, ardour, nor faculty
in preaching," says the legend ; " and was reluc
tant to be disturbed " from sacred contemplation
even by the command of his master.'' A curious
occurrence, which must have some foundation of
truth, as it is quoted by the early writers, as
well as recorded at full length in the Fioretti, may
be given here. It is very grotesque, as read in the
¦ light of our nineteenth-century notions ; but we
have no reason to suppose that it would bear exactly
the same appearance in the thirteenth, though even
then it is evident it attracted at first the laughter
of the crowd. Francis, watching with anxious pa
ternal eyes the growth of this mystic separation
from all common uses of life in the soul of his
disciple, commanded him, one day, to go to Assisi
and preach ; whereupon Brother Ruffino answered :
" ' Reverend Father, I pray thee excuse me, and send me
not; because, as thou knowest, I have not the gift of
preaching, but am simple and unlearned.' And then St.
E 2

52 HIS COMPANIONS. [chap.
Francis said, 'Because thou hast not obeyed instantly, I
command thee, by thy holy obedience, that, clad in thy
" brache " only, thou go to Assisi, and enter into a church
and preach to the people.' At this command, the said
Brother Ruffino stripped himself, and went to Assisi, and
entered into a church, and made his reverence to the altar,
and went up into the pulpit and began to preach, at which
children and men began to laugh and say, 'See now,
these men do so great penance that they become fools and
beside themselves.' Meanwhile, St. Francis, pondering over
the ready obedience of Brother Ruffino, who was one of the
most noble men in Assisi, and of the hard commandment
he had enjoined upon him, began to blame himself and to
say, ' How hast thou so great boldness, son of Pietro Bernar
done, a poor helpless creature, as to command Brother
Ruffino, who is one of the most noble in Assisi, to go
preach to the people like a fool ? By God, thou shalt essay
thyself that which thou commandest others.' And of a
sudden, in fervour of spirit, he stripped himself in like
manner, and went to Assisi, and he took with him Brother
Leo to carry his garment and that of Brother Ruffino. And
the men of Assisi, seeing him iii like guise, mocked him,
thinking that both he and Brother Ruffino were crazed by
too strict penance. St. Francis entered the church when
Brother Ruffino was preaching these words, ' O dearest
friends, flee from the world, and leave sin; give up that
which is not yours, if ye would escape hell ; keep the com
mandments of God, loving God and your neighbours, if ye
would go to heaven ; work out your repentance if ye would
possess the kingdom of heaven.' Then St. Francis mounted
the pulpit, and began to preach so marvellously of contempt
of the world, of holy penitence, of voluntary poverty, of the
longing for the kingdom of heaven, and of the nakedness
and shame of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, that aU
who were at the preaching, men and women in great multi
tude, began to weep exceeding much, with wondrous devo
tion and piercing of heart ; and not only there, but also
throughout all Assisi, there was on that day so great a
weeping for the passion of Christ, that there had never been
the like. And thus the people being edified and comforted
by the act of St. Francis and of Brother Ruffino, St. Francis
re-clad Brother Ruffino and himself; and thus being re-clad
they retumed to the Portiuncula praising and glorifying God,

III.] FRA LEO. 53
who had given them grace to conquer themselves, by their
self-contempt, and to edify the Iambs of Christ by good
example, and to show how great was their contempt of the
world ; and in that day the devotion of the people towards
them so much increased, that he thought himself happy who
could touch the hem of their garment."
- Ruffino having come safely out of this ordeal, grew
every day still more holy. " By his purity and humility
he became," says the primitive biographer, " the terror
of demons." As he went through Assisi, begging
from door to door, the possessed received him with
frightful cries and distortions, and the devils bore
witness to his power. Yet at the same time he him
self was persecuted by an evil spirit, which took upon
itself the holy form of a Crucifix, and tempted him to
disbelief through the very lips (as it seemed) of Him
who hung on the cross. He was one of the Three
Companions who wrote the history of Francis which
is called by their name.
And so also was Leo, another Assisan, of whose
antecedents we know nothing, but who was one of
the earliest members of the Order, and specially
beloved by its founder on account of his sim
plicity. He was the "Pecorello," the Httle sheep
of Francis's fond and tender friendship ; and it was
evidently a comfort to the saint, among all his cares
and troubles, to throw himself upon the simple sym
pathy of a disciple so docile and unquestioning. It
would be impossible to quote half the references to
him which occur in the Fioretti, all marked with
the same childlike, all-believing, innocent nature. He
was the secretary and even, we are told, the confessor
of Francis in after-times. He was one of those always
chosen to accompany him to his retirement among
the hills, or when upon any special mission. His love

54 HIS COMPANIONS. [chap.
for his master seems to have been Hke the love of a
faithful dog, whose happiness lies in following every
where, hearing, and seeing, and touching the master
whom he loves. When his simple soul was tempted
and troubled, he longed for a bit of paper with some
thing written on it by the hand of Francis, feeling
that with that armour he would be safe. Once, when
(according to the legend) the saint in a trance was
elevated from the ground, and held there by the
wonderful might of his ecstasy, simple Leo thrust his
own honest, innocent presence into the rapture, and
stood weeping and kissing the feet thus mysteriously
raised above the common soil. The reader feels
that Francis must have been sometimes bored, if we
may use the word, by the fondness of his humble
disciple ; and we find that once or twice, declaring
himself to have need of perfect solitude, he cour
teously and tenderly drew himself away from the
society of his adoring friend ; but nothing can be
more beautiful than the relationship between them
— all tender, paternal affection on one side, and all
adoration on the other. One of the few private
letters of Francis which are preserved to us is ad
dressed to this gentlest disciple : —
" Bi other Leo, your brother Francis greets you, and
wishes you peace.
" I speak to you, my son, as a mother to a child, and all
the words which we have spoken on our journey I sum up
and abridge in that word. If, after this, you desire more
counsel from me, I advise you to come to me. In whatso
ever manner you perceive that you can best please the
Lord our God, and follow His example and His poverty,
do it with the blessing of the Lord, and in my obedience.
And if it should be necessary for the good of your soul oi
your consolation that you should come to me, come, m)
Leo. Farewell in Christ."

111.] FRA MASSEO. 55

It is probable, however, that it was in extreme
youth that Leo entered the Order, as we are told
he lived in it for sixty-one years ; and this may
account in some degree for the simplicity of his first
appearances. After the death of Francis, it is evident
that he took a more decided part than might have
been expected from his natural gentleness, was very
warm in his opposition to innovation, and showed
sufficient aptitude for ecclesiastical business to be
employed in one or two important processes. This,
however, is not the phase of his character on which
the reader loves to dwell : it is as the " little sheep,"
the simple idolater, the "Leo mio," of Francis's most
tender and friendly soul.
Next comes Masseo of Marignano, the first stranger
in the band, a genial brother, full of strength and vigour.
He was big and handsome, according to the legend,
and, when he begged by the way, had " good pieces
and large, and sometimes whole loaves, given to him ;"
whereas Francis, being Httle and worn, received only
Httle pieces, and commonly of dry bread. But for the
absolute emptiness of the Httle convent, in which these
" buoni pezzi " were the best fare, and water the only
drink, we should say there was a certain jovial geniality
about the large figure of Fra Masseo. He was a great
preacher, as such big, genial men so often are, being full
of human sympathy, not profound, and often per
plexed, but yet on the surface very warm and full.'
And he seems to have had also a weakness incident to
the character — a good-natured, simple inclination to
think well of himself Francis, whose sympathy
had reached the length of insight, and was of a very
different kind from that of Masseo, probably perceived
the new brother's danger ; for one day, we are told,
he assembled the entire company, and addressed him

56 HIS COMPANIONS. [chap.
in their presence. " Brother Masseo," said the saint,
"all these my companions have the grace of con
templation and of prayer ; but thou hast the grace
of preaching the word of God to the satisfaction of
the people. Therefore, I will, in order that these
may give themselves to contemplation, that you
undertake the offices of porter, of alms-gatherer, and
of cook ; and when the other brethren eat, thou shalt
eat outside the door ; so that when any come to the
door, even before they knock, thou mayst satisfy them
with good words from God, so that henceforward no
one need go out except thee." This strange accumu
lation of offices Fra Masseo accepted with the usual
ready obedience, and fulfilled it with genial simpHcity,
as we shall shortly see ; and it was not at his request,
but at that of the brethren, who felt him thrown away
in so humble an occupation, that Francis modified his
command, and set him at liberty for higher work.
A curious gleam of humour is in the way in which the
master deals with his large, genial, perhaps somewhat
matter-of-fact disciple. Once, when they were setting
out together on a journey, Masseo worried his leader
to know where they were going, but received no answer
until they had come to a place where four roads met,
when he was commanded to turn round and round,
and not to stop till he had further orders. When
he did pause, in obedience to the command of his
master, his face was towards Sienna ; and accordingly
to Sienna they went, where their presence was much
wanted, in consequence of a conflict between two
factions of the citizens, which Francis made an end
of Masseo's musings on this and other points of his
leader's conduct — his sudden trial of him "to see
whether he was really humble" — his wonder at the
enthusiasm of Francis while they ate their poor meal

III.] FRA GINEPRO. 57

by the fountain — and other incidents which may be
quoted hereafter — still further disclose the character
of a man who could but imperfectly understand
his spiritual leader, and was puzzled almost as
much as attracted by him. " Why to thee 1 why
to thee } " he says one day, when, turning the
whole question over in his mind, he meets Francis,
all worn and weary, coming out of the wood where
he had been praying. "What say you .'" asks
Francis, in surprise at the interruption. " I say,"
answers Masseo, "why should all the world come
after thee, and every one desire to see, and hear, and
obey thee ? Thou art not handsome, thou art not
learned, thou art not noble ; therefore, why to thee ?
why does all the world run after thee .¦' " It is " quasi
proverbiando " playing upon words, that he says this,
according to the Fioretti ; but no doubt there was a
certain subtle expression in it of the bewilderment of
his own mind, itself so puzzled, yet so true.
Of all the early companions of Francis, however,
there is none whose story is so quaint and so strange
as that of a certain Fra Ginepro, whose adventures break
into the tale with all the breadth of that grotesque
mediaeval drollery which has left its traces more
upon art than literature. The humble chronicler of
the Fioretti delights in this strange figure. His utter
simpleness and wild liberality, the curious straight
forwardness, as of a child or a madman, of his
proceedings, charm the primitive mind which has
not yet outgrown the feeling that there is such a
thing as inspired folly. Francis himself with a
- play upon his name {Ginepro, Juniper) which also
belongs to the age, prays that he might have a
wood of such ; but yet we imagine might have found
it embarrassing had he been taken at his word.

58 HIS COMPANIONS. [chap.
One day this disciple sat by the bedside of a sick
brother, who was seized with a sudden desire for a
pig's foot — a strange, it seems, and not very refined
longing. Ginepro, too vehement to take any time
to think, jumped up, "burning with divine love,"
caught up a knife from the kitchen, and rushed out
to that wood which plays so great a part in the tale.
Here he found a herd of pigs, feeding in all quiet and
security. He does not seem to have taken into con
sideration in the least the feelings of the victim which
was to pay the penalty of his wonderful charity ; but,
leaping upon the back of one of the herd, cut off its
foot, with which he returned exulting to the sick man.
Upon this naturally there arose a great tumult. The
proprietor of the unhappy pig came to complain, and
the whole convent was roused. Only Ginepro was
unmoved ; he could not conceive how any one could
be disturbed because of a charitable act ; and when
sent by his master after the injured proprietor to beg
his pardon, took all his abuse so sweetly, telling him
that it was done entirely for charity, that the man,
struck by compunction, killed the pig, and sent it
entire to the convent — a provision not to be despised.
Nor was this the sole instance of Ginepro's un
reasoning liberality : he gave everything he had —
his clothes from his person, until the Guardiano
forbade him, in the name of holy obedience, to do
it again. After this prohibition had been issued,
a poor man almost naked came by, asking alms
for the love of God. " I have nothing to give but
my tunic," said Ginepro, "and I am forbidden by
my superior to give that or anything I wear ; but if
you tear it off my back I will not resist you." The
beggar, nothing loth, tore off the robe, leaving
Ginepro almost naked, in which plight he returned

HI.] FRA GINEPRO. 59

to the convent. When he was asked what had
become of his gown, he answered, with amusing
naivete, "A worthy person took it from me, and
went away with it." He gave, however, not only his
clothes, but everything he could lay his innocent dis
honest hands on, with the same wild charity. A
certain foolish sacristan once left him in charge of an
altar in the cathedral of Assisi, upon which were many
ornaments of price, and especially a certain golden
candlestick hung with silver bells. At this perilous
moment a poor woman approached, and begged alms
from the enthusiast of charity. Ginepro immediately
cast his eyes upon the altar, and seeing the silver
bells twinkling in the sunshine, at once decided that
they were a superfluity ; upon which, quick as
thought, he took a knife and, hacking them off,
gave them "in pity" to the woman. When the poor
sacristan returned from his dinner, he saw in a
moment the damage which had been done. " Do not
disturb yourself," said the calm Ginepro ; " I gave
them to a poor woman who had great need of them,
whereas here they were of no use, but were mere
pomp and worldly vanity." The sacristan, in despair,
rushed after the woman, and sought through the
whole city, but could not find any trace of his silver
bells ; then he carried his complaint to the general of
the Order — not Francis, it would appear ; so this inci
dent must have happened after his death. The general
told the sacristan roundly that it was not Ginepro's
fault, but his own. "You ought to have known his
peculiarity, and I marvel for my part that he did
not give away the whole," said the head of the Order ;
but nevertheless called the friar to him, and scolded
him with so much vehemence that he lost his voice
and became hoarse. Little cared Ginepro for the

6o HIS COMPANIONS. [chap,
reproaches ; but he noticed the hoarseness, and his
heart was moved with compassion. He went away
from the general's presence, anxiously thinking over
the best possible remedy ; and going into the town,
ordered a cake made with butter, with which he
returned when it was late, and which he carried at
once to the cell of the general. " Padre mio," he said,
rousing him, " when you told me of my faults to-day,
I saw that it made you hoarse. This could only be
because you were exhausted ; therefore I have been
thinking what was the best remedy, and have had
this cake made for you. I pray you to eat it : it will
soften your breast and your throat." What could be
said to such a tender-hearted simpleton .¦" The two
ate the cake together in the middle of the night, "in
great charity and brotherly love, and were more
refreshed by devotion than by the food," says the
quaint and primitive tale.
One more incident from Fra Ginepro's life, and we
will leave this portion of the legend. Once upon a
time he went to Rome, where the fame of his holiness
had travelled before him, and where a multitude of
people came to meet him and conduct him into the
city. The humble friar had no desire for any such
honour. Close by were two children playing at see
saw. The " altalena '' has a more dignified sound,
but it means the same thing. When he saw this,
Ginepro jumped upon the see-saw, and, to the con
sternation of the worshipping multitude, began to
swing up and down, absorbed to all appearance in his
amusement. When the crowd was tired of wondering
it grew indignant, and finally dispersed ; upon which
Ginepro descended from his see-saw, much comforted,
"tutto consolato," because so many had seen him
make a fool of himself! A 7nore grotesque incident

in.] ERA ELIAS. 6i
could scarcely be; but yet how full of meaning is
the primitive brother's unscrupulous determination to
shake off his foolish train of adorers, and the gulli
bility of the crowd !
There are but one or two notices of Ginepro in
the Life of Francis ; but the others are perpetually
appearing and reappearing. We have omitted one
who is, in some respects, the most important of all —
EHas of Cortona, a man of high intellect and am
bitious hopes, who seems to have exercised a certain
influence over Francis himself and who eventually
became his vicar, and successor in the supreme power,
though it is evident he was much opposed by the general
body, and that even the founder had great doubt of
him mingled with his affection. Elias is an altogether
different type of man from the simple-minded brethren
who first surrounded Francis. He is an ambitious and
ascetic churchman, of the class which has pushed
Rome into much power and many abuses — an almost
conventional development of the intellectual monk,
making up for compulsory humbleness in external
matters by the highest strain of ecclesiastical ambi
tion and spiritual pride. There can be no doubt that
in the simple yet wise organization devised by Francis
for the salvation of souls Elias perceived the germ
of a powerful corporation — a body not only morally
but socially and politically important, which he
attempted to shape according to his own ideas more
than once during the lifetime of Francis himself ; an
attempt in which he was foiled, as will be seen, by
the severe adherence to his ideal of the mild and
tender-hearted master who, ready as he was to
give way in other matters, never relinquished his
absolute devotion to Poverty and the Apostolical
model of life.

62 HIS COMPANIONS. [chap. hi.
Such was the band of Poor Brethren who formed the
foundation of the great Franciscan order. We are
unable to say with any certainty whether these were
all included among the number of the brethren who
accompanied Francis to Rome, but they are at least
the most prominent figures which surround him in his
early wanderings — men of the simplest manners, the
fullest faith, the most entire devotion to their leader ;
regarding with never-failing gratitude and reverence
the man who had called them out of the world and
its selfish occupations into that higher existence which
has for its first principle the rule of self-denial, and
finds its highest and most perfect example in the
life of Christ.

CHAPTER IV.

BEGINNING OF THE RULE.

As soon as his disciples had reached the number of
seven, Francis, in all things literal to the example of
his Master, sent them out by twos, as our Lord sent
His disciples, to all the quarters of the earth — or rather
to all the four winds, for they do not seem to have
attempted to proceed beyond Umbria — to preach.
He made them an affectionate address before they
separated, differing in Httle from our Lord's instruc
tions to His disciples. " ' Go,' said our sweet father
to his children," says Bonaventura, " ' proclaim peace
to men ; preach repentance for the remission of sins.
Be patient in tribulation, watchful in prayer, strong
in labour, moderate in speech, grave in conversation,
thankful for benefits.' And to each separately, as he
took leave of him, he said, ' Cast thy care upon the
Lord, and He will sustain thee.' " We are not in
formed how long this first evangelical journey lasted ;
but the preachers met with all the ordinary varieties
of reception. Some hailed them eagerly, receiving
their teaching as from Heaven ; some mobbed them in
the streets, calling them madmen ; in some places the
women and children fled at sight of those strange
brown figures, barefooted and girded with ropes,
which are now so familiar in Italian cities ; but
wherever they went they roused the public mind,

64 BEGINNING OF THE RULE. [chap.
sometimes to interest, sometimes to violent opposition,
always, at least, to curiosity and wonder. And already
this bold pictorial lesson, this presentation of the Lady
Poverty and her sworn companions before the aston
ished eyes of a world which fought and struggled, and
massacred and ravaged, for riches and power, had
begun to tell.
Up to this time the little company had lived
together by the simple exercise of their own will;
without any Rule, or formal bond to each other.
Francis was their natural leader ; it was he who had
drawn them by his example out of the world, and to
whom they looked as their guide ; but they were, as
yet, under no legitimate subjection to him, nor were
they bound to the life of hardship which they had
voluntarily adopted. When the little house at the Por
tiuncula was so full that the companions had scarcely
room to lie down, it became at last a matter of necessity
to give to the family a certain constitution and raison
d'itre. And it was while this thought was growing
in his mind that Francis was visited by those
visions of the future extension of his Order, which
mark the period of his transition from the station of
a private individual to that of a public leader, founder,
legislator, and ruler. This transition was natural and
gradual, without any artificial sign or wonder. His
early companions gathered around him without any
effort of his ; and the necessity of some order
of life, by which they could be guided, became
slowly manifest to him, as he became aware of
the unexpected responsibility which had fallen
upon his shoulders. And when he rose from
his short slumbers upon the earthen floor of his
little house, and stole out to his prayers while all
the brethren sl^pt, turning over in his devout mind

IV.] BEGINNING OF THE RULE. 65
what was best to be done for them, there stole over
him a prophetic sense of future greatness — which
might or might not be revealed from heaven, but
which nature herself and the insight of a mind
already much conversant with humanity, and over
flowing with that sympathy which draws others
to itself and divines the rising emotions within
them, might well have given. He felt that the
little nucleus of brethren, drawn from aU classes,
whom he had left asleep behind him — the simple
and illiterate townsman resting beside the eloquent
orator and the noble citizen — was but an earnest of
the future. On one such occasion, Celano informs
us, he had gone out to his accustomed devotions,
his heart heavy with thought and anxiety, and
in his depression able to say nothing but " God
be merciful to me, a sinner " (indeed, he was never,
it would seem, fond of many words in prayer),
when suddenly an unspeakable ecstasy filled his
breast, and the greatness of the work he was
beginning, and the immense harvest which his
spiritual children should reap for God, became visible
to him. When he returned to his brethren, he bade
them rejoice with him. " Be comforted, my dearest "
{carissimi), he said, "and rejoice in God, and let us
not be sad because we are few ; for it has been shown
to me by God that you shall increase to a great
multitude, and shall go on increasing to the end of
the world. I see a multitude of men coming to
me from every quarter : French, Spaniards, Ger
mans, and English, each in their different tongues,
encouraging the others." Probably his followers had
some difficulty in believing such a prophecy, and
wondered, Hke Egidio ; but yet we are told they
v/ere glad, reflecting the sentiment of their Master.
F

66 BEGINNING OF THE RULE. [CHAP.

Amid these encouragements the Rule was made.
It consists, like other monastic rules, of the three
great vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, differ
ing only in so far that the poverty ordained by
Francis was absolute. In other rules, though the in
dividual was allowed to possess nothing, the com
munity had often rich possessions ; and there was no
reason why the monks should not fare sumptuously
and secure to themselves many earthly enjoyments
notwithstanding their individual destitution and their
vow. But among the Brothers Minor there was not
to be so much as a provision secured for the merest
daily necessities. Day by day they were to Hve by
God's providence, eating what was given to them,
taking no thought how they were to be fed, or where
withal clothed : " neither gold nor silver in your
purses ; " not even the scrip to collect fragments in — as
if God could not provide for every returning necessity.
There had been monasteries in Italy for centuries
and the Benedictines were already a great and
flourishing community ; but this absolute renunciation
of all things struck a certain chill to the hearts of all
who heard of it, except the devoted band who had no
will but that of Francis. His friend, the Bishop of
Assisi, was one of those who stumbled at this novel
and wonderful self-devotion. "Your life, without a
possession in the world, seems to me most hard and
terrible," said the compassionate prelate. " My lord,"
said Francis, "if we had possessions, arms and pro
tection would be necessary to us." There was a force
in this response which perhaps we can scarcely realize ;
but the Assisan bishop, who knew something of the
temper of the lords of Umbria, and knew how lonely
were the brethren dwelling on the Church-lands — the
little plot (Portiuncula) a whole half league from the

IV.] BEGINNING OF THE RULE. 67
city gates — understood and perceived the justice of
the reply.
Another grand distinction of the Rule drawn up
by Francis was the occupation it prescribed to its
members. They were not to shut themselves up,
or to care first for their own salvation. They were to
preach — this was their special work; they were to
proclaim repentance and the remission of sins ; they
were to be heralds of God to the world, and proclaim
the coming of His kingdom. It is not possible to
suppose that, when he thus began to organize, the
mind of Francis did not make a survey of the estab
lishments already in existence — the convents bound by
the same three great vows, where Hfe at this moment
was going on so placidly, with flocks and herds and
vineyards to supply the communities, and studious
monks in their retirement, safe from all secular
anxieties, fostering all the arts in their beginning, and
carrying on the traditions of learning ; while all around
them the great unquiet, violent world heaved and
struggled, yet within the convent walls there was
leisure and peace. Blessed peace and leisure it was
often, let us allow — preserving for us the germs of
many good things we now enjoy, and raising Httle
centres of safety, and charity, and brotherly kindness
through the country in which they were placed.
But such quiet was not in the nature of Francis.
So far as we can make out, he had thought little of
himself — even of his own soul to be saved — all his life.
The trouble on his mind had been what to do — how
sufficiently to work for God, and to help men. His
fellow-creatures were dear to him : he gave them
his cloak from his shoulders many a day, and the
morsel from his own lips ; and would have given
them the heart from his bosom, had that been pos-
F 2

68 BEGINNING OF THE RULE. [chap.
sible. Therefore, for him there was no question of
seclusion, of cloistered quiet and still learning, or
of a Hfe devoted to art. For himself and for his
brethren, he desired active service and living in
fluence upon men. He was not of the world,
but yet he would not be taken out of the world.
In short, now as ever, it was the life of his Lord
which was his foundation and example : he longed
to move about those Umbrian ways, as He had
trodden the ways of Galilee — to preach, and exhort,
and reprove, and entreat with such tender wiles
of parable and type as the servant might adopt
from the Master. It was with difficulty that he
could yield himself to the necessity of securing a
rojf to shelter his companions ; for the Son of Man
had not where to lay His head. But in every other
way, with a touching literalness, he would follow
that great Example, not only in the spirit, but in
the very letter and absolute fact of Hfe.
Even the name which he chose for his little com
munity is full of simple significance ; not Franciscans,
as we call them now, but Frati Minores — Lesser
Brothers — as who should say, the least of all saints,
the poorest and humblest of God's servants. When
the Rule was written, which, with the voluminous-
ness of an unpractised writer, at first filled " twenty-
three chapters, each containing twenty-seven precepts,'
Francis called together his companions, who had
by this time risen to the number of eleven, and
proposed to them that they should go to Rome, and
.isk the sanction of the Pope. This, we are informed
in the Histoire des Ordres Monastiques, was not
necessary, nor had it been the custom ofother religious
orders to seek it ; but Francis, always unassuming,
would have nothing established on his own sole

IV.] BEGINNING OF THE RULE. 69

authority. The journey from Assisi to Rome is not
a very long one ; but the barefooted brethren went
on foot, carrying, according to their rule, neither
purse nor provision. They set off, however, cheer
fully on their journey, having first elected one among
them to be " a kind of Vicar of Jesus Christ," to whom
they were to give entire obedience. It was Brother
Bernard whom they elected to this office ; and so
set out, with songs of praise, upon the tedious way ;
God prepared shelter and food for them, we are told,
and their frequent refuge at night was a deserted
church, of which there seem to have been in those
days many in Umbria. When they arrived in Rome,
they were received cordially by their own bishop,
who, however, seems to have rather discouraged them
in respect to the Pope, being afraid, as we are told,
that they might be tempted to desert their own
country ; "for it was a great joy to him to have so
many men of life and morals so exalted in his diocese."
The Bishop of Assisi, however, introduced them to
the notice of Giovanni di San Paolo, the cardinal-
bishop of the Sabina, who was the first protector
of the Order. According to the Three Companions,
Francis was introduced to Pope Innocent III. by
this powerful and dignified patron. But Bonaventura
gives a different version of the story. According to
his account, the humble pilgrim approached the ruler
of Christendom without any prelate or prince to
stand by him. Innocent was walking on one of tK
terraces of the Lateran, lost in thought, occupied, no
doubt, with some problem of the great European
community of nations, over which he held so extra
ordinary a sway, when a poor stranger, in the dress
of a shepherd, presented himself to his notice. The
Pope, angry at such an invasion of his privacy, sent

70 BEGINNING OF THE RULE. [chap.

the intruder hastily away. But that night, all our
historians agree in telling us, the great Pope was
enlightened by a dream from lieaven. There are,
indeed, two dreams recorded equally significant and
to the purpose. " He saw a palm-tree gradually
grow up at his feet until it reached a goodly stature,
and as he gazed upon it wondering what the vision
might mean, a divine illumination impressed on the
mind of the Vicar of Christ that this palm-tree signi
fied the poor man whom he had that day driven from
his presence." The other dream was that he saw the
great church of St. John Lateran, near which he had
been walking when Francis went to him first, falling to
the ground, when it was suddenly propped up by
that same poor figure in the shepherd's frock. Next
morning, Bonaventura tells us, he sent to inquire for
the stranger, and found him close by, in the Hospital
of St. Antony, near the Lateran. It is very probable
that by this time Francis, who, with all his simplicity,
had yet the practical habits of a man accustomed
to earthly business, availed himself of the protection
of his friend the Cardinal. And it is still more likely
that the sagacious Innocent perceived at once that
the meanly dressed stranger was one of those excep
tional men, of whom the Church of Rome has always
been wise enough to take advantage.
The Rule seems to have been submitted to the Con
clave of Cardinals, who pondered over it with natural
hesitation. It must have been hard enough for these
princely priests to realize how men could be found
ready to give up everything, even daily bread, in so
complete a manner for Christ's sake. " It seemed to
some of the cardinals that the Rule was a novelty,
and beyond human strength to observe" — as it had
appeared to the Bishop of Assisi, and to almost every

iv] BEGINNING OF THE RULE. 71
wise counsellor who had been referred to on the
subject ; but the Cardinal di San Paolo, with better
judgment, gave his vote on the other side. " If we
refuse this poor man's petition, as a novelty too hard
to be observed — whereas he only begs for the con
firmation of the evangelical way of life — let us take
heed lest we offend against the Gospel of Christ," he
said, with that wonderful wisdom in dealing with the
exceptional which has almost always characterized the
Roman Church. " If it is of God, it will stand," said
wise Gamaliel, in an elder age. " But if it is of God,
and stands, let Holy Church have the good of it," has
always been the sentiment of Rome — a sentiment
which it is vain to call interested, since the welfare of
Holy Church assuredly meant the welfare of Christen
dom, to the Pope and his Council in the beginning
of the thirteenth century. According to Bonaventura,
Innocent still hesitated, and sent the applicant away
for the time. On their next interview Francis came
armed with a parable. "There was," he said, "a
rich and mighty king who took to wife a poor but
very beautiful woman, who lived in a desert, in whom
he greatly delighted, and by whom he had children
who bore his image. When her sons were grown
their mother said to them, ' My sons, be not ashamed ;
ye are the children of a king.' And she sent them
to the court, having supplied them with all necessaries.
When they came to the king, he admired their beauty ;
and seeing in them some resemblance to himself,
asked them, ' Whose sons are ye ? ' When they
replied that they were the sons of a poor woman
dwelling in the desert, the king, filled with much joy,
said, " Fear notj ye are my sons ; and if I nourish
strangers at my table, how much more you, who are
my legitimate children.' '

72 BEGINNING OF THE RULE. [chaP.
This parable, according to the Three Companions,
was perfectly conclusive to Pope Innocent. The poor
woman in the desert, so lovely and lonely, was Poverty,
whom Dante calls the widowed spouse of Jesus Christ ;
and the poor brethren in their shepherds' tunics were
her sons, and the sons of the king. Nothing can be
more probable than that this picturesque argument,
proof cf a mind overflowing with that vivid pictorial
eloquence which moves the multitude, should have
gone a long way to persuade the wise Pope that
this was not an instrument to be thrown away. After
some further delay, a verbal confirmation was given to
the Rule, and a conditional promise. " Go, in the
name of the Lord," said Pope Innocent, " and in His
strength preach repentance to all. And when God
has multiplied you in numbers and grace, come back
to me, and I will give you greater gifts, and commit
to you better privileges." He then put the mark of
the Church upon the twelve brethren, now dignified
provisionally into an independent Order. He com
manded that they should receive the tonsure, so that,
though not priests, they might be considered clerks.
The joy of the Httle band was extreme. When they
had received the Pope's blessing, and that sign of
consecration, they visited devoutly the tombs of the
Apostles, and set out shoeless, staffless, without a
penny, or a purse to put one into, without a crust of
bread for their journey, upon their way home. They
travelled joyously, Francis, with his old skill, shorten
ing the weary road with song — and once at least fell
to talking so earnestly, reasoning together of the ways
of God to man, that the hour of their usual meal
came and passed ; and as hunger began to seize them,
they found that they were out in the open country, far
from any village in which they could beg the daily

IV.] BEGINNING OF THE RULE. 73

morsel which sufficed them. At this moment a man
appeared, gave them some bread, and went his way.
God provided for them, as He did for Elijah. Such
was the joyful conclusion in their hearts.
Thus commenced the Order of the Frati Minores, a
title for which in English we can find no more eupho
nious .synonym than that of Little (literally. Lesser)
Brothers. And from this time it is our business to
regard Francis, not so much in his individual character
¦ — the generous, impetuou.s, tender, friendly, natural
being v/e have known him — as in his position as a
great ruler of men, a prophet and teacher of extraordi
nary influence, and, like the mournful Ezekiel in an
older dispensation, a sign and wonder to the world.

CHAPTER V.

LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA.

We have said it is now our business to regard
Francis no longer as a private individual, but as
the leader of an ever-increasing community, destined
to multiply as never kingdom multiplied, and to
surround him, ere many years had elapsed, with an
army as powerful in numbers as that of many an
independent nation, and more closely knit together
by one enthusiastic bond of devotion than ever
was any secular army ; but this, in one sense, is
a vain attempt. For Francis is always Francis to
his last day : in his brown cowl, with the rope
knotted round his waist, he is the same light-
hearted, courteous soul as that pleasant Cecco of
Assisi who went singing his gay Provengal songs
about the stony streets. His stern life has not taken
from him a jot of that courageous cheerfulness. The
monk, like the merchant's son, is as gracious in his
courtesy as if he had been a prince, and never for
a moment loses that rare faculty of entering into the
feelings of others which is the root of all true polite
ness. The twelve, we have said, wandered home again,
after they had obtained their wish from Rome. But
the truth was, they had no home to go to, the poor
little shed at the Portiuncula having either become
uninhabitable or having been temporarily withdrawn

chap, v.] LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. 75
from them. They went slowly upon their way, and
Hngered, Celano tells us, for a fortnight near the town
of Orta, within the boundaries of the States of the
Church, preaching daily in the city, and begging their
food. At this point of their journey a doubt seems to
have arisen among them, in their many discussions
how best to keep their Rule — whether seclusion from
men in some solitary place would not be the form of
service most pleasir.g to God ; a doubt which recurs
at two or three periods of their history. It is hard
to understand how such a question could ever have
arisen with Francis, seclusion having evidently been
the very last thing in his thoughts in drawing up
his Rule ; but probably some of the brethren inclined
in favour of this fashion of Hfe, and their leader
was not a man to sacrifice what he supposed the
welfare of his brethren to any theory of his own.
When they consulted God in prayer, however, it
was revealed to them, that they were not sent into
the world for their own advantage, but for the good
of others, like their Divine Master — an answer which
we cannot but feel must have been a great relief to
Francis. And then the lover of nature resumed
his journey, moved thereto by the strangest motive.
Orta and its vicinity was too fair, too seductive, to
the eye and the imagination. A man could not keep
the vigour of his soul, with nature smiling so softly
round him. They went on accordingly, " by cities
and castles," say the biographers, with picturesque
brevity; now into a walled and guarded mediaeval
town, not yet enriched with the grand edifices of
that architecture which we call Gothic, passing, with
a crowd after them, into the Piazza, or Square, where
the markets were held, and all the holidays kept —
and where the brethren in their brown gowns stood

76 LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. [chap.
round their leader, as he poured forth addresses,
glowing and burning from his heart, upon the
astonished crov/d ; now toiling up the steep paths
to some great feudal castle, where the men-at-arms
would wonder and perhaps gibe at them, and the idle
fellows in the guard-room turn out to stare, and
my lord come forth with his sword clinking at his
heels, perhaps in the tedium of the evening after a
long, long, blazing Italian day, thankful to inquire
what novelty even this band of beggars might have
brought from Rome. We are told that it was the
unanimity with which one whole castle-full of peni
tent people, lord and lady, officers and retainers,
resolved to follow the preacher and renounce the
world, that startled Francis into the establishment
of his Third Order — an order intended for laymen
and lay-women, and requiring no sacrifice beyond
that of the heart. There is something almost comic
in the midst of the gravity of the situation, in such an
incident — a whole community of people, husbands
and wives and little children, rough soldiers used
to little restraint, gay bower-maidens and pages, and
all the variety of vassals that made up the retinue
of a mediaeval noble, getting up, with tears running
down their dark cheeks, to follow the preacher with
one accord — to go they knew not where, and live
they knew not how. Such a demonstration of
popular enthusiasm must have alarmed Francis
notwithstanding the warmth of his own devotion to
Holy Poverty and the immediate service of Christ.
He was too wise, in his perfect naturalness and
sincerity, to believe it possible that the common uses
of the world could be thus abandoned, and ordinary
duties thrown away. He calmed down his excited
audience by the promise of a Rule to be established

v.] LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. 77

for them, and an Order into which they could enter
without shaking the foundations of heaven and earth ;
and no doubt was glad when he got safely out of
the gates, and found himself with no troop after him
on the road that led to Assisi. A more startHng
incident never befell a preacher. And thus, " by
cities and castles," ^ they made their return journey,
bidding the peace of God to all they met, preaching
wherever opportunity offered, thankfully resting in
any house that was open to them, or in some ruined
church if no other shelter was to be had — travelling
as their Lord travelled, repaying with blessing and
instruction their daily morsel of bread.
When they reached the neighbourhood of their
native town, the twelve brethren, probably without
any premeditation, stopped at a deserted hut, which
seems to have been situated upon the wayside, at a
place called Rivo-Torto, and where they appear to
have remained for some time. Here their food seems
to have consisted, during a considerable part of their
stay, of turnips only, bread having failed in theii daily
quests. But the thatched hovel was at least large
enough to afford to each a certain allotment of the
earthen floor and bare wall on which his name was
written, that he might have a nook to retire into for
prayer, when he would. It was, apparently, while
Hving in this place that the brethren asked from their
leader a form of prayer. They had no ecclesiastical
books out of which to say the canonical hours ; and
it must be remarked that they were untrained lay-

' Castello means a village as well as a castle, and is probably more
often used in the former sense ; but that it sometimes meant the latter
is made clear by the .';tory of the meeting between Francis and Ser
Orlando of Chiusi, at the great stronghold of Montefeltro, which shsJI
be hereafter quoted.

78 LIFE A T THE PORTIUNCULA. [CHAP.

men, not yet accustomed to the elaborate and oft-
repeated services of the clergy. The prayers which
Francis prescribed to them were the Pater Noster
and the prayer Adoramus Te, Christe — "We adore
Thee, O Christ, in all Thy churches which are in all the
world, and we bless Thee because by Thy holy cross
Thou hast redeemed the world." When they saw either,
a church or a cross, however far off, they knelt down
and humbly repeated these two prayers — their liturgy
and entire vocabulary of worship. In this brief and
simple formula we recognize the man whom Bernardo
watched the whole night through, saying nothing but
" My God, my God !" in the ecstasy of his devotion.
The residence of the brethren at Rivo-Torto was cut
short by the brutality of a passing rustic, whose sudden
entrance led Francis to abandon this shelter and
lead his disciples once more to his favourite spot, at
the Portiuncula, where they henceforward fixed their
abode. The little church, with some small surround
ing plot of ground, belonged to the Benedictines of
Monte Subiaco, the Convent of St. Benedict, who be
stowed the poor little scrap of soil, with its abandoned
chapel, upon the man who had, in his poverty, restored
and re-established the ruined sanctuary. We are
told that a kind of quit-rent was long paid for this, in
the shape of a basket of fish called loschi, from an
adjoining stream, which were sent yearly by the
brethren to the great community far away among the
Sabine hills ; but it is clear that the cradle and home
of the Franciscan Order, henceforward as famous as
Monte Subiaco itself v/as as much an alms to Francis
as was the bread which he and his disciples begged
in the streets of Assisi day by day.
The life thus begun is revealed to us in many
simple details, out of which it is not difficult to form

V] LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. 79
a picture. The brethren do not seem to have had
any formal division of their time — so many hours for
study, so many for work, so many for manual labour
— as was the case in the older Orders. They were
to hear mass once a day, if it were possible, as
the Church of Rome exhorts all her children to do ;
but were not bound to special conventual services.
They went and came freely, begging yet bestowing,
giving to any whom they might encounter, who
were as poor as themselves, of that bread of charity
which, to Francis, was as the bread of angels.
Money they were bound not to touch under any con
ditions — not even for the relief of the poor. It would
almost seem as if the first eight disciples, either by
right of special endowments or by the inexperience
of their leader, were all preachers ; but when the
Order consolidated, it was only those who were found
qualified for this office who received the licence of
Francis to preach.
By this time, not much more than three years
from the moment when the pale penitent was hooted
through Assisi amid the derisive shouts of the
people, and driven with blows and curses into con
finement in his own father's house, we find that it
has already become his custom on Sunday to preach
in the cathedral ; and that, from his little convent at
the Portiuncula, Francis has risen into influence in the
whole country, which no doubt by this time was full
of stories of his visit to Rome and intercourse with
the Pope, and all the miraculous dreams and parables
with which that intercourse was attended. Already
the mind of the people, so slow to adopt, but so
ready to become habituated to, anything novel, had
used itself to the sight of the brethren in their brown
gowns, and, leaping from one extreme to the other,

8o LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. [chap.
instead of madmen, learned to consider them saints.
The air about the Httle cloister began to breathe
of miracles — miracles which must have been a matter
of common report among the contemporaries Df the
saint, for Celano wrote within three years of Fran
cis's death. Once, when their leader was absent, a
sudden wonder startled the brethren. It was mid
night between Saturday and Sunday, and Francis,
who had gone to preach at Assisi, was at the moment
praying in the canon's garden. A chariot of fire, all
radiant and shining, suddenly entered the house,
awaking those who lay asleep, and moving to wonder
and awe those who watched, or laboured, or prayed.
It was the heart and thoughts of their leader returning
to them in the midst of his prayer, which were figured
by this appearance. At another time, a passing
minstrel — entering by chance into a church where
Francis was preaching, without knowing him — saw
upon the person of the preacher the Hkeness of two
flaming swords which formed the sign of the cross ;
by means of this vision he was converted, and was
afterwards known as Brother Pacifico — a troubadour-
monk, who lent the aid of his skill to Francis in
the revision of his poems, and went out with him
about the roads and streets singing them, so that the
people wept with deHght and tenderness. What a
strange Httle house must that have been, from which,
sometimes, these two would come forth singing the im
passioned songs, half improvised, half premeditated,
by which Francis gave a beginning to Italian poetry ;
and whence sometimes preachers issued, and some
times beggars, all returning Hke bees to the hive — the
singers with their meed of tears and smiles and popular
enthusiasm ; the preachers with their converts and tales
of sin abandoned, and goods given to the poor ; and the

v.] LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. 8i
caterers of the convent with their alms of bread and
fragments ! " Because they possessed nothing earthly,"
says Bonaventura, employing almost the very words
used by his predecessors, " loved nothing earthly, and
feared to lose nothing earthly, they were secure in all
places : troubled by no fears, distracted by no cares,
they lived, without trouble of mind, waiting without
soHcitude for the coming day, or the night's lodging."
We find many curious little indications of the im
pression made upon the contemporary mind by the
circumstances of their life, in the Fioretti. In every
sketch the popular chronicler gives of the interior
of the convent there is some glimpse of Francis
stealing out into the wood to pray. "The wood," in
this narrative, occupies the position which a secluded
convent-garden — one of those green, peaceful, soberly-
luxuriant places in which the monks pace about
in meditation undisturbed by the world — holds in
other monastic stories. Probably the Portiuncula
had not even such a refuge. There is a little door
which leads to the wood in the little convent, and
from this we constantly see the figure of Francis
emerging, disappearing within the sacred, mysterious
woodland depths. Once it is an inquisitive boy who
reveals it to us — perhaps that very boy of Assisi, of
whom we are told, without any name, that it was
he who had first followed the saint. The child was
seized with a sudden boyish curiosity to know where
Francis went when he stole out in the darkness of
the night from among the sleeping brethren. To
satisfy his curiosity, he made an innocent-cunning
attempt to awake himself when Francis should
rise, intertwining the rope which was his girdle with
that of his master. But, having done this, the sleep
proper to his age overpowered the child ; and when
G

82 LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. [chap.
Francis arose in the dead of night, he found out the
simple artifice, and, gently detaching his girdle, made
his way softly through the sleeping brethren on the
floor around him (for the house was then so small that
they slept in rows), and went out by the Httle door
into the silence and the rustling wood. A short time
after the child awoke, and, emboldened by curiosity,
followed. "Finding the door open which went into the wood, he
followed him there ; and when he was come near to the
place in which Francis prayed, began to hear a great sound
of talking, and approaching closer to see and to hear what
it was, he beheld a wonderful light, which surrounded
Francis, and in that saw Christ, and the Virgin Mary, and
St. John Baptist and the Evangelist, and a great multitude
of angels, who talked with Francis. When the mystery of
this holy appearance presented itself, at the sight and hear
ing of these wonders the boy fell to the ground. When
St. Francis left the spot, he found the child lying in the path
like one dead, and raised him up, putting him upon his
shoulders, as the Good Shepherd does to his sheep. Then,
hearing from him that he had seen this vision, he com
manded him that he should not speak of it as long as he was
alive. This child, afterwards growing in the grace of God and
devotion of St. Francis, became a worthy member of the
Order, and after the death of Francis revealed the vision."
Another time the scene changes, and it is daylight.
But again Francis is in the wood, lost in the inten
sity of devotion. This time it is a stranger, a beautiful
youth in a travelling dress, who comes to the door.
He is in reality an angel, bound on a curious, half-
sarcastic mission to Brother EHas, the future dis
turber of the Order, who, moved by that exaggerated
asceticism which so often is but a cloak for carnal
incHnations, had proposed, against the will and inten
tion of Francis, to debar the brethren from eating
meat. The angel puts his question in an ironical way,

v.] LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. 83
not common, one would suppose, to angels, save in the
strangely matter-of-fact and literal stories of them
current in Italy — but gets no satisfaction from crafty
EHas. What is more to our present purpose than
his question, is the pretty, quaint glimpse into the
conventual economy which Fra Matteo conveys to the
celestial visitant at the convent-door. " The brothers
marvelled much," says the chronicler, " at such an
unusual knocking."
"Fra Matteo opened the door, and said to the youth,
' Whence comest thou, my son ? It appears by thy knock
ing that thou hast never been here before.' The youth
answered, ' How should I knock ?' ' Knock three times,
one after the other,' said Fra Matteo ; ' then wait a space,
that the frati may have time to say a Paternoster and come
to thee ; and if in that interval they come not, knock once
more.' "
Thus the still house comes before us, with the fresh
woods so near, and the Master praying, and the
brothers who say the Paternoster before they lift the
latch. Vain repetition ! let the critic say ; yet where
is the devout soul who in silence and solitude can say
too often, "Our Father, which art in heaven" ?
This angel, who is the sauciest of celestial spirits,
rushes over land and sea the next moment to meet
Fra Bernardo on his travels, and tells him with
what, were he aught but an angel, would be a
humorous twinkle in his bright young eyes, how Fra
Matteo taught him to knock according to the fashion
of the frati, and how Fra Elias was struck dumb, and
could not answer his questions. The chronicler, one
cannot but think, in this instance has unwittingly per
mitted himself to imagine the existence of some
youthful creature in the heavens, not so unlike as he
ought to have been to the mischievous page of earth,
G 2

84 LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. [cHAP.
To return, however, to the Master, whose tender heart
recurred to his disciples in the midst of his own devo
tions, using the heavenly chariots for its spiritual jour
ney — he was also, we are told, by divine grace, cogni
zant of the thoughts which they did not venture to put
into words. A certain Brother Richerio, one of the
humbler members of the community — though, as we
learn from Celano, a man of noble birth — ^had a great
longing for the affection of Francis, and at the
same time entertained one of those timid fancies
which so often accompany love, that for some secret
reason Francis thought badly of him, and did not
at all return his regard. This thought weighed upon
his mind all the more that he seems to have taken
the approbation of Francis as a token of the love of
God. The poor frate went sadly about his usual
occupations, turning over and over, in troubled
musings, the doubt which embittered his life. One
day, as he passed the cell where his leader was
praying, Francis suddenly called him. "Let not
this temptation disturb you, my son," he said, with
his natural cordial tenderness; "be not troubled in
your thoughts, for you are dear to me, and even
among the number of those who are most dear. You
know that you are worthy of my friendship and
society ; therefore come to me, in confidence, whenso
ever you will, and from friendship learn faith." Can
we wonder that the heart of Fra Richerio swelled
within him at this simple address, and that his devout
and tender imagination henceforward attributed to
the brother, who was to him the first of men, an
infallible insight into all the secrets of the soul .'
On another occasion the same insight, miraculous
to the eyes of his simple followers, made Francis
aware that one of the brethren, who had injured his

V] LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. 85

health by excessive fasting, was "so pinched with
hunger" that, on a certain night, he was unable to
sleep. He got up immediately, took some bread,
and, going to the cell of the starving brother, began
to eat, inviting him to share his frugal supper. The
sufferer, thus delivered from the shame of yielding to
his own innocent and natural craving, ate, and was
rescued from that supremacy of bodily sens.ations
which, though few ascetics have confessed it, as often
accompanies extreme abstinence as indulgence. This
truth Francis seems to have perceived for others, if
not for himself He called the brethren together in
the morning, and told them what had passed, recom
mending, it would seem, his own example to their
imitation, that they might thus succour each other
when austerity went beyond due limits ; but also
exhorting them to "follow discretion, which is the
charioteer of all the virtues." The modern reader
will be tempted to think that in both these instances,
as in many others that might be quoted, a miraculous
knowledge of the secrets of the heart was scarcely
necessary ; but to common men, occupied in the first
place with their own affairs, whether temporal or
spiritual, and not consciously entering into the feel
ings of others, is there not always something in the
wonderful insight of sympathy which is miraculous
and divine .'
While he was so gentle with others, however,
Francis was very hard upon himself In the position
which he now occupied, it was necessary for him
not unfrequently to dine at great tables, and eat
with lords and princes. His rule in such cases was
the Gospel rule, "Eat what is set before you;" and he
was very strenuous in urging upon his brethren the
duty of refraining from all blame of others in respect

86 LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. [chap.
to these indulgences. But when he himself was served
with sumptuous fare, he seasoned the meal so as to
take away from it all its pleasantness. With a smile
and gentle jest, " Brother Ash is pure," he sprinkled
ashes on the dainty food, and ate it cheerfully, while
his host, the bishop or the cardinal, and all their
splendid guests, looked on and wondered. Or, lifting
the glass of water by his side, he would pour it over
his plate as he talked, always courteous, omitting no
observance of good manners, and rejecting nothing
that was placed before him. And again the modern
critic may ask, Why 'i But those were the days so
often recurring in the history of the Church, when the
fat priest was the jest of the multitude, and the love of
good eating was supposed to be a special sin of the
cloister, as it has, with or without reason, always been
considered a characteristic reproach of the clergy in
all ages. How the vulgar, rich noble, full of rustic
jests against the monks who " made gude kail on
Fridays when they fasted," must have stared at the
tonsured brother in his brown gown, who made no
parade of abstinence, but sprinkled " Brother Ash "
over his rich food, or deluged it with water, talking all
the while with the cheerful composure of a man who
was but doing what was natural and necessary ! At
other times, however, Francis's self-mortification took
a still more striking form. Celano records that once,
when ill, he had been persuaded to eat some chicken
— an indulgence which weighed upon his conscience
as soon as he recovered. No doubt he represented
to himself with all the graphic force of imagination,
the character he bore in the district, and the faith
with which his neighbours regarded his supposed self-
denial and austerity of life ; and yet to his own con
sciousness he had cared so much for the flesh and

v.] LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. 87
its comforts that he had eaten deHcate food while
many had not even bread ! The result was, that a
new spectacle was provided for the people of Assisi.
They saw Francis appear at their gates with a rope
round his neck, led by a brother, who proclaimed aloud
the crime with which he charged himself " Behold,"
he said, " a glutton who eats the flesh of fowls, though
you know it not." The sight drew tears from the me
diaeval crowd. They saw nothing ludicrous, nothing
exaggerated, in the penance ; but the bold emblem
struck them as words could not have done. " What
idolaters are we," they cried, " who spend our lives in
shedding blood, and are filled, soul and body, with
luxury and drunkenness ! " Thus the too tender,
imaginative conscientiousness and scrupulous honesty
of the poor preacher .startled those primitive souls
with a sudden compunction as if an arrow had struck
them from heaven.
There is but one more incident, and that of a very
different kind, which we may add to these curious
particulars of the life of Francis in this its second
phase. He had renounced all things — not only the lusts
of the flesh, if they had ever existed in him, but also
the tenderer charm of the affections, which were
so much more likely to hold such a spirit fast. He
had given up without hesitation, as would appear, all
the indefinite sweetness of youthful hopes. But,
nevertheless, he was still young, still a man, with
human instincts and wishes, the tenderest nature, and
an imagination full of all the warmth and grace of his
age and his country. It does not appear that he ever
put into words the musings which caught him un
awares — the relics of old dreams or soft recollec
tions which now and then would steal into his heart.
But one night suddenly he rose from the earthen

88 LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. [CHAp
floor which was his bed, and rushed out into the
night in an access of rage and passion and despair.
A certain brother who was praying in his cell,
peering, wondering, through his little window, saw him
heap together seven masses of snow in the clear
moonlight. " Here is thy wife," he said to himself ;
" these four are thy sons and daughters, the other two
are thy servant and thy handmaid ; and for all these
thou art bound to provide. Make haste, then, and
provide clothing for them, lest they perish with cold.
Rut if the care of so many trouble thee, be thou care
ful to serve our Lord alone." Bonaventura, who tells
the story, goes on, vvith the true spirit of a monkish
historian, to state how, "the tempter, being vanquished,
departed, and the holy man returned victorious to
his cell." The piteous human yearning that lies
underneath this wild tale, the sudden access of self-
pity and anger, mixed with a strange attempt, not
less piteous than the longing, at self-consolation — ah
the struggle and conflict of emotion which stilled
themselves, at least for the moment, by that sudden
plunge into the snow, and wild, violent, bodily exer
tion, are cither lost upon the teller of the tale, or per
haps he fears to do his master injustice by revealing
any consciousness of the possibility of such thoughts.
But it is a very remarkable peculiarity of Francis's
history, that whereas every saint in the calendar, from
Antony downwards, is sometimes troubled with visions
of voluptuous delight, only Francis, in his pure
dreams, is tempted by the modest joys of wife and
children — the most legitimate and tenderest love. Did
a recollection cross his mind as he pondered of some
past hope that might have been 1 Did he forget the hard
rule, the universal renunciation, the poverty, to which
>je had bound himself.? Had he, for one sweet, mise-

v.] LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. 89

rable moment, gone back to some old imagination, and
" seen the unborn faces shine beside the never-lighted
fire " } But Francis does not say a word of any
such trial going on in his heart. He diss^ates the
dream by the chill touch of the snow, by stiU Nature
hushing the fiery thoughts, by sudden action, so
violent as to stir the blood in his veins ; and then the
curtain of prayer and silence falls over him, and the
convent-walls close, black, around.
. This story, however, is not to be taken as any
evidence that Francis regretted the renunciation of
the world which he had made. It is evident in every
particular of his Hfe that he did not regret it ; but he
was a man subject to all the tumult of fancy and
thought, like other men ; and the temptations of few
other men, or at least of few other saints, as recorded
in their own legends, have been so spotless and free
from blame.
While all these things were going on, the Order
increased day by day. Wherever the brethren
preached, wherever they had preached from the be
ginning, the universal heart was stirred. Penitents
streamed after them from every region where they
passed. Out of the very violence, and self-seeking,
and intense practical acquisitiveness of the world,
their exaggeration of humility and self-renunciation,
their utter separation from every worldly possibility
of advantage became more and more attractive. It
was no feeble outcry superficially made, no mild
decorous copy of the life outside made within a
convent wall ; but a protestation at once bold and
striking, almost violent, against all the favourite vices
of ordinary existence. And every soul that had kept
silence, and burned with inward fire, to see the in
justice and oppression of which the earth was full,

90 LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. [chap
and every generous heart that had begun to wake to
an aching sense of all the miserable injustices of life,
welcomed with delighted surprise the new-comers,
who were as Christ, going about the world doing good.
They were so bare and denuded of all things amongst
those rustling, silken crowds, so helpless and unpro
tected amid all tyrannies and oppressions, undertaking
voluntarily the hardships of the poorest to comfort
them, yet confronting the richest and most powerful
in all the independence of men who had nothing to
lose. They had but their lives, of all that they
once possessed ; and their lives they were ready to
part with, any day, joyfully for Christ's sake : nay,
looked forward, as to the only glory possible, to that
martyrdom which some sought successfully, but many
in vain. Francis himself as will be hereafter shown,
had this lingering hope in his breast after he had given
up all others — a last infirmity of the noble mind ; but it
is needless to enlarge upon the unlimited capability of
an order of men from whom nothing but their lives
could be taken, and who regarded martyrdom as the
most glorious of hopes.
The first twelve soon grew info a little army; and
as soon as the new members were sufficiently well
known to make apparent any special talents there
might be in them, they were sent forth two and two
into new places, those who could preach being licensed
by Francis, according to the power given him by
Pope Innocent. They followed the evangelical precept
in the strictest literalness. If there was a priest who
would receive them, they went to that priest ; if not,
they asked for the most worthy in the place, and
dwelt with him till they had drawn a Httle band of
new brethren round them, and a habitation had to be
found for yet another community. Their rule of

v.] LIFE AT THE PORTIUNCULA. 91

absolute poverty removed all limitation to the increase
of the Order. With all the other monastic communities,
a certain foundation, however small, was requisite — a
garden and vineyard, at the least — the means of
getting bread. But no such restriction bound the
Franciscans, and their numbers grew on every side.
The Bollandist fathers, after much examination of all
the early records, conclude the first Chapter to have
taken place in the year 12 12 — only six years from
Francis's conversion. This general assembly was, no
doubt, a most necessary refreshment to the brethren,
who had wandered over the face of the country, from
shore to shore, during all the winter and spring. And
henceforward every Pentecost saw the Order re
assemble, at first in little groups, Assisans, Perugians,
neighbours from all the towns of Umbria — but grow
ing daily, until thousands came to camp around the
little convent, and all the lords and chiefs of the
neighbourhood crowded round to gaze at the great
festival. This, however, was the work of years.

CHAPTER VL

THB SECOND ORDER.

In the year 1212, an incident which we can scarcely
record with satisfaction happened in the life of
Francis. To us, with our changed ideas, it is a
matter for the severest censure ; and we presume
that the devoutest Roman Catholic would scarcely,
now-a-days, approve the conduct of any ecclesi
astic who encouraged or aided a young girl of
seventeen to escape from her father's house, even
for the holy purpose of devoting herself to God in
a convent. But in the time of Francis no doubt
had crossed the minds of any that to shut oneself
up in a convent was a holy act ; and after his own
experience, it is probable he was fully convinced that
parental authority in such a case lost all its power,
and that to snatch a young soul out of an evil world
was the. most justifiable of acts. In the town of
Assisi lived a noble family called Scifa, a warlike
race, well known in the surrounding country. The
eldest daughter, Chiara, or Clara, seems to have been
one of those devout, spotless, saintly maidens, separate
from the world from the cradle, who are the predes
tined brides of Christ in Catholic families, and of
whom examples are never wanting along all the
course of history. Her purity, her prayers, her love
for the poor, all the perfection of her young existence

chap. Vl.] THE SECOND ORDER. 93

— a perfection as nearly absolute as we are capable
of imagining, a mixture of saintly innocence with
holiness— had already, when she attained her seven
teenth year, become known to the Httle world around
her. The mother, a pious gentlewoman, careful of all
religious observances, and to whom, according to the
legend, it had been intimated, before Clara's birth,
that her child would be as a light in the world, brought
her up devoutly, and from her earliest age she de
spised the world with all the visionary fervour of one
who was totally unacquainted with it. As she grew
up, the fame of Francis was filling the minds of all
men, and, as was natural, she longed to see, and con
sult about her own spiritual condition, the penitent
whose labours and sacrifices had made so great an
impression upon his contemporaries. Whether this
was done in a clandestine manner from the beginning,
we are not informed : she went to him accompanied
by a friend, says the legend, and he also seems to have
visited her; but her biographer in the Acta Sanctorum
does not hesitate to lay the full responsibility of her
first flight from her home upon Francis, "who ex
horted her to a contempt of the world, and poured
into her ears the sweetness of Christ." " The pious
father," says the historian, " sought to lead Clara
from a world of darkness ; " therefore it is clear that
he cannot be exonerated from the blame ; though it
is very probable that the young penitent had no need
of urging on, and was rather restrained than incited
by the always wise and temperate Francis : a case
most usual with girlish enthusiasts feeling within
themselves the. impulse of a religious vocation.
But the writers of the Acta Sanctoruin regard the
matter quite otherwise than as one involving blame :
they are but too anxious to show fully the part

94 THE SECOND ORDER. [chap.
Francis took in it, evidently considering that the
transaction by which a new saint was procured to
the Church, and a soul saved from the world, is one
of the glories of his life. It was decided between
them, after many conferences, which, if not clan
destine, were certainly not open, and not at all
subject to the opinion of her family, that Palm Sun
day should be the day of Clara's consecration to
God. In the morning she went with all the town to
the Cathedral of Assisi, in the midst of a crowd of
fine ladies in their holiday dresses. She was so shy
and shamefaced in the self-consciousness of youth,
that when the others approached the altar to receive
their palms Clara stayed in her place. No doubt the
act which she was contemplating, the solemnity that
awaited her that very night, and the renunciation she
was about to make, had moved the girl, but seventeen
years old, out of ordinary composure. But the officia
ting priest, to whom no doubt the youthful sanctity of
this lamb of his flock was well known, descended the
steps of the altar and put the palm in her hand. No
doubt it was as a message from God to the young
creature thus trembling on the edge of her fate.
That same night she stole out of her father's
house in the darkness, " with honourable company,"
says her biographer, and made her way down the
hilly road towards the lonely little church of the Por
tiuncula. She was still dressed in her festival finery
with all her pretty maidenly ornaments. At the
door of the church she was met by Francis and the
brethren, bearing lights, probably with the reference
which is always on their lips, to her name : " Clara
nomine, vita clarior, clarissima moribus,"^ says Celano.
' "She was called Clara" (bright or clear), "her life was brighter,
and her character most bright of all."

VI.] THE SECOND ORDER. 95
Here she solemnly gave up "the dregs of Babylon
and a wicked world," put aside her ornaments, had her
long hair cut off, and received from the hands of Fran
cis the rough brown woollen gown and cord which
were to be hereafter all her bravery. It would seem
to have been in the middle of the night that this
ceremonial took place. The little church streaming
Hght out of all its windows into the external black
ness, and the girl with her heart beating, with her long
locks falling under the scissors, among that crowd of
brown-frocked brethren, some one or two wistful
women, servants or dependants, looking on — what a
curious mixture of stealth and solemnity, light and
darkness, there is in this midnight scene ! She had
come in the dark, with her attendants, through the
fresh spring air and the rustle of the silent woods,
escaping Hke a captive from her father's house. She
did not choose, we are told, to use the ordinary door,
but cleared with her own hands one which had been
blocked up by stones and wood — probably a door
unused and partly built up, according to the fashion
of the country, that the living might not pass where
the dead had gone. When the ceremony was over,
and Clara had wrapped her girlish figure in the Fran
ciscan habit, the founder of the Order went out with
her again into the night to conduct her to the nearest
female convent of the Benedictines, where she could
remain with decorum and safety. How strange a
night 1 occupied by these two darkling goings to and
from Assisi, and the wonderful change that had taken
place in the meantime' — from the noble young lady
adorned both by art and nature, to young Sister Clara
with her short hair, leaving her curls and her jewels
(" dregs of Babylon ") behind her on the altar ! There
are few now-a-days who will sympathise with the

96 THE SECOND ORDER. [chaP.
secrecy and stealthiness of the flight, or with the part
Francis played in it. But it would be hard to
refuse a thrill of sympathy to the trembling and
excited girl hurried up and down those gloomy roads
under cover of the night.
Fifteen days after this event, while Clara still re
mained at the Benedictine convent, there occurred a
painful scene, in which, however, Francis does not.
seem to have taken any immediate part. A little
sister, Agnes, some ten or eleven years old, bound to
Clara by that intense, admiring adoration with which
a woman-child so often regards an elder maiden,
took refuge with her in her retirement. The family
had made an ineffectual attempt to recover Clara, but
this second loss was more than they could bear.
Twelve kinsmen, says the story, marched to the
convent-gates to bring back the child, with an amount
of violence very unfit, one would imagine, for the
occasion, and very unlike the demeanour of Christian
knights. But naturally the monkish historian deepens
his shadows whenever he touches upon the secular
world, and saves all his lights for the cloister. The
two girls clung together, wept and prayed in vain ; but
that which entreaties could not effect, the prayers of
Clara miraculously effected. As they carried off the
struggling child down the hill-side, little Agnes
suddenly became as lead in their arms, and all their
united strength could not lift her over a certain
brook that crossed thf=! way. Her uncle, putting forth
his arm to strike the child, says the biographer,
was suddenly stricken himself with violent pain, so
great as to deprive him of all power to stand ; and
the result was that Agnes was left half dead upon
the roadside, while the discomfited kinsmen took
their way home defeated. The child recovered her

VI.] THE SECOND ORDER. 97
strength the moment her face was turned to the
convent — and the sisters were reunited. Thus the
young Clara's commencement of conventual life was
sanctioned by miracle, and her little sister became her
first disciple ; and so, without premeditation, to suit
the necessity of the moment, the second Order of the
followers of Francis came into being.
This was strictly in accordance with the ordinary
usage of monastic orders. All the existing Rules
embraced both men and women, just as every great
religious movement affects both ; but the application
of the new Rule, which was based not only upon
individual but corporate poverty, was still more
hard as applied to women than it was to men. The
brides of Christ were cloistered, and unable to go out
and beg their daily bread, as were their brethren ; for
religious fervour, even at its highest pitch, had not
yet conceived the possibility of a young and beautiful
girl Hke Clara going forth publicly to serve the world,
and receive from it her humble subsistence. Even
Francis, who had so far changed the character of
monasticism as to realize the necessity of living, not for
himself and his own salvation, but for the succour and
salvation of others, had not the boldness to apply this
new principle to the young convert whom he had
received under his shadow. To Clara and her sisters
was given the passive part : theirs it was to support the
brethren by their prayers, to stand by and watch, and
offer the sacrifice of all things, spending their time in
supplications for a world which did not pray for itself,
as the brethren spent their lives and strength in
preaching and active succour. The women waited, like
Elijah, till God should send some raven with the
daily morsel which kept them alive to continue their
prayers. H

98 THE SECOND ORDER. [chap.
This theory is one which has altogether died
out in Protestant nations. We have all learned
for generations to take it for granted that the life of
the convent was a cowardly running away from the
perils of ordinary existence — a compulsory innocence,
if not an hypocrisy. But very different was the
intention of Francis ; very different the meaning
with which Clara in her youth gave up the world.
That sacrifice of all pleasantness, comfort, and enjoy
ment, — that giving up of love and friends, — that
volimtary beggary and renunciation, — was to them the
renewed and continual offering upon the altar for the
sins of the world. It was Christ's sacrifice over again ;
not like His one grand redemption, but yet a type after,
not before, the event — a repetition, in more precious
flesh and blood, of the spotless lambs offered by
Israel, which all pointed to the Lamb to come. Clara,
too, bent her young head, and annihilated herself
that the world might remember how He made of
Himself the one effectual offering. That world took
so little heed of its redemption, it was meet that
here and there should be some spotless creature
taking heed of nothing else for its sake. And how
many men and women, for whom Christ died, were
there not only in the world, but even about Assisi,
who never prayed for themselves ! therefore must the
poor recluse spend all her life in prayer, weep till she
was well-nigh blind, fast till life in her was weakened
to the last possibility of existence. Such was the
theory of the convent — the soul and essence of the
Franciscan Rule : a life like Christ's in the world,
not of the world, but yet for the love of the world,
enduring all things that men might be saved ; — those
who could work working, like Him, to save the perish
ing; those who could but pray, praying like Him,

VI.] THE SECOND ORDER. 99

interceding, pleading, rapt in that ecstasy of com
munion which wants no words ; and both the workers
and the supplicants suffering Hke Him, giving up their
own will like Him, subjecting everything, as He did,
to the will of God and the benefit of men. As Job
offered sacrifices while his children feasted, lest they
should have sinned, so the nuns and the friars
fasted and prayed while the noisy world went on
its way fighting and feasting around them. They
might be wrong, even in their first fervour, — for what
man can save his brother, — or who, except the all-
pure, the Son of God Himself, is in a position to
offer offerings for his fellow-men .¦' — but the error, if it
was an error, was at least a sublime one, nobler and
loftier, and full of a higher meaning, than all the
wisdom of the world.
After an interval of waiting among the Benedic
tines, Clara removed to St. Damian — the church
which Francis had first repaired, and which is so
closely woven in with his early history — and there
lived all the remainder of her life, forty-two years,
first abbess of the new Order, and, under him, its foun
dress. This second branch of the great Franciscan
community has been in later days called by her name.
The nuns were at first entitled the Poor Ladies of St.
Damian ; but the title of Poor Clares, or Clarisses, has
been more universal. They grew into greatness along
with the elder Order, and drew queens and princes
within their humble cloister ; but have decayed with
the decay of their brethren. However, the story of
the Poor Clares, as of the Franciscan friars, belongs
to a later period, and cannot be entered upon here.
This was the beginning of one of those tender and
touching friendships which are to the student of his
tory like green spots in the desert ; and which gave
H 2

.OO THE SECOND ORDER. [chap.
to the man and the woman thus voluntarily separated
from all the joys of life a certain human consolation
in the midst of their hardships. They can have
seen each other but seldom, for it was one of the
express stipulations of the Franciscan Rule that the
friars should refrain from all society with women, and
have only the most sparing and reserved intercourse
even with their sisters in religion. And Francis was
no priest, nor had he the privilege of hearing confession
and directing the spiritual life of his daughter in the
faith. But he sent to her to ask enlightenment from
her prayers, when any difficulty was in his way. He
went to see her when he was in trouble ; specially
once on his way to Rieti to have an operation per
formed on his eyes. Once the two friends ate together
at a sacramental meal, the pledge and almost the
conclusion on earth of that tenderest, most disin
terested, and unworldly love which existed between
them. That he was sure of her sympathy in all
things, of her prayers and spiritual aid, whatsoever he
might be doing, wheresoever he might be, no doubt
was sweet to Francis in all his labours and trials.
As he walked many a weary day past that church
of St. Damian, every stone of which was familiar to
him, and many laid with his own hands, must not his
heart have warmed at thought of the sister within,
safe from all conflict with the world, upon whose
fellow-feeling he could rely absolutely as man can rely
only on woman .' The world has jeered at the possi-
biHty of such friendships from its earHest age ; and
yet they have always existed — one of the most ex
quisite and delicate of earthly ties. Gazing back
into that far distance over the graves, not only of those
two friends, but of a hundred succeeding generarions,
a tear of grateful sympathy comes into the student's

VI.] THE SECOND ORDER. loi
eye. He is glad to believe that, all those years,
Francis could see in his comings and goings the
cloister of Clara ; and that this sacred gleam of
human fellowship, — love purified of all self-seeking, —
tender, visionary, celestial affection, sweetened their
solitary lives.

CHAPTER VII.

The year 12 12 had been a most eventful one in the
life of Francis. He had been able to recognize and
identify his Order as rapidly rising in importance,
sanctioned by the Pope, though as yet only verbally,
and attracting the sympathy and attention of the
general Church. His bishop, the Cardinal di San Paolo,
and other great ecclesiastics had been moved by the
truth and fervour of the man to recognize in him one
of those born Reformers who arise now and then in the
world. Sister Clara, at St. Damian, and the brethren
scattered through all the towns of Umbria, were
extending the Order on every side. The common
mass of his countrymen were beginning to be pene
trated by that quickening influence which, for want
of a better title, we call a religious revival ; and in all
likelihood, though the rule of the third Order was not
established for many years after, the feeling which
made it necessary had already come into being.
Francis had to some degree attained what he had
striven after. The first chapter of his monastic Hfe
was, as it were, accompHshed. His first great difficul
ties were over; and the community, even were he
taken away from it, was strong enough and sufficiently
well organized to stand by itself In these circum
stances it was not of rest that he thought. He felt

chap. VII.] PROGRESS. 103
himself free to indulge a longing which had been
in his mind all these years. Now that he had done
something for his Master in the world, had preached,
and toiled, and spent himself like his Master, for the
benefit of men — might it not be permitted to him to
die like his Master, shedding his blood, not involun
tarily, but willingly for Christ and mankind. He was
thirty years old, drawing near the age at which our
Lord had sacrificed His perfect life ; and what if
His humble servant might in this also imitate Him .¦"
It is easy to imagine the fond reasoning, half
sublime, half foolish, with which he pursued the
analogy. It was not, as with St. Paul, better for the
Church that he should remain ; for had not he set all
things in order, appointed the Guardian for his
convent, and a substitute for himself? He had
placed Clara in safety ; he had no longer any personal
affairs to restrain him ; and now what hindered
that he should follow in the path of the Crusaders,
carrying not, like them, war and sword, but his cross
and his message of peace from God and goodwill
to men .¦¦
So far as we can discover, the community made no
appeal against this resolution. It was, indeed, too
solemn a matter to be opposed by the obedient
brethren ; and, as his original companions were by
this time spread over the country, preaching in
different places, it is probable that he was not even
exposed to the pain of many partings from his closest
and most attached friends. One went with him,
whose name is. not told us. They set sail most Hkely
from some port of the Adriatic, intending to go to
Syria, but were driven by stress of weather upon the
opposite shore, upon that coast of lUyria on which
Shakspeare lands his shipwrecked maiden : it is

104 PROGRESS. [chap.
called Sclavonia by the biographers of Francis. Here
the pilgrims were left for some time, waiting the
sailing of a vessel for Syria ; but finding that no ship
would leave Illyria that year for the East, and hoping
to find more speedy means of making the voyage
could he but reach Ancona, Francis endeavoured to
get a passage in a vessel bound for that port. He
was refused for want of money, not having enough to
keep himself and his companion alive on the way.
Having confidence, however, as we are told, in the
providence of God, the two poor friars hid themselves
among the cargo, fearing no hardship for themselves,
and not apparently taking into account the possibility
of increasing the hardships of others by diminishing
the scanty provisions of the crew. What might have
been the result of this clandestine addition of two
mouths to the number who had to be fed daily in the
poor little coasting-vessel, it is impossible to tell, had
not a semi-miraculous provision been made, which
turned the burden into a benefit. A certain worthy
man, who, it may be supposed, had been converted by
the preaching of Francis, came down secretly to the
ship, and placed a supply of provisions for the use of
the poor brethren in the charge of one of the sailors,
who was also a man fearing God. The voyage was
again a lengthened and troublesome one ; and as the
ship's stores were exhausted, the charitable supply
thus provided for the wandering missionaries sustained
the whole crew, when, after much labour in rowing,
they at length drew near the Italian shore. The
spring, probably, was so far advanced by this time,
that Francis thought it expedient to postpone his
further journey until after the general Pentecostal
Chapter, at which it is evident his presence was
important. And accordingly, instead of taking ship

VII.] PROGRESS. 105
from Ancona, he and his companion returned to
Assisi, paying on the way a visit to Rome. He is
supposed at this time to have formed a friendship,
which lasted all his life, with a noble Roman lady,
called Giacobba di Settisoli. And, as he went and
came from Ancona to Rome, from Rome to Assisi,
through all the populous towns of Central Italy, he
preached everywhere, rousing the slumbrous or pre
occupied, with his strange humility of appearance and
burning earnestness of utterance. We are told it was
a year in which the Order made much progress ; many
nobles and learned men, as well as simple towns
folk, giving up everything to enrol themselves among
the Brothers Minor, the humblest of God's servants.
The early biographers are, except in a few special
instances, quite regardless of chronology ; and it is
only from the careful and minute examination made
by the critical Bollandist, who arranges and collates
their different works, that we are enabled to form a
consistent thread of time and date. According to
this learned authority, it was after presiding over the
second general Chapter of the Order, for which he had
specially returned from Ancona, that Francis set out
again upon his travels. Perhaps he had been dis
couraged by the difficulties in the way ; perhaps some
vicissitude in the course of the Crusades, more im
portant to contemporaries than to history, prevented
him at the moment from carrying out his original
intention. But anyhow he changed his destination,
though not the meaning of his journey. The idea
which now filled his mind was to go to Morocco, in
Africa, finally ; but, in the meantime, to Spain, on a
mission to the Moors, who then held so much Spanish
territory, and kept the Christian inhabitants in per
petual conflict. It is impossible to tell what incident

io6 PROGRESS. [chap.

in his unrelated story may have suggested this new
idea to the mind of Francis. Perhaps some Spaniard
among his increasing followers had brought before
him, with the force of an eye-witness, some striking
particulars of the struggle ; or a thrill of noble
impatience with the miserable and long-continued
warfare which absorbed the strength of a great nation,
and made it comparatively useless in Christendom,
had moved his generous, visionary soul. At all events,
with a curious evangelical romanticism (if we may
use the word), he determined to set out for Spain, to
preach to the Miramolin, the sovereign of the Moors,
and to follow him, if needful, into his own country.
Perhaps something of the self-confidence of a successful
preacher, the inevitable belief in his own eloquence,
which the humblest of men could scarcely exclude
altogether from his mind after such experience as
his, mingled with his desire for martyrdom; but,
at all events, he was ready to risk martyrdom in
whatsoever shape it might approach him.
It is uncertain, and a matter of great difficulty to
our Bollandist to decide, whether he went by sea or
land, though the latter would seem the most likely ;
for legendary traces abound of some missionary ex
pedition of his through Lombardy and Piedmont,
and parts of France, which is more likely to have
occurred at this time than at any other. He went
chiefly on foot, though sometimes, in his fatigue,
he would mount an ass or mule to shorten the
laborious way; and preached wherever he went,
making slow progress, and delayed by perpetual
attacks of fever, with which, it is said, he had been
afflicted before leaving home. He was so eager for
his work, so " drunk in spirit " with missionary zeal
and earnestness, his biographers say, that as he

VII.] PROGRESS. 107
trudged along by coast and mountain, he would push
on before, unconsciously outstripping the brother who
was his companion. Perhaps in the silence, as he wan
dered on, his eager soul foresaw the possibility of so
working upon the hearts of the Moors, as to induce
them to abandon their long struggle with Spain, and
give peace to that distracted country ; for to the simple
und visionary mind at all times, and how much more in
the thirteenth century, such a sudden departure from
long-cherished policy and purpose was not even un
likely, any more than any other miracle ; or perhaps
the thought of sealing his own confession upon the
point of a Moorish lance gave him a certain feverish
impetuosity. According to tradition, he made a pil
grimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella,
travelled into Lusitania, and traversed the whole
kingdom of Arragon , though of all this there is no
certain information, but only the warrant of legend.
One thing sure, however, is that he never reached
the Moors, but, driven back by illness, losing the
time in which he could work, and called at length
by the approach of another Chapter at the Portiun
cula, once more returned home, it would appear in
the spring of the year 12 14, to the charge of his
original flock and the cares of the Order.
These two aimless journeys break in somewhat
strangely upon the current of his life ; but it is neces
sary to remember that such journeys were, in reality,
the grand object of the Brotherhood ; that all the
other preachers of the Order were, like Francis, dis
persed abroad upon missionary expeditions, though
he, as their leader, was the first to penetrate into the
world outside the bounds of Italy ; and that though
he did not achieve, in either case, the final object of his
mission, yet that, without doubt, its secondary object —

io8 PROGRESS. [chap.
that of preaching by the way wherever he went, and
sowing everywhere the seeds of truth — an object
much more important than any visionary mission to
the Moors — was fully accomplished. It was not
Francis only who hastened home across the Alpine
heights, as quickly as fever, and weakness, and daily
privations would let him ; but all the other pairs of
brown-robed brethren, walking, as Dante tells us, one
behind and one before, in a silence full of thought
and prayer, gathered in from all the Italian coasts,
from the borders of adjacent countries, to the little
centre on the slopes of Apennine. None of the
rest seem, as yet, to have gone so far as their leader
had done : he was the pioneer, treading first the
dangerous way. But from their shorter journeys,
from all the length and breadth of Italy, with converts
and news of converts, and many an experience to
add to the growing story, they came back to the hive
which had sent them forth.
It would appear to have been about this time that
Francis made the acquaintance of the Cardinal
Ugolino, Bishop of Ostia, who became afterwards
the first protector of the Order. He was the Pope's
legate in Florence, where, if we may exercise our own
judgment in the midst of all the uncertainty of dates,
and the still greater uncertainty of criticism, Francis
had gone with the intention of making a second
journey into Gaul, after the Chapter of 12 14, for which
he had returned. The Cardinal — who had heard a
great deal of him, and who probably had seen with in
terest the visionary Spouse of Poverty, when, five years
before, he made his sudden appearance before Pope
Innocent to ask the Papal authority for his Order-
received him now with joy, and offered his protection
and counsel in everything that Francis might desire,

Vll.] PROGRESS. 109
asking in return the prayers of the brethren. That this
gracious offer of friendship (for Ugolino stood in the
very first rank of ecclesiastical eminence, the nephew
of Pope Innocent, and himself in his turn destined to
fill the Holy See) should be met with full confidence
on the side of the humble leader of the Minors, is
very natural. And it is evident that the full sympathy
without which no friendship can last, existed between
these two, so unlike in circumstances — the prince of
the Church in his Florentine palace, invested with an
authority and influence greater than that of any
imperial ambassador, and the barefooted, unlearned,
penniless Francis, worn by sickness and toil. The
Rule of the Order was still formally unconfirmed, and
nothing can be more probable than that UgoHno
counselled his friend, instead of setting out again
upon journeys which reduced his strength to the last
degree, and put his life in peril, to remain in Italy,
and set his mind to the legal establishment of his
Order — a matter more fundamentally important than
the missionary work, which he could trust to his
brethren. A council was to be held in Rome in the
following year, the fourth great Lateran Council, and
no better opportunity could be for the final settle
ment of this important piece of business. Only
Francis in his own person could do this — while Ber
nard, and Philip, and Elias, and Egidio, and many more
besides, could carry on the missionary work, going
further and further afield in their zeal and obedience,
and bringing back, Pentecost after Pentecost, tidings
of their labours and success. We can but believe
that Francis yielded to this or similar reasoning, for
it is certain that for some years after he remained in
Italy. The next Pentecost after the beginning of
this friendship, Cardinal Ugolino went out to the Httle

PROGRESS. [chap.

monastery to celebrate with them their yearly festival.
He was met by the brethren in procession, and con
ducted to the church, where he preached a sermon to
the assembled Chapter, and celebrated Mass — Francis,
in his humility, who was no priest nor thought himself
worthy to touch the sacred mysteries, chanting the
gospel. Thus the friendship was sealed ; and it
continued unbroken until death made that breach
which, let us trust, is but a temporary interruption
to bonds which are in reality beyond its power.
In the next year occurred the fourth great Lateran
Council. It was one of the last public events in the
life of the great Pope Innocent ; and here for a time
met, or at least were visible in the same place and
almost in the same circumstances, the two men who, be
yond all others then living in Christendom, were most
important in the history of Christianity — Francis, the
apostle of Italy, and a Spanish priest called Dominic
Gonzago, who had just come from Spain possessed by
an equal enthusiasm for the cause of Christ and the
salvation of man. The appearance of two such men in
the same sphere at one and the same moment, was of
itself enough to signalize a great era. We who, with
all the enlightenment of six additional centuries, can
look back and see the Inquisition grimly shadowing
from under the robes of the Spanish priest, and hordes
of mendicant friars, privileged and impudent beggars,
appearing behind the genial countenance of Francis,
may perceive how much of evil mixed with the good,
and how the enemy of all truth had cunningly
mixed the seed of the tares with that of the wheat.
But in their own day, while the first fervour of theif
mission was upon them, the man would have been
forecasting indeed who could have seen anything but
good in the apostolic zeal of Dominic and of Francis.

VII.] PROGRESS.

We have no space to spare for any narrative of
the labours of the Spaniard, who was a man of learn
ing as well as of zeal, and who in the cloisters of
Castile had been seized with an inspiration similar to,
yet differing from, that of the prophet of Assisi. He
too aimed at spreading a profounder knowledge of the
truth through the world by means of preaching ; but
the preaching was different, the spirit different — as
different as the instincts of the subtle, polemical,
ecclesiastical mind are from the spontaneous move
ments of the simple lover of God and man.
The preaching of Francis and his brethren was
purely evangelical ; they carried the peace of God,
the love of God, the mysterious and awful story of the
Passion, with its results of universal pardon and re
mission of sins, to all the homely folk immersed in
ordinary business, who had little time to spare for
niceties of doctrine. But the Dominicans from the
beginning were armed with theological sword and
shield : they were the dogs of the Church (Domini-
cani, the Lord's watch-dogs, according to the play upon
words so common among monkish writers) fighting
the heretical wolves, and her guard of defence to drive
off all assault of evil doctrine. Both these extra
ordinary men, the one in his ragged tunic, clad like
the shepherds in the fields, the other in the dignified
costume of a priest, met each other in the narrow
Roman streets, and mounted together the steps of the
Lateran, but, so far as can be made out, were not
positively known to each other until the following year.
The errand of Dominic to the Council was to seek the
necessary permission for founding a new Order;
that of Francis, to obtain some sort of formal recogni
tion of the order already verbally approved by Pope
Innocent in the year 1209. Ere either of these

112 PROGRESS. [chap.
applicants appeared before the Council, a resolution
had been come to by the assembled fathers that no
new religious Rule was now to be instituted ; but that
any one desirous of founding a new Order should
be commanded to choose among the Rules already
in existence. Dominic was sent back to his disciples
in Spain with this command. But Francis held a
different position. His Rule had been already ap
proved, and had, since its first promulgation, proved
itself in the only satisfactory way, by gathering to
itself many adherents, and by efl'ecting real work in
the world ; and the Pope, when he first received him,
six years before, had authorized him to return again,
"When God has multiplied you in numbers and
grace," he had said, according to Celano," come back
to me with joy, and I will grant to you greater things."
It is clear, too, that at their first meeting Innocent
had been moved by the evangelical simplicity and
fervour of the man who accepted the life and example
of Christ as his most literal rule ; and Francis had the
friendship of Ugolino to back him, and that of his first
friend, the Cardinal di San Paolo ; and had laboured
in Italy, under the eyes of the Roman court, where his
sanctity and earnestness, as well as the growing success
of his work, could not fail of appreciation. We are
told, accordingly, though not by the early biographers,
yet by several chroniclers of a proximate date — evi
dence which the critical and careful Bollandist thinks
worthy of credit — that the Rule of the Frati Minores
was publicly sanctioned by Innocent at this council.
It was not even now confirmed by a Bull, as was after
wards done by Innocent's successor. But a public
sanction was given, with the consent of the assembled
fathers ; a recognition which sufficed for the complete
establishment of the Order in Italy at least, though not

VII.] PROGRESS. 113
as becomes afterwards apparent in the more distant
regions, which were out of reach and immediate com
munication with Rome.
The Chapter held at the ensuing Pentecost, which
fell in the month of June, was the first for which
letters of convocation had to be sent forth. This is
of itself a sign of the increase of the Order. Up to
this time, the brethren had been sufficiently few in
number to return periodically from their labours with
the ease of children coming home ; but now strangers,
nobles and learned men, had come into the brother
hood. New communities had begun to rise in distant
places, and from the Httle Portiuncula the summons
went forth with a certain novel, simple dignity. It
is probable that Cardinal Ugolino was present at this
as at many other Chapters of the Order, giving it his
countenance ; and by this time, no doubt, something
of the excitement which a few years later moved the
whole surrounding country in respect to the yearly
assembly had come into existence. It was a time
of jubilee : there was the Papal sanction, for the
first time pubHcly proclaimed, to make glad the
hearts of the brethren. The Order had grown : a
promise of greatness and progress was in the very
air. And the brethren in their poverty, and amid all
their toils and trials and the hard Hfe habitual to
them, must have paused with a sudden, unusual
gleam of human content, and ate their bread, which
was the alms of the faithful, with thankful hearts, and
looked after a year's interval upon the familiar faces,
under that genial Italian sky, which made it almost
pleasant to sleep upon the bare turf with a cool
stone for a pillow. Their hardships would scarcely
count as hardships at such a moment. To the
elder brethren the sweet sense of home-coming and
I

114 PROGRESS. [chap.
rest, and the pleasure of reunion, must have gone
far to make up for many of the bitternesses of the
way ; and to the new converts there was the flush
of early enthusiasm, the joy of seeing and sharing
in the counsels of the founder, and learning all the
details, so interesting to members of any society,
of its first origin and early struggles. There was
no talk of secular business among them, says the
simple record ; and as Francis passed from group to
group, it was to utter the simplest friendly counsel,
the tenderest words of encouragement. They had hard
work and leagues of weary journeys before them ; they
had to encounter the flouts and scorn and angry oppo
sition of many ; they had to strive against the weari
ness and disgusts of the flesh; but it is easy to
imagine that, at such a moment of rest, the toil would
seem easy, and the recompense more and more sweet.
It is supposed to be in the following year that
Dominic and Francis met. Their meeting, however,
is not referred to in the early biographies of
Francis, but only in those of his great contemporary.
There we are told that Dominic, praying in a church
in Rome, saw, in a vision, our Lord rise from the right
hand of the Father in wrath, wearied at last with the
contradiction of sinners, with a terrible aspect and
three lances in his hand, each one of which was to
destroy from the face of the earth a distinct class of
offenders. But while the dreamer gazed at this awful
spectacle, the Virgin Mother arose and pleaded for the
world, declaring that she had two faithful servants
whom she was about to send into it to bring sinners
to the feet of the Saviour ; one of these was Dominic
himself; the other was a poor man, meanly clad, whom
he had never seen before. This vision came to the
devout Spaniard, according to the legend, during the

VII.] PROGRESS. 115
night which he spent, as he was wont, in a church,
in prayer. Next morning, while he mused on the
dream which had been sent to him, his eye fell all at
once upon a stranger in a brown tunic, of aspect as
humble and modest as his garb, coming into the same
church to pray. Dominic at once ran to him, fell on
his neck, and, saluting him with a kiss, cried, " Thou
art my companion : thy work and mine is the same.
If we stand by each other, nothing can prevail against
us." " And they were made one heart and one soul
in the Lord," writes the chronicler. We are by this
time so painfully enlightened as to the after-history
of the Dominicans and Franciscans and their quarrels,
that this story comes to us Hke the bit of special
pleading which it is possible it was. Perhaps some
brother, wiser than the rest, by some pious amplifica
tion of details or embodiment of the suggestion con
veyed in the mere fact of their meeting, framed this
account of a friendship, miraculous and everlasting, be
tween the two apostles, such as might touch the hearts
of the multitudes who bore their respective names. In
the nineteenth century, it is our temptation to explain
everything wonderful in this way. But yet the two
were God's instruments to work a very great and real
reformation in the world, and to quicken true religion
over a great part of Christendom ; and such a dream
embodies like a parable their office and mutual rela
tions. Dominic, as we shall see later, is reported in
the Fioretti to have been present at a great Chapter
of the Minors a few years later, where his admiration
of and friendship for, his brother in arms were ex
pressed in enthusiastic terms.
This is the only public incident which we can glean
out of the silent years between 12 14 and f 219, during
which time Francis remained in Italy. The narrative
I 2

ii6 PROGRESS. [chap.
is, however, rich with a hundred beautiful legendary
stories of his tender-heartedness and warm, natural
eloquence — the kindness, humanity, and beautiful
courtesy of his character. These are heaped upon us
without any attempt at chronology. And we must
treat them in the same fashion, offering them to the
reader in a mass, with all the beautiful evidences of
character that appear in them, and all the more vulgar
amplitude of miracle. Of Francis, as of many other
mediaeval saints, it is safe to say that his miracles must
have exceeded in number a hundredfold the miracles
of Scripture, and that indeed the mind of his time was
disappointed if the saint took any journey, or made
any movement, without some marvellous issue. His
hair, the worn-out rope he had used as a girdle, the
bit of paper on which he had written a devotional
sentence, all were as potent as his own word or touch,
and did whatever it was required they sliould do, from
comforting a troubled mind to repairing a broken
wall. The hasty critic wbo looks at the man across
all these centuries through the mist and maze of pro
digy that surrounds him, is apt to turn away with a
certain contempt, as if our saint were as fabulous as no
doubt many of these stories are, or as if Francis him
self had given them forth, and rested his claims to
our consideration upon so shadowy and common-place
a basis. But nothing can be further from the truth
than this superficial conception. It was impossible, in
that primitive age, to dissociate the idea of miracle
from that of special sanctity; but the brethren of
Francis, his Three Companions, men trained in his
own manner of thought, and accustomed to his ways,
tell us, as we have seen, in the very preface of their
work, that they will not be content to narrate
miracles only, since miracles " do not make holiness.

vii.] PROGRESS. 117
but only display it." We have refrained, up to
this moment, from quoting the wonders which have
grown around his life ; but to omit them would be to
leave out the most characteristic aspect of his time.
And we trust the reader is sufficiently in sympathy
with the simple, tender, heroic, visionary, yet literal
nature of the man to see how naturally these legends
have developed, in some cases, out of his own excep
tionally sympathetic character, and how in others
there is a hidden soul of meaning such as the vulgar
miss, yet are vaguely moved by, without knowing
why. We pause accordingly in the thread of history
to open as far as we are able the narrow convent
doors, and pull aside the branches in the wood still
heavy with dew, and clear the mist of ages from
those mountain roads and historic cities, which Francis
traversed, where he lived, and where he prayed.

CHAPTER VIII.

MIRACLES AND WONDERS.

The first thing to be considered in this curious aspect
of the Hfe of Francis is his own character. It may
be said that the healing of the sick, and many other of
the miraculous acts imputed to him, are precisely such
as are imputed to all saints, without an attempt at any
special characteristic distinction; but, on further investi
gation, there will be seen to be a certain individuality
possessed by few others in the story of his "acts.'' He
was a man overflowing with sympathy for man and
beast — for God's creatures — wherever and howsoever
he encountered them. Not only was every man his
brother, but every animal — the sheep in the fields,
the birds in the branches, the brother-ass on which hc
rode, the sister-bees who took refuge in his kind pro
tection. He was the friend of everything that suffered
or rejoiced ; no emotion went beyond his sympathy ;
his heart rose to see the gladness of nature, and
melted over the distresses of the smallest and meanest
creature on the face of the earth. And by this
divine right of nature, everything trusted in him.
The magnetism of the heart, that power which nobody
can define, but which it is impossible to ignore, sur
rounded him Hke a special atmosphere. That sense
o.f security and sympathy which, we all acknowledge,
draws the nobler domestic animals, horses and dogs, to

CH. vm.] MIRACLES AND WONDERS. 119
those who like them, embraced with Francis a wider
circle, for he loved everything that had life —
" He prayeth best who loveth best
AU things both great and small ;
For the dear God who loveth us.
He made and loveth all."
Such was the unconscious creed of the prophet of
Assisi, and there cannot be any doubt that he must
have possessed in an almost unexampled degree the
power of attracting all creatures to him. That there
are real possessors of such a gift, without any claim
to miraculous influence, is certain. For example,
Madame Sand, one of the most famous of living
French authors, declares herself to possess this power
over birds, and describes it as hereditary in her family ;
while there are also well-known instances of power
over horses, and over wild beasts of almost every de
scription. With Francis the sympathetic power was
universal : he meant no harm on his own part, and
had none of that timidity which most of us are
moved by in the presence of the most timid of God's
creatures — that fear that they must misapprehend our
intentions and set us down as enemies in disguise,
which makes our steps stealthy, and our movements
treacherous, among the Httle birds and wild creatures
of the woods and fields. We cannot divest ourselves
of the feeling that they must suspect us. But Francis
had no such feeling ; his sense of brotherhood was
real, not fictitious ; he had the courage of good inten
tion, feared nothing, and was not feared. It is difficult
to know where to begin in the many stories of this
description. We can but select at hazard some of
those which are the most significant of the sympathetic
mind, open to all the influences of nature, with which we
have to deal. Here is an oft-repeated incident : —

MIRACLES AND WONDERS. [CHAP.

" The blessed Francis, returning from beyond the sea, was
travelling through the marches of Venice, and heard a vast
multitude of birds singing among the bushes. And when
he saw them he said to his companions, ' Our sisters, the
birds, are praising their Maker. Let us then go into their
midst and sing to the Lord the Canonical Hours.' And
when they had gone into their midst the birds moved
not from the place; but as on account of their chirping
and twittering the brethren were not able to hear each
other, the holy man tumed to the birds and said — ' Sisters,
cease your song until we have rendered our bounden praise
to God.' And they at once were silent, and when the
praises were finished resumed their song."

On another occasion, when he was preaching in the
town of Alvia, the swallows, with their perpetual
twittering, incommoded the audience. Francis had
gone up to a high piece of ground, that he might be
seen by all, and had asked for silence from the
assembled people. But the birds were flitting all
about in airy circles, making their nests, chirping and
calling to each other overhead in the blue heaven of
the Italian sky. When it became apparent that these
sweet disturbers of the peace prevented their human
companions from hearing the word of God, the
preacher tumed and courteously saluted the Httle
nest-builders. " My sisters," he said, " it is now time
that I should speak. Since you have had your say,
listen now in your turn to the word of God, and be
silent till the sermon is finished." It is needless to
add that he was perfectly obeyed. The scene is one
to charm a painter : — the Httle piazza of the town
among the hills ; the exquisite spring of Italy moving
all hearts ; the silent groups all about, watching every
movement of the far-famed saint ; and the swallows in
their circles skimming over all those dark, earnest
faces, touching the cathedral roof the cjuaint houses,

vm.] MIRACLES AND WONDERS. 121
every point of vantage, filling the soft air with the
twitter of life and movement. If it is hard to our
nineteenth-century imagination to realize their abso
lute obedience to his request, it is not hard to realize
at least the outward setting of the scene, nor to acknow
ledge that by times the birds are silent, as if by mutual
consent, and that, be it by the absorbed attention of
the bystanders, be it by the force of strong emotion,
setting aside all external sounds and sights, such
moments of stillness in the midst of the glow and
glory of a shining day are within the consciousness
of all.
Other evidences of the sense of safety which the
very presence of so holy and kind a soul diffused
around him abound in the early biographies. One day,
at the village of Gubbio, a live leveret was brought
to him, probably as part of his day's provision.
When he saw the Httle creature, his gentle heart was
moved to pity. " Little brother leveret, come to me,"
he said. " Why hast thou let thyself be taken ?" The
trembling animal immediately escaped out of the hands
of the brother who held it, and fled to Francis, taking
refuge in the folds of his gown. From this shelter he
disentangled it, set it free on the ground, and, with
quaint formality, gave it leave to depart ; but it
returned to its protector, nestling to him, until he sent
it tenderly away, by the hands of the astonished
brother who had brought it, into the adjoining wood.
The same story is told of a wild rabbit which took
refuge with him in an island on the lake of Perugia.
" It still returned into the father's bosom, as if it had
some hidden sense of the pitifulness of his heart," says
the poetic narrative of Bonaventura. Such stories as
these are evidences at least of the popular wonder and
admiration for a tender-heartedness Httle common to

122 MIRACLES AND WONDERS. [chap.
the time ; and it is not difficult to imagine how great
an effect this universal, all-reaching, all-considering
sympathy must have had on a cruel primitive age,
used to slaughter and destruction on all sides, careless
of life, or blood, or suffering. In this, as in other
matters, Francis was a sign to his time.
But there is another sentiment, still more beautiful
and touching, which breathes through many of these
quaint miraculous tales. It is the noble conception
of a redeemed world, a universe all pervaded by the
sense of the Creator's presence and the Saviour's
love. Men then, as now, were sadly unsatisfactory
beings to have had so much love and care lavished
upon them ; and the visionaries of that rude age
were as children — full of sweet unspeakable fancies,
and that strange power of inspiring the outside world
with their own simple, sublime fulness of thought and
feeling which is the inheritance of babes. They had
enough and to spare in themselves to fill up all those
blanks which the vulgar eye sees in creation. They
could not realize the possibility of merely animal Hfe
without consciousness, without some fashion of in
tellectual or emotional existence ; and were not aware
of so great a gap between themselves and the so-
called lower creatures as we are. It is sometimes
hard enough now to understand how a stony-hearted,
unpitying, unloving, faithless man can yet be dearer
to his Creator than an honest, patient, faithful, all-
enduring animal ; but in the time of Francis the wonder
was still greater. He turned, sick at heart, from the per
petual strife and contention of his time, from fighting
cities, rapacious nobles, a whole world of blood and
oppression, and, with an unspeakable relief heard the
gentle birds singing in the woods, the harmless crea
tures rustling among the trees. Were all these inno-

vm.] MIRACLES AND WONDERS. 123

cent beings out of the limits of God's covenant ?
Were they made for no use but that of an hour's, or
a day's, or a year's pleasure, with cruel death at the
end .' Ah no : they were God's harmless, voiceless
folk, who knew His name, and sang His praises, and
kept up the perpetual adoration, before even Piety
had bethought itself of that unceasing service. This
thought runs through the whole theory of existence
as recognized by Francis and men of Hke mind. They
could not doubt that where God had put life, He had
also put the consciousness of Himself They spoke
another tongue — those inarticulate races whose life
was hidden in Christ ; but what was there to hinder
that in simple speech of man, who was their na
tural head, they should recognize the great Name, and
do their fluttering, innocent homage with a fulness,
a simplicity, a tender, childish devotion which was
needed to fill up the harmonies of worship .•" It is
evident that Francis felt himself justified in addressing
this spiritual consciousness in every living thing. He
was their superior in the economy of Providence ; they
could not answer him in speech, but they could by
obedience : and God was the Father, the Preserver,
the conscious Head of all. In this confidence the
gentle seer moved about a world all peopled with
his brethren, not only putting his benign commands
upon them, but endeavouring after their edification
with a certain ineffable, beautiful wise-foolishness, as
our children do by instinct, as an angel might do
by insight superior to ours. Here is one of many
instances of this sense of brotherhood with all the
creatures of God : —
" For when once he was seated in a little boat on the
lake of Reiti, near a certain port, a fisherman taking a large

124 MIRACLES AND WONDERS. [CHAP.
fish, which is called commonly a tench, in his devotion
brought it to him. And he taking it kindly and cheerfully,
began to call it by the name of brother, and putting it in
the water out of the boat began devoutly to bless the name
of God ; and all the while that he continued in prayer
the fish, playing in the water near the boat, departed not
fi-om the spot in which he had been placed, until, the
prayer being finished, the saint of God gave him leave to
depart. For thus the glorious Father Francis, walking in
the way of obedience and perfect subjection to the Divine
will, obtained great honour from God in the obedience of
His creatures."
Of other anecdotes, in which no thread of miracle
mixes, respecting his tenderness for the inferior crea
tures there are many. Lambs, for instance, were the
special objects of his regard. On one occasion, while
walking silently along the road on one of his many
journeys, he saw a single little sheep humbly feeding
in the midst of a flock of goats. When Francis saw it,
his heart was moved, and the tears of sudden feeling
came to his eyes. He called Brother Paul, who was
his companion, to look at the sight, in the overflowing
of his heart. It was like our Lord among the Pha
risees and high priests, he thought ; and he could not
bear to leave that emblem of his Master in the midst
of the bearded flock. But the poor travellers had
nothing to offer as the price of it, except the brown
gowns they wore. As they stood wistful in the
way, a merchant coming up, and hearing their diffi
culty, and the longing of Francis to rescue the little
animal, bought it and presented it to him. It was
near the city of Orsino, where he was going to preach,
and he resumed his journey with joy and thanks,
leading with him the white lamb that was Hke his
Lord. The bishop, as was not surprising, wondered
much at this unusual addition to the party ; but

vm.] MIRACLES AND WONDERS. 125
Francis made his little companion the subject ofbis dis
course, and so set forth the divine story by means of
that living type, that every heart was moved. When,
however, they had got as far as San Severino on their
further way, the lamb became something of a burden
to the travellers, and was finally left at a convent
with a community of sisters, who received the charge
of it with joy. Some time after, the sisters sent to the
saint, by the hands of the brethren who attended the
Chapter at the Portiuncula, a gown made of its wool,
which he received with simple delight. On another oc
casion he bought with his own mantle two lambs, which
were being carried to the slaughter. At home, in the
Portiuncula, a lamb was one of his daily companions.
" The holy man taught it that it should always praise
God, and give no offence to the brethren," says the
simple narrative. Another lamb he gave to his friend
in Rome, Giacobba di Settesoli, and of this won
derful little animal it is reported that it would push
the lady with its horns, and wake her by its bleat
ing, when she was late of getting up to go to church.
Such miraculous attending circumstances naturally
grew about the simple fact in an age of wonders ;
but the fond and reverent fancy of the servant of God,
who could not bear to leave in want or suffering a
creature which had been taken as a type of his Lord,
is more touching than any miracle.
We will add but one other story of his influence
upon the animal creation, and it is one which requires,
let us allow, a still stronger faith than any of the
others. It is impossible now to say out of what
simple circumstances this miraculous tale may have
arisen. It is suggested by some that the real woH
thus tamed was a noted robber of the hills, called
Lupo, whom Francis subdued, and brought within
the blessed restraint of his own Order — though this

126 MIRACLES AND WONDERS. [chap.
is an interpretation which, for our own part, we are
somewhat unwilling to receive.
"At the time when St. Francis was sojourning in the
city of Gubbio, there appeared in the country-side a wolf
of enormous size, terrible and fierce, which devoured not
only animals, but men even, insomuch that all the citizens
stood in great fear, for oft-times it approached the city;
and all went armed when they went forth of the city, as
if they were going to battle, but no man was strong
enough to defend himself against the beast, when alone.
And through fear of this wolf, matters were come to such a
pass that none dared go forth of the town. Wherefore, St.
Francis, having compassion on the men of the land, deter
mined to go out and seek this wolf, although the citizens
in no way persuaded him to it ; and making over himself
the sign of the most holy cross, he went forth of the town
with his companions, placing all his trust in God. And
when the others hesitated to go further, St. Francis took
the way towards the place where the wolf was. And
behold, in the sight of many citizens who had come to
see so great a miracle, the said wolf made towards St.
Francis with open mouth; and drawing near to him,
St. Francis made over him the sign of the most holy cross,
and called him, and spoke thus to him : — ' Come hither.
Brother Wolf: I command thee in Christ's behalf, that
thou do no evil to me nor to any one.' Wondrous sight !
as soon as St. Francis had made the sign of the cross,
the dread wolf closed his mouth, and stayed his course :
he came gently like a lamb, and cast himself at St.
Francis's feet to lie down. And then St. Francis spoke
thus to him : — ' Brother Wolf, thou hast done much
damage in these parts, and great evil, spoiling and slay
ing the creatures of God without His leave ; and not
only hast thou slain and devoured beasts, but hast dared
to slay men, made in the image of God : wherefore
thou art worthy of the gallows, as a robber and most
wicked murderer ; and all men cry out and murmur
against thee, and all this land is thy enemy. But I wish.
Brother Wolf, to make peace between thee and them ;
therefore vex them no more, and they will pardon thee all
thy past offences, and neither dogs nor men will chase
thee any more.' And when these words were said, the
wolf, with gestures of body, tail, and eyes, and with head

vm.] MIRACLES AND WONDERS. 127
bowed, showed that he accepted what St. Francis said,
and would observe it. Thereupon St. Francis again said :
'Brother Wolf, since it is thy pleasure to make and to
observe this peace, I promise thee I will cause that food
be given thee constantly, so long as thou shalt live, by the
men of this town, so that thou mayst suffer no more fi-om
hunger; for well I know, that through hunger hast thou done
all wickedness. But since I obtain for thee this favour, I
will. Brother Wolf, that thou promise me that thou wilt
harm neither man nor beast : promisest thou me this ? '
And the wolf, with head bowed, made evident sign that he
promised. And St. Francis thus spake : ' Brother Wolf, I
will that thou give me pledge of this promise, that I may
be well assured of it :' wid St. Francis stretching forth his
hand to take his pledge, Ct\t wolf raised his right fore-foot,
and tamely placed it in the hand of St. Francis, giving him
such sign of good faith as he was able. And then St.
Francis said, ' Brother Wolf, I command thee, in the name
of Jesus Christ, that thou come now with me, doubting
nothing, and let us go to confirm this peace in the name of
God ;' and the wolf obediently went with him like a gentle
lamb, at which all the citizens, when they saw it, marvelled
greatly. And quic^.y this news is known throughout all
the city ; at which all, men and women, great and small,
young and old, hurry to the piazza to see the wolf with
St. Francis. And when the people were all assembled,
St. Francis arose to preach to them, saying, among other
things, how for their sins God had permitted such misery
and ruin ; and how far more to be feared is hell fire, which
may last for ever, to the lost, than the rage of the wolf,
which can slay but the body ; how greatly, then, should we
fear the mouth of hell, when so great a multitude were kept
in fear and trembling for the mouth of one small animal !
" Tum, then, dearest brethren, to God, and do fit penance
for your sins, and God will save you from the wolf of the
present time, and from hell fire of the world to come.'
And when the sermon was finished, St. Francis said,
' Hearken, dear brethren. Brother Wolf, who is here before
you, has promised me, and of it given me a pledge, that he
will make peace with you, and never injure you in any
way, if ye promise to give him day by day what is needful ;
and I will be surety for him that this agreement of peace
he shall surely observe.' Thereupon all the people, with
one voice, promised to give him his daily food. And St

128 MIRACLES AND WONDERS. [chap.
Francis, before them all, said to the wolf, 'And thou.
Brother Wolf, dost thou promise to observe to these the
agreement of peace, that thou wUt do no harm to man, or
beast, or any creature?' And the wolf bended himself,
and bowed his head, and with gentle gestures of his body,
tail, and ears showed, as far as he was able, his wish to keep
for them the whole agreement. Said St. Francis, ' Brother
Wolf, I will, that as thou hast given me pledge of this
promise without the gate, so before all the people thou
shouldest give me pledge of thy promise, and that thou
cheat me not of my promise and suretyship which I have
given for thee.' Then the wolf, raising his right foot, placed
it in the hand of St. Francis, from which action, and from
those already described, so great a joy and wonder was
there among the people — contemplating the devotion of the
saint, the novelty of the miracle, and the peace thus secured
with the wolf — that all began to cry to heaven, praising and
blessing God, that had sent them St. Francis, who, by his
merit, had saved them from the jaws of the cruel beast.
And afterwards the said wolf lived two years in Gubbio, and
went tamely amid the houses, from door to door, harming
and being harmed by none, and was kindly nourished by
the people ; and as he went thus from house to house not a
dog would ever wag his tongue against him. Lastly, after
two years. Brother Wolf died of old age, at which the citizens
were sore sorrowful, because seeing him thus passing gently
through the city they were better reminded of the -virtue and
saintliness of St. Francis."
The reader will perceive that the purpose of Francis
here separates itself from that of the legend : the aim
of the latter is to enlarge and swell out the wonderful
details of the saint's miraculous power over one of
the cruellest and least persuasible of animals ; whereas
he himself takes the beast, as he did the lamb, over
whose innocent head he preached at Orsino, as a
means of increasing the effect of his discourse. " The
flames of hell are more dangerous than the rage of
the wolf" he says, pointing his moral by the sight
of the fierce creature which he led. This curious
dramatic effect, which must have been most power-

vm.] MIRACLES AND WONDERS. 129
ful with his audience, as it would be at the present
day with such an assembly, is not consonant with the
idea of the brigand Lupo ; but it shows very clearly
how the popular imagination adopts the details of
any memorable incident, making that first which
should be second. How he brought the wolf after him
to the piazza of Agobio, is a different question ; but
the story strikes us more as that of a bold and suc
cessful attempt to move the popular mind, teaching it
by type and symbol, moving it by the great powers of
wonder and terror and awe, striking the lesson home
with the sudden, sharp distinctness of tragedy, than
as the account of a miracle. What more vivid image
of spiritual destruction, and the unseen, malignant
powers of hell, always on the watch to seize the soul,
than this rapacious beast, with its gleaming, stealthy
gaze, licking its black lips, ready, as the terrified popu
lace must have felt, but for the influence of the saint
and the fear of the multitude, to inurder and ravage .'
A symbol more effective could not have been found ;
and it must be remembered that Francis felt himself
free to make use of any symbol or argument which
could most certainly move his audience : he was
bound by none of the decorums of pulpit eloquence.
His text was as likely to be a popular rhyme as a
verse from the Vulgate, and, in place of the swelling
climaxes of monkish oratory, there was no reason why
the meekness of the milk-white lamb, the gleaming
eyes of the subdued wolf, should not point his exhor
tations. Such types were perfectly in character with
the tender beseechings of the courteous apostle, and
with the fiery, overwhelming eloquence of the prophet
of God.
We will not enlarge upon the ordinary miracles
common to all the saints of the calendar in which
K

I30 MIRACLES AND WONDERS. [chap.
the story abounds ; how he cast out devils, made the
distorted straight, healed the paralytic, gave sight to
the blind, and, in short, did everything which the
mediaeval imagination required a saint to do. This
is not the place to discuss such wonders, nor can we
enter into the question how far the influence of a
man so sympathetic, so serene, and so blameless,
posses.sed with the fullest faith in miraculous power,
as was everybody surrounding him, might have been
effectual to work certain miracles. It was as much
the fashion of his age to believe, as it is of ours to
discredit, all such deviations from the ordinary laws
of nature. Supernatural power was, in short, to the
mind of the thirteenth century, a more likely and
obvious agency than any other for the accomplish
ment of anything that presented difficulties to the
ordinary eye. And the meeting of a sick man full of
the expectation of being cured by miracle, and of a
saint equally certain of being able to effect the cure,
is one of which we have no experience, and are
consequently unable to judge of ; but it is impossible
not to feel that so long as human nature is made up
of body and soul, with all their marvellous power of
action upon each other, there are possibilities involved
in such a meeting which do not exist now-a-days,
and which are not to be arbitrarily concluded upon.
The question, however, is one which demands other
powers, and a greater amount of space and study
than any which can be brought to bear upon it
here. Besides the anecdotes recorded above which
are characteristic not of saints in general, but of
Francis in particular, there are other incidents full
of poetic beauty, such as might naturally gather
about the life of a man who touched the popular
imagination deeply, and whic-h the reader may accept

Vlll.] MIRACLES AND WOtJDERS. ISI

or not as wonders, but must admire as the most
touching demonstration of natural homage to a
character so beautiful, and a life so free from stain.
As he travelled, one evening, by the borders of the
Po, night overtook him on the way. It is, we can
not but observe, on the way, that everything befalls
him. His life is but a record of journeys, long, silent
walks from one place to another, walks which are en
livened by the tender love of nature which is always
manifest in his visionary eyes, and during the course
of which he spies the lamb among the flock, and steps
aside now and then to say his Hours among the
singing-birds, or make his gentle exhortation to them,
dismissing his Httle sisters with a blessing. There is
always an out-of-door sensation about the picture — the
woods rustling, the soft air blowing, the Hght striking
on tower and tree. In short, to be plainly intelligible,
there should be an itinerary of all those winding
ways through the plains of Umbria, and up the slopes
of Apennine, and across the lovely breadth of Italy —
by ancient town and rude village, and the white-
walled convents with their sunny gardens, and the
great castles that awe the neighbourhood. We should
pause to note where the big oak threw its welcome
shelter, and where the wayfarer, always courteous,
bade the ants depart ; where the grey sweet olive-
orchards subdued all brighter tones about them ; where
the countryman came out of his quaint farm-steading
and saddled his ass for the man of God ; where a cool
half-ruined church by the wayside gave shelter to
the brethren ; and where at their journey's end they
climbed the rugged streets, and came out upon the
high piazza, all the population flocking out after them
to hear and see. All these scenes should be painted
in broadly on the canvas which holds the figure of

132 MIRAC'lES AND WONDERS. [CHAP,

Francis, for among them, and not under the shelter
of any roof was his Hfe spent ; but in the meantime
we resume our tale :
He was overtaken by night, he and his companion,
on the borders of the Po. The road was dark and
dangerous, the river full and overflowing. At some
places it had flooded the country round, and at
some the banks were broken and dangerous. The
brother who accompanied Francis was seized with
alarm as the darkness closed around them. " Father,
pray that we may be delivered from this danger,"
he cried, pressing close to the skirts of his leader.
But it was a cheerful voice that answered him out
of that intense sudden gloom which falls like a cur
tain, without the interposition of our sweet lingering
northern twilight, upon the end of an Italian day.
" God is powerful," said Francis, in his serene tones :
"if it shall please His most sweet mercy. He will
dispel the darkness, and bestow upon us the blessing
of light." He had scarcely spoken the words when
light shone round them suddenly from heaven,
revealing not only the gloomy river and dangerous
path, but the soft undulations of the surrounding
country, and in the distance the hospice to which
they were bound. Then the solitary wayfarers,
" directed in body and comforted in soul," lifted up
their voices in familiar song. " They travelled on for
a long distance, singing praises to God." It must be
an insensible heart which could examine too minutely
into the soft glow of miraculous light which encloses
these two humble figures, with Po running dark and
dangerous at their feet, and their hearts and voices
praising God in the middle of the silent night.
The other wonders which we have still to quote
have something yet more touching and sacred in them,

vm.] MIRACLES AND WONDERS. I?
and we pause with a sense that here we are describing
rather those dealings of God with a single soul, which
are meant, like all that is most precious in person^t'
love, not for the world, but for the one in all the
world to whom they are the sweetest of individual
consolations. Francis was at one of those little con
vents among the hills, called hermitages, lying ill,
probably of one of his many attacks of fever. He
was very weak and weary in the lassitude left by that
oft-recurring malady which haunts the Italian plains,
and in his feebleness he asked fora cup of wine. But
the lover of Poverty was in her house, where neither
wine nor savoury food was to be had. The wistful
brethren had to bring him word that there was none
to give him. Then he asked for water, which, when it
was brought to him, he blessed, making over it the sign
of the cross. " Then," says Bonaventura, " that which
had been pure water was changed into good wine, and
what the poverty of the desert place could not afford
was obtained by the purity .of the holy man." He
had no sooner tasted this celestial cup than his strength
was suddenly restored. The story is too beautiful to
want any comment of ours. But there is surely
something in this cheerful content and holy blessing
which could make sacramental wine out of the merest
water ever drawn from earthly well.
On another occasion, when weak and worn pro
bably by the same cause, there came upon him a
longing to hear some music. He had loved it from
his earliest days, and it was a necessity to his poetic
nature ; but probably he was in no case to sing or
to hear the chants of the brethren. He said nothing,
however, of the longing in his breast : " The decorum
of religion," Bonaventura tells us, "would not per
mit him to ask for it at the hand of man ; " and it

!34 MIRACLES AND WONDERS. [cH. vlll.
is difficult to imagine that Brother Bernard, or
crafty Elias, even had he asked it of them, could
have charmed his ear with harp or lute. But as he
lay awake one night in his weakness, suddenly his
desire was granted to him. "He heard the sound
of a harp, of wonderful harmony and most sweet
melody." The sound went and came, as if the
players were moving to and fro under the convent
windows. The reader's eyes fill, and his heart
melts, at the simple wonderful tale. And why should
not some tender wandering angel have stooped
through those soft depths of southern night and
made a visionary, ineffable music under the window
where lay his mortal brother.? All the arguments
of philosophy cannot bring any reason to the heart
why it should not be so.
Francis himself however, was very careful to
ascribe no essential importance either to the miracu
lous power with which he was believed to be endowed,
or to his perpetual and painful service of God iri
mortification and fasting. His Three Companions
acknowledge that miracles do not make holiness,
but are merely a proof of it, as has been already
quoted ; their leader goes a step further, and recog
nizes a still more important truth. A man might do
all these things, he allowed, and yet be no true ser
vant of God. "A sinner," he said, "can fast, pray,
weep, mortify his flesh : this only he cannot do — be
faithful to his Lord." Thus, while the country rang with
his virtues and his miracles, Francis himself realized
fully the superficial character of such fame. " I may
yet have sons and daughters," he said, with quaint mis
trust of himself when his disciples paid him homage.
It was the worst possible representation of downfall
and backsliding which he could make to his own heart

CHAPTER IX.

POVERTY AND FRANCIS.

It is somewhat difficult to understand in these days
the special devotion to Poverty as Poverty, which
was the first principle of life in the little convent
at the Portiuncula. While we are able to realize
the merit of those who bear it cheerfully, and
accept it, when necessary, with patience and courage,
and still more to appreciate the devotion of such as
abandon everything for the service of God, it is still
difficult to make out how the mere fact of voluntary
destitution should be in itself a virtue.
It is difficult to understand, just as it is difficult
for us to understand why the saying of twelve Paters
should be better than the saying once of that won
derful prayer. But the age in which Francis lived
was not one given to spiritual interpretations or philo
sophical glosses. It was literal, and took words for
things. In such a mind as his own, the great end
was always present — the elevation of the spirit over
the flesh, of the unseen over the visible ; and there
can be no doubt that he was fully possessed
with the importance of the lesson conveyed to a
self-seeking, riotous, and violent world, by his own
utter and voluntary abandonment of everything it
held most dear, for Christ's sake. But even with
Francis the means were in themselves precious, as

136 POVERTY AND FRANCIS. [chai>.
well as the end. A certain intrinsic good was to
him in Poverty itself, irrespective of its object. He
preferred to beg his bread, even when it was pro
vided for him according to the letter of the evangelical
commission, by the hospitality of the faithful. Always
true and natural, and unexaggerated in his commands
to others, he set our Lord's simple injunction, " Eat
what is set before you," in the heart of his Rule,
as the guide of social conduct to his brethren. But
in his own heart there lingered a tender, half-fantastic
preference for meaner fare. It was sweet to him
to receive his morsel out of God's very hand, as it
were, through the hand of charity. He liked to eat
the broken bit of bread which had been given to
him as simple alms, from the kindness of some
stranger, rather than the food provided on the table
of his host. When he was on his way to Cardinal
Ugolino's great Roman Palazzo or the legate's
palace in Florence or Bologna, which his friend occu
pied from time to time, he would stop in the narrow
streets and beg some bit of commonest sordid food
to carry with him as his share of the meal. He did it
with a touch of the foolish-sublime of feeling — the
natural weakness of humanity breaking softly through
the nobility of a great purpose — such as brings a smile
and a tear together to the looker-on, and endears the
man to us, under the aureole of the saint. It was
his weakness : his tender soul longed to go beyond
the commandment, and make himself less than the
least. In the ardour of love and self-abandonment
he was fain to do a Httle more than was asked
of him. Poverty was his bride. He loved her for
herself It was his pleasure to be destitute — to starve
if God pleased, yet to feel the certainty that he
should not starve, neither he nor his brethren, because

ix.] POVERTY AND FRANCIS. \z'i
God cared for them. But this beautiful excess of
devotion is a thing which but one individual, here
and there, can feel ; and Francis's life was, in its
latter days, disturbed, on the one hand, by perpetual
conflict with innovators, whose object was to intro
duce relaxations into the Rule ; and, on the other,
by that servile shadow of lazy beggary which is
the fleshly interpretation of his divine aim. Before
resuming the thread of his history, however, we
will here add certain traits of his delight in poverty,
and tender love of the poor, which may give the
reader a fuller insight into the nature of the man.
Francis was accompanied on one of his journeys by
Fra Masseo, the same simple brother of whom we
have already spoken, who taught the angel visitor
how to knock at the convent-door. As they jour
neyed — they were going to Provence, says the legend
— they suddenly came upon a very clear fountain in a
solitary spot, by the side of which was a great smooth
stone in the form of a table. The imagination of
Francis, always open to the deHghts of natural beauty,
was struck with this bit of landscape, and, as his self-
denial does not seem to have reached the point of
denying himself so simple though so real a pleasure,
he proposed that they should stop here and dine.
They had passed not long before through a village,
where they had begged needful provision from door
to door. When the fragments they had thus collected
were spread out upon their stone table, the heart of
the wanderer overflowed with pathetic satisfaction and
deHght. "Our blessed father," says the chronicler,
" fuU of joy and lightheartedness in the midst of such
poverty, said, ' We are not worthy of such a treasure !' "
He said the same words again and again, as seems to
have been habitual to him. But Masseo, plain man,

138 POVERTY AND FRANCIS. [chap.
not given to any poetic sense of the loveliness around
him, grew a little'' impatient, we may suppose, of this
untimely exhilaration. " How can any one talk of a
great treasure when poverty is so hard upon us?" he
said. "Where are the man-servants and the maid
servants, the goblets, the cups, the precious wines, and
rich food to place upon our stone table .-"' There is a
touch almost of satire in the question. But it does
not seem that Francis was discomposed by the half-
sneer of his companion. "What we have is our
treasure," he replied, " and this table is to me rich
and precious, where nothing has been prepared by
the work of man, or arranged by human skill, but
everything is provided for us by the hand of God."
On another occasion, we are told that his friend
the Cardinal was offended with him for bringing
the broken bread, given to him as alms, to his table.
Francis made an eloquent defence of the necessity
which was laid upon him, as the head and example of
the Order, to maintain, under all circumstances, its
Rule of utter poverty, and added, in his lofty, gentle
poetic fashion, a Httle outburst of praise over his
miserable fare. "The bread given in alms is holy
and blessed bread," he cried ; " it is sanctified by the
praise and love of the Almighty. When a brother
asks alms, he begins by saying, ' Praised and blessed
be the Lord our God ;' then he adds, ' Give me alms,
for the love of the Lord our God.' Thus, praise
sanctifies the bread, and it is made blessed by the
love of the Lord."
The same sentiment, curiously enlarged and deep
ened, as it is natural it should be when more formally
expressed, forms the burden of the following address,
made in some private and familiar assembly of his
disciples : — "His brethren once asked him in conclave,'"

IX.] POVERTY AND FRANCIS. 139
Bonaventura tells us, " by what virtue wc become.
dearest to Christ ; to which he, as if opening to them
the secret of his heart, replied, ' Know, my brethren,
that poverty is the special way to salvation ; for it
is the food of humility and the root of perfection,
whose roots, although hidden, are manifold. This is
the treasure, of which we read in the Gospel, which
was hidden in a field : to buy which a man should
sell all that he hath, and, in comparison with which,
all that can be given for its purchase is to be ac
counted as nothing. And he who would attain to
this height must lay aside not only worldly prudence,
but even all knowledge of letters, that thus stript of
all things, he may come to see what is the power of
the Lord.'"
The whole superstructure of Francis's Hfe was built
upon this theory of the absolute superiority of poverty,
not only as a means but as an end ; yet notwithstand
ing, his eye was ever alert to note any deviation from
the spirit, however it might be in accordance with the
letter of the Rule. For example, we are told that he
reproved severely certain of the brethren who allowed
themselves to grow idle, or worked lazily. " The
lukewarm," he said, " and those who do not work sin
cerely and humbly, will be rejected by God. I desire
that all my brethren should labour at useful occupa
tions, that we may be less of a burden to the people,
and also that we may be less subject to maladies of
the heart and tongue, and may not be tempted to
evil thoughts or evil speaking. Those who cannot
work, let them learn to work. As for the profit of the
work, it must not remain at the disposal of the earner,
but at the will of the superior or guardian." This is
an express repudiation beforehand of the reproach of
idleness as addressed to the Franciscans ; but already

140 POVERTY AND FRANCIS. [cHaP.

there were, it is evident, some who had disregarded
the commands of the founder. To some, too, he had
to ordain moderation in their collection of alms, that
they should not ask with too great persistence, and
that they should hold in horror everything that was
superfluous. " My brethren," he said, " ask only such
things as are necessary for food and clothing. For
my own part, I thank God I have never been an
extorter of alms : I have always asked for less than
my necessities required, that I might not defraud the
other poor of their portion; and I have always re
garded any other mode of asking alms as robbery."
Along with this perpetual care that his Order
might be kept from all love of property or shame of
indigence, and yet at the same time preserved from
idleness, he had the most overflowing charity to
all who were poor. The thought of his ancient
extravagance, we are told, sometimes crossed his
mind with a twinge of remorse, moving him to more
and greater liberality towards the needy. " It is but
just," he said, " that a man who hesitated at no ex
pense, and who showed himself so eager to oblige his
friends in order to obtain the glory of this world,
and its fleeting favour — it is just that such a man
should manifest the same liberality towards the poor,
because of God, who recompenses so liberally." P'rom
this prevailing sentiment of his mind the curious Httle
incidents in his Hfe, of charity carried to the heroic
point, result quite naturally. They are the inevitable
actions of a spirit which, receiving everything direct
from God's hand, feels itself by that mere fact bound
to transfer those gifts to any creature of God's who
has the appearance of standing in greater need than
itself Thus it is recorded that, one day returning
from service, he met a poor man clad in miserable

IX.] POVERTY AND FRANCIS. 141
rags, and half naked, on the way. The sight moved
his generous soul to sudden compunction. " My
brother," he cried, turning to his companion who
followed him, "I must give up the mantle which I
wear above my gown to this poor man, for it belongs
to him. I had it but as a loan until I should meet
some one who had more need of it than I." Probably
it was winter, chilled with that Tramontana which
blows so keen from the snow-clad hills ; for the
brother who accompanied him made a strenuous
opposition to the transfer, knowing his master's need.
But Francis silenced his remonstrances with the abso
lute voice of authority. " I should consider it a
robbery," he said, " for which I should have to give
account to the great Giver of all things, if I did not
give what I have to one who is more poor than I."
Probably it was at the sight of the same poor man,
almost naked in the cold, that he cried out with tears
to his companions, " This man's misery covers us with
confusion ; for we have chosen poverty as a great
treasure, and lo ! he is poorer than any one of us."
This readiness to give the very last and most need
ful of possessions is still more strikingly displayed in
the following story, which perhaps some readers may
think was carrying liberality too far. He was told
one day that a poor woman, whose two sons had both-
joined the Order, was asking relief at the convent-gate.
The brother who informed him of this appeal, added,
on being questioned, that there was absolutely nothing
in the house which could be given to her ; but that in
the church there was still remaining one single piece
of property — the New Testament from which the
brethren read the lessons. " Very well," said Francis,
" give it to our mother, that she may sell it for her
necessities; for I believe firmly that we shall be

142 POVERTY AND FRANCIS. [CHAP.
more agreeable to God by giving this book to a poor
woman than reserving it for our own reading." It
must be remembered, in reading this anecdote, that
the knowledge of Francis himself of the Holy Scrip
tures was but limited, that he believed himself to be
under the immediate direction of God, without such
absolute need of an intermediary revelation as we have,
that probably the community did not know much
Latin, and that consequently the book was not always
of first importance to them. But still it was the
treasure of the Church, the last necessary of Christian
worship. In the same spirit he declined to allow the
younger brethren to retain any portion of their
worldly property — an enlargement of the Rule, which
was asked of him at a time of great destitution.
" God forbid," he said, " that for any man whatsoever
we should thus sin against the Rule. I would
rather have you strip the altar of the glorious
Virgin, should necessity so require, than infringe
in the slightest degree the vow of poverty and the
due observance of the Gospel precept. For rather
would the Blessed Virgin see her altar unadorned, and
the commands of the Holy Ghost perfectly observed,
than that her altar should be ornamented, and her
Son's commands set at nought."
He was equally rigid as to the preliminary step
which he demanded as a qualification for entrance
into the Order — the giving of all things to the poor,
which was of absolute necessity, and never to be dis
pensed with. A story is told by Bonaventura of a
certain man in the March of Ancona, who, " led astray
by carnal affection, left his property to his kindred, and
not to the poor." When Francis heard of it, he, who
was so gentle to all, rose up in virtuous severity and
indignation. " Go thy way. Brother Fly," he said, " for

IX.] POVERTY AND FRANCIS. 143
thou hast in no wise gone forth from thy kindred and
from thy father's house. Thou hast given thy goods
to thy family, and hast defrauded the poor : thou art
not worthy to be a follower of holy Poverty." The
"carnal man" returned to the world, after this
rebuke, unable to attain to the entire abnegation
asked of him. The reader dismisses him, not without
a certain sympathy for his domestic affections; but
the Rule was absolute, and so was the founder.
" Sell all thou hast, and give to the poor." There
could be no compromise with these distinct words,
the .first commission and warrant upon which all his
work was built
And while he was thus unbending as regarded the
letter of the Rule, he was always watchful that his own
conduct should give no kind of excuse to any relaxation
of discipline. We have already recorded his manner
of depriving himself of any enjo3ynent of the feasts
to which he was sometimes invited. Here is another
curious instance of his severity to himself He had
been invited by the Cardinal Santa Croce to visit him
for some days at Rome, and had consented out of
the courtesy which never abandoned him. The first
night, however, which he spent under the roof of the
cardinal's palace was much troubled and disturbed.
" Demons," says the legend, " threw themselves with
fury upon the soldier of Christ," and the morning
found him utterly exhausted, " half dead " upon the
unaccustomed bed. A similar painful result had once
occurred at the Portiuncula — where he habitually slept
on the naked floor — when a little pillow of feathers
had been placed under his aching head by some kind
brother — an indulgence which drove rest from him.
When he raised himself from his broken dreams in
his chamber at the Cardinal's palace, he called his

144 POVERTY AND FRANCIS. [cHAP.

companion to him with the signs of the conflict in his
worn countenance. " The devils have no power but
that which is granted to them from on high," he said ;
"they have been permitted to throw themselves on.
me so cruelly, because my stay in this palace is a
bad example to others. When my brethren, who
dwell in poor houses, hear that I visit cardinals, they
may suspect me of loving the things of this world,
and giving up my heart to its delights." Upon which,
with humble excuses to his host, he left the Cardinal
suddenly, at break of day.
In all these details of his personal life, the transpa
rent beauty and simplicity of his character shine out at
every turn. When he was sick and ill, he was counselled
by one of the brethren to have a fox's skin sewn
inside his frock, to ease him a Httle with its warmth
and softness. Francis was too reasonable even in his
asceticism to refuse so natural a comfort ; but he had
another put outside, that he might not have the repu
tation of greater severity than he actually practised.
And with all these mortifications and sufferings, it was
his constant effort that there should be bright looks
and cheerful tones about him. To one of his brethren,
who had the habit of walking about sadly with his
head drooping, he said — it is evident, with a spark of
the impatience natural to his own vivacious spirit,
" You may surely repent of your sins, my brother,
without showing your grief so openly. Let your
sorrow be between God and you : pray to Him to
pardon you by His mercy, and to restore to your soul
the joy of His salvation. But before me and the
others be always cheerful, for it does not become a
servant of God to have an air of melancholy and a
face full of trouble." When some doubting soul
questioned him how it was that he himself amid so

IX.] POVERTY AND FRANCIS. 145
many distractions, preserved his serenity and light
heartedness, Francis replied in the same strain.
" Sometimes my sins are very bitter to me," he said,
"sometimes the devil attempts to fill me with a
sadness which leads to indifference and sleep; for
my joy is a vexation to him, and he is jealous of
the blessings I receive from God. But when I am
tempted to sadness or slothfulness, I look at the
cheerful air of my companion, and, seeing his
spiritual joy and happiness, I shake off the tempta
tion and the idle sorrow, and am full of joy within
and gaiety without." Such was his version of what
a life should be which was led in hunger, and cold,
and nakedness, far from every human consolation,
for the love of God.
As Francis thus hated with all the generous vehe
mence of his nature everything that savoured of
sanctimoniousness, he was equally careful to avoid
all the ostentations of spiritual delight. He thought
it sacrilege to reveal any special revelation of God's
love to the vulgar eye. " When a servant of. God
receives any Divine inspiration in prayer, he ought to
say, ' This consolation, O Lord, Thou hast sent from
heaven to me, a most unworthy sinner, and I commit
it to Thy care, for I know I should be but a thief of
Thy treasure.' And when he retires to prayer, he
ought to bear himself as a little one and a sinner, as
if he had received no new grace from God." He who
shed so many tears in secret that his sight was well-
nigh lost in consequence, refrained from all public
manifestations of emotion when he prayed with the
brethren, in the iunate modesty of his soul. And he
was courteous to his last breath, full of the tenderest
consideration for all When one of the brethren had
made a rough answer to a poor beggar who followed
L

146 POVERTY AND FRANCIS. [cHAP.
them with his importunities, Francis was filled with
a certain horror of compunction which is very cha
racteristic of his intensely sympathetic mind. He
made the uncivil brother prostrate himself at the feet
of the beggar, and ask his pardon and his prayers. A
similar incident is told in the Fioretti in respect to
certain robbers who were sent away hungry from the
convent-door, but whom Francis could not but re
cognize as brothers, not feeling himself called upon to
be their judge in their moment of want.
We are tempted to insert here another little inci
dent not exactly of the same character as those just
quoted, yet bearing a certain affinity to them in the
light it throws upon the wonderful simpHcity of hfs
mind. It occurred in the midst of his devotions, at
the moment of all others when the glory of heaven
seemed most to glow round " the seraphic Father."
He had carved a little wooden vase, on some occasion
when there was nothing else doing, that his hands
might be occupied — some pretty bit of golden olive-
wood, no doubt, which it had pleased him to shape
and decorate. But while he prayed, a sudden thought
of the toy came into his mind, distracting him in the
midst of his devotions. Innocent distraction ! tender
weakness ! He put his work in the fire, with an out
burst of simple remorse, when the service was over.
It is as if some angel had bethought himself in the
glory of God's presence, of a fretted harp-string — if
harp-strings can fret in heaven.
We add a little exposition which Francis made
to his favourite brother Leo, touching the per
fection of human comfort and satisfaction, one day,
when they walked together on their evangelical mis
sion. Nothing can more clearly show the difference
of the mediaEval mind from our own, or the wonderful

IX.] POVERTY AND FRANCIS. HI
absorption of this individual man in the life and
conditions which he held to be most accordant with
the will of God.
"Although the Brothers Minor," it was his pleasure to
say, "give good example and great edification to all the
world by the holiness of their life, perfect joy consists not
in that. And though a Brother Minor give sight to the
blind, heal the cripples, cast out devils, make the deaf to
hear, the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, and, what is
more, give life to the four-days dead, perfect joy is not
there. And if a Brother Minor knows all tongues, all-
knowledge, and writings, so that he can foretell things to
come, and disclose the secrets of the heart, perfect joy is
not there. If a Brother Minor speak like an angel, and
understand the coiurse of the stars, the virtues of herbs,
and all treasures of the earth, — should he know the nature
of birds, of fishes, of animals, of men, of roots, of trees
and waters, perfect joy lies not in that. But when we come
to the Convent of our Lady of Angels; all drenched and
frozen with cold, and oppressed with hunger ; if when we
knock at the gate, the porter comes in wrath to ask us,
' Who is there ? ' we answer him, ' We be two of thy
brethren,' and he replies to us with rage, saying, 'Ye be
vagabonds, who ramble the world over, and steal the poor
man's alms,' then, without opening to us the gate, leaves us
exposed to the snow and rain, and well-nigh famished with
hunger — then if we suffer these rebuffs and injuries patiently,
without complaint or murmuring, and think humbly that
this porter knows us full well, and that God urges him to
use such language against us, in that there is perfect peace.
And if we continue to knock, and the porter comes out
against us as against beggars, buffets us, and lays hard
blows upon us, saying to us, ' Away with you, lazy wretches,
get you to the hospital ; you are fine fellows ! good-bye,
there is nought here for you to eat,' — if we bear these things
with patience, and pardon with all our heart these injuries,
in that there is perfect joy. And if in this affliction,
oppressed by hunger, benumbed with cold, and the night
drawing on, we knock again and pray him with cries and
groans that he will open to us the gate, instead of being
touched with pity, he throws himself into a great rage, aiid
L 2

148 POVERTY AND FRANCIS. [chap. ix.
says, ' Here be men full impudent and obstinate, I'll go and
dress them soundly,' whereat he comes forth, a huge knotty
stick in his hand, and seizing us by the hood, casts us on
the earth in the mire, and covers us with blood from blows
of his sticl:, — if we suffer joyfully these insults and these
blows, remembering that we must bear our share in the
."bufferings of the blessed Jesus, wTite and mark carefiilly
that tliis a true joy and peace."

CHAPTER X.

THE CHAPTER STOREARUM.

The great Chapter of the new Order, which is
distinguished . by this title, took place in the year
12 19; and it is not astonishing that so great and
remarkable an assembly should have made an im
pression upon the popular imagination. It is the
first time in which an actual numerical estimate of
the strength of the Order is afforded us ; and though
it seems almost impossible to believe that five thou
sand brethren could already have collected around
the founder, making allowance for all the con
tingencies of sickness and distance, it is equally
difficult to doubt the numerous testimonies to that
effect. Celano, it is true, takes no notice of the
assembly at all ; and the Three Companions relate
its purport rather than its details ; but Bonaventura
is precise as to the number, more than five thousand,
and is supported by the almost contemporary narra
tive of the Fioretti, which gives a most life-like
picture of the scene — and by many other authori
ties. There had been several silent jears in the
life of Francis before this grand era. He had
been, if not dwelling at home, still stationary in
Italy, employing his time not only in personal
missionary work, but in a general care of the
Order, and oversight of all its many channels of

ISO THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. [CHAP.
increase. He had made himself known in the imme
diate world which was most influential in Italy, in Rome,
and Florence, and even, as we divine from scattered
notices here and there, as far as Venice and Naples,
preaching the peace of God, and carrying with him
the laws and the magical attraction of the brother
hood which copied Christ's life on earth ; and the
brethren had travelled far, and preached continuously,
though it seems uncertain whether they had yet pene
trated beyond the Alps on any side but that of France.
Perhaps some special effort had been made to collect
every man who had taken the vows of. the Brothers
Minor to this particular assembly, which it is clear
was of more importance in the history of the Order
than any of the others as yet recorded. A certain
need of general legislation seems to have shown
itself; and besides the usual course of admonition
and fatherly counsel on the part of the founder, and
of reported progress and experience on the part of
the brethren, the Chapter on this occasion had to
act as a Parliament, to elect officers, and decide upon
new measures for its own further increase and the
consolidation of the advantages already gained. The
brethren from a distance were no doubt anxious to
have some recognized government and authority over
them ; they wanted guides for themselves, leaders of
their missionary work, superiors to whom they could
render the obedience which was one of their vows,
but which, so long as the founder was absent, and
had no representative, they could scarcely find any due
means of fulfilling. And to Francis, also, it had no
doubt become a necessity to have helpers in his
office. They came, therefore, from all sides, with serious
thoughts and plans in their minds, in addition

X.] THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. 151
to all those longings after home and friends, and
brotherly communion, and the presence of him who
was as a father to them all, which moved them on
ordinary occasions. It would be hard to believe
that no strivings of personal ambition' or individual
feeling, no suppressed jealousies or anxieties, were
in the hearts of so great a multitude ; but the record
is silent as to everything but the fact of their
assembHng. They came pouring in from all quarters,
without a purse or a penny to put therein among
the entire crowd, the end of their journey being
a little church and convent poor as themselves,
where, instead of a supply of provisions enough for
so great a multitude, there was not store enough of
fragments laid up to sustain the founder and his little
nucleus of monks beyond the single day. What were
they coming to .-' Famine, disease, and death, any
reasonable spectator would have said, v/atching the
crowds come in across all the lengthened winding
ways, and down the hill-sides, and from the sea —
famine and destruction, unless, indeed, UgoHno, the
great Cardinal, setting out from Florence, with
his splendid retinue, his crosses and crosiers glit
tering in the sun, should bring with him enough to
satisfy the wants of the multitude whom he had
chosen to patronize. There was no lack of other
glittering groups from all the castles and cities to see
the wonderful sight. And the brown friars poured
onward with bare feet plodding along the toilsome
way, with uncovered heads under the blazing sun,
or vast folds of cowl enveloping their faces, musing
much, and saying httle, giving their salutation, " The
peace of God," to all they met. A strange scene—
which the reader can scarcely contemplate without a
thrill of something more than curiosity, a quickening

152 THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. [chap.
of interest and expectation such as only the eve of
a great crisis can give.
The Portiuncula is situated on one of the lowest
slopes of the Apennine hills — and below stretches the
plain, blazing under the Italian sun, which was the
only guest-chamber Francis could provide for his
visitors. Here they erected a quantity of little tents
made of straw thatch, or matting and rushes, such
shelters from the sun as may still be seen about the
Italian fields rudely propped up on posts, as no doubt
were the huts of the brethren. From this peculiarity the
Chapter derives its name, Storearum — the Assembly
of the straw huts. They were arranged, we are told,
in distinct lines, according to the provinces from which
the brethren came. The bands were of unequal
numbers— here forty, here eighty, there a hundred,
say the Fioretti, but all so placed {a schiera a
schiera, band by band) that their nationality might
be at once identified. It must be remembered that
it was at Pentecost, in the sweetest time of the
year, when that Umbrian plain would be all ablaze
with flowers, and the summer not yet arrived at its
most fervent heat, but supportable even during the
day under those cool coverts, and delicious in the
sweetness of the night. The scene is set before
us in the Fioretti with all the reality which would
naturally belong to the narrative of an eye-witness.
And if we can trust the anonymous chronicler,
not only Cardinal Ugolino, but St. Dominic was
in the assembly, watching with curious, critical,
not enthusiastic eyes, how the other Order was
managed, and making his comments within himself
Francis had made no provision for the crowd which
surrounded him; he had dared to throw his entire
brotherhood, as he threw himself upon the bounty of

X.] THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. i53

Providence, and met them cheerfully, without a crust
to give them, with a faith which, even to his fellow-
saint, seems to have, for the moment, appeared more
rash than sublime. With all these illustrious visitors
looking on, Francis, probably from one of the little
turfy hillocks of the slope, addressed his brethren
all camped around him, swarming among the narrow
passages that divided those coverts of straw. He
preached to them briefly, not caring, says the author
of the Fioretti, to make a sermon. " My children,"
he said, " we have promised great things to God, and
greater things still have we promised to ourselves from
God ; let us observe those which we have promised to
Him, and certainly expect those which are promised
to us." At the end of this address he exhorted them
to give no thought what they were to eat or drink,
but only to praise God — upon which, continues the
Fioretti, " St. Domenico, who was present at this Chapter, was much
amazed by the command of St. Francesco, and considered
it indiscreet, not being able to imagine how so great a mul
titude could be provided for without having any care or
solicitude for the things necessary for the body; but the
Chief Shepherd, the blessed Christ, wishing to show how
He cared for His sheep, and His singular love for His poor,
immediately inspired the people of Perugia, Spoleto, Foligno,
Assisi, and the surrounding country, who brought supplies
of provisions to the holy congregation ; and behold there
suddenly appeared from the beforesaid towns, men widi
asses, horses, carts, laden with bread, wine, beans, and
game, and other good things according as the poor of Christ
had need. And along with this they brought table-cloths,
glasses, everything that was necessary for the table ; and he
was considered happy who could carry most things, and
could serve most humbly ; and even the knights and barons,
and other noblemen who had come to look on, with great
humility began to serve also. St. Domenico seeing all this,
and recognizing truly that the Divine Providence was to be

154 THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. [CHAP.
seen in it, humbly acknowledged that he had falsely judged
St. Francesco, and going to him on his knees, humbly con
fessed his sin, and added, 'Traly God has a special care
of this poor family, and I knew it not.' "
It would be difficult to imagine a scene more
strikingly picturesque and impressive— the mass of
brown-robed brethren among their little huts, the gay
cavalcades from the surrounding country, the scarlet
Cardinal with his many-coloured attendants, the
devout margin of wondering contadini and cittadini,
peasants and townsfolk, in their brilliant mediaeval
dresses ; and over all the slopes, down from the hills,
winding along the roads that covered the plain, the
laden asses, the rude carts of the villagers, the homely
primitive abundance, bread and wine, lentils and
those beans, five, which still form so large a portion
of the sustenance of the poorest classes in Italy —
with perhaps now and then a basket of small birds.
He was a happy man who brought the most to this
strange open-air feast, which, let us hope, was not
eaten till after the rigour of the blazing sunshine
was over, when the skies began to grow soft with
the haze of evening. Many a Franciscan brother of
the present day, and many an abstemious Italian
bound by no vow, finds one huge meal a day suffi
cient for all his requirements. And thus the great
Chapter was no doubt suppHed.
Among the crowd of his followers thus assembled,
Francis made his way, not with the state that belonged
to the general of an Order, but with all the homely
grace and cordial kindness which were natural to him.
He went from band to band, giving them his simple
admonitions, as had been his wont at the less solemn
assemblies which had gathered round him on previous
Pentecosts. How they should hear mass devoutly,

X.] THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. i55
venerate priests, love the poor, were the precepts he
gave them. And though they had more important
business to settle, it is evident that to the spectators
the aspect of the assembly was, above all, devotional.
" They were so occupied in talking of God, in prayers
and tears and exercises of charity, and all with so
much gravity and modesty, that no noise was heard,
and no one was disturbed," says the chronicle already
quoted. And Cardinal Ugolino, marvelling to see
such a multitude so well ordered, with tears and
great devotion cried, "Truly this is the camp and
army of the knights of God."
The specific business of the assembly, however,
was not exclusively devotional. There was no discus
sion of secular affairs among them, we are told ; but
this epithet must, we suppose, be applied to questions
of money or lands, or pecuniary matters generally,
which, as the community possessed no money, could
not have occupied it much. But the real organiza
tion of the Order was here, it is evident, not only
discussed, but, for the first time, formally established.
" Ministers were elected," say the Three Companions,
" and sent out with the brethren into all the provinces
of the world in which the Catholic faith is observed."
Francis had theoretically established this office of
Minister when he framed his Rule, and chosen the title
in accordance with the humility which it was his
desire should always guide his followers. He would
not permit to them the title of Abbot, or Prior, or
Provincial General, as savouring too much of worldly
rank, but desired that the superior of each community
should be called simply the Guardian (Padre Guar
diano) and the Provincial, the Minister or servant of
all. But though these offices had been theoretically
established, this is the first formal mention of any

156 THE CHAPTER STOREARUM- [CHAP.
election ; and the event marks the progress which had
been made. The community had grown too extensive
to be kept under one single head, like a primitive clan.
It had outgrown its little solitary houses and simple
guardians. The province which could send, not a
little domestic party, but the distinct schiera which
encamped under the shadow of the Portiuncula — a
battalion of as many as eighty or a hundred monks —
had need of some authority above that of the convent
superior, and yet nearer to it than the founder himself
the corporate head of all. And when this step was
taken as regarded the provinces which had already
embraced the Rule, it naturally led to the further
appointment of Ministers to lead and guide the
missionary bands, who were now, it would seem for
the first time, sent into the more distant countries
of the Continent. Another point had been reached in
the development of the Order. It had become a re
cognized corporation and power, and its organization
was now complete.
This great Chapter was thus remarkable in more
ways than one. It consisted of an unparalleled num
ber of brethren, and it took an important step in the
organization of the community ; the one fact being
a natural result of the other. The monkish critics,
so many of whom have considered and reconsidered
every detail of the simple history, shake their heads
and puzzle their faculties over the calculation how
enough brethren could have been left behind in their
respective convents to perform the ordinary devo
tional and domestic duties, while yet so large a
number as five thousand gathered around the mother-
house. This difficulty, it seems to us, is got over by
the supposition that an assembly so important was in
reality a full Chapter, attended by every brother not

X.] THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. I57
detained by bodily infirmities, according to the first
provisions of the Rule. The internal organization
was still, it is evident, very incomplete, and the con
vents were scarcely old enough or stately enough to
demand the perpetual presence of a body of monks,
when more important affairs drew them another way.
When Francis himself went to Rome to propound
his Rule first to the Pope, he left no domestic nucleus
behind, but went with the whole body of his disciples
— all his following. And it requires no great effort
of imagination to realize that, for an assembly which
concerned them so deeply, the entire mass of the
brethren might follow his example. They had done so
while yet the Order was small enough to be counted
by individuals, coming back from long journeys, cross
ing sea and land, as Francis himself did, rather than
miss the yearly meeting ; and what more likely than
that this had been done now, when the occasion was
so great as to warrant a great effort .' The humblest
brother of the community had a personal interest in
the choice of the Minister who was to be his absolute
ruler, and in whose hands he was commanded to be
as a dead body, moved at his will, and resisting
nothing he might choose to do or to ordain. And
the new convents, which were too poor to tempt any
robber, might well be left vacant, or in the charge
of any infirm brother whose strength was unequal to
the journey ; while every man able to bear its fatigues
came to assist in the first great election, and to aid
with whatever insight or wisdom might be in him, the
Founder in his responsibility. For nothing less than
its unusual character could have so impressed this
assembly on the imagination of the age. If the
scene had been a usual one ; if the townsfolk had
come often with their laden carts and Hberal charities ;

1S8 THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. [cHap.
if the rushy huts and travel-worn strangers covering
all the great plain ; and the vast meal out-of-doors,
so solemnly accidental, so full of grateful surprise
and anxious cordiality, — the wealthy citizens spreading
their best fare on the turf the great nobles leaping from
their horses to lend an awkward, unaccustomed hand
and serve the poor brethren with the bread which
was thus sent to them like manna out of heaven, —
if all this had been a matter of yearly occurrence
at the Portiuncula, repeated over and over, to the
same extent and with the same solemnity, as Pente
cost came round, it must have lost much of its im
pressive character. The people of Assisi and the
neighbourhood must, in such a case, have come to
regard the multitude as a natural sign of Pentecost,
as eggs are of Easter — an event requiring no such
record as that given to the Chapter Storearum, the
great assembly of the rushy huts, the meeting of
the five thousand. Only the fact that it stood alone
in its magnitude, and was not simply one of many,
could account for the place it holds in the picturesque
and oft-repeated tale.
And as the meeting was solemn, so also was the
parting. The new Ministers, whom we may sup
pose were chosen among the elder disciples, and
specially approved by Francis, were going forth into
new regions with all the chances before them of good
and evil fortune. Many of them had a sufficiently
painful experience to go through ere they should see
that haven of quietness at the Portiuncula again. Some
of them — if we may believe the vague report that
some went as far as Greece, and there lost their lives,
and that soma carried out the project of Francis in
respect to the Moors, and found martyrdom among
them — were never to return again. And Francis

X.] THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. 159
himself had bent all his powers to the carrying out
finally of his long-projected journey to Syria. There
was no prophet to tell what dark and terrible things
might happen before the brightening of another
summer brought back the holy time of Pentecost
and the succeeding Chapter ; and many a contingency
was in the mind of the eager missionaries as they
bade each other farewell. Their hope might be to come
back and see the same kind faces, the same peaceful
home again ; but their desire and longing was for the
sudden sword or stake which should carry them in the
chariots of Israel, violently and triumphantly, to stand
before the throne of God. It was the only ambition
which remained in their souls. Francis himself made
no secret of his desire, nor thought it -wrong ; and
he could not chide his followers for seeking the same
way of escape out of all the hardships and toils of
this life to their glorious home in another world.
Thus they took their farewell solemnly, wending their
way in all directions, back to the new centres they
had formed — out to the wide and dark world in which
they had to begin over again the work of conversion.
Francis himself went once more to Ancona to take
ship for the East ; and the others departed over the
Alpine heights, and across the Adriatic, and through
the sunny ways of Italy ; leaving the Portiuncula, with
its scanty band of monks, as silent and lonely as
any Httle home could be, left standing, after all the
Hfe and movement had ebbed out of it, on the margin
of the hills.
We may here follow the story of one party of these
outgoing Ministers, which our Bollandist culls for us
out of various records, not without a certain grim smile
at the simplicity of the brethren. " They " (the Minis
ters) "were received in certain provinces, but not

i6o THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. [chap.
permitted to build dwellings, and from some were
expelled as supposed heretics," say the Three Com
panions. This, says the critic, was partly caused
in Germany and Hungary — where alone such mis
fortunes seem to have happened — by their ignorance
of the language. Whether they expected to be mira
culously prepared for their work, when they should
reach the scene of it, we cannot tell; but anyhow
they ventured bravely upon Teutonic soil, without
any means of communication with the people. This
gives us a certain clue to the limitations of their pre
vious journeys. Some of them could no doubt speak,
like Francis, the tongue of France, and the similarity
of the two languages would make it possible for them
to make their way in Spain ; but the Teutonic lan
guage and ways were unknown to them, and no
compromise could be made between that unaccommo
dating tongue and the soft Italian. We are told that
when these simple brethren had made the discovery
that to say Ja when hospitality was offered them
procured them kindness and lodging, it occurred to
their straightforward minds that Ja was the thing to
be said under all circumstances ; and accordingly
when they were asked if they were heretics, and
if the object of their mission was to cut off Germany
from the Church, they unhesitatingly repeated the
monosyllable which they had already agreed among
themselves to use always, with smiles of honest con
fidence, feeling it a stronghold to them. The result
was, that the alarmed missionaries, with the smile
still on their lips, were driven out of the country,
pursued with reproaches and insults, and in many
cases thrown into prison and overwhelmed with
punishments. What they had done with the innocent
affirmative, which it was so easy to utter, they had no

X.] THE CHAPTER STOREARUM. i6i
store of other words to undo. And the Teutons were
too orthodox to trifle with heresy. It may be ima
gined what were the feelings of devout Catholics so
faithful to the Holy See and to everything that was
most orthodox in the faith, when they found them
selves thus stigmatized. They returned " with bitter
ness," says the chronicle. But it was not till the
return of Francis from the East that the plaints of
his indignant disciples reached him. In the mean
time, he himself had an enterprise still more dan
gerous in hand.

M

CHAPTER XI.
THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA.
As soon as the Chapter was over, Francis set out on
his long-cherished mission, no doubt much comforted
by the elections he had just accomplished, and the
weight he had thus transferred from his own burdened
shoulders. He went — as he had planned to go among
the Moors — with the intention and hope of converting
the Soldan, and thus accomplishing a more effectual
crusade than any that could be undertaken by the arms
of the Western powers. It seems to have been his pecu
liar conception of missionary work. There were plenty
of so-called Christians in the East whom his preach
ing might have moved to greater zeal and purity;
yet it does not seem that such an idea ever crossed
his mind. For there was in that country a heathen
prince, very strong and powerful, who had the Holy
Places in his'hands, and whom it was infinitely diffi
cult, notwithstanding the superiority of European
arms and Christian knights, to subdue. Thousands
had shed their blood in the enterprise, and yet Jeru
salem was more securelyin thepossession ofthe heathen
than ever. Was it wonderful that Francis should
think how much better a plan it would be to convert
that Soldan, and transfer into his Mahometan bosom
all a Christian's reverence for the holy Sepulchre .' It
is easy to trace in this repeated project an inspiration

CH. XI.] THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. 163
most congenial and natural to his character. After all,
it was such a little matter which made all those Cru
sades necessary, and cost so great an expenditure of
Christian lives — only to convert a man, a race, to the
true faith — a thing which it was, in the first place, the
duty of everybody, and especially of himself, Francis,
to attempt, and which would be attended by so many
and unspeakable blessings. Jerusalem was much, with
all its Holy Places ; and there is no appearance that
Francis was before his age, or disapproved in any way
of the Crusades; but. his simple mind and tender
heart went beyond all such artificial means of victory.
Jerusalem was much — but to win a race to the Saviour
was more. Christian blood had been shed in floods
without accomplishing the one ; but what if the mar
tyrdom of one poor preacher might secure the other t
And who so joyfully ready to offer himself to pur
chase his Arab brother by the shedding of his own
generous blood as Francis, whose last and greatest
desire it was to die, like his Master, for the salvation
of men .' It is the exact repetition of the argument
which he must have made with himself in respect to
the Moor. And it is in reality the only argument
which goes to the root of the subject. What strange
difference might there have been in modern history
had all his Order been seized by the same thought,
and had the Christian world in general, instead of pur
suing with the sword, bethought itself of converting
the Saracen ! The simpHcity of the notion is so great
that it moves the reader to a smile ; and yet why not
Saladin as well as Clovis 1 why not the Soldan as weii
as Constantine .'
The prophet of Assisi saw no difference. The
Soldan was his brother ; it was his duty tc bring
him to God; and thus he marched his barefooted
M 2

i64 THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. [CHAP.
downright way, through all sophistries and conven
tionalities, straight to the root of the matter. It
was right that the Sepulchre of our Lord should be
in Christian hands ; but then it was also the highest
right, the one certain duty of man, to make the
heathen holder of that sepulchre a Christian, to make
all heathens Christians, and all wicked men just, and
all the world a garden of the Lord. It was the
easiest, briefest, most certain mode of mending all
miseries. Were it a robber among the woods of
Apennine, or a Pagan leader, or any other enemy of
any Christian state, the formula of Francis was sub
lime in its simplicity — not hang him, fight against
him, subdue him, as said the other common-place,
superficial people, but — convert him. Instead of
punishment or pain for his body, unbounded blessings
for his soul. Only make him a Christian ; this was
his panacea for all evil. Instead of sacrificing whole
masses of men-at-arms, great, gleaming, armour-clad
knights, and bowmen and spearmen, whose children
looked out for them wistfully across all the Western
seas, Francis would have sacrificed, had he got his
will, a few generations of solitary monks, himself the
first — and all these foreign Eastern alien races would
have become our brothers in the faith ! He saw it all
clear and simple as daylight, with visionary eyes
which grew radiant at the prospect. And he was
mad to dream of anything so wild, we say, with our
old nineteenth-century experience. " A mild, sincere
enthusiast, not quite sane," says the philosophical his
torian of the Middle Ages ; yet it would be hard to
find a more grand conception of the way of reforming
a world, and setting its wrongs right. Nor was it
altogether the delusion of an inexperienced visionary.
Fraucis had set wrong right in this same ineffable,

XI.] THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. 165
simple way before now. He had tamed down a rough
mediaeval soldier into a humble, obedient monk. He
had made the tyrant gentle and the wicked pure. It
was the Master's way, whom he followed. And, in
the confidence of his simpHcity, he set out to make
this wonderful experiment, no ways objecting, rather
desiring, that the seed he sowed should be first watered
by his blood.
He is said, by some of the later historians, to have
been accompanied by twelve disciples in the expedi
tion ; but it is necessary to warn the reader that, in
times long after that of Francis, his Order took into
their minds the idea of shaping every detail of his
life so as to place it in exact correspondence with that
of our Lord ; and it is quite possible that this
number, neither less nor more, of companions is one
of the after-growths of this superstition. It is, however,
very probable that he took a party with him, whatevei
their number might be ; for there are indications that
he left some representatives behind when he himself
withdrew from Egypt. But it is only certain that he
was accompanied by lUuminato of Rieti, a man
whose name seems in some degree to have indicated
his quaHties, and from whom, on more than one
occasion, he is known to have asked advice and
guidance. The two brethren, according to the legend
— which we quote simply as legend, without assigning
to it any authority — were followed to the ship by a
crowd of disciples too great to be taken upon such a
long and perilous journey. Francis, like Sir Launcelot,
was incapable of discourtesy. He could not repulse
arbitrarily even those whose indiscreet devotion
troubled him most. In this dilemma, he turned to a
poor boy who stood by, staring at the strange Frati
in their brown gowns, and referred the matter to his

1 66 THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. [cHAP.
utter ignorance and simplicity. The lad, inspired, say
the chroniclers, by the Spirit, unhesitatingly indicated
who should go, and who should remain. And the
brethren, receiving it as they would have received the
decision of Providence by drawing of lots or any
other established method of divination, rendered
instant and unhesitating obedience. The reader will
suspect that the kind eyes of Francis, not without a
certain gleam of humour in them, must have made
some communication on the subject to the keen intel
ligence of the sharp-witted Italian boy, used, as his
nation still is, to all manner of telegraphic signs ; but
we have no warrant for making such a supposition in
the face of his many solemn and simple references
by means of the Bible and other sortes to the direct
decision of God.
The crusading army was in Egypt, occupied at the
time in the siege of Damietta ; and thither Francis and
his companions went. He is described to us by the
Bishop of Ptolemais, Jacobus de Vitriaco, who was there
present, " as an ignorant and simple man, beloved of
God and men." There is no record that he attempted
any missionary work among the soldiers ofthe Crusade.
His object was entirely different ; and it may well
have been that he left this charge to his companions.
The Sultan, Malek-al-Kamed, was encamped upon
the other bank of the Nile. Whether it was simply
one of the practices of the semi-barbarous warfare,
or whether the incursions of small parties of Chris
tians may have specially troubled the country and
invited such reprisals, we are not informed ; but the
Sultan, we are told, had offered a reward of a gold
bezant to whosoever should bring him the head
of one of the invaders. It was thus at peril of
his life that Francis took even the first step in his

XI.] THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. 167
mission. " He undertook the adventure," says Bona
ventura, " not terrified by the fear, but rather excited
by the desire of death." He set out with Brother
Illuminato, after prayer to God, singing that tenderest
of all consolatory psalms which recalls the green pas
tures and still waters, rather than any deadly presence
of peril. " Though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil," they sang, as they
set out to cross the dangerous passage ; their hearts in
spired — " drunken," as says the history — with the Spirit
of God and the hope of martyrdom. As they went
along in this exaltation of enthusiasm and excitement,
they saw two sheep getting their scanty food from the
accidental tufts of herbage along the sandy way.
"My brother, trust in the Lord," cried Francis, moved —
as men in such circumstances often are, by some fami
liar, homely sight, which strikes a strange reminiscence
ofthe ordinary and common-place into the midst of the
terrible — more than if he had seen a prodigy — " my
brother, trust in the Lord, for in us is fulfilled those
words of the Gospel, 'Behold, I send you forth as
sheep in the midst of wolves.' "
; This perpetual recurrence to our Lord's first
charge to His disciples, which was the special com
mission of Francis, and had decided his Hfe, is
infinitely touching. The most literal of documents,
with actual signature and seal, could not have been
more real to him. Thus fulfilling thf; absolute
letter of their instructions, the soldiers of God
entered the enemy's country. They had not gone
many steps further, when the fate they expected
suddenly overtook them. A party of Arabs, wild
and fierce figures, inspired at once by national
hatred and the love of gain, yet evidently unable to
shut their eyes to the fact that these strangers were

i68 THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. [chap.
not like the other Franks, who kept them in per
petual occupation, suddenly surrounded the wayfarers.
Why they were not made an end of on the spot, for
the sake of the two gold bezants, it is difficult to tell.
Vitriaco, who was in the camp of the Crusaders, and
in all likelihood heard the story from Francis himself
or his companion, gives us a brief account of the col
loquy. " I am a Christian : take me to your lord,"
the apostle said, with something of homely dignity
about him which must have impressed even those
sons of the desert. " They cruelly seized and bound
the servants of God," says Bonaventura, " dealing
fiercely and contemptuously with them, and with many
vile words and hard blows carried them along in
cruel bonds ; " yet still they did not sacrifice them
on the spot, but conveyed them to the presence of
the Sultan.
They would seem to have been led into the Court,
such as it was — the head-quarters of the Prince ;
for the presence of certain Mahommedan priests is
quaintly indicated, besides the ordinary retinue that
might be supposed to attend a military chief " Who
are you, and whence do you come .¦" " asked the Sultan,
wondering no doubt at the unarmed and poorly clad
prisoners. Francis answered boldly that they had
been sent, not by man, but by God, to show to him
and his people the way of salvation. Something of
the mantle of Saladin must have fallen upon his
successor. He listened without impatience to the
explanation : perhaps the sincerity of the apostle
impressed itself at once upon his keen Eastern faculties,
or perhaps, for the first moment, the rash missionary
was regarded with that reverence which in all
Eastern countries is a shield to the insane. In any
case, the Sultan listened with curious Oriental gravity

XI.] THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. 169
and politeness. We are not informed -whether, as
seems possible, Francis had sufficient possession of
the lingua franca to make himself understood in
his own person, or whether he had to employ an
interpreter. But, however that might be, the Sultan
seems to have been impressed, as Pope Innocent had
been, with the character of the man who addressed
him — his wonderful courage, honesty, and fervour,
and the manner in which his mission had taken hold
of him. The very innermost secret of power, with
all absolute rulers, is this faculty for discerning the
higher qualities of those whom their position brings
before them; and such utter forgetfulness of self, and
intense belief in the Unseen, must have made a double
impression upon the Mahommedan, whose faith was
not without similar examples of self-devotion. " Ad
miring the courage and fervour of spirit which he saw
in the man of God," he gazed and listened, and at
length, we are told, invited the missionary to remain
with him. Then came the grand climax of Francis's
eloquence. "If you and your people will be con
verted to Christ," cried the evangelist, " for His love
I will willingly remain with you ; and if you are
doubtful whether or not to forswear the law of Ma-
hommed for the faith of Christ, command a great fire
to be lighted, and I will enter into it with your priests,
that it may be known which faith should be held the
most certain and most holy." While the stranger was
thus speaking, with fire on his lips and in his heart
a certain high priest, who was in the retinue of the
Sultan, "one of the most aged among them, and of
the greatest credit and authority," no doubt perceiving,
as well as his sovereign, the strange reality that was
in the man, and the deadly sincerity of his proposal,
suddenly and silently withdrew out of harm's way.

170 THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. [chap.
not caring evidently to run the risk of such an en
counter, and feeling it likely that the earnestness of
the madman might actually lead to a trial of the
experiment. The Sultan, who saw this significant
withdrawal, answered the missionary mildly, though
with, it can scarcely be doubted, a certain cynical
sense of the humour of the situation. " I do not
believe," he said, "that any of my priests would
expose himself to the fire in defence of his faith."
But Francis was not to be balked of this grand oppor
tunity, for which he had planned and waited so long,
of proving the truth of his religion, or winning for
himself the palm of martyrdom. " If you will
promise me for yourself and your people," he cried,
"that you will embrace the worship of Christ, if I
come forth unharmed, I am ready to enter the fire
alone for your conversion. If I shall be burnt, let
it be imputed to my sins ; but if the Divine power
protect me, then let all of you acknowledge Christ
to be the wisdom and power of God — the true God
and the Lord and Saviour of all men ! "
No argument could have told so strongly upon
the glowing primitive imagination of the time; but
there is something even more than a fugitive im
pression in the effect which this sublime 'unreason
seems to have had on the Sultan. It is evident
that it went to his heart with the overwhelming
effect which utter self-devotion always produces
upon a high-toned and generous nature. It did
not convince, but it took him by storm. He bade
the poor preacher approach, and offered him gifts,
if not for himself, at least for the poor, or for the
erection of churches. No doubt the royal Eastern
was sufficiently skilled in men to know that,
though few were capable of sacrificing their own

XI.] THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. 171
lives for that of their fellow-creatures, it was a still
smaller number who were able to refuse that silver
and gold which can be put to so many generous uses.
His surprises, however, were not yet over. Francis
declined, with gentle obduracy, all his gifts ; not even
under the guise of charity would he receive so much
as the gold bezant which was the price of his head,
from the Prince for whose redemption he would so
gladly have given his own life. The growing wonder
of the Saracen, all unused to this fashion of man, may
be imagined. After such an interview, it is clear that
every dream of martyrdom must have been driven
from the mind of Francis. He had failed, and he had
succeeded, in a way which must have wrung his heart,
had he been sufiSciently self-conscious to perceive it.
He had recommended himself to the wonder and
admiration of another mind fully able to appreciate
him ; but he had not gained the object of his mission,
which was, least of all things, to recommend himself
Whether all this, which is succinctly recorded in the
straightforward narrative, took place at one or at
several interviews, we are unable to tell ; but it is
apparent that the stay of Francis in the army of the
Sultan was a short one. He is supposed to have
been less than a month absent from the camp of the
Crusaders, and there are various different accounts
given of the circumstances which caused his return.
According to some, the Sultan himself became
alarmed lest the preacher, who had moved his own
mind to so much personal sympathy, should pro
duce a more practical effect upon his army, and by
spreading Christianity among them, induce them to
desert to the ranks of the invaders. On the other
hand, we are informed that Francis himself find
ing his preaching ineffectual, voluntarily withdrew

172 THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. [chap.

from among the unbelievers, who did him all honour,
but courteously refused to accept his testimony respect
ing the one matter which was vital to him — a state
of affairs which must have been more painful than
any amount of persecution. Vitriaco informs us
that the Sultan took leave of the missionary with
affecting friendliness. " Pray for me," he said, " that
God may reveal to me that law and faith which
are according to His own heart." Probably this
was in answer to some last appeal, and it might
have meant more than courtesy ; for, whatever may
have been the impression made upon the reason of
the Eastern Prince by this strange visit, it is difficult
to believe that the image of Christ's devoted servant
can have passed from him without more or less
influencing his heart. The summons was ineffectual,
but not so the living epistle visible to all.
Thus far the authentic history : the story is given
by Celano and Bonaventura in full detail ; but when
this has been done — and a more remarkable encounter
has seldom been told in history — the legend comes
in, and adds a still more marvellous narrative. This
latter part depends entirely upon tradition, and has
no more authority than a hundred other legendary
incidents, which are full in some cases of beautiful
natural meaning, and in others throw a quaint and
striking light upon the peculiarities of the time. Its
chief recommendation — a recommendation which is
very far from being a guarantee of its truthfulness —
is, that it furnishes that dramatic termination to the
tale which primitive humanity craves. For it is
hard to be content with those fragmentary episodes,
which are so like ordinary life, and so unlike the
dramatic completeness of song and story. We all
know well enough how often a great crisis comes

XI.] THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. I73
about in our own e'xistence with solemn preparation,
and a providential arrangement of circumstances, and
every symptom that something grand and conclusive
must come of it. When the preliminaries are all thus
settled, and our hearts are at the highest throb of
expectation, holding the balance between rapture
and misery — lo ! the event arrives, the moment passes,
and nothing at all comes of it — except, perhaps, a
recollection, an impression, a disappointment — per
haps nothing but the strangest sudden relapse into
the gloom of ordinary days. This is how it happens
in Hfe — and this, it would seem, is all that came of the
missionary preparations of Francis. But such a break
down is not permissible in legend. And accordingly
our humble chronicler of the Fioretti gives the con
clusion which the popular mind in all ages, and which
all of us in our secret hearts, demand to complete the
tale. According to this additional chapter, the Sultan
not only dismissed Francis in peace, with wonder
and admiration of the man's unusual quaHties, but
received him fully into his favour, gave him a safe-
conduct by which he might go and come, with full
permission to preach to his subjects, and an entreaty
that he would frequently return to visit him. We are
not told how long was the stay made after this by
the wandering apostle and his disciples among the
Saracens, but " at length," says the record, " Francis
saw that he could not gain much fruit in these parts,
and resolved to return home." He had in the mean
time really put to the test his suggestion about the
fire, having thrown himself into one by way of con
verting a woman who had endeavoured to tempt
him. When he returned to take his leave of the
friendly Prince, the following conversation occurred
between them : —

174 THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. [CHAP.
" At length, St. Francis, seeing that he was able to gather
no further fruit in those parts, determined by a revelation
from God to retum with all his companions amid the be
lievers ; and all being collected together, he retumed to the
Soldan, and took leave of him. And then the Soldan said
to him : ' Brother Francis, willingly would I be converted to
the faith of Christ, but I fear to do so now ; for should they
be ware of it, they would slay thee and me, with all thy
companions ; and since thou art yet able to do much good,
and I have to finish certain very weighty matters, I would not
now hasten my death or thine. But teach me how I may
be saved : what thou layest upon me I am prepared to do.'
Then said St. Francis, ' My lord, I now go from thee ; but
v/nen I shall have retumed into mine own country, and by
God's grace have gone to heaven, after my death, according
to God's pleasure, I will send to thee two of my brethren
from whom thou shalt receive the holy baptism of Christ,
and shall be saved, as my Lord Jesus Christ hath revealed
to me. And do thou meanwhile free thyself from every
burden, that when the peace of God shall come to thee it
may find thee prepared for faith and devotion;' and, thus
he promised to do, and did it. But when this was done,
St. Francis departed with that venerable band of holy com
panions ; and after some years St. Francis, by the death of
his body, gave up his soul to God. And the Soldan, falling
into sickness, looked for the promise of St. Francis, and
caused guards to stand at certain passes, and bade that if
two brethren should appear in the habit of St. Francis they
should at once be led to him. At that time St. Francis
appeared tO'.two brethren, and bade them that, with no delay,
they should go to the Soldan, and gain his salvation, as he
had promised ; and the brethren at once bestirred themselves,
and crossing the sea, by the said guards were led to the
Soldan, and the Soldan seeing them, had passing great joy,
and said, ' Now know I traly that God hath sent to me His
servants for my salvation, according to the promise which
St Francis made me by revelation from God.' Receiving
then instruction in the faith of Christ and holy baptism from
the said brethren, being thus regenerate in Christ, he died
in that sickness, and his soul was saved through the merits
and through the prayers of St. Francis."
We do not ask the reader to receive this story, any

XI.] THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. 175
more than we ask him to believe various other par
ticulars of the legendary life of Francis. But it
completes, as the imagination requires, the strange
romance of missionary zeal and endeavoiir which, in
its first part, is as true as it is strange, and out of all
ordinary rule.
After this wonderful incident, Francis returned to the
camp of the Crusaders. He had seen the force and
discipline of the enemy, and probably in that fighting
age, even the prayerful Frate knew enough of warfare
to see what issue might be expected from any en
counter of arms. It is not on this reasonable ground,
however, that he is supposed to have acted. The
story is, that it was shown to him in a vision, that the
arms of the Christians would be unsuccessful if they
went to battle. After this revelation, he was in great
trouble of mind, fearing that so humble a man as
himself would obtain no hearing from the leaders of
the army — a strange humility, considering the success
which his eloquence and personal qualities had just
gained. In this strait he asked the advice of Fra
Illuminato, who persuaded him that he had no right
to be silent, but was bound to communicate to the
army what God had shown him. Emboldened by
this advice, Francis made known his vision, and ear
nestly prayed the Christian leaders to withdraw from
the decisive battle. His warning was received with
contempt, as he had foreseen ; but in the month of
November following was fully verified when the
Crusaders were driven back with great loss from the
walls of Damietta. The sympathies of Francis under
such circumstances must have been divided, for it is
impossible that he could have been without some
personal feeling towards the tolerant and friendly
prince who had received him with so much kindness.

176 THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. [chap.
The letters of Vitriaco, genuine and trustworthy
contemporary documents, show the impression which
his appearance must have made upon the more re
ligious portion of the Crusading army. These letters
are addressed to friends of the bishop in Lorraine
and Brabant, whom he evidently supposed to be
ignorant of the Order of the Brothers Minor, or, at
least, to have had less perfect knowledge of them
than his own. He describes once more their manner
of life — without purse, or shoes, or staff, with their
one sole woollen garment, and their absolute renun
ciation of everything in the shape of property, per
sonal or corporate ; and gives a striking account of
the number of converts made by the sight and
preaching of Francis, " simple and unlearned," such
as he had seen him. Among these are not only
secular men, such as he won everywhere to the
new life, but priests of rank and position, — "Dom
Reinerius, the prior of St. Michael's, our priest,
Colinus Anglicus, with two of his brethren, to wit,
Michael and Dom Matthew, to whom I committed
the care of my (episcopal) church," and many others.
And he describes, with much appearance of truth, the
effect of the mission upon the Saracens, who received
the preachers with goodwill, and listened to them
cheerfully until they began to say something against
the laws and faith of Mahommed, when they drove
them out of their villages. Vitriaco's idea was that
this new Order had been originated to form the fourth
corner of the square of the Church's defenders along
with the "hermits, monks, and canons" already ex
isting, and to prepare her for her final struggle with
Antichrist and the troubles of the last days.
The cause of Francis's return is also a matter about
which there is some doubt ; most probably it was the

XI.] THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. 177
simple necessity of being present at the next Chapter.
But there is an account which tells us that he was pur
sued by letters from the brethren, warning him of the
innovations introduced by Fra EHas, whom he had
left behind as his vicar. He returned, it would appear,
by Venice, where he also preached, and where some
supernatural instances of his favour with God were ap
parent to the multitude. He came back, disappointed
probably, giving up all thoughts of martyrdom — for
this was his last expedition beyond seas — and perhaps
upbraiding the weakness of his own sympathetic soul,
which made him the friend of every man whom he met,
and blunted all sorts of weapons that could be aimed
at him. Nothing is more likely than that this popu
larity, from which he could not escape, was a grief and
thorn in the flesh to the wandering missionary. He
had no desire to be popular ; but he could not put
away from him the loving-kindness in his eyes, his
tenderness for all God's creatures, the involuntary
spring of sympathy within him, and conviction that
every man he encountered was his brother. And
men, sinful and obdurate, and children of wrath as
they are, do somehow find out a heart that feels for
them, as the birds and the bees and the wild creatures
do in the unsophisticated woods. No doubt it was a
trouble to Francis. He had tried his best, and all he
had made by it was that incomprehensible human
approbation of himself not reception of his message.
The failure must have wounded him, flattering as it
was — and perhaps all the more that it was a flattering
failure. Had it been accompanied by danger 01
distress, it might have been less heavy to bear.
He would seem to have been met at Venice (if it
was there he landed) by some of the brethren, who
conducted him home. Among them, we are told, was
N

178 THE EXPEDITION TO SYRIA. [CH. xi.
a certain Leonard, a man of noble family of Assisi.
One day, as they took their journey homeward, Francis,
worn out with his fatigues, mounted an ass to relieve
the tedium of the way, and Fra Leonardo walked
behind him in silence, with many a thought in his
mind. He too was weary, and would fain have had
some aid on the way. He mused to himself with
momentary sullenness as he walked by the side of
the humble steed, thinking what a difference there
had been between himself a gentleman of coat-armour,
and the son of Pietro Bernardone, the shopkeeper.
" Yet he rides, and I lead his ass," said sulky Leonard
to himself " It is true," said Francis, suddenly
getting down in the silence which no voice had broken ;
" that I should ride, and you walk, is against all con-
gruity, my brother." He had read his thoughts, says
the story ; and no doubt he had read them, with his
marvellous insight, in the cloudy brow and eye that
shunned his kind glance. But Fra Leonardo, struck
with this miraculous cognizance of his thoughts, fell
at his master's feet and asked pardon for his wicked
ness. It was thus that the wandering apostle returned
to his home.

CHAPTER Xll.

THE FIRST INNOVATIONS

The first certain reappearance of Francis in the
Italian world after his expedition into the East was
of a very striking and picturesque kind. He was on
his way home from Venice, travelling as we have
already seen him, sometimes on foot, sometimes on the
ass which Brother Leonard led. There was no special
haste, for the extraordinary Chapter of the Order, to
which he was returning, did not take place until the
feast of St. Michael; and it was but the I Sth of
August when, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, as it
would appear, he made his appearance in the streets
of Bologna. His friend. Cardinal Ugolino, was there,
in the discharge of another mission as legate to
Lombardy; and there, too, was at least one com
munity of Brothers Minor, for which, since Francis had
last been there, a new house had been built. The
community had been established nine years before, by
Brother Bernard, in the early days of the Order ; and
the story of its beginning is so graphic, that we
pause to set it before the reader. i
"Brother Bernard, making over himself the sign of the
most holy cross, in his holy obedience departed and came
to Bologna, And the children, seeing him in a garment of
strange form and common sort, did him many insults, as they
would have done to a fool ; and Brother Bernard patiently
N 2

i8o THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. [chap.
and cheerfully bore all things for the love of Christ ; nay,
that he might be the better tormented, he with set purpose
placed himself in the market-place of the city, and sitting
there, there gathered round about him many children and
men ; and some plucked his hood from behind, some in
front, some cast dust at him, some stone§, some pushed
him this way, some that ; and Brother Bernard, ever in the
same patient sort, with cheerful countenance, complained
not, nor moved, and for many days retumed to that self
same spot only to bear the like.
" And because patience is the work of perfectness and
proof of virtue, a learned doctor of the law, seeing and
considering that the great constancy and virtue of Brother
Bernard was not disturbed in so many days by any annoy
ance or injury, said within himself, ' It is impossible that
this should not be a holy man ; ' and drawing near to him,
he asked, ' Who art thon, and wherefore art thou come
hither?" And Brother Bemard, for all reply, thrast his
hand into his bosom and drew forth the Rule of St. Francis,
and gave it to him to read ; and the judge considering his
most lofty state of perfection, with exceeding wonder and
amazement tumed to his companions and said, ' Traly this
is the most lofty state of religion that I have ever heard of,
and therefore this man, -with his companions, are the most
holy men in the world, and he does a most grievous wrong
who does them injury, who should pay them all honour if
he would be a trae friend of God.' And he said to Brother
Bemard, ' If ye will choose a spot in which ye may fittingly
serve God, I, for the salvation of my soul, will willingly give
it thee.' Brother Bemard answered, ' Sir, I believe that our
Lord Jesus Christ hath inspired thee with this, and therefore
willingly do I accept thy offer to the honour of Christ.' Then
the said judge, with great joy and loving-kindness, led
Brother Bemard to his house, and there he gave him the
promised spot, and at his own expense he fitted and pre
pared it all ; and thenceforward he became father and special
defender of Brother Bernard and his companions."
From this beginning of cheerful humiHty and
charity a prosperous community had grown ; the
little house had become too small for them ; and one
of tht objects of Francis no doubt, in his present visit

Xll.] THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. i8l
was to see the new house which had been built for
them by the Hberality of the same generous bene
factor. His arrival on that August day, in 1220, has a
certain excitement in it, as of a man newly returned
from the toils and perils of a long journey, finding a
novelty in every familiar feature of the landscape, and
with a glow of satisfaction in his home-coming, and
thankful yet anxious eagerness to hear of and see
all whom he had left behind. He came to Bologna
when the town was disturbed by internal feud. There
was tumult in the streets, even though the day was a
festa, and one of the most joyful in the calendar —
the Assumption of the Virgin. The first act of
the traveller was not to seek out his friends and
brethren and rest from his fatigues, but to make his
way to the Piazza, according to his wont, drawing the
crowd after him, to preach. A certain Thomas of
Spoleto, afterwards an archdeacon of the cathedral of
his native town, but at this time a student in the
University of Bologna, has left us an account of the
scene. He went after the brown friar, all travel-worn
and weary, to the square before the Httle palace,
whither almost the whole city followed the stranger —
and watched him closely with curious youthful eyes.
His bodily presence was mean, the student thought, his
person contemptible, his looks unimposing. He stood
up amid the intent and eager crowd, where, among
peaceable citizens and frightened women and children,
were the ruffling retainers of the warring nobles,
and those proud and turbulent personages themselves,
with swords thrust hastily into their scabbards, and
throats hoarse with faction-cries — and took for his text
the words, "Angels, Men, Devils." No doubt he had
illustrations of all these classes amid the crowd of
faces gazing at him, in all the infinite variety of an

1 82 THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. [chap.
age so full of life. The Word of God was so effectual
in his mouth, that many nobles, whose dissensions
kept the whole local world in misery, and filled the
very streets with blood, gave each other their hands
for the moment, and made temporary peace in the
softening of their hearts. The friar spoke so well,
says young Thomas, with the true spirit of a collegian,
that many learned men who were present marvelled
at a sermon which was not like that of a man unin-
structed. The crowd escorted him to his destination,
when he had ended, with tears and cries of joy and
universal devotion, so that he was considered happy
who had been able to touch the hem even of his
garments. He went, as soon as he had thus discharged his first
duty, to the palace of the cardinal legate, who received
him with the warmest welcome, The story goes on to
say, that on turning round (as if it had been in the same
street or square), the eyes of the returned missionary
encountered a great and sumptuous building, newly
erected, and bearing all the evidences of wealth. It
was the Convent of the Brothers Minor, the spectators
told him. Francis, thunderstruck by this discovery,
averted his face with indignant and vehement emotion.
"What !" he cried, "is this the house of Christ's poor.'
Have the Brothers Minor such great and splendid
palaces .' I do not recognize this as a house of ours,
and I cannot acknowledge as my brethren those who
live in it." When he had uttered these words, he
turned and commanded all who would retain the
name of Minor to quit the house, and leave to
the rich the things which belonged to them. So
indignant was he, and fierce with the sudden anger
of the naturally gentle, that the brethren in terror
precipitated themselves out of their fine house, even

XII.] THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. 183
the sick — among whom was Brother Leo, after
wards one of Francis's closest companions — getting
themselves carried out on the shoulders of the strong,
and laid down anywhere in the open air, rather than
encounter the gentle father's sudden fury. There is
something almost comic in this strange scene, at
which, no doubt, the crowd looked on gaping and
wondering, half compassionate of the houseless sick
and discomfited brethren, but wholly on the side of
the ascetic founder, and full of approval of the
austerities which he exacted.
The Cardinal, however, came in at this moment of
confusion and distress. He interposed on behalf of
the unfortunates, who lay gasping and pallid on the
stones, jolted out of breath by their rapid descent,
and trembHng before the angry countenance of
Francis. He took his friend aside, and represented
to him, with all the kindly special pleading of a peace
maker, that size and space could harm no man,
that the sick had better air, and the studious more
perfect quiet in the large house ; that, after all, it did
not belong to the brethren at all, but to the benefactor
who had built it for them, and permitted them the
use of it ; and, finally, when all other arguments failed
to satisfy the disturbed founder, that he himself would
remove all difficulties by taking possession of the
building in the name of Rome. Subdued but not
overcome, Francis permitted the sick folk to be
carried back to their quarters. That breath of fresh
air, fortunately, in the soft August evening, in the
shady street, all cool with its lofty houses, could have
done the invalids little harm. But he would not him
self enter the too-splendid house. He went away
sad and wroth, no doubt feeling that depression
which naturally succeeds unwonted anger in a heart

1 84 THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. [chap.
so generous and full of love ; and took shelter with
the Dominicans, who seem to have had an establish
ment close by. Perhaps even Ugolino had a share in
the vexation and distress which filled his soul. It
was his first violent encounter with the world and its
influence ; and probably by this time, if not before,
news had reached him of the relaxation which had
crept into the Order during his absence. He dwelt
apart, among the Dominicans, for some days, sore and
heavy at heart. How different must have been the
reception he had dreamed of after his toilsome
journey and long absence ! It was the practice of
Francis to persuade his brethren to taunt and mortify
him in words, by way of cultivating humility in him ;
but here was a humiliation of a sharper description,
and his strength failed before it. One of the Preach
ing Friars, a pious and prudent man, compassionating
not only the solitary lodger in his convent, whose
heart was filled with all the pangs of alienation from
his own people, but also the abashed- and penitent
Minors, deprived of their head, took upon him to per
suade the Master to return to his disciples. After
much discussion and sorrowful resistance on the part
of Francis, to whom it seems to have been almost im
possible to forgive the sin committed against holy
Poverty, the repentant brethren were at last forgiven,
but not the erring minister, Giovanni de Stiacchia,
who not only had permitted this sumptuous building
to be erected, but had set up a school of study more
adapted to the atmosphere of Bologna than to the
habit and rule of the Order. Francis dissolved the
school, enjoined the monks to turn their thoughts
more to prayer than to vain accumulations of know
ledge, and went his way, leaving pardon behind him,
but carrying with him the first sharp sting of division —

sn.] THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. 185
the sense that already anarchy had stolen into his
Order. It would seem that, as soon as his back was
turned, the impenitent Brother Giovanni re-established
the school ; and, not long after, died in great suffering,
ending his life amid a smell of sulphur, which seems
to have given great satisfaction to all the historians,
and imparted a thrill of terror, no doubt, to those who
were endeavouring in other places to break down the
too rigid barriers of the Rule.
After this stormy episode came a time of peace.
There still remained some weeks of leisure before
the assemblage of the Chapter at Michaelmas, and
UgoHno, getting over any momentary estrangement
that there might have been between them, seems to
have carried off his friend to the mountains, as a
couple of friends might betake themselves now to the
quiet and closer union of a joint excursion. The
priest and th'e monk, in the beginning of the thirteenth
century, did not' roam about in search of beauty
either of nature=or art ; but they did what came to
the same thing. According to the fashion of their
century, they retired to a little hermitage among the
hills, belonging to the Camaldules, and there dwelt
together for some Httle time in meditation and prayer
and spiritual communion. No doubt there was many
an hour of serious discussion high up among the
chestnut woods, or on the wild edges of the ravines,
between the Prince of the Church, who had escaped
there to rest from his toils and refresh himself with
mortification and vigil, and the humble apostle
who had but newly returned from his Eastern mission,
and whose heart was sore with the thought of failing
influence and backsliding brethren. Ugolino was
more lenient to human weakness, in this point, than
his companion. Cardinal and great man as he was,

1 86 THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. [chap.
he had probably been disposed to think that a rule of
poverty so absolute, and self-abnegation so unflinching,
was hard upon flesh and blood. And, no doubt, they
discussed the matter between them, and all that was
to be done at the approaching Chapter, and the
character of Elias, with its many great and statesman
like qualities. Perhaps Ugolino, like a true diplo
matist, saw the use of such a man to the Papacy, as
well as to the Order ; or Francis, when removed from
all excitement, was better able to estimate the virtues
of a character so unlike his own ; for it is clear that
these councils held among the soHtude of the hills
did not produce any very bad effects for the friar
who still held sway at the Portiuncula, notwithstand
ing his temporary punishment, and the indignation
of the Founder at his innovations upon the Rule.
When Francis emerged from this leafy seclusion, it
must have been with a mind refreshed and comforted
by the best solace which life contained to such a
man — the affectionate advice and sympathy of his
friend. It was a time of the year which he loved to
spend in retirement and prayer — the Lent of St.
Michael, as. we find it described in the old chronicles,
which it was his habit to keep with all the solemnity
and penitential observances proper to the greater
Lent. It was during this season bf soHtude and
prayer, three years later, that the miraculous marks,
called the Stigmata, were said to be conferred
upon him ; and it is natural to suppose that such a
holy pause from all his labours, such a sanctuary of
quiet, where his prayers might rise and his tears
flow, and all the macerations to which he still sub
jected his weakened body be carried on without let
or hindrance, would be doubly sacred to him after
his painful journey by land and sea, and banishment

xii.] THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. 187
in the blazing East. Fortified by this characteristic
retreat, he descended from the hills to his convent
just before the assembling of the Chapter. Let us
add, that there is about all his dealings with Elias
a certain touch of uncertainty in the tradition ; and
it is hard for us to make out how this brother
should have been so much to blame and yet so
persistently supported and forgiven. According to
the story, however, when the pilgrim appeared at
his favourite convent, he perceived that EHas, as he
came to welcome him, "wore a careful and elaborate
dress" — long hood, wide sleeves, and a rich fringe to
his garments — a habit altogether different from the
simple shepherd's frock, which had first suggested a
distinctive dress for the Order of the poor. Francis
said nothing respecting this strange travesty, but he
called for a tunic like that of Elias, and putting
it on, with exaggerated attention to its picturesque
effect, took upon himself at the same time, all the airs
of a severe and lofty dignity : he held his head erect,
threw out his chest, and, marching into the convent
with pompous steps, saluted all upon his way — not
with the " Peace be with you," which was the saluta
tion proper to the brethren, but with a condescending
" Good morrow, good people," at which the amazed
convent stood aghast. Then, turning to Elias, who
stood by, his offended master said, " This is the gait
and aspect of a false brother." He then threw off the
dainty robe, and resuming his own worn and ragged
gown, seated himself in the midst of the brethren,
and preached to them on his favourite subjects of
poverty and humility, exhorting them to remember
that he who was least among them was the greatest
of all.
After this, we are told, Francis repealed the inno-

i88 THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. [chap.
vations which EHas had introduced into the Order,
with one exception. What these innovations were,
however, it is difficult to make out. The aim of
Elias would seem to have been, not any absolute
relaxation of the Rule, but rather an attempt to
elevate the Order in external weight and influence,
requiring a higher position for its officers, and, as a
sensible man of the world would be so apt to do, raising
up from the first exaggeration of humbleness a cor
poration which already had become a power in the
country. That it was not mere personal comfort he
sought is evident from the fact that one of the chief
changes he made in the internal economy of the
brotherhood was that of forbidding them to eat meat
T-a piece of asceticism which had not occurred to the
founder. Thus, it is apparent that it was not a mere
protestation of the flesh against the severity of his
rule with which Francis had to do, but the serious
effort of an ambitious ascetic — of all innovations the
most dangerous. It was the same peril which he had
already encountered at Bologna. The corporate
spirit which he had himself laboured to create was
thus rising up against him, dreaming, not of ease or
comfort to the individual, which is the universal
popular conception of monkish backsliding, but of
splendour and power to the Order. For this, Gio
vanni de Stiacchia had encouraged the building ofthe
great conventual palace at Bologna, and done his best
to fill it with learned clerks, and make of it a centre
of instruction. For this, EHas had taken upon himself
the common signs of worldly dignity as vicar and tem
porary head of an important corporation. They were
men wise in their generation, impatient of that sim
plicity which went so far boyond their wisdom, and
incapable of comprehending how much more valuable,

Xii.] THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. i8g
even for outward success, are the original impulses
of pure and true religious feeling, than all the hack
neyed ways into which worldly wisdom has fallen
since the beginning of the world.
And it is very comprehensible how Francis should
have hesitated to repeal that one ordinance about the
eating of meat, which seemed to be, though it really
was not, in conformity with his spirit of mortification
and renunciation of all things. He could not forbid
anything that seemed an effort towards greater self-
denial : the reader feels that he was perplexed by it,
vexed in his friendly reasonable soul, anxious to believe
that it was an inspiration from above, and yet within
himself revolted by a severity which was at once out
of place in point of fact, and contrary to the letter
of the Gospel — " Eat what is set before you." It was
this discrepancy, probably, which most affected his
loyal and literal spirit. But he hesitated to deprive
his brethren of the joy of giving up something more
for Christ. He made short work with their great
houses, their soft raiment, their attempts at eccle
siastical pomp ; but a new piece of self-denial, however
unwise, was a thing he had not the heart to put a
stop to. His own example would have stood in the
way, in the first place ; for who so utterly self-denying,
who so greedy of privation, as himself .'
In the Chapter which followed, the historians of the
Order assert that Elias was set aside from his place,
and Pietro de Catanio, one of the earliest of Francis's
followers, elected in his stead. There is even an elabo
rate description of the homage done by the Founder
himself to the new Minister-General, which, however,
our Bollandist critic regards with very sceptical eyes,
and indeed declines to believe except under the
strictest limitations. We cannot pretend to examiii':

IQO THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. [chap.
the story in elaborate detail, as does the learned Jesuit ;
but he would seem to have the full support of fact
in his opinion that Francis never did lay the sway and
regulation of his Order out of his own hand ; and that
it was only as vicar during his frequent absences that
either Pietro or Elias ever ruled. In this light it is,
however, reasonable enough to suppose that, by way
of example to the brethren, Francis himself may have
proclaimed his readiness to obey his substitute, during
the times when he, a simple missionary, was incapable
of exercising, in his own person, the general authority.
Pietro lived for so short a time afterwards, that it is
natural there should be a doubt thrown upon his
actual holding of the place to which he was appointed ;
for EHas, who had preceded, also succeeded him ; and
his short reign looks like a mere interpolation upon
the much longer and more important vicariat of the
other. All this, however, we are bound to add, is
found only in the more recent histories. The con
temporaries of Francis are silent upon the subject,
perhaps because these controversies and the replace
ment of one officer by another were not so important in
their eyes as they seem by later lights ; or perhaps
(which is quite possible) because the brethren, with
that esprit du corps which already existed in so high
a degree among them, would not betray the dissen
sions, which had already broken the peace of the
Order, to an evil-speaking and sarcastic world.
We have already referred to the account given in
the Fioretti of the visit of an angel to the convent,
for the express purpose of examining EHas upon this
question of abstinence from meat — a story in which
a certain curious suppressed sarcasm, on the part of
the angel-visitor, mingles strangely with the pic
turesque but homely details of the narrative, in which

Xll.] THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. 191
there can be no doubt we have a more clear and real
picture of how Hfe passed among the brethren in
their solitude, six hundred years ago, than anything
to which the imagination of to-day could reach. Francis
is praying in the wood, absorbed in communion with
bis Master, yet not beyond the possibility of being
recalled by an appeal from the convent, and with ?
certain undercurrent of watchfulness over the brethrer.
keeping its place within him, notwithstanding the long,
silent ecstasies of devotion, which neither monk nor
angel cares to disturb. Burly Masseo is near the gate,
ready to answer any summons, and not disinclined
for a moment's gossip — a kindly, garrulous brother ;
and ambitious Elias in his cell, occupied with great
projects, and not to be disturbed with impunity.
While they are all thus fulfilling the duties most con
genial to their nature in the silence of the religious
place comes the impatient knocking, which called
from Brother Masseo that little lecture on the subject
which we have before quoted. The youth who stands
at the door thus states his object : —
" ' I am in great haste, and therefore knock I thus loudly,
for I have to make a joumey, and am come hither to speak
to Brother Francis ; but he is now in the wood in prayer,
and therefore I will not trouble him ; but go thou and tell
Brother Elias that I would ask of him one question, for I
know that he is very learned.' Brother Masseo went and
bade Brother Elias to go to the youth ; but he was angry,
and would not go; whereupon Brother Masseo knew not
what to do, nor what to answer him. Should he say,
' Brother Elias cannot come,' he would lie ; should he say,
how he was angry, and would not come, he feared to set a
bad example. And since, in the meanwhile. Brother Masseo
delayed to return, the youth knocked a second time as at
the first, and soon after Brother Masseo returned to the
gate, and said to the youth, ' Thou hast not observed my
bidding in thus knocking.' The youth answered, ' Brother

192 THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. [chap.
Elias will not come to me ; but go thou, and say to Brother
Francis that I am come to speak to him ; but because I am
loth to hinder him from prayer, bid him that he send to me
Brother Elias.' And then Brother Masseo went to Brother
Francis, who was praying in the wood vrith his face up
raised to heaven, and told him the message of the youth,
and the reply of Brother EHas :  and that youth was an
angel of God in form of man.
" Then St. Francis, not mo-ving from the spot, nor lowering
his face, said to Brother Masseo, ' Go thou and say to
Brother Elias that, by his obedience, he go instantly to that
youth.' Brother EHas, fearing the obedience of St. Francis,
went, much angered, to the gate, and with great haste and
noise opened it, and said to the youth, 'What -wilt thou?'
The youth answered, ' Beware, brother, that thou be not
angry, as thou appearest to be; for anger hinders the
mind, and suffers it not to discern the trath.' Brother Elias
said, 'Tell me what thou wouldest of me.' The youth
answered, ' I ask thee if it is lawful for a follower of the
holy Gospel to eat of that which is set before him, as
Christ bade His disciples ; and I ask thee, further, if it is
lawful for any man to put forth aught contrary to the liberty
of the Gospel.'
" Brother Elias answered proudly, ' I know well how to
answer thee, but I will not : go on thy business.'
" The youth said, ' I should know better how to answer
this question than thou.' Then Brother EHas, being angered
with fury, shut the gate and departed. Then he began to
think of the said question, and to doubt of it vrithin him
self; and knew not how to answer it, because he was
Vicar of the Order, and had ordained and made customs
contrary to the Gospel and contrary to the Rule of St.
Francis — that no brother of the Order should eat meat ; so
that the said question was expressly directed against him.
Whereupon not knowing how to make it clear to himself,
and remembering the modesty of the youth, and that he
had said that he knew how to answer that question better
than he did, he returned to the gate and opened it, to ask
the youth the aforesaid question; but he had already
departed, because the pride of Brother Elias was not worthy
to speak with an angel. When this was done, St. Francis,
to whom the whole matter had been revealed of God,
returned from the wood and boldly with loud voice rebuked

xil.] THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. I93
Brother Elias, saying, ' 111 hast thou done, proud Brothei
Elias, to drive from us the holy angels who come to teach
us. I tell thee, I fear greatly lest thy pride should cause
thee to end thy life outside the Order.' "
We might search in vain through the laborious
comments of the Bollandist or formal annals of the
Order, for so sharply-touched and distinct a picture of
the proud and impatient ascetic, in whom, notwith
standing, there are movements of humility, and who
is capable of thinking better of it, though too late
EHas and his life, and all the circumstances of his
career, must have been well known to the anonymous
chronicler of the Fioretti; and we are, accordingly,
able to receive the sketch as a personal portrait,
without hesitation, although no doubt that very know
ledge of his subsequent life which makes the portrait
more distinct, weakens our belief in the recorded
prophecy, which can only have been published after it
had turned out true. At the same time, the character
of Elias must have commanded a certain respect from,
and even have touched at certain sympathetic points
the open-hearted Francis, who evidently could not con
demn him altogether. By times, no doubt, the con
viction must have forced itself upon the mind of the
saint that so restless and masterful a spirit could not
remain in the humblest of Orders, but he was ever
anxious to retain and recall him by unfailing tender
ness, and clung to him with evident personal affection.
Here is a letter addressed to EHas in his capacity as
Vicar-General, which breathes the very spirit of the
gentle apostle.
" To his reverend father in Christ, Brother Elias, Vicar-
General of the Order, Brother Francis sends greeting in the
Lord. " My brother, God give you His holy blessing. Be
patient and gentle in all things. If the brethren occasion
O

194 THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. [chap.

you grief, cast it upon God. In this only shall I recognize
you as a trae servant of God, if you lead back to Him in
mercy the brother who has gone astray, and cease not to
love even him who has committed serious sins. If out of
fear such a one should not dare to pray for pardon, let it be
your part to ask him if he wishes to be forgiven. ... In
all that you have to do, I recommend to you charity and
patience. You will have to be the support of many, and the
burden on your shoulders will be great and heavy: it is
the burden of many souls. In the old law the high priest
carried, written upon the breastplate, — which, hanging from
his shoulders, rested on his heart, — the names of the twelve
tribes of Israel, by which we are taught, that the superior
should carry his subordinates in his heart, even as he carries
them on his shoulders ; for if he ceases to love them, they
will become intolerable to him. When Jesus Christ our
Lord would give the care ofthe Church to Peter, before He
gave up His sheep into his hands, He examined him as to
his love. Take care, then, that no brother sin ; but if he
sins, let him not leave your presence without having felt
your pity and received his punishment. . . . Watch, wam,
labour, feed the flock ; love, wait, and fear. Farewell in
the Lord."
A very similar letter of warning and instruction
has also come down to us, addressed to another Vicar-
General, no doubt Pietro de Catanio, in both of which,
it will be perceived, Francis, though addressing each
as " reverend father" (they were both priests, which he
himself was not), speaks with unquestionable autho
rity, and a certain severe yet gentle dignity. Nothing
can be more clearly indicative of the fact that the
supreme rule was always in his own hands. It is
thus he addresses his other vicar — one of his first
disciples ; a man, there can be little doubt, older and
of much higher position than himself
" The I^ord bless and keep you in His holy charity. In
all your actions, my brother, I recommend to you patience ;
and whatsoever hindrance may meet you, on the part of the
brethren or of others, even if they go so far as to lay hands

XII.] THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. 19S
on you, you should accept all as a favour, as if you had
desired that, and nothing else. Love those who act thus,
and desire nothing more of them, unless the Lord will grant
you more. Let the sole end of your love for them be, to
make them better Christians. This is the mark by which
I shall know whether you love the Lord and me. His servant
and your.s. If a brother has sinned in the world, however
great his fault may be, if he has once been brought before
you, let him not depart till he has felt your mercy. If he
does not ask pardon, do you ask him if he desires it ; if,
after having refused it, he appears a thousand times in your
presence, love him more than you love me, in order to draw
him back by that means to goodness ; and have always pity
on such men. Make it clearly known to the Guardians that
this is how you mean to act. Let the brethren who know
the sin of one among them, take care of doing anything to
shame the culprit, or of reproaching him ; on the contrary,
let them conduct themselves tenderly towards him, and hide
the fault of their brother : those who are well have no need
of a physician, but those who are sick.
" If a brother, at the instigation of our enemy, should fall
into mortal sin, let him be bound by obedience to seek the
help of his Guardian ; and let the Guardian be bound in
his tum, in the name of obedience, to send him to the
Minister ; and let the Minister provide for his necessities
mercifully, as he would should be done to himself in a similar
case ; and let no one have the power of imposing upon that
brother any other penance than this, 'Go and sin no more.'
Thus act, and farewell."

Thus tenderly did the founder of the Order legis
late for the general mass of the brethren : thus
straitly, with a certain austere gentleness, full of
authority, did he bind the highest officers among
them. Tenderness itself breathes in the injunction ;
but never a Caesar spoke more imperatively ; never
was the viceroy of a despot more closely held to the
letter of the law.
The only other remarkable point about the Chapter
of 1220, held on Michaelmas Day, is the appearance
o 2

igS THE FIRST INNOVATIONS. [CH. XII.
there of Antonio of Padua, a saint scarcely inferior
to Francis himself in the annals of the Order, and
one of his most devoted foUowers. We may conclude
this chapter with the following brief letter addressed
to him by Francis, probably about this time, and out
of which there seems to breathe some reminiscence of
the troubles at Bologna. Once more austere authority,
quite uncompromising in its self-assertion, mingles with
his usual gentleness, as he issues his commands : —
" To my beloved brother Antonio. Brother Francis greets
him in the Lord.
" My will is that you explain to the brethren the teachings
of holy theology, but in such a manner, however (and this
a desire above all), that the spirit of holy prayer should not
be dulled in you nor in others, according to the Rule which
we profess. Farewell."
Thus the necessities of his office moulded not only
the style, but the character of the apostle of Assisi.
In himself the tenderest, gentlest, most open-hearted
of men, rendering willing obedience to the superior
of the convent, -wherever it was, in which he hap
pened to be, avoiding all appearance of vainglory,
of superior ease or rank, electing even his com
panion as he travelled to be his superior, — as soon as
the affairs of the Order were concerned, he became
imperial in his tone. It was the great work of his
life, one for which he was specially commissioned
by God ; and that responsibility he could transfer
to no one. Hot indignation flashed across his mild
face when any attempt to change the spirit or char
acter of his work became manifest : even then, as
we have seen in his treatment of EHas, he imputed no
evil motives, and did justice to what better meaning
might be in the offender ; but he would suffer no
tampering with the grand object of his life.

CHAPTER XIII

THE THIRD ORDER.

It was in the year 1221 that the Third Order of the
Brothers Minor came into being. After the Chapter
held at Michaelmas, which we have just described,
Francis had resumed his apostoHc labours. He went
no more abroad — perhaps because the great mission on
which he had set his heart was so far fulfilled — perhaps
because of the dawnings of change in the Order — and
even perhaps because so many labours and mortifica
tions had begun to tell upon his bodily strength ; but
in Italy his work was incessant. Sometimes, we are
told, he preached in as many as five towns or hamlets
in the course of one day ; and all the towns and villages
of Umbria, the great baronial houses, the Httle ham
lets, every centre of habitation in that full and richly
populated country, received the wandering saint. It
is needless to add, that his preaching was attended by
constant miracles, and that the sick and unfortunate
crowded on his path to see him, to touch, to get help
and succour from mere contact with his robe or the
passing of his shadow. The miracles themselves
always retain, in the midst of the usual conventional
wonders, stray touches here and there of tender
human kindness and feeling, which identify them as
his. Once when he was passing a great feudal strong
hold, a Httle daughter of the lord of the place, deaf

198 THE THIRD ORDER. [chap.
and dumb from her birth, was sent to him that he might
heal her. The child stood by the side of the preacher
— one can fancy with what wistful looks of wonder —
while he preached to the crowd of retainers, all of
whom doubtless were open-mouthed with anxiety as
to the result. When the sermon was over, he turned
to the little mute, and bade her go and ask her father
for a site for a convent upon his lands. The story
takes all its character from this mode of proving the
success of the attempt to heal. Francis had put off
for himself all the sweetness and consolation of natural
relationship ; but yet he knew by instinct that it was
the father's ear, and none other, which should hear
the first word ffom his child's mouth ; and that nature,
in her way, was holy, and fair, and good, though a
harder path, which was not that of nature, a thorny
road above the common, flowery levels of humanity,
was that which he had chosen for himself
This principle was the very heart of the new or third
Order. We have already given the legendary account of
its origin, which is, that the preaching of Francis was
so effectual on a special occasion, that the whole popu
lation of a little town or castle rose up to follow the
preacher, as with one impulse. He made their ungod
liness, their sinfulness, and absorption in worldly cares,
intolerable to them by his burning words, and the
universal compunction burst all bonds of prudence.
But Francis was himself too reasonable to permit
such a wholesale sacrifice. He knew that the world
must still go on and fulfil its every-day labours, what
ever might be suggested by the enthusiasm of a
moment ; and he was not himself led avvay by any
fanatical impulse of proselytism. When the excited
people wept and besought him to permit them to
follow him, he silenced them with tranquillizing words

xm.] THE THIRD ORDER. 199
" Remain in your homes," he said, " and I will find
for you a way of serving God." The critical Jesuit,
though he does not accept this legend in all its
picturesqueness, yet allows the fact of a great and
sudden popular awakening under the preaching of
Francis. The first idea of the people seems to have
been that they should separate, husbands from wives,
and parents from children, and retire into the cloister;
but even in their own minds this wild resolution began
to look impracticable after the first outburst. When
the married women, and girls affianced or intended
by their parents for secular Hfe, came to themselves,
in their excitement they threw themselves upon the
charity of the preacher, who had aroused them from
their common-place calm. "What shall we others
do .¦" " they cried piteously. " We cannot lead your life.
Tell us if there is any way by which we can save
our souls ? " And in similar terms the married men
besought the Frati. " We have wives," they said,
" who will not let us go. Tell us, then, in what way
we can keep the path of health." It was in answer
to these entreaties that the Third Order was instituted.
" He persuaded them to remain at home, and to live
there in the fear of God and the practice of Christian
virtues, promising to make out for them, in a short
time, a form which they could keep without leaving
the condition of life to which God had called them."
Thus it was the object of the Third Order to meet
the needs of devout persons still living, and compelled
by duty to live, " in the world : " people who could not
aspire to what was then considered the way of perfec
tion, the life of the cloister, — but with hearts careful
and troubled about many things, with husbands
and wives to think of and houses and lands, with the
care and maintenance of children and dependants

200 THE THIRD ORDER. [cHAP.

upon their shoulders, and all the responsibilities of
secular life, — were yet inspired by a desire to serve
God above all.
In modern times we are apt to think that these are
the happy in this earth ; and when we belong to the
class, we are tempted to look down with a certain sense
of superiority from our eminence of experience upon
the solitaries who have stood apart from Hfe. It was
otherwise in the thirteenth century. In the belief
of the world then, it was the virgin souls in their re
tirement who had chosen the steeper, harder, more
exalted way ; it was they who were the nearest Christ :
all that the secular married people could do was to toil
after them painfully, feeling the clog of a hundred
cares, which restrained them from the perfect devotion
of the cloister. Francis was the first monastic leader
who had thought of those poor rich, happy folk as
worth consideration at all. The exquisite naturalness
and humanity of the man made it apparent to him
that, after all, monks and nuns could never form the
staple of the race ; and that the purity, honesty, and
piety of that race were as deeply important as the
highest attainments of recluse sanctity : we do not
say more deeply important, for he was not above the
prejudices of his age and condition. The Rule of
the Third Order is simply that of a high-toned
religious life, cast in the lines which were familiar to
the time, with perhaps what may appear to us a
superabundance of fasting and penitential observances,
but nothing inconsistent with the ordinary conditions
of humanity. Before admitting any member into the
Order, an investigation was to be made into his life,
especially in respect to personal integrity and the
state of his relations with his neighbours. If a man
was found unrighteously possessed of the goods of

XIII.] THE THIRD ORDER. 201
another, or if he were unreconciled to his enemies, he
was ineligible, until full restitution and peace had been
made — a stipulation of incalculable importance in the
existing state of the world. The vow exacted was a
simple but solemn promise to keep God's command
ments. " I promise and vow to God, the Blessed
Virgin, our father St. Francis, and all the saints of
Paradise, to keep all the commandments of God,
during the entire course of my life, and to make satis
faction for the transgressions which I may have com
mitted against the Rule and manner of Hfe of the
Order of Penitents, instituted by St. Francis, according
to the will of the visitor of that Order, when I am
admitted into it."
Such was the vow of the Tertiary, which multi
tudes of people throughout the whole known world
hastened to take. The secondary requirements of
the Order were such as have been adopted over and
over again at periods of reformation and religious
revival. The Penitents were called upon to avoid
balls, festivals, the theatre, and all manner of vain
amusements, as if they had been Puritans. The
brethren were forbidden to bear arms, except in the
case of danger to their country or the Church. They
were to avoid all solemn engagements, or oaths,
except in matters of necessity, for the faith, or for
indispensable business, such as bearing testimony.
Lawsuits were also forbidden among them, and all
the arts of conciliation and peacemaking encouraged.
When we add, that it was enjoined upon them to fast
often, to eat no meat four days in the week, this is
only to say that they belonged to the Middle Ages —
a period at which modern ideas on that subject, as on
many other subjects, were unknown. Neither need
it bewilder us to find once more in the form of prayer

202 THE THIRD ORDER. [cHAP.
used by the Tertiaries, when for any feasible reason
they were prevented from using the breviary, the
same simple theory of devotion which we have already
seen to be characteristic of the mind of Francis.
To them, as to his monks in their first beginning, he
gave the Paternoster for their liturgy. They were to
repeat it seven times for matins, and seven for each
canonical hour, followed by a Gloria Patri. Seven
times over the Lord's Prayer — was not this to use
it as a charm, and to lose all sense of its divine
meaning 1 But it would be premature to condemn
Francis, or even to attribute this simpHcity and much
repetition solely to the character of his own mind.
He had lived much among the poor, and knew their
habits and ways. He had lived among busy people,
men and women, eaten up from morning till night
with the cares of the world. He knew how difficult
it would be in either case to insist upon the use of
any form of prayer which was not absolutely familiar
to them. But no shepherd upon Apennine, no house
wife among her daily toils, no merchant in the stress
of business, buf could bethink himself or herself of
the Lord's Prayer. And the object of the founder was
to attract and gently draw these secular persons from
over-occupation with the things of this world, and to
interest them in another. They were not only to do
justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
their God, but they were to recognize the vow that
bound them, by a certain continual homage of the
spirit, and recollection of the world unseen. Thus, for
the simple and for the ignorant, as well as for the
great and learned, the Rule was framed — wide enough
in its Hmits, simple enough in its requirements, to
admit both.
In every place where a congregation of the Third

xm.] THE THIRD ORDER. 203
Order existed, there was a visitor, who was bound to
be a priest, and Brother Minor of the First Order, and
whose duty it was to oversee and inspect the penitents,
and keep them in the way of Hfe. Each member, at
his death, was entitled to a funeral attended by all his
brethren, and to those prayers and masses which to the
mediaeval mind made dying easy. There were three
grand Masses said solemnly for the Brothers and Sisters
alive and dead, every year; and among themselves
in every community, each one was bound to say a
Pater for the departed or departing soul — a kind of
spiritual assurance against, not death, but that which
follows after death, which is a well-known part of the
religious economy of the age. They were all Brethren
and Sisters, in the midst of a struggling world. And
it may easily be perceived what a wonderful bond
was theirs — a tie which connected people of every
class and condition, binding them to mutual succour
and support ; and how incalculable was the tacit aid
given by this mass of lay supporters to the action of
the consecrated brethren, the Friars Minor themselves.
We are told in the Histoire des Ordres Monastiques,
that this very cause brought distress upon the com
munity. They were considered as defenders of the
Holy See, and, as such, suffered whenever any feud
arose between Pope and Emperor — the secular and
the spiritual powers. It was said by a rueful legis
lator, who found the Franciscans, with this mighty
Tertiary backing, much in his way, that Francis had
established a society in which he received all kinds of
people, so that there was scarcely a soul in Christendom
whose name was not upon its muster-roll. The Em
peror Frederick 1 1., we are told by the same monkish
authority, persecuted them wherever they were found ;
and so early as tbe year 1227, Pope Gregory IX

204 THE THIRD ORDER. [chap.

(once Cardinal Ugolino, our old friend), defended the
Tertiaries by a special bull, in which he commanded
the bishops and archbishops of Italy to interfere in
their favour, that they might not be laden with in
creased taxes, but should pay only what others paid.
On the other hand, the Third Order rose into instant
distinction and importance, and was joined by a crowd
of noble and powerful persons Saint Louis of France,
his mother and wife, were all members of it. And so
was St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and many other prin
cesses, wlio, after lives of much Christian charity and
fervent devotion in their natural sphere, transplanted
their zeal and sanctity into the stricter enclosure of the
professed sisterhood. Wherever the preaching friars
penetrated in their absolute poverty, breaking upon
the slumbering imagination and torpid faith of the
world as with a sign from heaven, the laity crowded
into this ReHgion, which was possible — which did not
require the renunciation of other duties, and yet
Hnked them to the holiest men on earth, and gave
them the support of a definite Rule. It was the first
reappearance in the Church, since its full hierarchical
establishment, of the democratic element — the Chris
tian people, as distinguished from the simple sheep to
be fed, and souls to be ruled. The humblest Tertiaiy
had a certain place in the Church, which the proudest
prince had not possessed before. j
This great institution, however, was not the astute
and elaborate scheme of a great ecclesiastical intel
ligence, but the sudden device of a most tender
Christian spirit, thinking chiefly of the comfort and
profit of individuals. It seems doubtful whether
Francis was even aware what a fruitful idea he had
inaugurated. His fertile and inventive mind threw
out great suggestions unconsciously. The female

xm.] THE THIRD ORDER. 205
branch of his Order was instituted, it is evident, solely
because of the one young enthusiast in whose piety
he interested himself with all the warmth which
belonged to his nature ; and the Third Order sprang
into being in the same curiously accidental way,
that the brimmings-over of a sudden and general
spiritual impression might not be lost. Without
knowing it, thinking only what was the best way to
keep alive that suddenly aroused anxiety for divine
things, and to secure the salvation of all those eager
Italian men and women about him whose burdens he
understood, and whose natural duties he approved,
the humble monk threw forth an organization more
powerful, influential, and universal than any Free
masonry. But no thought of political power, or the
future splendour of his Order, was in his mind.
What he thought of was the conversion of souls, the
service of God, and, above all things else, the imita
tion of Christ.
We are not informed whether the awakened popu
lation of the village or stronghold in which the idea
first originated were satisfied at once by being en
rolled in the Rule which was specially constructed
with a view to their needs. The first person named
as admitted to it is a certain Luca, a merchant,
who had retired, probably, from one of the greater
cities of Umbria to the little town of Giansi, where
he did his best to make up for a hard money-
making life by universal charity and kindness. We
are told that he went out to meet Francis on his
entrance to Giansi, much as Zaccheus met our Lord ;
and that he and his wife Bonna were received at once
into the obedience of the new Rule. The next mem
ber we hear of by name is a noble Roman, Matteo
de Rubeo, in whose house Francis lodged a little later

2o6 THE THIRD ORDER. [chap.
— the father of the future Pope Nicolas IV. When
the saint was a guest in Rubeo's palace, Nicolas was
an infant ; and we are told that Francis, taking him in
his arms, blessed him, and prophesied his future rank.
" This little one shall not be a brother of our society,
but its protector," he said to the happy and won
dering father ; " he shall not be a son, but a father,
under whose shadow our family shall live and rejoice."
An association so full of spiritual life and meaning,
had not, however, need of the protection of any Pope
in its vigorous beginning. It grew and flourished by
natural right, and gathered recruits from every side.
Wherever Francis himself preached, crowds rushed to
take the simple vow and declare themselves on the
Lord's side in the midst of an evil world ; and the
brethren, as they went forth upon their missionary
labours, carried with them this new code by which to
identify and bind together their converts, and con
solidate their spiritual kingdom. The picturesque
features which belong to it are rather those of the
century than of the movement ; for that movement
itself is little more than the perennial working of
religious earnestness, which is the same in all ages.
From the time of the Apostles until now, every re
newed wave of spiritual life has resulted in the
formation of a peculiar people, a Church within the
Church, a religious commonwealth abjuring all com
mon gaieties, pomps, and pleasures, and pubHcly
announcing itself as the army of the Lord. Every
reformer has essayed, with more or less success, to do
what Francis did. The Tertiaries were the Puritans
of that distant age, the Society of Methodists, the
Children of the new light. Sad-coloured garments,
oft-recurring devotions, the banishment of all external
signs of gaiety, are the general features which strike

xm.] THE THIRD ORDER. 207
the careless observer, and prove to him the same
ness of all religious effort ; but underneath these are
characteristics still more Catholic. It is upon the
Apostolic model that Francis builds ; and that was
but a Christian recommencement of the old struggle —
as old as the world — to make God's commandments the
supreme rule of life — a struggle continually failing, yet,
thank God, continually renewed. It may be possible
that in all ages the spirit of this perpetual effort has been
most fully visible in humble souls who wore no livery
of outward hoHness — the " seven thousand who had
not bowed the knee to Baal," though God's prophet
knew them not ; but yet in all ages, the leaders of
Christianity have set their hearts upon this lofty
dream of a world made Christian — a community re
fraining from war, both covert and open, laying aside
the sword, and not less laying aside that sharper
scourge than the sword, the keen edge of self-interest
which cuts the bond between brother and brother ;
without strife, without litigation, without the meaner
evils of levity and display; in which a man's word
should be as sure as a hundred oaths, in which there
should be no conspiracies, no secret combinations,
nothing but justice, and friendship, and truth. Such
an ideal has shaped the thoughts of the philosopher
no less than of the saint ; but to the saint the way
is less hopeless than to any secular dreamer. It is
the old way, trodden by patriarchs and apostles,
opened in all its fulness by the sacred footsteps of the
Saviour. Thus Francis regarded it as did Paul, and
as every succeeding reformer has done. And in the
thirteenth century the world was still young, and the
rule of the absolute was not over.
It is curious to mark how the same fears and
hopes descend from age to age, with an entire

2o8 THE THIRD ORDER. [chap.
reversal of every surrounding circumstance. Anti
christ, which Protestants have so often personified
in our days under the figure of Rome, was in the
days of Francis looked for with vague terror, not
so clearly embodied, but perhaps still more actively
feared. It might be Mahomet, it might be the
obscure and unintelligible heresy which was being
crushed by persecution among the Vaudois hills ; but
whatever it was, Francis in his Third Order trained
an army against it of devout Catholics, who be
lieved in the Pope as they believed in their own
souls, and prepared themselves with all the fervency
of conviction to resist that Antichrist, and make
the cause of God prosper in the world — just as Pro
testant Societies, Evangelical Alliances, every kind
of modern association, have banded themselves in
recent days against the Antichrist at Rome, nothing
doubting that theirs was the first mission against it,
and their identification of it the only true one. Thus
fashion changes, and the perennial stream glides into
new channels, but yet remains in its essence always
the same.
The Order of Tertiaries made, as we have already
said, great progress over all Christendom, and soon
numbered the very highest and best of living poten
tates and nobles among its members ; but it was
adopted first by the surrounding towns and villages,
by the compatriots of the founder — the people who
saw him day by day, and knew what kind of a life
and work his was. There seems to have been a
special outburst of zeal at Florence, where the inha
bitants threw themselves into the new Rule with
the same fervour which they afterwards displayed
under the preaching of Savonarola, and demonstrated
their zeal by building hospitals and convents— one of

xm.] THE THIRD ORDER. 209
which, we are told, still existed in the beginning of
the seventeenth century, in the Piazza of Santa Maria
Novella. When the first disciples were received into
the^Order, they are described, as it is usual in con
ventual phraseology to describe the entrance of a
new member, as " receiving the habit ; " but it does
not appear that the dress of the Tertiaries was ever
generally worn ; for it was at the option of the visitor
of each local society to grant dispensations in regard
to this and other superficial matters ; and it is cleai
that the compulsory adoption of a uniform dress
would have infringed the liberty of so large a mass of
people, Hving in the " world," and in full discharge of
all its duties, to an inconceivable extent. "There
are districts," says the French historian of the
Monastic Orders, in the eighteenth century, " princi
pally in Spain and Italy, where many Tertiaries of
both sexes publicly wear the habit of the Order,
which consists of a gown of brown or grey cloth,
bound round at the waist by a white cord, with a
mantle ofthe same stuffy the men wearing sometimes
a hood, sometimes a hat, and the women a white veil"
But this was quite exceptional, and nowhere common.
In short, the Order was not intended to be marked
out from the world, but rather to leaven that world —
forming a link between the secular and the ecclesiasti
cal. As was to be expected, its more fervent members
drifted continually into the stricter enclosure of the
first Order of Brothers Minor, or formed new branches
of the great stock. Those who had become Tertiaries
when bound by marriage or by important occupations
in the world, retired to the ready cloister when widow
hood or old age came upon them ; and women who
had adopted the easier Rule in their youth foHowed,
when they had full command of themselves, the

2IO THE THIRD ORDER. [CH. xm.
same example. The " Begghards," or Beguines, of
Flanders are mentioned as one of the offshoots
thus formed, along with a number of other distin
guished Orders — the Capucins, the Urbanists, the
Brothers and Sisters Hospitallers, and many more.
It was not, however, in this intention that the third
Franciscan Order was formed. Its purpose was, in
all simplicity, in all sincerity, to promote the purity
of common Hfe ; to sanctify, by active practice of
all the Christian virtues, the troubled and disturbed
existence which most men and women have to live
in the midst of an uneasy world ; and to make all
work practicable, and all patience possible, by im
pressing upon the minds of the labouring and heavy-
laden a constant sense of the aid of Christ, and
the presence, in the midst of all their mortal enemies,
oppressions, and perils, of that one unfailing though
unseen Friend.

CHAPTER XIV.
FINAL CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE.
During the Chapter of the year 1220, the first after
the return of Francis from the East, in which he had
been troubled by the first germs of insubordination,
there arrived a little band of missionaries still more
travel-worn than himself and less cheerful. These were
the missionaries to Germany, whose rueful, half-comic
story we have already recorded — who had got them
selves into dire trouble, and procured their own expul
sion from the country they went to evangelize by the
smiling good-humour with which they answered Ja,
not knowing what it meant, to the question whether
they were heretics. From such rude Teutonic greet
ing, from prison and hardship, they came back worn
out and discouraged with their woeful story. Such a
repulse had the natural consequence of stirring up a
certain eagerness in the whole Order for the conver
sion of Germany. But this was not to be accom
plished by the immediate renewal of the mission
under the same hopeless conditions : for Francis was
wise for his community, however rashly-daring he
might be in his own person ; and the lives of his
brethren were dear to him, as well as the success
of their work. The immediate cause of this first
serious failure was supposed to be the want of any
public and published confirmation of the Rule by
p 2

212 CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. [ch.AP.
Papal authority. It had been confirmed by word
of mouth; — once almost privately — the second time
before a great Council, which formally acknowledged
the Order ; but not by any written document or bull
addressed to the whole Church. It thus became neces
sary to sustain the Order by unmistakeable evidences
of approval from Rome ; and this was not a work
which could be done in haste. It will be evident,
however, to the modern reader, that the real cause of
the failure of these simple missionaries was not the
unlucky affirmation which stamped them heretics, but
their ignorance of the German language ; though that
does not seem to have been reckoned among their diffi
culties, the age being, on the whole, careless of such
trifles. Perhaps, however, by this time, some travellers
from Germany had found admission into the Order ;
for the mind of Francis seems to have been bent
wholly upon settHng what appeared to him the first
and greatest hindrance by procuring a written con
firmation of his Rule. It is a curious evidence of the
slow communication between one part of the Con
tinent and another, that the proceedings of the great
Council held at the Lateran in 12 15 should not have
been sufficiently known across the Alps in 12 19 to
secure toleration for the brethren, to whom Pope
and Council had given their approval. But so, it
would seem, it was.
This year, however, there occurred a strange scene,
belonging rather to the private than the public life
"of. Francis, upon which the legend dwells fondly, and
even the critical historian makes a sympathetic pause.
Agnes, the sister of Clara — the little Agnes who, ten
years before, had followed her sister to the convent,
and whom all the strength of her warlike relations
jould not, as we have already related, tear from that

XIV.] CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. 213
sanctuary — was sent by the head of the Order to
Florence, to preside over a new community of Poor
Ladies, probably in the convent which the zeal of the
Florentine burghers, members of the Third Order,
had just built for their professed sisters. Agnes can
not have been more than twenty at the time this
office was conferred upon her, and it is difficult to
apply our modern conventional idea of the state of
disappointed feeHng, soured life, and languid vitality
which drive women into the cloister, to this young
Abbess, setting out, no doubt to her own conscious
ness, on a noble and worthy mission, fulfilling the
highest duty possible to a woman ; nor is it easy to
refrain from sympathy with such a maiden flower of
humanity consecrated from its earliest blossoming to
God. There is no connection in the legend between
the solemn feast which we are about to relate and
the departure of Agnes on her mission ; yet, from
a brief reference at the end of the narrative, it seems
probable that it was intended as a consolation to Clara
after her separation from the sister to whom she had
been so closely united. The story of the dinner given
by the brethren at the Portiuncula to their sisters
from St. Damiano is thus fully told in the Fioretti : —
" St. Francis, when he was at Assisi, ofttimes visited St.
Chiara, giving her holy teaching. She, on her part, had an
exceeding great desire of eating once with him ; but though
she prayed him many times, he would never do her this
pity ; and his companions, seeing this longing desire of St.
Chiara, said to St. Francis, ' Father, it seemeth us that this
sternness is not according to the divine love, that thou heark-
enest not to St. Chiara, a virgin so holy, beloved of God, in
so small a matter as is the eating with thee, especially con
sidering that she, through thy preaching, hath given up the
pomps and riches of the world. And, of a truth, had she
^sked of thee a greater favour than this, thou oughtest to

214 CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. [chap.
do it for thy spiritual 'offspring.' Then St. Francis answered,
' Seemeth it you that I should hearken to her ? ' His
companions answered, ' Father, yes ; it is a worthy thing
that thou shouldest do her this favour and pity.' Then said
St Francis, ' As it seemeth to you, so also it seemeth to me.
But, in order that she may be the more comforted, I will that
this feast be made in the church of St. Mary of the Angels,
because she hath been now long time cloistered in St.
Damian ; so that it will rejoice her to see the church of St.
Mary, where she took the vows and became the bride of
Jesus Christ ; and there we will eat together in the name of
God.' And when the day appointed for this arrived, St.
Chiara went forth from the convent with one companion, and
accompanied by the companions of St. Francis, came to St.
Mary of the Angels ; and when she had devoutly saluted the
Blessed Virgin before the altar where she had taken the veil,
they took her to see the place until it was the hour of dinner.
And meanwhile, St. Francis caused the table to be spread
on the level earth, as he was wont to do. And when it was
the hour of dinner, they placed St. Francis to sit beside St.
Chiara, and one of the companions of St. Francis with the
companion of St. Chiara ; and then all the rest of the com
pany gathered themselves humbly round the table. And,
during the first course, St. Francis began to speak of God
so sweetly, so loftily, so marvellously, that the abundance of
the divine grace descending upon them from on high, they
were all rapt in God. And, being thus rapt with eyes and
hands upraised to heaven, the men of Assisi and of Bettona
and those of the neighbouring country saw that St. Mary of
the Angels and all the place, and the wood which then
came close up to the spot, burned fiercely, and it seemed as
though there were a great fire which ravaged the church,
and the place and the wood together ; whereupon the men
of Assisi, with great haste, ran down to quench the flames,
believing that everything was on fire. But when they came
to the spot and found nothing burning, they entered in and
found St. Francis, with St. Chiara and all their company, rapt
in contemplation of God, and sitting round that humble
table. Whereupon they certainly understood that this had
been a divine and not a material fire which God had made
appear miraculously, to show forth and signify the fire ol
divine love within, which consumed the hearts of these holy
brethren and nuns; wherefore they departed, with great

XI v. J CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. 215
comfort in their heart, and with great edification. Then,
after a great while, St. Francis returning to himself with St.
Chiara and the others, and feeling much comforted by the
spiritual food, they cared but little for the food of the body.
And thus, that blessed repast being accomplished, St. Chiara,
well accompanied, returned to St. Damian ; whereat the
sisters, when they saw her, had great pleasure, for they feared
lest St. Francis should have sent her to rule some other con
vent, as he had already sent Sister Agnes, her holy sister, as
abbess, to rule the convent Di Monticelli, at Florence ; and
St. Francis once had said to St. Chiara, ' Prepare thyself, if
need be that I send thee into another place ; ' and she, as a
daughter of holy obedience, had made reply, ' Father, I
am ever prepared to go whithersoever thou mayest send
me.' And therefore the sisters rejoiced greatly when she
returned ; and St. Chiara remained there thenceforward
much comforted."
This was Clara's only meeting, for other purposes
than those of ghostly counsel, with her friend and
father ; and one can readily imagine the gentle ex
citement that moved those cloistered maidens as, with
unaccustomed steps, they went down the hill to the
Portiuncula. Clara had been but seventeen when she
made her last eventful journey to the shrine of Sfr.
Mary of the Angels, on that spring night ten years
before, when her fate was decided. Her last recollec
tion of the humble little church must have shown like
a wonderful dream at this distance — the brethren with
all their blazing lights, the darkness and silence
outside, the falling of her pretty curls which meant
so much, the fluttering heart of the girl-novice as she
put on the harsh garment., which implied and de
monstrated an utter change of existence. No doubt
it was a strange pleasure to the experienced nun to
see in the calm daylight, in the assured religious quiet
of her existence, the scene of that wonderful crisis
of her youth. She was but twenty-seven still, and

2i6 CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. [chap.
Francis not more than ten years older. The two
might have sat at how different a table, with ties of
another kind between them. As the friars, with
friendly zeal, showed their sisters over the church,
and the enclosure about it, did such a thought ever
glance across the minds of the man or the maiden .'
We have no reason to suppose it ever did ; for all
the thoughts of earth had been long hushed for
both in the silence of the cloister, and the pure and
simple record has nothing in it but a saintly commu
nion in the love of God. It is the fashion of our
modern and Protestant intelligence to ask such ques
tions, and to look with a certain regret upon the dedi
cated lives. Yet it would be hard to say why. Had
Francis been as his own father, who at this distance
would have cared to inquire into his history.' And even
Clara, to whom his work was not possible, has left a
fuller and more important list of spiritual descen
dants behind her than would have been possible had
she been the wife of a mediaeval Baron, " happy" as
we reckon it. Theirs was no barren life, as we are
apt to suppose the lives of the solitary must be. The
man and the woman alike — the one in a wider, the
other in a more limited sphere — drew to them on all
sides the visionary minds, the sensitive hearts, the lives
too tender for that harsh wear and tear of life, which in
that violent age was hard, beyond our conception. They
kept alive, and handed down through the conflicts of
the world, a sense of spiritual religion which could not
have otherwise survived in such a time. Between the
Church which sold, and the world which bought, salva
tion, setting a great sin against a crusade or a new-
built church, or a liberal alms — stood those pure souls,
who had bought the right to serve God in hunger, and
cold, and nakedness, by the surrender of everything.

xiv.] CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. 217
The lesson, perhaps, is not less wanted now than it
was then ; but it is strange that we should feel our
selves at liberty to pity them because, in the exercise
of this all-important office, they missed the vulgar joys
of ordinary existence. There were enough people in
theworld to leave descendants like themselves, handing
down the often coarse and banal Hne of human suc
cession along with the houses and lands, the griefs and
tumults, of humanity from one generation to another.
But from Francis and from Clara, and from the line of
friars and nuns who were their representatives, came
the purer succession of the inner Hfe.
We cannot follow in detail the Hfe of Francit
during this and the following year. He is said to
have gone to the further parts of Italy, to have made
a pilgrimage to Subiaco, to the home of St. Bene
dict, where he plucked the roses said to have been
produced by the blood of that saint (a miracle which
had been reported in the case of Francis himself in
his earlier years), and worked an almost corresponding
change in a thicket of brambles into which he threw
himself, and which suddenly became thornless at his
touch. The Bollandist, who examines every incident
in the life of Francis with elaborate and unsparing
criticism, declares of those miraculous brambles, that
he had touched and inspected some which were trans
planted into other parts of Italy, and found them
perfectly smooth and harmless. Francis also visited
the shrine of St. Michael the Archangel, in Monte
Gargano ; and on his way coming and going preached
and healed, and Hved, as always, in a tender com
munion with nature, and with those gentle brothers
and sisters of the woods and fields whose society
was always pleasant to him. There must have surely
been a moment of repose here in the fulness of his

21 8 CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. [chap.
life, for never before does he seem to have had time
for pilgrimages or for any, even spiritual, indulgence
to himself He wandered among those mountain
convents, no doubt preaching by times, but apparently
rather seeking the benefit of his own soul than
engaged in any active mission on behalf of the souls
of others. The year 1223 had arrived before he ac
tually began the work of preparing his Rule for final
submission to the Pope. Besides the necessities of
the missionaries, it is possible that the death of Pietro
de Catanio, and the re-appointment of Elias to the
office of Vicar, stimulated him to action. After the
experieflce of the past, Francis must have felt that,
notwithstanding the high qualifications of Elias, it
was scarcely safe to trust him without taking full
precaution against any further innovations upon the
Rule. There seems even grounds for believing that
some kind of struggle took place between them at
this important crisis. The legend, which seems to be
inspired by a curious reminiscence of the history of
Moses on a similar though much more momentous
occasion, informs us that Francis went up into a
mountain apart, to ponder the ancient Rule which
he had drawn up in the beginning of the Order,
and to reduce it to shorter size and more practical
efficacy. When he had completed this work, he
descended from his hill, and, giving the MS. to his
vicar, went about his ordinary occupations. After
a few days, however, the vicar announced that he
had lost it ; upon which the patient Francis, without
any reproof of his carelessness, returned once more
to the mountain, where, fasting upon bread and water,
he once more prepared and abridged the Rule. Seeing
that he could not succeed by stealth, EHas now took
open means to nullify the wishes of his master. We

xiv] CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. 219
are told that he collected a number of the Provincial
ministers, and represented to them that now was the
moment to make a stand against the severity of this
final Rule by which they were to be bound. He chose
for this purpose men whom he knew to be on his own
side, and encouraged them to rebellion. When they
had strengthened each other's courage by mutual
representations of the necessity, Elias, at length,
wound them up to the point of following Francis to
the mountain, to remonstrate with him. Bold as he
was, he had not courage enough to take this office
upon him, as his brethren desired, by himself ; and it
is evident that the courage of all must have ebbed
as they approached the solitude in which Francis
mused and prayed. When they came to where he
was, under some leafy hut — his wonted shelter — he
called to EHas in his surprise. " What would these
brethren t" he asked of the vicar, who was responsible
for them. Elias, moved by pride and fear, made
answer, with a sudden outburst, " These are ministers
of the Order, who, hearing that you are making a
new Rule, and fearing that you would make it too
hard for them, have come to say and protest that
they cannot consent to be bound by it : make it for
yourself, and not for them."
The answer of Francis to this extraordinary and
sudden rebellion was of the strangest kind. Instead
of replying to the speaker, or showing any surprise at
his address, " The blessed father," we are told, " raised
his face to heaven, and said, ' Lord, did not I say to
Thee, that they would not believe me .' ' Then all
who were present heard the voice of Christ answer
in the air, ' Francis, in thy Rule there is nothing
of thine, but all is mine that is therein ; and I wih
that it should be observed literally, literally, literally.

220 CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. [CHAP.
without gloss, without gloss, without gloss.' But Christ
added, 'I know what human weakness is capable
of, and how much it is able to bear. Let him who
will not observe the Rule leave the Order.' Then
the blessed Francis, turning to the brethren, said,
' Do you hear i* — do you hear i" Would you have this
repeated to you again ? ' Then the ministers, con
fessing their sins, retired, confused and afraid."
Such is the legend as found in the later biographers,
though it is given neither by Celano nor the Three Com
panions. Bonaventura informs us curtly of the fact that
the Rule was written in retirement upon a mountain,
where Francis went accompanied by certain of the
brethren, to whom he seems to have dictated it ; and
that the first copy being lost through the carelessness of
the vicar, a second was rewritten in the same way, " as
he had received the words from the mouth of God."
The amplifications ofthe later stories, though evidently
combined of fact and fiction, and much biassed by a
recollection of the Scripture narrative in respect to
Moses and the Tables of the Law, do still, most
probably, convey some popular reflection of the truth
as concerns the discussions which had already begun
to rise in the Order. Elias arid his brethren perhaps
never did actually pursue their leader into the wild soli
tude of the hills, and announce to him with tremulous
temerity their determination not to be bound by the
rigorous law which he found practicable : but the
story must have embodied some popular sense of the
inquietudes that began to prevail, and of the low
mutter of half-concealed grumbling and reluctance
which was already audible in the midst of such a vast
congregation. At least, it was a shadow of coming
events, as is made but too evident by the after-
progress of affairs.

XIV] CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. 221

The next thing to be done was to secure final autho
rization for thi:5 finally perfected document. And
accordingly, ifl the winter of the year 1223, Francis is
once more at Rome about this importafti business.
He went, as was his wont, to Cardinal Ugolino, to
whose suggestion, some writers tell us, this step was
owing. UgoHno, no doubt, had heard his friend
preach on many occasions ; he knew his power to
touch the hearts of his hearers, and carry away all
opposition by the charm of his personal influence.
That influence had moved all kinds of people, from
the consequential Umbrian nobles, not naturally dis
posed to yield much reverence to the son of Pietro
Bernardone, the shopkeeper of Assisi, to the Sultan
in his Eastern camp ; and no means could be more
likely to propitiate Pope Honorius, the successor of
Innocent III., than to produce the great orator before
him, and let his eloquence and simplicity work their
due effect upon the mind of the Pope. Accordingly,
the Cardinal, like the friendly patron and well-in
structed man of the world he was, set about the matter
with infinite pains and trouble. He procured the
licence to preach with sufficient ease, but the training
of the preacher was of still more importance. He
succeeded in persuading Francis to compose, and
commit carefully to memory, an elaborate sermon.
One can understand the intense excitement and anxiety,
always tinctured with a sense of genial superiority,
which were in Ugolino's mind when he found his plans
successful, and took his place among the rest of the
cardinals to hear the wandering apostle. Francis him
self rose with unwonted uneasiness. Probably the
imposing character of the audience would not have
moved him, had he been left to himself ; but this is by
no means certain : for we are told that throughout his

222 CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. [CHAP.
career it happened to him, from time to time, so far to
fail in powers of mind or sympathy with his hearers,
that after a few minutes' hesitation, finding himself
unable to proceed, he would give them his blessing
and send the disappointed crowd away. At this all-im
portant moment the same difficulty seized him. Ho
hesitated ; he trembled ; he moved uneasily about his
platform or pulpit, almost as if he were dancing, says
the chronicler, in the height of his nervous excitement.
Cardinal Ugolino, sitting by, looked on with who can
tell what sympathetic thrills of shame and terror. But
this preface of alarm lasted but a few moments. Francis
dismissed from his mind his fine sermon which he had
learned by heart, and, after the momentary pause, re
sumed with a rush and flow of natural eloquence. He
spoke by the Holy Ghost, say the admiring historians,
themselves still trembHng over the closeness of the
escape. "His simplicity moved no one to laughter,"
they tell us earnestly, "but extorted sighs of peni
tence even from that unaccustomed audience." Hono
rius, it is said, had been prejudiced against him ; but
no prejudice could stand before his genuine eloquence,
and the noble and candid simplicity of nature which
shone through him. Accordingly on the 29th of
November the Order was sanctioned in full form, by
a bull ; and letters were sent out to all the provinces
of Christendom, recommending the monasteries of the
Brothers Minor to the good graces of the cardinals
and bishops in distant parts.
Having thus fulfilled the object of his mission, Francis
made another request to the Pope, of a very different
character. He asked, with his usual simplicity, to be
allowed to celebrate Christmas with certain unusual
ceremonies which had suggested themselves to him —
ceremonies which he must have thought likely to

XIV.] CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. 223
seize upon the popular imagination and impress the
unlearned folk. He would not do it on his own
authority, we are told, lest he should be accused of
levity. When he made this petition, he was bound for
the village of Grecia, a little place not far from Assisi,
where he was to remain during that sacred season. In
this village, when the eve of the Nativity approached,
Francis instructed a certain grave and worthy man,
called Giovanni, to prepare an ox and an ass, along
with a manger and all the common fittings of a stable,
for his use, in the church. When the solemn night
arrived, Francis and his brethren arranged all these
things into a visible representation of the occurrences
of the night at Bethlehem. The manger was filled
with hay, the animals were led into their places ; the
scene was prepared as we see it now through all the
churches of Southern Italy — a reproduction, so far as
the people know how, in startling realistic detail, of
the surroundings of the first Christmas. And it may
be interesting to the modern traveller to know, when
he looks on at the quaint Christmas celebrations of
the Ara Coeli at Rome, or is led with fond pride by
some poor Italian through a succession of narrow lanes
to see the Prsesepio (or cradle) in the parish church
or convent chapel, that the scene on which he looks is
an appeal to the popular imagination first originated
by Francis in the church of his Umbrian village six
hundred years ago.
The original occurrence is full of that honest and Hte-
ral simplicity which pervades every scene in which we
find the humble apostle. The population of the neigh
bourhood rose as one man to the characteristic call.
They gathered round the village church with tapers and
torches, making luminous the December night. The
brethren within the church, and the crowds of the

224 CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. [CHAP.
faithful who came and went with their lights, in and
out of the darkness, poured out their hearts in praises
to God ; and the friars sang new canticles, which were
listened to with all the eagerness of a people accus
tomed to wandering jongleurs and minstrels, and to
whom such songs were all the food to be had for the
intellect and imagination. No doubt the mystic songs
of Francis were among those sacred ballads, and that
in the crowd there were many who could take up
the chorus of the glowing hymn, " In fuoco amor mi
mise" (Love sets my heart on fire), or could answer in
those oft-repeated refrains, " Amor, amor, Jesu," in the
words which the Brothers Minor were used to sing
about the rural ways. In the midst of this glowing and
agitated scene, Francis himself stood rapt by the side of
the manger in which his faith could picture to itself the
first cradle of his Lord. While a solemn Mass was
celebrated over it in the depth of the chill winter
night, thus transformed out of all its natural repose and
stillness, the great spiritual leader stood by as a simple
Levite, in his modest deacon's office, and chanted
the Gospel. This was his part in the services which
he originated and carried out by the wonderful
fervour of his individual devotion. Not his the holy
mysteries, the raising of the host, the awful consecra
tion which turned common bread into the Bread of
life. While these high rites were going on, no
humbler, simpler, devouter worshipper knelt in God's
presence. But when his moment of privilege came,
his was the office that suited him best. He sang the
Gospel with that voice which all his life had poured
itself forth, in cheerful, pathetic sweetness, sonorous
and simple, over all the discords and false tones of
common life. Nothing could be more symbolical,
more significant. No array of interceding saints, no

XIV] CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. lie,
secondary mediators, stood between this fervent Ca
tholic and the throne of God. He had his Gospel
and his Master, and needed nothing more.
We are told that Francis stood by this, his simple
theatrical (for such, indeed, it was — no shame to him)
representation, all the night long, sighing for joy, and
filled with an unspeakable sweetness. His friend
Giovanni, looking on, had a vision while he stood
apart gazing and wondering at the saint. Giovanni
saw or dreamed that a beautiful infant — a child dead
or in a trance — lay in the manger which he had him
self prepared ; and that as Francis bent over the
humble bed, the babe slowly awoke, and stretched
out its arms towards him. It was the child Christ,
the subject of traditions so varied and perennial, but
this time in a new form — the Christ dead in the
hearts of a careless people, dead or lost in the slumber
of a wicked world, but waking up to new life, and
kindling the whole slumberous universe around him,
at the touch and breath of that supreme love which
was in his servant's heart. The reader will take
Giovanni's vision with faith or incredulity, as may
suit his temper ; but not the sharpest critic, not our
Bollandist shaking his head over every new detail,
can cloud for us that figure of the humble Francis
standing by the rude manger, which he had made in
his simplicity, and " sighing for joy."
In the next year after this Christmas scene, the
event of the time was the sending forth of the new
mission to Germany, to fulfil the purpose in which
our simple brethren, who knew no language but their
own, had failed. They carried with them all manner
of recommendations — letters to princes and ecclesias
tical dignitaries, and the copy of Pope Honorius's
bull, which gave them a recognized character in the
O

226 CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. [CHAP.

Church. And what was, perhaps, as rnuch to the
purpose, the missionaries were headed by a certain
Csesar of Spires, who most likely was himself a
German, and would know how to speak to his
countrymen. Great was the contrast to the equip
ment of the former mission ; and the difference in its
result was equally great. They were well received
everywhere, armed as they were at once with recom
mendations and with an interpreter. And perhaps
even the slow Germans had found out by this time
that the brown-frocked brethren, whom they had driven
out of their land as hererics, were, in reality, very
champions and pillars of the faith. The Chapter at
which the new missionaries were sent forth was pro
bably the last which Francis ever attended ; for it
was one of the conditions of the new Rule, that the
Chapter once held at every Pentecost should hence
forward meet but once in three years. The Order
was now too widely spread to make the early arrange
ment possible, and its organization had taken a more
advanced form. Francis, though there is no evidence
to prove that he had ceased to consider himself as
the final authority in everything fundamental to the
Order, yet would seem to have given up more and
more the actual authority into Elias's hands. He
was ill and suffering, with bad eyes and a worn-out
frame ; and his overflowing energy, perhaps, was
somewhat quieted within him. Here, however, is
one quaint instance of his absolute sense of authority
when it came to any important question, at which
the reader will be tempted to smile.
Pietro de Catanio died, as we have said, in 1223.
He was buried in the church of the Portiuncula, the
beloved home of the brethren ; and after his death a
series of miracles were done at his grave, of which it

XIV] CONFIRMATION OF THE RULE. 227
might be supposed the community would have been
proud. But, though the honour was great, the
nuisance was still greater. The Assisans came troop
ing down, some with their sick, most out of curiosity,
to the marvellous grave, thronging the church, and
filling the tranquil air with the hum of a perpetual
crowd. When this disturbance came to such a
pitch that it could be borne no longer, the brethren
in a body explained their grievance to their founder ;
upon which he took immediate action in the quaintest
way. No intermediate measures, as applied to the
populace, occurred to Francis. He would not close
the doors upon them, or point out their error. He
went at once to the grave in which reposed 'nis
faithful disciple. "Brother Pietro," he said, stand
ing by the stone, " you gave me, all your life, a
perfect obedience. Know now that the brethren are
disturbed and prayer is hindered by the crowds that
come to your tomb. I command you, by holy obe
dience, to work no more miracles, that the brethren
may live in peace." Pietro heard in those still
regions whither he had gone ; the obedient soul
restrained its posthumous zeal for the good of men ;
the miracles ceased, and with them the crowd. Thus
Francis, humblest of humble men and tenderest of
friends, carried his idea of his own absolute authority,
and of the necessity of obedience, into that silence
which lies beyond the grave.

CHAPTER XV.

We have just spoken of the songs which Francis had
taught to his disciples, and in which he had expressed
and relieved his own heart. It was in or about this
year 1224 that the most important and characteristic
of these songs, which has come down to us un
touched in all its simplicity, the Cantico del Sole (Song
of the Sun), or as it is sometimes called the Cantico
delle Creature (Song of the Creatures), was composed.
It is impossible to suppose that during all these years
Francis, who was the leader of the young Troubadours
of Assisi in his early days, and who went through
the woods and fields, after his conversion, singing to
himself still in French, songs which could not surely
be the same songs he had sung through the streets
among his joyous companions — the lays of war and
of love, — it is impossible, we say, to suppose that
it was for the first time at this late date that he
had woven together canticles to the glory of God ;
but we are assured that these quaint and unskilled
rhymes were the first beginning of vernacular poetry
in Italy. Soft and sweet and sonorous as we
have learned to think the Italian tongue, it was in
those days but struggling humbly into notice as a
possible medium for verse. Latin had not yet
ceased to be the proper and natural utterance for

CHAP. XV.] POETRY. 229
everything beyond the commonest affairs of life, ex
cept in the case of those songs of love and chivalry
which the Provencals had stolen out of the stately keep
ing of the old language. Italian was but the vulgar
tongue in the days of Francis. His French songs came
naturally to his Hps, notwithstanding his imperfect
knowledge of the language, because it was the natural
language, the mother tongue, of song. The only alter
native was the Latin psalms and canticles which the
Church provided for her Troubadour, and which he
sang as he passed, cheerful and courageous, by so
many precipitous paths and dangerous ways. But
these psalms did not give all the outlet necessary to
his overflowing heart; and as life grew harder and
more serious, and the exuberant energies of youth
began to wane, no doubt the apostle must have grown
a Httle weary, perhaps unconsciously, of the quips and
cranks of an exotic language, and longed for a more
sober and .simple utterance than that which had satis
fied his youth. It was after one of his long fasts,
when his spirit, entranced by contemplation of divine
things, had risen into an ecstatic sense of the great
ness of God and the beauty of His world, subjects
which always touched and excited his mind, that
nature and passion had their way, and spoke through
him in the language which came readiest to hand.
" He had spent, " says Ozanam, " forty nights in
his vigils, and had an ecstasy, at the conclusion of
which he desired Brother Leonard (Leo i") to take
a pen and to write, upon which he chanted the
canticle of the Sun. After he had thus improvised,
he charged Brother Pacifico, who in the world had
been a poet, to reduce the words into a rhythm
more exact, and commanded that the brethen should
learn them by heart in order to recite them every

430 POETRY. [cHAP.
day." The hymn thus produced, the reader will
perceive, is not, notwithstanding the aid of Brother
Pacifico, at all remarkable for exactitude of rhythm.
There is a curious irregular cadence about it, a
rhyme coming here and there in a wildly accidental
way, which is not without a certain sweetness. We
are reminded, while we read, of the modern lyrics of
another Italian, parted from Francis not further by
the distance of time than by the immense differ
ence of meaning and character — the unhappy and
greatly gifted Giacomo Leopardi. The melancholy
singer of the nineteenth century weaves his wild, melo
dious rhymes with an apparent disregard of rule, in
which there is more art than meets the eye. But the
irregularity of Francis's verse was real. It was the
faltering tones of the first essay, the hesitating, broken
speech of a beginner, who is doubtful how far his words
will serve him, or whether the language is equal to the
call he is making upon it. It was the language of
Dante, the language of song, of which its first singer
was so uncertain ; and there could be no more striking
evidence of the feebleness of human perception even
among the best endowed. We have attempted to give
the " Song of the Creatures " in as nearly as possible
an exact reproduction of its broken rhymes and
faltering measures.
' ' Highest omnipotent good Lord,
Glory and Iionour to Thy name adored,
And praise and every blessing.
Of everything Thou art the source,
No man is worthy to pronounce Thy name.
" Praised by His creatures all,
Praised be the Lord my God,
By Messer Sun, my brother above all,
¦yVho by his rays lights us and lights the day —
Radiant is she, with his great splendour stored,
Thy glory. Lord, confessing.

XV.] Poetry. 231
" By Sister Moon and stars my Lord is praised,
Where clear and fair they in the heavens are raised.
" Ey Brother Wind, my Lord, Tliy praise is .^aid.
By air and clouds and the blue sky o'erhead,
By which Thy creatures all are kept and fed.
" By one most humble, useful, precious, chaste,
By Sister Water, O my Lord, Thou art praised.
" And praised is my Lord
By Brother Fire — ^he who lights up the night
Jocund, robust is he, and strong and bright.
' ' Praised art thou, my Lord, by Mother Earth —
Thou who sustainest her, and govemest.
And to her flowers, fruit, herbs, dost colour give and biitlL "
Thus stood the original hymn ; and we are not told
how long it had been learned by the Brethren and
sung in the convent every day, no doubt exciting
a certain simple, surprised delight in the heart of
Francis, when he thus heard with his own ears how
successfully he had managed the rude vulgar language
which nobody up to this time had thought worthy of
poetry. He had redeemed his mother tongue as he
redeemed the poor little trembling lambs, and there
might well be permitted to him a thrill of satis
faction and generous pleasure in the thought. But
some time thereafter there came an angry gust of
trouble from without into the quiet convent. The
rumour blew down the hill-side to the Portiuncula,
disturbing the tranquillity therein. It was a quarrel
doubly serious — a struggle between the ecclesiastical
authorities and the temporal — between the Bishop of
Assisi and the magistrates. " The bishop " — we quote
once more from Ozanam's interestingwork on the Fran
ciscan poets — " had put tlie town under an interdict,
and the magistrates in their turn had outlawed the
bishop, and forbidden all intercourse with him and
his." Nothing could be more likely to move the

332 POETRY. [chap.
mind of Francis than such a quarrel. He was deeply
affected by it ; and finding that nobody stepped in to
interfere, he himself took up his newly-found weapon.
He added another verse to the canticle, and sent his
brethren — being, as i.s most likely, too weak and ailing
to go himself — to Assisi, minstrels of peace, to sing
as he himself had so often sung amid the gay com
panions of his youth.
The new verse is as follows : —
" And praised is my Lord
By those who, for Thy love, can pardon give,
And bear the weakness and the wrongs of men.
Blessed are those who suffer thus in peace,
By Thee, the Highest, to be crowned in heaven. "
There is a touching simple confidence in the power
of his composition, such as belongs only to the very
humblest and the very greatest of poets, in the
fact that " he commanded his disciples to go boldly
and seek the great people of the town, and beg
them to meet at the bishop's palace." The name
of Francis was so potent that the surprised and
reluctant burghers obeyed, not knowing what com
munication might be about to be made to them. No
doubt they were already acquainted with the strains of
the song which Francis had poured out of the fulness
of his heart ; and it is easy to imagine what a strange
scene it must have been when the indignant belligerents
found themselves face to face in the bishop's hall or
courtyard. But when the song, with its new verse, fell
on their ears, their hearts smote them. "At the
sound of these words, to which God seemed to have
lent a gentle strength, the adversaries repented and
em.braced, and asked each other's pardon." Such was
the first result of Francis's " vulgar " verses and the
tender and anxious outpouring of his heart. The

XV.] POETRY. 233
Bishop of Assisi had acted a most wise and friendly
part towards him in the first struggles of his separation
from the world ; and no doubt among the rebellious
magistrates were some of the companions whom hc
had led in their sports, and loved with the effusive
sympathy of youth. Thus he who was the first to
turn to poetry that sweet Italian tongue which has
become the typical language of song, used it first for
the service of his home, the town which to a mediaeval
Italian absorbed all that warmth of patriotic feelings
which other nations give to their country. Assisi was
the Italy of Francis, and it was thus politically as
well as spiritually that her loyal son did her service.
Perhaps Pacifico was one of the singers, chosen for his
gifts no less than for his name — ^he who had been
king of minstrels, crowned at the Emperor's splendid
court with the crown of bays, which afterwards fell to
the lot of Petrarch and Tasso, but now a Brother Minor,
humbly subject to the commands of his superior, and
perhaps with a secret wonder at the effect, intoning
those sonorous syllables which had a certain melody
in themselves independent of quantity or rhyme. The
skilled poet must have marvelled at it, as conventional
learning and wit always marvel at the intuitions of
simple genius. But not less was the gentle Pacifico
obedient, putting his science, as he had put everything
else, at the absolute command of his master. In this
way did an Italian crowd first Hsten to Italian poetry,
perceiving with surprised delight the sweetness in it,
and receiving into their moved hearts the friendly
arrow of individual admonition at the end — " The Lord
is praised by those who can forgive, who can suffer
wrong, and keep His peace. Such shall be crowned in
heaven." Bishop and burgher must have felt the flush
of shame come over them as this soft reproach stole on

234 POETRY. [chap.
their ears. No man there had heard hard words from
the courteous Francis. Some perhaps might remember,
when they looked back in their memories, how they had
gibed at him in his early struggles, but never roused
nis gentle soul to unkind response. Thus they were
taken by storm, and Francis's victory was complete.
Another verse was added to this song, a little later,
which is full of still more beautiful meaning. He was
weak and suffering, worn out by his great labours, and
suffering from many bodily afflictions, his eyes so
worn that he could scarcely see, his strength reduced
by perpetual attacks of fever — when, after a temporary
rally, he had a vision, from which he learned that in
two years his sufferings should be over, and he should
enter into eternal rest. Then once more, in the joy
of his heart, he sent for Brother Leo, and added to
the song which the brethren sang to him daily, and
which it is evident he loved as if it were a favourite
child, the following and final verse : —
" Praised by our Sister Death, my Lord, art Thou,
From whom no living man escapes.
Who die in mortal sin have mortal woe ;
But blessed they who die doing Thy will, —
The second death can strike at them no blow.
" Praises, and thanks, and blessing to my Master be :
Serve ye Him all, with great humility."
Thus concludes the Song of the Creatures, the chief
utterance of the heart of Francis. The simple im
portance he gives to it, the tender pleasure with
which he dwells upon its lines, will go to the reader's
heart. We add, below, the original,^ to which, we are
' ' ¦ Altissimo, omnipotente, bon Signore,
Tue son le laude, la gloria, et I'onore,
Et ogni benedictione,
A te solo se confano,
Et nullo homo t degno di nominarte.

XV.] POETRY. iii
aware, our rude version does no justice ; but we have
thought it best to show as nearly as possible in English
the broken rhymes and irregular structure which mark
its primitive character — the beginning of a national
poetry, which sixty years later had developed into
the splendour of Dante, reaching its cHmax, not as
other languages do, by the slow progress of centu
ries, but all at once by a bound.
" Laudato sia Dio mio Signore
Cum tutte le tue creature,
Specialmente messer lo frate sole,
II quale gioma et illumina nui per lui,
Et ello e bello et radiante cum grande splendore,
De te Signore porta significatione.
" Laudato sia mio Signore per suor luna «t per le stelle,
Tn cielo le hai formate clare e belle.
" Laudato sia mio Signore per frate vento,
Et per I'aire et nuvolo, et sereno et ogni tempo ;
Per le quale dai a le tue creature sostentamento.
' ' Laudato sia mio Signore per suor aqua,
La quale e molto utile et humile et preliosa et casta.
" Laudato sia mio Signore per frate foco,
Per lo quale tu alumini la nocte
Et ello 4 bello et jocundo e robustissimo et forte.
" Laudato sia mio Signore per nostra madre terra
La quale ne sostenta et gubema,
Et produce diversi friicti et coloriti fiori et herba.
"Laudato sia mio Signore
Fer quelle che perdonano per lo tuo amore
Et sosteneno infirmitade et tribulatione,
Beate quelli che sostenerano in pace,
Che da ti, Altissimo serano incoronati.
" Laudate sia mio Signore per suor nostra morte corporale
Da la quale nullo homo vivente puo scampare.
Guai a quelli che more in peccato mortale !
Beati quelli che se trovano nele tue sanctissime voluntate
Che la morte secunda non li pora far male.
" Laudate et benedicite mio Signore et regratiate
Et servile a lui cum grande humilitade."

236 POETRY. [chap.
" The poem of St. Francis," says Ozanam, " is very
short, and yet all his soul is to be found there — his
fraternal friendship for the creatures, the charity
which impels a man so humble and gentle to inter
fere in public quarrels, and that infinite love which,
after having sought God in nature, and served Him
in the person of suffering humanity, desires nothing
more than to find Him in death. It comes to us like
a breath from that earthly paradise of Umbria, where
the sky is so bright, and the earth so full of flowers.
The language has all the simplicity of a new-born
idiom ; the rhythm shows all the inexperience of a
poetry untrained, which satisfies indulgent ears at
small expense. Sometimes rhyme is replaced by
simple assonance ; sometimes it occurs only at the
beginning and end of a stanza. The fastidious writer
will find some difficulty in recognizing in it the
rules and conditions of a lyrical composition. It
is nothing but a cry ; but it is the cry of a new-born
poetry, destined to grow and make itself heard
through the whole earth."
The other poems attributed to St. Francis are of
doubtful authenticity. Probably broken snatches of
song, really proceeding from his Hps, may have been
caught up and put into fuller shape by those dis
ciples who inherited, along with the same fervour of
devotion, their master's love for poetry. One of
these, however, is so full of the spirit of adoration,
and represents a soul so rapt in the love of God, that
it seems to us to vouch for itself Probably the extra
ordinary conflict between the soul and Christ, which it
portrays, had reference to the solemn and extraordi
nary scene which took place in the mysterious solitude
of Monte Alverno in the autumn of the year 1 224, and
which we are about to relate. We can do no more

XV.] POETRY. 237

than extract here a few verses from the beginning
and end of this lyric, which the reader will perceive
is meant to be sung with a chorus, like all primitive
songs. It begins as follows : We again attempt to
render, as best we can, the exact rhythm of the
original : — " Love sets my heart on fire ;
Love sets my heart on fire.
" Love sets my heart on fire.
Love of my Bridegroom new ;
Love's lamb my thoughts inspire,
As on the ring he drew.
Then in a prison dire.
Sore wounded, he me threw :
My heart breaks with desire.
Love sets my heart on file
" My heart is cleft in twain ;
On earth my body lies,
The arrow of this pain
From Love's own crossbow flies,
Piercing my heart in twain.
Of sweetness my soul dies.
For peace comes war again.
Love sets my heart on fire.
' ' I die of sweetest woe ;
Wonder not at my fate :
The lance which gives the blow
Is love immaculate.
A hundred arm's-length, know,
So long and wide the blade.
Has pierced me at a blow.
Love sets my heart on fire."
Then follows a long account of the mysterious duel.
The lance of Christ presses him so sharply that he
despairs of defending himself. The strokes are as
stones charged with lead. The soul is stricken down
broken and prostrate on the earth, dying, not of death,
but of joy. Then it feels itself restored, strengthened

238 POETRY. [chap.

and encouraged, and, by a bold metaphor, breaks forth
upon the side where Christ stands, assails Him in
return, and is avenged of Him in this wonderful
conflict of love. " When thus with Christ I fought,
Peace made we after ire ;
For first from Him was brought
Dear love's veracious fire ;
And love of Christ has ivrought
Such strength, I cannot tire :
He dwells in soul and thought.
Love sets my heart on fire.'
We cannot but think there is also something of
Francis in the passionate strophes of the following
poem — probably, as we have already said, something
caught up by minds less simple, who developed his
enthusiasm into exaggeration : —
" O love, O love, which thus hast wounded mC;
No other name than love can I proclaim ;
O love, O love, let me be joined to thee !
Love only sets my heart aflame.
O love, O love, thou so possessest me,
My heart flows forth at Thy dear name :
My strength would be all pain above.
Love, but to be with Thee.
O love, for courtesy,
Make me to die of love ! "
These latter hymns carry the reader into an aspect
of the character of Francis different from that which
we have most fully insisted on. It is not that love
which inspired his whole genial, energetic human life
to good works and the service of his fellow-creatures —
that which made him so open to every sympathy, the
friend of all created things ; but rather the mystic
supernatural rapture in which his life, or at least his
history, culminates. It is that love of God which, like

XV.] POETRY. 239
a divine fire, consumes the melting, rending, dying, yet
enraptured soul ; which swallows up every other senti
ment, and absorbs the worshipper in the very being of
the Divinity whom he adores. Flesh and blood can
not long support that ecstasy of revelation. The
body becomes as nothing in the flood of sacred light,
in the glow and heat of a love which is beyond any
mortal passion. Sometimes the outer man is raised
towards the heaven in which is his heart, and appears
to his enthusiastic followers floating, now higher, now
lower, lifted in bodily rapture from the earth. Some
times it is the mind alone which is lost in God ; and
then the external senses may fail altogether, and
the mortal garment He like a thing dead, while the
soul mounts into the skies. The principle of this
mystic love is not so much that of actual service to
God and His creatures, but of an absolute devotion
which sweeps away the creature altogether, and
makes everything subservient to spiritual communion.
No doubt the distinction between the active servant
of God, who gives up ah things to serve Him, and the
mystic who gives up even the privilege of serving
Him in the deeper joy of beholding, is to a very
great extent a difference of temperament; but in
Francis occurs the unusual spectacle of the two com
bined. A mystic he can scarcely be called ; for no
man has ever trod this mortal soil who has laboured
more constantly, or kept his eyes more open to the
wants of common humanity ; and yet iew mystics can
show so strange a chapter of absolute communion
with the Almighty. In the awful soHtude at Monte
Alverno, where he went to be alone with his God,
what was it that came to him in the silence, wounding
him as with the lance, a hundred braccia long, of
inconceivable love } He was rapt out of all sense

240 POETRY. [CHAP.
of the cares that hung so heavily upon him — all the
responsibilities of the Order — even, what is still more
wonderful, out of all his tender yearning for the world
about him, and desire of exchanging brotherly sym
pathy even with the beasts and the birds. What he
saw, what he dreamed, what he thought and longed
for, was God himself and no other ; the beginning and
end of his own being, the sum and essence of all
things. Thus, the life which had been spent for
the good of man, he poured out into the bosom of
God, and carried his existence, the career which is
so real, so laborious, so over-brimming with energy
and strength, by a mystic episode of wonders,
into that region which eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man
to conceive. He had the best of both characters —
the activity of Martha, the devotion of Mary. Such
is the light which these poems help to throw upon
his later Hfe ; a Hfe equally stainless in both its de
velopments — in its dedication to the service of God
through man, and in utter trance of absorption in God
Himself We feel that we ought to pass at once from these
divine songs to the mystic and wonderful chapter of
the life of Francis which is the last, except the end of
all, which remains to be told ; but, in the meantime,
something must be said of the other fragments of his
productions which have been handed down to us.
These are, several letters, addressed, with one or two
exceptions, to the ministers and brethren of his Order,
and a few scattered paragraphs of holy counsel and
prayers. We quote, from a letter addressed " To all
the Faithful," the following remarkable description of
Death, which is not only full of descriptive force, but
curiously indicative of the mediaeval circumstances

XV.] POETRY. 241
surrounding that commonest and most universal of
all events : —
"The body sickens, death draws nigh ; friends and neigh
bours come, saying, ' Set thy house in order, for thou must
die.' And lo ! wife and children, neighbours and friends,
begin to weep ; and, looking, he sees them weeping, and
he says, ' Lo ! soul and body, and all that I have, I place
in your hands.' Tmly that man is cursed who trusts and
risks in such hands soul and body, and all that he has ; for
the Lord hath said by the prophets, ' Cursed is he who
putteth his tmst in m.an.' And immediately his family
send for a priest, who says to him, ' Dost thou repent of all
thy sins?' He answers, 'I do.' 'Wilt thou make satisfac
tion for thy sins, and restore that which thou hast gotten
by deceit and wrong?' He answers, ' No.' And when the
priest says, ' Wherefore not ?' he answers, ' Because I have
placed all my goods in the hands of my family.' And
then he becomes speechless, and thus dies most miserable.
But let all men know that wheresoever and howsoever a man
dies thus in mortal sin, without having made satisfaction,
where he has been able to do so, let them know that such
an one is taken by the devil, who snatches soul from body
with such anguish and torment as none can know save he
who suffers it. And all his talents, power, and knowledge
which he thought he had, are taken from him ; and his
friends and neighbours on whom he has bestowed his goods
take possession of them and divide them, and afterwards
say, ' Cursed be his soul ; for he might have given us more
and might have gained more than he has:' Worms feed on
his body — devils gnaw his soul ; and thus he loses soul and
body for the sake of this fleeting world."
In the same letter is a brief but full ascription of
praise, which embodies almost all which Francis after
wards sang in the Cantico delle Creature, although
written eleven years earlier : —
" Now to that God who has suffered so much for
us, who at one giving (literally coljio, stroke) has con
ferred on us so many good things, and will yet confer
.so many more — to this God let every creature who i.s
R

242 POETRY. [chap.

in heaven or upon the earth, in the sea or in the
depth of the abyss, render praise, glory, honour, and
blessing. He is himself our virtue and our strength ;
He alone is good, lofty almighty, admirable, and
glorious, the only holy, worthy of praise, and blessed
through ages of ages. Amen."
We might add a much longer act of thanksgiving
in which the saint calls upon heaven and earth, and
all that is therein, in eloquent enumeration, to praise
with him his God and his Saviour; but our space
forbids the repetition. We may, however, pause to
point out that, though his biographers tell us now and
then of his devotion to one saint or another, Francis
himself makes no allusion to anything of the kind.
God and His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, are the two
great figures he sees, giving light to the whole world.
In the glory of the firmament about them his dazzled
eyes distinguish no other presence. He has not time
to go and lavish his heart upon lesser altars. His
brief prayers, his long meditations, the tears that
made him blind, are all addressed to the Father and
the Son.
We will only quote further the following Quotidiana
beati patris oratio (the daily prayer of the blessed
father), the words in which Francis commended him
self daily to God : —
" My God and my all, who art Thou, sweetest Lord,
my God .¦' and who am I, a poor worm. Thy sei-vant ?
Holiest Lord, I would love Thee ! Sweetest Lord,
I would love Thee ! Lord, my God, I give to Thee
all my heart and body, and vehemently desire, if I
might know how, to do more for Thy love."
What more could a whole liturgy say } Thus
Francis prayed in the innocence of his humble soul,
eager for any enHghtenment, for any way of serving

XV.] POETRY. 243
God, "ifhe might ,;but know how." "My brethren,
let us now begin to serve God," he would say in these
waning years of his Hfe. " Up to this time we have
done nothing." He was an unprofitable servant :
he had done what it was his duty to do. And fer
vently, with a longing beyond words, he desired to
do more — to find some new way of demonstrating
his devotion.

CHAPTER XVI.

MONTE ALVERNO.

Up to this moment the life of Francis had been
attended by many incidents out of which faith and
imagination might well conjure up the appearance of
miracle, and was indeed full of that atmosphere of
fervent feeling, utter self-renunciation and unlimited
belief which is of itself a miraculous condition from
which any wonder may come. Nothing, however, had
been asserted concerning him, which, when traced to
its foundation, might not be received by any critic as
at*least possible. But the moment is now approach
ing when the concluding wonder of his Hfe, his grand
distinction among all the saints of the calendar, —
the event which, according to popular belief raised
him to a point of mystic union with his Lord not
yet attained by any mortal, — was to be accomplished
with all the solemn accompaniments which became so
great a marvel. We reserve our own comments upon
the Stigmata, until the reader has before him all the
facts of the wonderful history, and the nature of the
testimony upon which it rests ; and in the meantime
proceed simply with the story as it was given to the
world in his own century, and fervently and devoutly
believed by almost all Christendom ; premising only
that the amplifications given to the narrative by more
recent writers do not alter the character of the event

CHAP. XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 245
itself but that this event is as fully asserted in the con
temporary biography of Celano as by any subsequent
annalist. Most miracles grow visibly, as the stream
of history flows on, and come to a very simple germ
indeed if we trace them back to the fountain-head.
But the honours of the Stigmata are as fully claimed
for Francis in the memoir written three years after his
death, as in the half-idolatrous romances of his Order
made centuries later. The great central fact remains
unenlarged, unchanged. The only difference is, that
whereas his spiritual descendants exalt this distinc
tion into the highest and most momentous event of
his life, his contemporaries assign to it a much less
important place, regarding it as less momentous and
less characteristic than the long years of toil and
patience, the holy life and wonderful works which he
accomplished in the world. This distinction is cu
riously characteristic and significant, and reminds us
of the manner in which St. Paul treats those gifts of
tongues and miracles which in later days have been
raised to an exaggerated importance. The wonder
was ; but, like all wonders, it was detached from
the common course of life, and not in reality so
important to it as one day of strenuous work, one
hour of victory over temptation. It is thus that
Celano and the Three Companions deal with the
mystery of the Stigmata. They were too near the
noble simple figure of their master to be able to
imagine that the mysterious marks on his hands and
feet could ever seem more important than his good
ness, his tenderness, his love for God and man, the
purity and zeal and labours of his life. Himself
they set before us, not, it is true, at any great length,
but yet with affectionate fulness in chapter after
chapter, while the story of the Stigmata is sjmoly

246 MONTE ALVERNO. [chap.
told in one or two paragraphs. The man diminished,
and the miracle grew, in the course of the ages, but
yet the event itself has not been altered. This is, at
the very outset, a curiously natural and powerful tes
timony to the wonderful tale.
To return, however, to the story. The manner in
which Francis became possessed (as much as he could
be possessed of anything) of the scene of this won
derful event is narrated fully in the annals of the
Brothers Minor by Wadding, an authority much
quoted by all subsequent writers ; but we prefer to
take the more picturesque narrative of the Fioretti,
which is substantially the same as his. The date
of this picturesque incident is variously stated.
Wadding puts it as far back as 12 12; but as there
is no mention of it in all the intervening years, until
the solemn moment when it becomes the chief scene
of the picture, we are disposed to conclude that the
legend which describes the gift as having been made
in 1224 is more trustworthy. Francis, accompanied
by his young brother, the simple Leo, was passing by
the great castle of Monte Feltro on one of his usual
apostolic journeys, when the travellers saw an im
mense concourse of people hastening to the castle, and
heard that there were great festivities going on in
celebration of the new knighthood of one of the sons
of the house. " Let us go to this festa ; perhaps, by
the help of God, we shall gather spiritual fruit," said
Francis to his companion ; and when they had reached
the great quadrangle within the walls^ crowded
with holiday folks from town and country, and all
the neighbouring lords and their retainers, the poor
apostle stood up on a little wall, and began to preach.
Probably the contrast of all this pomp and rejoicing,
'.md all the wealth and pleasure round him, with his

xvi.] MONTE ALVERNO. 247
own life and aspect, had suddenly struck his imagi
native and impressionable mind ; or he saw in some
wistful, marvelling face before him the sudden flash
of that perception — the wonder how it was that men
still capable of all the enjoyments of life should strip
themselves of aU deHght, as did those brown-frocked,
penniless brethren } Such a thought must have been
in his mind when he gave forth the homely rhyme
which he made his text —
"Tanto e il bene ch'io aspetto
Ch' ogni pena m'e diletto"
(" So great is the good I look for, that every hard
ship delights me.") How strangely real and true must
such a sentiment have been as he stood there among
the glories of the mediaeval feast, confronting the
young knight in his bravery, and all the ruffling nobles
of the country-side, with gleam of armour and waving
of plumes, and cloth of gold and rich embroidery
making the old walls splendid ! They had so much
the best of it in this life ; might it be that a mo
mentary thrill of human weakness passed through
the preacher's own mind as he stood among them .''
He preached " so devoutly and profoundly," says the
primitive chronicler, "that all the people stood with
mind and eyes intent upon him, listening as if he had
been an angel of God." Among the rest was a
certain Orlando of Chiusi, in Casentino, a great and
rich Tuscan noble, whose heart was touched, and who,
approaching the preacher, asked to speak with him
in private about religious things ; but the courteous
Francis, great as was his zeal, could not sanction suc'n
a departure from the gracious laws of good-breeding
which were in his nature. " In the meantime, go and
do honour to thy friends who have invited thee, and

248 MONTE ALVERNO. [chap.
dine with them," he said, "and after dinner we shall
talk together as much as you please." When Orlando
had fulfilled his social duties, he returned to Francis,
and after much conversation about spiritual matters,
told the preacher that he had on his lands a certain
hill, " divotissimo," as he describes it — a place most
secluded, wild, and still, on which any one who sought
silence, and a solitary life, and the means of utter
retirement from the world, might find a shelter, and
which he prayed to be allowed to give to the brethren
as a kind of hermitage and place of retreat. With
this understanding, Francis accepted the proffered
gift. It does not seem to have been a gift of any
profit or lordship on the hill, which, no doubt, had
its fertile slopes like the other parts of Apennine ;
but only of the rocky heights, the remote and soli--
tary place to which a man might retire to commune
with God, out of sound and sight of men. When he
had returned to the Portiuncula, he sent two of the
brethren to Orlando, to receive the strange, beautiful,
visionary present. The Monte Alverno, or Monte
della Vernia, is situated on the borders of Tuscany,
near the sources of the Tiber and the Arno, not far
from the castle of Chiusi, where Orlando lived. When
they arrived at his house, he received them joyfully,
and next day sent them to inspect the solitude which
was to be theirs, under an escort of fifty knights
and armed men — to secure their safety, says the
legend, from the wild beasts which haunted the woods.
Of these wild beasts, however, we hear nothing
subsequently ; and it would seem more likely that
Orlando sent such attendants as he had — armed men,
because warriors were more plentiful than ordinary
servants — to guide the brethren, and help them to
make a little shelter for themselves from the cold air

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 249
of the mountain, as well as from the wolves and
bears which might haunt the neighbourhood. The
warlike escort cut down branches with their swords,
and built a leafy hut for the bare-footed brethren,
when they had found a part of the hill which was molto
divota, e molto atta a contemplare (" very devout and
very apt for contemplation ") — a place of silence and
utter seclusion, where there was nothing to disturb the
thoughts from God. The idea seems to have charmed
the fancy of Francis ; such a possession, so visionary,
so unlike any other landed property, the wooded peaks
and rocky ravines which could not produce a blade of
wheat for their proprietor, but procured him a sacred
retirement, the sweet solitude of nature, the ineffable
stillness of a mountain top, went to his heart. It was
a gift which one poet might have made to another,
and which will move the heart of the sympathetic
reader with a touch of friendly regard and gratitude
towards Ser Orlando of Chiusi, even over all these
centuries. When the brethren who had been sent to investi
gate — the "pious explorers," as they are called by
Wadding — returned with the news, Francis seems to
have given way to genuine natural pleasure. " We
will spend the Lent of St. Michael there," he said.
He seems to have been in the habit of keeping this
secondary Lent, and there are special exercises of
piety appropriated to it — even in the Rule of the
Tertiaries. The history goes on to relate how he set
out, with three of the brethren, Fra Masseo, Fra
Leo, and Fra Angelo of Rieti ; the latter is (as
was also Leo) one of the Three Companions who
afterwards wrote his life, but probably a later dis
ciple than the others, as there is less mention of
him. ' He is described as a man of high birth '

2SO MONTE ALVERNO. [CHAP.
(" molto gentile"), and who had been a knight. The
description of the journey is charmingly idyllic, but
we cannot quote it here. Burly Fra Masseo was
the guardian of the little party, deciding where they
were to rest at night, and what to do. In this wise
they journeyed slowly along through the rich vale
of Umbria to the Tuscan borders. The strength of
Francis gave way before they began the ascent of the
hill ; and an ass was borrowed for him from a village
in one of the hamlets they passed. We omit the
details of the primitive narrative, which record how
Francis was so assailed by demons that his brethren
found him in the morning completely exhausted by
his conflict with them, the whole powers of hell having
apparently collected together to hinder the saint as
he went to this grand and crowning glory of his life.
More characteristic, however, is his pause before
mounting to the highest heights of Alverno, which
alone were his special property. He had thrown him
self down under an oak to rest, in the languor of the
September afternoon, when suddenly a multitude of
birds came from every quarter, singing and beating
their wings as if for joy. These gentle inhabitants
of the mountain threw themselves upon their new
lord with every demonstration of welcome ; upon his
head and shoulders and arms, in his cowl, and every
where about him, his fluttering attendants perched,
while his companions and the amazed peasant who
led his ass stood by wondering. " Carissimi fratelli,"
(dearest brethren) said the gentle apostle, with great
deHght and gladness, " I think it must be pleasant to
our Lord Jesus Christ that we should dwell in this
solitary place, since our brothers and sisters, the birds,
are so glad of our coming." Thus harmoniously, with
tender delight and joy, was the sacred seclusion begun.

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 251
Another curious assembly took place on the
mountain, however, before the solemnities of the Lenten
retirement. Orlando, hearing of the arrival of Francis,
climbed the hill with his warlike train to welcome him.
The story is full, at every turn, of the most picturesque
details. Francis had found, in his first survey, another
spot still more " atto e divoto alia orasione " (devout
and suitable for prayer) ; and, at his desire, the knights
went to work once more with their swords, and made
him a little cell with branches, at the foot of a fine
beech, a little way apart from the tuguriolo or hut built
for his companions. When these warlike visitors had
withdrawn, silence fell upon the heights of Apennine. A
glorious Italian sky above, the beech and the chestnut
and here and there a mighty oak breaking the
monotony of the great rocks and wild ravines, and
four poor men, as dependent upon God as were the
birds, held up aloft on the tops of the hills to pray
for the far-off world, of which not even a sound could
reach them in their solitude — how impressive is the
scene ! Francis withdrew himself to his cell under
the beech. They were all used to endure the weather,
exposure to cold and to heat, and all the dangers
peculiar to the climate ; and Orlando had desired them
to come to his house for provisions as long as they re
mained on the mount. Thus they were left utterly free
for their devout occupations. Before this time, Francis,
as we have recorded, had received a warning from
heaven that he should live only two years longer ; and
it is evident that his strength was much impaired, and
the body of which, all his life, he had been so careless,
was beginning to avenge itself The clouds that gather
round the setting sun were collecting about him, though
he was still little over forty — an age which ought to be
the strongest and fullest of a man's existence. We are

252 MONTE ALVERNO. [cHAP.
informed by Celano and the other early biographers
that he had sought the direction of God in his devo
tions by the method which he had already so often
adopted, of solemn reference to the Holy Scriptures,
the book being first laid upon the altar and the sign
of the cross solemnly made over it. Each time the
volume opened at the narrative of our Lord's passion.
The deduction which Francis drew from this was, that
he was to pass into the kingdom of heaven, like his
Master, through much tribulation : " much anguish,
many struggles," adds Celano. It was to be a mar
tyrdom — a supreme and awful conflict. This was all
he could divine, and with a thankful heart he had
prepared himself to meet it. But there is no evi
dence that he anticipated that the mountain solitude,
which he had sought with so much natural cheerful
satisfaction, was to be the scene of this agony. He
withdrew to his cell under the beech-tree to commune
with God and weep over his sins ; but not, so far as
is apparent, with any thought beyond those natural
to the beginning of a " retreat," or special season of
devotion. It was nothing new to Francis to fix his soul upon
the passion of our Lord. Years before, when he was
but commencing his career, he had been found on his
knees, with tears streaming from his eyes, and on being
asked the cause of them had answered that he wept
for the sufferings of his Lord Jesus Christ. In the
midst of all his activity and natural cheerfulness,
this passionate sympathy had always been part of
his life. To a mind so disposed to literal realiza
tion of every article of faith, it may easily be sup
posed how intense such sympathy would grow when
he had shut himself up, as it were, to the contemplation
of that chief of martyrdoms, the most wonderful act

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 253
ever accomplished on earth. The horror of that great
darkness came upon Francis in his solitude as if he had
been one of the melancholy spectators who beheld
it afar off. But not afar off was the impassioned
Italian who loved all God's creatures, but loved none
so well as the Creator himself — the Saviour upon
whom all his thoughts were bent. He followed in his
fervent soul every detail of the Crucifixion, longing
to share the agony as he shared the redemption, his
heart all aflame with desire to be one with his Master.
Strange visions floated about him in his abstraction,
in the long silent hours of which probably he scarce
knew which Was night and which was day. He was
rapt in God, the disciples tell us, speaking themselves
with vague, mysterious voices out of the awful calm.
They heard his voice in the wood by times murmuring,
not any eloquence of prayer, but those habitual words
which he said day by day, "Who art Thou, dearest
Lord, Iddio miof and who am I, a vile worm and
unworthy servant .' " It was on the day of the Holy
Cross, the 14th September, that this ecstasy reached
its highest point. The legend tells us that the saint
had asked two special gifts from God : the first, that he
should realize in body and soul the sufferings of Christ ;
and the second, that his heart might be filled, so far as
that was possible, with the same excessive love which
had induced our Lord to undertake such suffering for
the sake of man. While he thus prayed there appeared
to him, stretching over him, a great figure as of a
Seraph. (We quote, in the first place, from Celano, the
first biographer of Francis.) This solemn and wonderful
apparition had the arms extended, and feet conjoined,
as if fixed to a cross. It had six wings, two of which
were elevated over the head, two extended as if for
flight, and the other two veiling the entire body.

254 . MONTE AL VERNO. [chap.
"When the blessed servant of the Most High saw this
vision, he was filled with great wonder, but could not
understand what its meaning was. Much and greatly did he
rejoice to see the gracious and benign aspect with which the
seraph looked upon himself, for its beauty was indescribable ;
but the bitterness of the cross and passion thus shown to
him filled him with grief and fear. "Thus he arose both sad
and glad, joy and sorrow alternating within him. He con
sidered anxiously what the vision might mean, and endea
voured with all his might to find an interpretation of it.
And when he could find nothing by which it might be under
stood, and the novelty of the vision overwhelmed his heart,
there began to appear in his hands and feet signs of nails
such as he had just seen in the holy Crucified One who
stood over him."
The Three Companions give the story in almost
the same words, the only difference in their narrative
being, that the Seraph does not itself display the
fprm of the cross, but " carried within its wings the
form as of a beautiful man crucified, the hands and
feet extended as on a cross, showing forth most clearly
the image of our Lord Jesus .... When this vision
disappeared," they add, " a wonderful ardour of love
remained in his soul ; and in his flesh still more mar
vellously appeared the Stigmata of the Lord Jesus
Christ, which the man oi God carried concealed to
his death, not willing to publish the secret of God."
The account given by Bonaventura is also identical
with the first : —
"On a certain morning about the festival of the Exaltation
of the Holy Cross, while he was praying on the mountain
side, he beheld a Seraph, having six wings all on fire and
glittering, descend from the height of heaven, and wheij
with exceeding swift flight he had come to a part of the air
close to the man of God, there appeared between his wings
the form of one crucified, having the hands and feet stretched
out according to the fashion of a cross, and fixed to the

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 255
cross. Two wings were raised above his head, two were
stretched out for flight, and two covered his whole body.
And when he saw this he was sore amazed, and mingled joy
and sorrow filled his heart. For he rejoiced at the gracious
look with which he saw that he was regarded by Christ under
the form of the Seraph ; but the nailing to the cross pierced
his soul with the sword of grief and pity. He marvelled
greatly at the sight of a vision so past finding out, knowing
that the infirmity of the Passion could in nowise agree with
the immortal nature of a Seraphic being.
" At length, from it he understood by the revelation of
the Lord, that a vision of this kind had, by the foreknow
ledge of God, been so presented to his sight that the friend
of Christ might know that he, not through martyrdom of
the^ flesh, but by kindhng of the spirit, was to be altogether
transformed into the Hkeness of Christ crucified.
" The vision therefore, disappearing, left a wondrous fire
in his heart, and a no less wondrous sign imprinted on his
flesh. For immediately on his hands and feet there began
to appear the marks of nails, just as he. had, but a little
before seen them in the form of the Crucified One."
Celano, we have already said, wrote three years
after the death of Francis, and must have been in
possession of everything then known and believed on
the subject. The Three Companions did not compose
their narrative until twenty years after his death ; but
they were his constant companions during his life, and
two out of the three are reported to have been with
him on the Mount Alverno. Bonaventura is the latest
of all. His work was written in 1263, thirty-seven
years after the death of the saint ; but he had lived
all his life among those who had known and loved
Francis, and had the fullest information at his com
mand. We repeat these particulars in order that the
reader may be fully able to appreciate the value of
the testimony. Nothing could be more satisfactory,
at the first glance, than the evidence of witnesses so
near and so certain to be well informed. Before dis-

256 MONTE ALVERNO. [cHAP.
cussing this question, we proceed to the end of the
wonderful story, in order that every detail may be
found in its proper place. Bonaventura's description
of the Stigmata themselves, which coincides exactly
with every other account, is as follows : —
" His hands and his feet appeared pierced through
the midst with nails, the heads of the nails being seen
in the insides of the hands and upper part of the feet,
and the points on the reverse side. The heads of the
nails in the hands and feet were round and black, and
the points somewhat long and bent, as if they had
been turned back. On the right side, as if it had
been pierced by a lance, was the mark of a red wound,
from which the sacred blood often flowed and stained
his tunic."
When Francis saw (as the story goes) these mar
vellous marks appear in his flesh, his first impulse was
to conceal them, — " Because it is written," says Bona
ventura, " that it is good to conceal the secret of the
King, therefore this man, who was conscious of so
royal a secret, endeavoured to conceal its sacred origin
from the eyes of all men." He does not seem to have
mentioned what had happened to him to any one on
the mountain, nor even when the time had come to go
home, and the four went slowly back much hindered
by his weakness. When they had returned to the
Portiuncula he was still silent, though with signs
about him which attracted the wondering curiosity of
the brethren. Fra Illuminato, whose counsel had
more than once been resorted to by Francis, saw
(Bonaventura tells us) that something marvellous had
happened to his master, which is a further proof that
Francis himself had made no communication on the
subject. Probably the insight of this wise monk was
made all the clearer by the investigations and guesses

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 257

of the others. " Brother," he said, " not only for thine
own sake, but for the sake of others, thou knowest
that the divine mysteries are made known to thee.
And therefore it seems to me that thou shouldest
fear to conceal this which thou hast received for the
benefit of many, lest thou shouldest be condemned for
hiding the talent committed to thy care." At these
words, addsfBonaventura, the holy man was sb moved
that, though he was accustomed to say on other occa
sions, "Secretum meu'm mihi" (my secret is my own,)
he now related with great fear all the course of the
aforesaid vision, adding that He who had appeared
to him had said to him other things, which he must
never, so long as he should Hve, reveal to any man.
This is the only occasion on which Francis is
said to have told what had happened to him, and
we have this only on the authority of Bonaventura.
The Three Companions, who claim to represent not
only themselves, but also Bernard, Masseo, Egidio,
and others of the brethren, and to have derived
from them all the information they could give, say
only that it was impossible he could altogether
hide it from his familiar companions; while Celano
congratulates the happy Elias, who, alone of the
Order, had seen, and the happy Ruffino, who had
touched the sacred wounds, thus evidently ignoring
any explicit account of them given by Francis to his
brethren. Thus, then, while the three great early
authorities concur almost completely in every detail
of this wonderful occurrence, only one of them goes
the length of asserting that Francis himself ever said
a word about it, and none of them say, " I saw." One
of the Three Companions is that Ruffino whom
Celano calls happy, as having been permitted, during
some of his personal ministrations to his master, to
S

258 MONTE ALVERNO. [chap.
touch the always bleeding wound. But, when he
himself takes pen in hand, Ruffino makes no state
ment to justify this. He and the others relate the event
with calm historical impartiality, without ever being
moved to say that " / saw," or " We saw," which
might have settled the question, or at least given it a
much more solid proof than any which now exists.
Neither does Leo, who is allowed to have been the
confessor and secretary of Francis, assert anything
as of his personal knowledge. Bonaventura, whose
information must have been chiefly drawn from the
old men of the Order, who most probably had by
this time heard so many stories about the matter as
to have got confused as to which was fact and which
supposition — alone mentions the disclosure made by
Francis himself; and even Bonaventura dismisses it,
as it were, from the consciousness of Francis during
the rest of his life — never making him refer to it,
or so much as mention any more, whatever straits
or exultations he might be in, the marvellous marks
he carried about with him. This evident silence
on the part of the saint, broken only once (if broken
at all), is singularly significant ; for Francis was just
the literal-minded man who might, in all holy sim
plicity, have impressed such marks upon himself
and ever after have regarded them with a certain
joy and pride, as feeling that he was to a small
extent, but yet really, bearing about with him in
his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. And nothing
could be more strange, if true, than that, even in his
most private retirement, even to his dearest friends,
he never opened with tremulous rapture the breast of
his tunic, or held up to them in blessing or in counsel
the hands marked with the nails.
Such is the history ofthe event which appears to be

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 259
so fully supported by contemporary evidence. We are
not disposed to beg the whole question by asserting in
our turn that such a miracle is unworthy of credence
because it is incomprehensible. It is not a matter of
doctrine which is in question, but a matter of fact.
Contemporary witnesses, of perfect trustworthiness and
high character, believed in it, and vouch for it. It is
not an after-thought, a pious invention for the use of
a canonizing pope, but the evident belief of the time,
arising out of something in the life of Francis which
attracted thewonder and curiosity and eager guesses of
his companions. With a few exceptions, and these per
haps sufficiently explainable, the wonder was received
with perfect faith by his generation. It was affirmed
and proclaimed authoritatively by two popes who
were his personal friends, and must have had means
of knowing whether the tale was true or false. One of
them, indeed, Pope Alexander IV., Bonaventura tells
us, publicly asserted that he had himself seen the
mysterious wounds ; though this statement is not jus
tified by anything in Alexander's bulls on the subject.
But it is seldom that a mass of evidence so complete
can be adduced for any event so remote as this ; and
at the first glance the testimony in favour of the
reality of the Stigmata seems to be overwhelming.
This is, of course, the great matter for the historical
student. It seems to us completely beyond the
question to inquire, as does the German Hase, in
his otherwise sympathetic biography of the saint,
" How could the Stigmata of the Seraph be seen.
since his body was covered by two of his wings r
And how could these Stigmata be communicated to
Francis of Assisi, since there is no intimation here,
as in later legends of a similar description, of the
impression made by an embrace, or of rays of crim-
s 2

26o MONTE ALVERNO. [chap.

goned light proceeding from the wounds of the
apparition ? " Such inquiries have, in reality, nothing
to do with the question ; for if the Stigmata were
made at all, it is a matter of very inferior importance
how they were made, so long as their divine and
miraculous origin is admitted. It is of very much
greater importance to note that the details of this vision
could be known only from Francis himself; and that
only Bonaventura, and none of his contemporaries,
allow that he spoke on the subject at all; while, of all
the other witnesses, there is none who says, '' I myself
saw the outward appearances on his hands and his
feet." Leo, Ruffino, and Angelo, not only bear no
such testimony, but they do not even claim to have
seen the Stigmata after his death, though they tell us
that the mysterious marks were seen of many brethren
and laymen. Leo, at least, if not the others, was pre
sent when Francis died, and must, one would think, have
seen anything miraculous that appeared on the person
of his master; but he does not say that he saw these.
The only witness who remains to be quoted, and
who comes first in actual chronological order, is that
Elias whom we have named so often, the ambitious
ascetic, in whose statesmanlike mind the idea of the
Order, as separate from the brethren, had already
dawned, and whose after-life proved him to be a man
not over-scrupulous in means used. Of all the testi
mony given on the subject, his is the earliest, and
perhaps the most direct. It is in the letter which, as
Vicar-General of the Order, he wrote to the brethren
in France, to intimate the death of Francis, that the
story first appears. "I announce to you," he says,
"a great joy and a great miracle. The world has
never seen such a wonder, except in the person of
the Son of God. A short time before his death, our

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 261
Brother and Father appeared as one crucified, having
in his body five wounds which are truly the stigmata
of Christ ; for his feet and his hands had, as it were,
the marks of nails fixed in the flesh, keeping the scars
and showing the blackness of iron, while the side
seemed pierced with a lance, and bled frequently."
This is the first intimation of the miracle, and
upon it, though with such differences as might natu
rally expand the story upon inquiry, the narratives
of the early biographers were no doubt founded. It
was a private communication, intended, not for the
world, but for the brethren ; and it has all the brevity
and seriousness of a true statement of facts. Hase,
whom we have just quoted, separates it from the
other testimony, and goes so far as to attribute to
Elias the fabrication of the Stigmata on the person
of his dead master, chiefly on the ground that his
letter is the origin of the whole, and that it bears
more decided marks of personal knowledge than any
of the others. This theory, however, seems to us
wholly untenable. Elias was ambitious ; he was in
subordinate ; he preferred his own opinion to that of
his Master; but self-will and ambition do not neces
sarily imply falsehood and deceit, and we are not
aware of any other incident in the life of Elias which
justifies such an accusation. Neither is it true that his
statement is more authoritative than that of the others.
He does not say, " These marks were seen by my
eyes, or touched by my hands." If they existed at
all, he must have seen them ; and he affirms most
distinctly that they did exist : but he does not put him
self forward as a witness. Thus he appears to us on
exactly the same ground as Ruffino and the others,
who, we are informed, had positively seen and touched ;
yet do not think it necessary to rest the fact upon

262 MONTE ALVERNO. [chap.
their personal testimony, but content themselves with
saying that it was.
This curious absence of personal affirmation puzzles
the student. It is the grand distinction of all laws of
evidence that they reject hearsay and general belief
and insist upon particular and individual testimony.
The tribunal of history however cannot be so rigid as
that of justice, and must often content itself with the
echo across the breadth of centuries of something less
positive than that " I saw," which is the grand bulwark
of fact against fancy. And while we admit that no
evidence can be thoroughly satisfactory which does
not include this, we must at the same time remember
that the kind of personal asseveration which we
demand was not wanted in that age. The world
was content to be informed by witnesses worthy of
belief that certain facts were, and did not insist
upon particulars as to when they had been seen, or
who had seen them. The letter of Elias is in exactly
the same form and tone as the evidence of the other
brethren. And ifhe does not think it necessary to say,
" I saw," why should Ruffino have thought it necessary )
Both of them make their record with perfect composure
and historical gravity, apparently not considering the
matter as so slight an affair that one man's testimony
or another could shake it, or mingling any heat of dis
cussion with their tale. They do not go out of their
way to meet doubt, as inventors of a religious fable
are apt to do ; they do not even seem to realize its
possibility. True, doubt did exist even then, but
where t In the person of a German bishop, far away
over those Alps, where news travelled so slowly, in the
heart of a country which had sent away the first Fran
ciscan missionaries out of simple ignorance of their
object and mission. What was the bishop of Olmutz

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 263
to Leo and Ruffino, shut in within that inner circle
of the Apennines which made a double wall between
them and the sceptical German .'' Their own audience
did not doubt, did not demand from them any per
sonal assertion. Elias, writing from the very bedside
of the dead founder, is as quietly historical as are the
other brethren who made their record twenty years
later. It is a defect to us, but it does not seem to
have been a defect to them.
Another powerful argument against the theory that
the story of the Stigmata was invented by Elias, lies
in the fact that the other witnesses could not have
been deceived into giving it their support. Not only the
Three Companions themselves, but Bernard, Masseo,
and Egidio, whom they claim to represent, must have
had some knowledge of the transaction : they could
not have given their countenance to the lie in igno
rance, but must have done it wittingly ; and were we
to receive such an explanation, we should be com
pelled to believe that they thus adopted and supported
the fiction invented by their personal enemy, a man
who betrayed the trust of Francis, and brought trouble
and confusion into the community. Bernard was at
the bedside of his lifelong friend when he died, as
well as Elias: he was profoundly opposed to Elias,
as also was Leo ; and it seems incredible that they
could have conspired together to repeat and confirm
a lie invented by Elias, after years of a hard struggle
with him, and when he had become the enemy of
the Order, the enemy of the Pontiff — a scandal to
the convent which had trained him. Neither does it
seem possible to imagine that Elias in his aposta.sy
should not have betrayed and exposed the conspiracy
had such a thing existed. The saintly reputation of
Francis and the glory of the Order must have been

264 MONTE ALVERNO. [chap.
of small account to the excommunicated monk in
open rebelHon against both Church and Order, and
with all the power of the Emperor to back him — an
Emperor to whom the unveiling of such an imposture
would no doubt have been sweet. But neither Elias,
apostate and excommunicated, nor the indignant and
outraged brethren who cast him forth, say a word
which could lead us to suppose that such an exposure
was in the power of either side. Agreeing in nothing
else, they agree with every appearance of good faith
in their testimony as to this.
Thus far the evidence, though unsatisfactory, or at
least not fully satisfactory, seems beyond attack. But
a crowd of difficulties assail us whenever we return to
the life of Francis. In these last two years, over
which a mysterious shadow hangs — a shadow of weak
ness, seclusion, and withdrawal from the activities of
existence — the Stigmata, if they existed, would seem
to have been ignored by their possessor. He does not,
it is evident, say a word about them, even to his
dearest friend ; no one receives his confidence on this
point. He lives as if that wonderful moment had
not been. And yet it is equally clear that the visit
to Alverno was, one way or other, a great crisis in his
life. His existence underwent some change in that
memorable and mysterious seclusion. Something of
awe and wonder henceforward breathes about that
humanest and gentlest of men. We no longer hear of
him as errant upon the blazing Umbrian ways, going
from town to town and from castle to castle. His
life seems henceforward almost as much hid in God
as if he had already passed those solemn boundaries
which separate the living from the dead. His bodily
sufferings increased, if not in consequence of those
miraculous wounds, at least in a mysterious, unex-

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 265
plained way. But not a word does he say himself to
throw any light upon the mystery ; though eager eyes
peer wistfully at him on all sides with that curious
sense of something to find out, with which the popular
mind recognizes, as by instinct, the existence of a
mystery. After Alverno everything is changed ; his
strength fails daily ; his eyes fail, worn out by the tears
he is always shedding. Weakness, blindness, exhaus
tion, begin to steal upon him. It was perhaps only the
breaking up of a constitution which he had tried in
every way beyond its strength ; or was it that the
anguish of a secret martyrdom, the bleedii;g of an
unseen wound, stole away his strength day by day }
Who can tell } He himself never says so, never gives
a sign out of the silence ; but slowly, cheerfully, with
never-failing patience, feels his life ebb away from him,
and turns his face towards the setting sun.
Meantime, it would seem the whole country began
to thrill round him with mysterious curiosity, wonder,
and awe. Nothing can be more remarkable than the
perfect faith with which the story, when fully revealed,
seems to have been received. Was it that the brethren,
as they asked their alms from door to door, breathed
whispers of some wonder which they themselves had
not yet fathomed ; or that the country-folk perceived
why it was that he tottered so feebly along the hilly
roads, he who had once stepped so lightly by mountain
and plain .' The thin, worn hands, brown with per
petual exposure, and no doubt subject to many a scar
of toil, would probably never reveal to the ordinary
spectator the specks of the blackened nail-heads, if
these strange ornaments were there ; and still less his
feet, half hid with the falling tunic, dusty, and brown,
and travel-worn. But we are told that he wore his
sleeves long to conceal the marks, and was no longer

266 MONTE ALVERNO. [CHAP.
able to walk with comfort, but generally rode on an ass
— a circumstance which of course might arise simply
from weakness. The fashion of his comings and goings
was, however, changed. Once, we are informed, his
mind was so rapt as he rode slowly along, that he was
unaware of the crowds that pressed round him, un
aware of passing over the rough streets of a town, and
through its guarded gates, and asked, after he had gone
through it, why they were so long of arriving at San
Severino .¦• Nothing can be more significant of the
difference between the mystic sufferer — with his heart
and thoughts in heaven, and a mist over all his senses —
and that lively, tender, quick-sighted observer, whose
eye caught the lamb among the goats, whose ear was
awake to every bird on the branches. He had been
on the Mount of vision, and his eyes were dazzled
and his ear absorbed with echoes of celestial music.
His life and labours were almost accomplished : his
reward had all but begun.
It is curious, however, to find how much more ex
plicit and personal is the posthumous evidence (if we
may so describe it), the testimony of dreams and
visions; than that of fact. The name of the monk,
for example, who went up to Alverno to meditate
over the wonderful narrative, and had there a vision
of the saint, who satisfied all his doubts, is given us
without any vagueness, along with date and place, and
everything that can confirm his tale. Francis was a
great deal more communicative to him than he appears
to have been to his dearest friends while on earth.
Pope Gregory IX. had also a vision to the same pur
port, which we are told all about, though we are never
told authoritatively that he (our Cardinal Ugolino in
the old days) ever saw the Stigmata during the life
time of Francis. The difference is very curious, and

XVI.] MONTE ALVERNO. 267
we cannot say that our faith in the dreams which are
so well authenticated equals our faith in Leo, Angelo,
and Ruffino, who make no assertion on their own
personal credit. The evidence altogether is of a kind
vvihich it is almost equally difficult to accept and
to reject. There is sufficient weight of testimony,
when fully considered, to stagger the stoutest un
believer ; and there is too much vagueness and gene-
raHty to make the most believing mind quite com
fortable in its faith.
Were we to treat the story as proved and authentic
we should find ourselves plunged into a whole world
of unexplored wonders, which we can neither ignore
nor interpret. It is a truism to say that every great
religious movement is attended by some demonstra
tion of power, unknown and mysterious, which baffles
all the explanations of philosophy. The age of
miracles, we say, is past; but there are a hundred
wonders, more surprising than absolute miracle, which
spring up about us, whenever we endeavour to under
stand the history of religion in the world, and its action
upon men. Signs and portents attend every crisis of
that history. From Savonarola to Wesley, and from
Wesley to our own day, every great spiritual awaken
ing has been accompanied by phenomena which are
quite incomprehensible, which none but the vulgar
mind can attribute to trickery or imposture, and which
we find it difficult enough to ascribe solely to the highly
strained feeling and nervous excitement which might
be supposed to be working in the hearts of its subjects.
Every explanation that has ever been given of the
Tongues, of the trances of the Exstatica, of the cries
and struggles of those newly brought into the Church,
of all the vague mysterious wonders which attend
every spiritual crisis, has failed to make them compre-

268 MONTE AL VERNO. [CH. XVI.
hensible. It is difficult to attribute to the direct
interposition of God, incidents which are really not
moral incidents at all, and which have no results
important enough to justify such an agency. Yet we
cannot assert, without a rare amount of disbelief in
human nature, and cynical disdain of our fellow-
creatures, that the volition of man has had to do
with these extraordinary phenomena. To this class
of events we should conclude the Stigmata belonged,
if we could fully persuade ourselves to receive the
Stigmata as proved by the ordinary laws of evidence.
But in the meantime we are unable to grant even so
much as this. The evidence is not so complete or
satisfactory as to warrant us in thus acknowledging
and classifying the event

CHAPTER XVIL

HIS LAST YEARS.

Francis returned to his convent, as we have said
after this memorable seclusion. If he said anything
about the mystery which had overshadowed him, it
was but once. His powers, failing as they were, were
all concentrated on the continuance of his work, and
for a little time he seems to have carried it on as
before, with a fervour of spirit which shone more and
more through the weakness of his flesh. The pitcher
was broken, and the light glimmered through at every
crack and crevice. " Of all his body he made a
tongue," says Celano. He spoke not only by the
voice, which sometimes failed through feebleness, but
through the very sufferings of the worn-out frame, which
had laboured so long and so hardly, and yet in the
hour of its mortal languor would not consent to rest.
A certain haste would seem to have been upon him in
this last remnant of his life. Death was coming —
the " Sister Death " for which he thanked God ; but so
long as the days succeeded each other, and human
work was possible, he could not suffer himself to rest ;
for the time was coming in which rest would swallow
him up, and labour should be possible no more. Elias
here appears in a character more amiable than we
have yet seen him. The man was a man like others,
with soft places in his heart, and not a mere conven-

270 HIS LAST YEARS. [chap.

tional figure of monkish severity and pride. Francis
had elected him in the place of a mother to him,
Celano tells us ; and tenderly did he fulfil his charge.
He used a gentle compulsion to make his patient
take the medicine and nourishment which were neces
sary to him, commanding him to receive it in the
name of the Son of God — an adjuration which it was
not in Francis's loyal heart to resist. "The holy
father humbly received this sermon and admonition,"
as he had ' done all his life, welcoming any reminder
of his own imperfections, and seeking even abuse with
a quaint simplicity which will often amuse the reader.
when he was called names and treated a,s a person
unworthy, he was glad ; it suited, he said, the son of
Pietro Bernardone. But the melting away and failure
of his strength is visible in every line of the record.
And soon a new ailment made itself manifest, more
painful in its immediate effects than even the deadly
harm which was going on within him. His eyes were
affected to such an extent that he was threatened with
entire blindness. No doubt this danger must have
moved a soul so full of natural deHght in all the love
liness of earth and sky, to unusual apprehension. It
does not seem that he refused or resisted in this in
stance the persuasions of his friends, but, when nothing
could be done for him at home, went with docility to
Rieti, where there seems to have existed a famous
oculist — perhaps the first journey he ever made for
his own personal needs all his life. The Pope and
his court were at that time at Rieti, we are told ; and
so was Cardinal Ugolino, to whose special solicita
tions his journey must be attributed.
We borrow from the Fioretti an account of the cir
cumstances preceding this journey, which shows very
clearly how anxious his friends, both at home and in

XVII.] HIS LAST YEARS. 271
the greater world, had become on his account. This
little sketch brings us softly down from the mystery
and solemnity of the events which have just passed,
into the familiar warmth of the Italian night, the tent
erected out of doors, the homely annoyances of dis
turbed rest — and the Divine compassion that breathes
through all.
" St. Francis being once sorely afflicted with his eyes.
Cardinal Ugolino, protector of the Order, for the great love
he bore him, wrote to him that he should come to him at
Rieti, where were the best doctors for the eyes. Then St.
Francis, having received the letter of the Cardinal, went first
to St. Damian, where was St. Chiara, most devoted bride of
Christ, to give her some comfort, and then to go to RietL
And while St. Francis was there, the night following his
eyes grew worse, so that he could not even see the light ;
so that, since he was not able to depart, St. Chiara made
him a little cell of rushes, in which he might the better
rest. But St. Francis, between his suffering and the mul
titude of mice, which caused him exceeding great annoy,
was not able to rest the least in the world, either by day
or by night. And as his suffering increased he began to
think and to know that it was a scourge of God for his sins,
and he began to thank God with all his heart and mouth ; and
then he cried with a loud voice and said, 'O my Lord, worthy
am I of this, and of far worse. O my Lord Jesus Clirist, who
hast shown Thy mercy on us sinners in divers pains and tor
ments of the body, grant grace and strength to me, Thy lamb,
that through no weakness or torment or pain I may fall from
Thee.' And at this prayer there came to him a voice from
heaven which said, ' Francis, answer me : were all the earth
gold, and all the seas and springs and streams balm, and
were all the mountains and hills and rocks precious stones ;
and thou hadst found another treasure more precious than
these things, as gold is more precious than earth, and balm
than water, and precious stones than mountains and rocks,
— and with this weakness that far more precious treasure
were given thee, oughtest thou not to be with it weU content
and very fight of heart ? ' St. Francis answered, ' Lord, 1
am unworthy of so precious a treasure.' And the voice ol

272

HIS LAST YEARS. [chap.

God said to him, ' Be of good cheer, Francis, for this is the
treasure of life eternal, which I have in store for thee ; and
now from henceforth I invest thee with it, and this weak
ness and affiiction is earnest of that blessed treasure.' Then
St. Francis called his companion with exceeding great joy at
so glorious a promise, and said, ' Let us go to the Cardinal ; '
and first comforting St. Chiara with holy words, and bidding
her a humble farewell, he took the road to Rieti."

When they reached the city of Rieti, the narrative
goes on to say, crowds came to meet the saint, in
numbers so great that he and his companion found
it impossible to enter the town. The narrow gate
ways and drawbridges, the road made strait for
purposes of defence, were blocked up before the
two humble brethren. Francis took the refuge
which was natural to him under such circumstances.
He went into a little church two miles from the city
— a humble rural place, with its little presbytery
and the vineyard which surrounded it. As soon as
the Rietonese knew, they crowded to this resting-
place, and filling up every vacant space from which
they could see or hear their famous visitor, made such
havoc among the vines that the poor priest of the
place, looking on with melancholy countenance, saw
his vintage spoiled, and in his heart repented the im
pulse of kindness which had made him open his church
to a visitor of such overwhelming popularity. Francis,
always sympathetic, saw the doleful countenance of
his host, and divined at once that he had brought
poverty and destruction with him, instead of the bless
ing and peace which he prayed should rest on every
house he entered. The reader will also divine without
difficulty that a miracle followed, and that the trodden-
down and ruined vines produced that year on the tops
of their branches a greater harvest than did the entire

XVII.] HIS LAST YEARS. 273

vineyard at its most prosperous season. Such an inci
dent may be taken for granted in any such narrative.
The quietness of the place, its distance from, and
yet vicinity to, the city, seems to have pleased
Francis. He begged to be allowed to remain there
for some days, to rest after his journey, and no
doubt to secure the still, cool evenings, the silent
moments of the night, for himself; for the Papal
court, as we have said, was at Rieti, and there is
little doubt that repose would have been difficult to
attain amid all the busy idlers and curious attendants
to whom the humble prophet of Umbria would be a
wonder and prodigy. We can but suppose, however,
that this was a very temporary pause ; for shortly after
we find him at Rieti, undergoing the operation for
which he had come. The unscientific narrative has
no name to give to the disease in his eyes, but informs
us that it was produced by much weeping, the belief
of Francis being that " whosoever would attain to a
life of perfection must cleanse his conscience daily with
abundance of tears." These tears the physicians per
suaded him to restrain, Bonaventura tells us, threaten
ing him with final blindness if he did not do so ; but
Francis was unmoved by 'such an argument. " It is
not fitting. Brother Medico," he said, "that for the
love of that Hght which we have here below in
common with the flies, we should shut out the least
ray of the eternal light which visits us from above ;
for the soul has not received the light for the sake of
the body, but the body for the sake of the soul. I
would, therefore, choose rather to lose the sight of the
body than to repress those tears by which the interior
eyes are purified, that so they may see God." A most
characteristic piece of reasoning, most Hke the man
to whom, all his life, his body had been so secondary
T

274 HIS LAST YEARS. [cHAP.

an object — the mere Brother Ass which bore the
burden of his labours and sufferings. When he had
been examined and exhorted thus fruitlessly, the
operation took place — an operation hard enough to
encounter, but met by Francis with the same cheerful,
patient bearing and devoutness which distinguished
his entire life.
" But when he was counselled by the physicians, and
earnestly besought by the brethren, to suffer cautery for bis
relief, the man of God humbly yielded, because he saw that
this would be at once both salutary and grievous. The stur
geon, therefore, being sent for, came and placed his iron in
the fire to heat it. But the servant of Christ, comforting his
body, which was shuddering with dread, began to speak to
the fire as to a friend, saying, ' O Brother Fire, before all
other things the Most High hath created thee of exceeding
comeliness, powerful, beauteous, and useful ; be thou to me,
in this my hour, merciful, 'be courteous. I beseech the
Great Lord who hath created thee, that he may temper for
me thy heat, that I may be able patiently to endure thy
buming me.' And when he had finished his prayer over the
iron, glistening white with heat, he made the sign of the
cross, and then remained stedfastly unflinching. The hissing
iron was plunged into the tender flesh, and from the ear to
the eyebrow the cautery was drawn. When he was asked
concerning the pain of the fire, the holy man made answer:
' Praise,' said he to the brethren, ' praise ye the Most High ;
for I tmly tell you I neither felt the fire's heat, nor pain of
body.' And turning to the physician, ' If it be not well
burnt,' said he, ' thrust in again.' And the physician, be
holding in the weakness of the flesh such wondrous strength
of spirit, marvelled and extolled the miracle of God, and
said, ' I tell you, brethren, I have seen strange things to-day.'
For since to so great a purity had he come, that flesh with
spirit, and spirit with God, agreed in wondrous harmony, it
was by God's ordering, that the creature, obeying its Creator,
was in a wondrous manner subject to his will and command."
It is a very curious fact that during this visit to
Rieti not a word is said of the Stigmata. These

XVII.] HIS LAST YEARS. 275
mysterious marks had, according to the story, been
recently given ; they occasioned, as we are told else
where, continual suffering, and their existence was
already known to some, and guessed at by many of
the brethren. It is almost impossible to believe that
Francis could have entirely concealed so great an
event from Ugolino, or that Ugolino knowing it, a
wonder so far surpassing ordinary wonders, should
not have at least solemnly confided it to the Pope
and put it upon record. It is true that here was an
opportunity which made it possible that "several of
the cardinals," as Bonaventura tells us, of whom he
supposes Pope Alexander to have been one, should
have seen the marks. But there is not a word of this
in the history. We are left entirely in the dark as to
what Ugolino thought of the matter, or what was
the opinion of the surrounding bystanders, the men
most qualified to decide upon the character of such
phenomena. No doubt the pain of so tremendous an
operation as that which Francis here underwent might
well have withdrawn the mind of an ordinary man
from ordinary matters. But nothing, one would think,
could ever withdraw his mind from the painful honour
which God had bestowed upon him — the suffering
and glory with which his Hfe was crowned. Yet
he does not say a word, nor does any one else, so far
as the reader can perceive : there is no hint given by
Elias, no whisper from any attendant brother of those
stains of blood upon the under garment, nor recom
mendation to any bystander to look at the blackened
marks upon the Master's hands, which he must have
raised often in blessing. Nothing can be more curious
than the entire absence of all reference, and even of all
apparent consciousness that anything so wonderful
had happened so short a time before. Perhaps it is
T 3

276 HIS LAST YEARS. [chap.
possible that, in the bustle of the court, Francis and
his affairs might have been thrust into a corner, and
that even Ugolino himself might have been so occu
pied as to be unable to give as much time as he
usually did to his visitor. But yet the man who
said that he never had been in trouble so great
but Francis's benign looks and conversation would
set him right, must, it is certain, have found some
means of private intercourse with his friend ; and
we cannot believe that Francis could have shut up
such a strange event in his heart, or refused to share
with the friend who was to him as a brother, and who
was at the same time the protector of the Order and
interested in everything that promoted its prosperity,
a secret which was calculated to cover the Order with
glory, even though exemplified in his private person.
But there is not the least reason to suppose that he
did so. Not a word drops from his mouth ; not a hint
escapes his companion. The great marvelling and
curiosity which filled the Assisi convent would seem
to have been altogether quenched in the mind of the
brother who accompanied Francis. Bonaventura even
puts this event at an earlier period of his life, sepa
rating it entirely from the later mysterious narrative ;
and it does not seem to have occurred to any one
that here was an occasion when it would have been
impossible for Francis to have evaded some confi
dential communication on such an important subject
So far as we are informed, the cautery did little
good to his eyes ; at best, the benefit was very
temporary, if there was any benefit. And probably
before this time it had become necessary, either in
consequence of his blindness or his weakness, that he
should be continually guarded and accompanied in
all his movements. There is something wonderfully

XVII.] HIS LAST YEARS. 277
pathetic in the reserved and sober narrative of this
period of his life. As far as his weakness would permit,
he continued his old circuits about the town of Rieti,
preaching whenever it was possible ; but it would
seem that some sense of failing strength and inability
to serve God in this familiar way, as he was wont,
must sometimes have sent a pang through his heart :
for a desire seized him to return to his earlier labours.
to go out and take charge of the lepers, and serve
the poor, as he had done at the very beginning of
his career ; and so strenuous were his endeavours
for this end, or so great the terror of the community
lest with his failing sight he should fall into some
bodily peril, that four brethren were elected to
watch over him day and night. They were all men
of fortitude and devout spirit, pleasing God, holy and
gracious to men, as Celano tells us ; but he does not
mention their names, lest by much praise they should
become vain. They were like four columns of the
house which Francis had made for God's service,
he adds, and there can be little doubt that they
had to exercise a certain mild coercion over their
Master — perhaps to watch lest in his feebleness he
should stray to some neighbouring leper-house to
nurse the sufferers who were scarcely so weak as he —
perhaps lest he should stumble upon the hilly roads,
which were not so familiar to him as those about
Assisi. Such was the weakness into which the active
and cheerful Francis, always ready for the hardest
labour, and fearing nothing he might encounter on
his way, had fallen.
" He began to suffer from so many infirmities," says
Bonaventura, "that there was scarcely one of his
members but was tormented by increased pain and
suffering. At last, by reason of these viirious heavy

278 HIS LAST YEARS. [cHAP.
and continued sufferings, his flesh was consumed, and
there remained nothing more but the skin attached
to the bones." Not for this, however, did Francis lose
his courage. He kept his brave countenance through
all, jesting gently with his pangs, and calling them
" My sisters," as he called the innocent birds and
everything of God's making. When he could not
walk, he had himself carried through the neighbour
hood, preaching to the people, who flocked round
him; and it would be impossible to imagine any
picture more affecting 'than that of the dying saint
on his litter, half blind and almost wholly worn
out, but still preaching the gospel of his Master.
" Let us begin over again," was his cry : " up to this
moment we have done nothing for God." And thus
with continual toil and devotion, he thrust from his
mind every opportunity for repining or discontented
thought. He was as ready to bear all the pangs
common to human weakness, and more than all, that
his Master saw fit to inflict upon him, as he was for
the mysterious and ecstatic agonies of Alverno — those
trances of high communion in which pain and the
sensations of the flesh were forgotten. One day,
Bonaventura tells us, when he was very ill, " a certain
simple brother " was wrung to the heart by the sight
of his sufferings. " Brother, pray to God that He
would deal more gently with thee," cried this sympa
thetic soul ; " for His hand, methinks, is more heavy
upon thee than is meet" Francis turned upon his
pitying companion with a certain tender indignation.
" If I did not know thy purity and simplicity," he
said, " I should from henceforward abhor thy com
pany, because thou hast dared to blame the Divine
judgments which are executed upon me." And then
in the fulness of his heart he threw himself upon the

XVII.] HIS LAST YEARS.

279

ground, as he had done in the little celluzza, the hut
of rushes in the convent garden at St. Damian's, and
kissing the soil, cried out, " I thank Thee, O Lord my
God, for these my sufferings, and I beseech Thee to
increase them a hundredfold ; for this shall be most
acceptable to me that Thou spare not to afflict me,
for the fulfilment of Thy holy will is to me an over
flowing consolation."
His stay at Rieti seems to have been prolonged
for a considerable time, during which period he made
excursions into the adjoining country, reaching even as
far as the borders of the Neapolitan kingdom. He was
on his way home, and had reached the town of Nursia,
at the foot of the Apennines, when he fell ill once
more, his disease assuming still more serious features.
He had perpetual recurrences of nausea; his legs began
to swell, and all his symptoms pointed to a speedy
conclusion. When the people of Assisi heard of this
detention, they were seized with a wild terror, most
characteristic of the time and race, lest he should die
at a distance, and the town be deprived of his relics.
When they heard of the risk they were running, they
sent off messengers in all haste to bring back the
saint, who was not only their townsman, but their
property, destined to be the glory of the place. The
messengers were sent by the Senate, and apparently in
an official character, so troubled were the Assisans at
the thought of losing so valuable a possession. On their
way home, Francis and his escort paused at the little
town of Gargiano, where they rested during the heat of
the day. It would seem that the messengers and the
attendant brethren had gone into the village together
to buy food for their mid-day meal, for the Brothers
Minor themselves are not Hkely to have had any
money for such a purpose. The village probably was

28o HIS LAST YEARS. [chap.
very small, and unused to make provision for the needs
of travellers ; and the hungry band came back discon
solate, having been unable to obtain anything. Francis
where they had left him, probably in his litter under
the shade of the wayside trees, or in the cool quiet of
the village church, received them on their return with
that partial satisfaction which the best of men canno<-
but feci to see their own prevision fulfilled. "You
have found nothing," he said, " because you trust in
your flies (money) more than in the Lord. Go back
and humbly ask for alms, for the love of God ; and do
not vainly suppose that this is a vile thing, for God,
the great Almsgiver, grants to all, both worthy and
unworthy, all things needful as an alms." The
brethren, thus recalled to their duty, went humbly
back to the village to beg their much-needed meal.
We are not told whether the escort accompanied them
this second time ; but it is to be supposed that the
Assisan cavaliers shared the alms with which imme
diately Francis and his companions were supplied.
The villagers, no doubt, came also, when they heard
who was the illustrious personage who had halted at
their gates ; for the story goes on to say that " the
hearts of the poor men who dwelt in that place being
pierced by the Divine inspiration, they offered, not
their provisions only, but themselves. " Thus it befell,"
adds Bonaventura, "that the necessity, which could
not be relieved by money, was supplied by the rich
and abundant poverty of the saint."
It would appear that Francis rallied on being
brought home ; at least, we find that a little while after
he is able to undertake another journey to some villa
or village in the neighbourhood of Sienna, for the
better air and medical aid to be had there. It was
only six months before his death, in the spring of

XVII.] HIS LAST YEARS. 281

1226, when he set out on this last vain pursuit of
health. We are not told how long he stayed ; but
that all his worst symptoms returned, and that once
more the people of Assisi became anxious to secure,
not his life, but at least his death at home. This
time it was Elias, who no doubt was as anxious
as the Assisans that the head-quarters of the Order at
the Portiuncula should be the future shrine of the saint,
who was sent after him. The failing flame seems to
have leaped up in the socket at the sight of his Vicar,
the man in the Order who was at once most important
and most dangerous to it, whom he had already
elected, deposed, and re-established, and to whom,
notwithstanding his unlikeness to himself and all the
trouble he had caused, the heart of Francis seems
to have clung. Elias conducted his friend and father
to Cortona, to a cell or hermitage near to the Lake
of Perugia, in the very heart of the country which
had been the scene of all Francis's labours. Here
the weary sufferer remained for some little time,
tended, it is supposed, by the friends and relations
of Elias, who belonged to the place, until a great
desire seized him to return to Assisi. He was very
ill, almost at the end of his strength, unable to do
anything but lie in his litter as they carried him
along those familiar ways. The whole town came out
to meet him when he drew near Assisi, full of a
grim sort of rejoicing, which it is to be hoped the
tender and friendly soul to whom love was dear did not
suspect. They were glad not so much of his coming
as their lifelong friend and teacher, but of their final
acquisition, beyond all chance of losing it, of his worn
and weary body, which was so soon to become the holy
and blessed relics of a saint. They took him, with
joy and exultation, to the palace of the bishop, his

282 HIS LAST YEARS. [cH. xvii.
strength probably being unequal to the further way.
This was the last of all his journeys — the end of his
active life. Henceforward the only work he had before
him was that easy one of dying, which he was to
accomplish, as it were, in sight of the whole country,
with an entire population anxiously looking on. His
canonization had been decided already by popular
unanimous decree, and even a certain impatience to
have it done would seem to have animated the general
mind. But in the Portiuncula there was woe and
sorrow. And who can doubt that Clara among her
maidens wept at St, Damian's, unable to obey the
first instinct of a woman's mind, to hasten to the
succour of her friend. She could not go to nurse him,
or receive his last words ; the nun could only pray
for her monastic brother. But simple Leo was with
him, and Bernard, his oldest companion, and many
who had loved, and served, and accompanied him
in his wanderings and labours for years. Thus, with
the eager people watching outside, and the anxious
brethren within, with the melodies of heaven already
beginning to steal into his ears, and blindness con
cealing from him the earth he had so much loved,
Francis laid him down and prepared himself to
die.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HIS DEATH-BED.

From the time of Francis's arrival in the episcopal-
palace at Assisi, his history becomes that of a death
bed. The time had come at which, two years before,
it had been intimated to him that he should die ; and
no rebellious wish, no lingering impulse of vitality, con
tradicted the heavenly vision. We are not told how long
the time of his residence at Assisi was, but only that a
few days before his death he had himself carried to
the Portiuncula. As the litter-bearers with their
burden, progressing slowly down the hill-path, came in
sight of that humble but blessed spot, Francis, turning
to the group of brethren that surrounded him, warned
them to hold this cradle of the Order in all reverence
and honour. " Vedete, figli miei" (my sons,) said the
iying father, " never give up this place. If you would
go anywhere, or make any pilgrimage, return always
to your home ; for this is the holy house of
God." Probably it was at the same time, and before
entering the humble house he loved so well, that he
caused his bearers to set down the litter on the
ground, and, turning to where Assisi, the home of his
youth, rose white upon the hill, gave his blessing to
the town which had nurtured and cherished him,
which had scorned and scoffed at him, and which had
ended by falling prostrate at his feet, and longing for
the breath to be out of his body that it might worship

284 HIS DEATH-BED. [CHAP.
him. No doubt his whole life passed like a dream
before his blind eyes, as he turned them upwards
towards the height. Clear in the sight of the spirit
he must have seen that city, set upon a hill, and the
open gate through which he had passed so often
at the head of the joyous band of youthful trouba
dours, and again when cast out and forsaken in the
lowest depths of poverty and humbleness. For aught
we know, the father and mother who had cast him
off might still have been surviving, with hearts that
burned within them at all the wonders of their son's
bitter but glorious life. No doubt he had brothers and
sisters, and friends of his youth, at Assisi, every stone of
which was familiar to him, and every house dear. He
could see his birthplace no more, nor the shining on it
of the cheerful light he loved ; but still he could raise
his hand, and say that last blessing by way of farewell.
When he had entered the convent, he betook him
self to the other duties of a dying man. He called
for pen and ink, and, with Angelo sitting by his bed
side to write, dictated his last will. It is not so much
a Will as a record. Its chief purpose seems to have
been to impress upon the minds of his spiritual heirs,
with a prevision of the strifes which were coming,
the duty of absolute obedience to the self-denying
principles of the Rule. His eye strays back over his
life, setting forth as at first the principles that had
moved him, and all that " the Lord revealed to me."
Something of the effect of that last pause in the clear,
soft autumnal air, that last turning of his face towards
Assisi, and all the thoughts that accompanied his final
blessing, must have lingered about him still. In his
poor cell, as he lay, v/eary and blind, and dictated his
last words, his life must have returned and wrapped
itself around him — no longer an affair of mere
years and days, but a complete, almost completed.

XVIII.] HIS DEA TH-BED. 285
thing, which his soul thus gazing at, could see at
last detached from himself Pausing with his hand
as it were on the very door of heaven, he makes
his musing, gentle survey, with no regret, no passion,
a composed and tranquil calm. He was but forty-
four, and might have been still, had he thought of his
own health or life half as much as he had thought of
God's service, in the fulness of a man's strength.
But not a single tone of sadness mingles in the simple
record. He is a servant giving up his charge, a knight
narrating his first battles — not a man dying before his
time, or laying any last grasp of pathetic reluctance
or regret upon the failing thread of life.
"The Lord God had given to me. Brother Francis, to
begin to work repentance, because, while I was yet in my
¦ sins, it seemed to me too painful to behold lepers ; but the
Lord Himself led me among them, and I wrought mercy
with them. And when I left them, that which seemed to me
painful was turned into sweetness of soul and body. A
short time after this I gave up the world. And the Lord
gave me such faith in His churches that I would thus
simply adore and say, ' We adore Thee, most holy Lord
Jesus Christ, here and in all Thy churches which are in all
the world, and we bless Thee because, through Thy holy
cross. Thou hast redeemed the world.' Afterwards the Lord
gave me, and yet gives, so great faith in priests who live
according to the rule of the holy Roman Church, on account
of their order, that should they persecute me I would still
have recourse to them. And had I as great wisdom as
Solomon, and were to be with the poorest and most
ignorant priests of this age, I would not preach in their
churches against their will. And both them and all others I
would fear, love, and honour as my lords. And I would
not behold sin in them, because I discern in them the Son
of God, and they are my lords. And for this reason I do
this, because in this world I see no bodily token of the Son
of God most high, except His most blessed body and
blood, which they receive and alone administer to others.
And these most holy mysteries I wish to be beyond all
things honoured, and venerated, and richly enshrined. And

286 HIS DEA TH-BED. [chap.
wherever His most holy name and vmtten word may have
been found in unseemly places, I desire that they should
be collected, and put into some honourable place. And
all theologians, and those who minister to us the most holy
word of God, we ought to honour and venerate as those who
give to us breath and life.
When the Lord entrusted to me the care of my brethren,
no man showed me what I ought to do, but the Most
High revealed to me that I ought to live according to the
rule of the holy Gospel. And I simply, and in few words,
caused a writing to be made, and the lord Pope confirmed
it for me. And those who took upon themselves that life,
gave away to the poor all that they chanced to have. And
they were content with one tunic, patched, as they required,
within and without, together with a girdle and breeches ;
and we would not have more.
" We, the clergy, said daily the office, like other clergy,
and the laymen said the Paternoster. And full willingly did
we remain in poor and deserted churches, and we were un
learned, and servants of all men. And I laboured with my
hands, and desire yet to labour; and I earnestly will that all
the other brethren should labour at their calling as far as
they honestly may. And let those who know not (a caUing)
leam, not for greed of receiving the wage of their labour, but
for good example and for avoidance of idleness. And when
the wage of our labour be not given us, let us have recourse
to the table of the Lord, seekmg alms from door to door.
This form of salutation hath the Lord revealed to me,
that we should say, ' The Lord give thee peace.' Let the
brethren take heed to themselves, not to accept the churches
and dwellings which are buUt for them, unless they be such
as befit the holy poverty which we hiave promised in the
Rule, and let them dwell as strangers and pilgrims.
" I earnestly enjoin, by their obedience, all the brethren
that, wheresoever they be, they shall not demand any
letter (of privilege) in the court of Rome, either by them
selves or by any advocate, be it for a church or for any other
house, be it for the sake of preaching or on account of bodily
persecution ; but if they are not received in one place, let
them fly to another, to work out their repentance with God's
blessing 
" And let not the brethren say, ' This is another Rule ;
because this is the remembrance, the admonition, and the

XVIli.J HIS DEATH-BED. 287
exhortation — my Testament, which I, your weak brother
Francis, leave to you, my brethren blessed, that the Rule
which we have promised to the Lord we may observe
in a more catholic way.
" And let the general minister and all the other ministers
and guardians be bound by their obedience neither to add
to nor take away frora these words of mine.
, " And let them always have this writing with them, as well
as the Rule, and at all the chapters they hold, when they
read the Rule let them also read these words. And I
strictly command, by their obedience, all my brethren,
clergy and lay, that they introduce no glosses into the Rule
or these words, saying, 'Thus they should be understood ;'
but since the Lord gave to me purely and simply to speak
and write the Rule and these words, thus ye shall simply
and purely, and without gloss, understand them, and by the
operation of holiness keep them to tke end.
" And may whosoever shall have kept them, in heaven be
filled with the blessing of the most high heavenly Father,
and on earth be filled with the blessing of His dearly beloved
Son, and of the most holy Spirit the Comforter, and all the
heavenly virtues, and all the saints. And I, your weak
brother Francis and your servant in the Lord, as far as I
may, confirm for you, both within and without, that most
holy blessing. Amen."
When Francis had thus finished all his external
business, he turned to the lesser circle of the con
vent — the home of his special affections. Hence
forward the outside world had faded away from his
horizon ; and his thoughts were occupied only by the
little band of his brethren, and the dear and faithful
friends who had corhforted his laborious life. Among
his works we find the fragment of a letter addressed
to the Signora Giacobba di Settisoli, informing her of
his illness, and begging her to come to him. It was
Angelo, probably, as soon as the Will was finished
and the Master's mind left free for his friendships
and private affections, who wrote this letter. It is
not known who Giacobba was ; but it is thus Francis
addressed her from his death-bed : —

288 HIS DEA TH-BED. [chap.
" would thou shouldest know, dearest friend, that the
blessed Christ hath, by His grace, revealed to me that the
end of my life is near at hand. Wherefore, if thou wouldest
find me alive, when thou hast received this letter hasten to
come to St. Mary of the Angels. For, shouldest thou come
after Saturday, thou vrilt not find me living. And bring with
thee cloth or haircloth in which to wrap my body, and wax
for my burying. I pray thee, also, to bring of the meats
which thou wert wont to give me when I was sick at
Rome-  "
When he had gone thus far, he stopped short, raised
his eyes to heaven, and bade the writer cease, adding
that Giacobba was already on her way, bringing all
that he wished. Almost immediately the janitor or
porter of the convent came to announce the arrival of
the lady and her family, sons, and servants. She had
brought the wax for his funeral, and a piovision of the
food he liked, which consisted, the Bollandist editor
informs us, of certain little cakes made with almonds
and sugar, called in Rome mortiarioli. There is
something infinitely touching in this movement of
human weakness — the one last, simple, childlike
liking, half appetite, half reminiscence, stimulated by
the affectionate wish to give his friend something to
do for him. The janitor, says the legend, came to
ask — shocked, it would seem, in his monkish delicacy,
by such an application — whether, in defiance of all
rules to the contrary, the visitor was to be admitted.
Francis, on his part, is said to have answered casuisti-
cally, that laws did not hold in such a case ; and that
the lady, who had nourished and helped so many of
the brethren, was worthy to be received even into their
holy house ; where, accordingly, as the story goes, the
Signora Giacobba was admitted, and ministered to her
friend for the last days of his life. The Bollandist,
however, treats this story as incredible, and we agree
with him ; for Francis was not a man to relax in any-

XVIII.] HIS DEATH-BED. 289
thing the severity of the Rule for his own comfort.
There can be no doubt, however, about the authen
ticity of the interrupted letter, whether it was thrown
aside by weakness or by the difficulties in the way, or
whether it was indeed anticipated by the arrival of the
person to whom it was addressed.
There is another incident mentioned by Bonaventura
which it is difficult to place in its proper chronological
order, or to decide whether it occurred on the arrival
of Francis at the Portiuncula, or if he had himself
carried outside the convent gate to accompHsh over
again his renunciation of all things. " Desiring," says
his biographer, " to give a true proof to all men that
he had no longer anything in common with the world
in that grievous and painful sickness, he laid aside his
habit and laid himself prostrate on the bare earth,
that in the last hour in which the enemy would attack
him with all his fury, he might wrestle naked with his
natural adversary. Lying thus on the earth, with his
face raised, according to his custom, to heaven, and
intent upon its glory, with his left hand he covered the
wound in his right side, and said to his brethren, " I
have done my part ; may Christ teach you to do
yours." This curious solemn putting aside of all
earthly things was very probably suggested by the
Benedictine custom of placing the dying upon hair
cloths sprinkled with ashes, which is described in Mr.
Church's admirable " Life of St Anselm," page 66.
This was not required by the Rule of the Brothers
Minor, but Francis was greedy of any possibility of self-
humiliation. Speaking, it would appear, of the same
incident, Celano describes him as extending himself on
the earth, clothed in a hair shirt, and causing ashes to
be sprinkled on him, as a sign that he was soon to
become dust and ashes. To the mournful group of
brethren round him there must have been a special
u

290 HIS DEA TH-BED. [chap.
solemnity in such a scene. It must have recalled to
some of them a corresponding scene which had taken
place at the beginning, as this did at the end of his
religious life. In the agitation and excitement of his
youth, when his early persecutors confronted him, in
the bishop's palace at Assisi, he had thrown off every
thing that belonged to his earthly father and the world,
and appeared before the astonished people, as his
costly garments dropped from him, in the same scant
scourge, the vest of penitence. Twenty years before
the son of Pietro Bernardone had made that solemn
renunciation of the world ; and now Brother Francis,
less than the least of all saints, stripped himself even
of the religious dress in which so many a rude penitent
of the time trusted for salvation, and laid himself
down, clad in the emblem of sorrow and suffering,
bare and undefended, in his own simple person, before
his God — a man who trusted in nothing but Christ —
not in his holiness, his miracles, his Order, nor his
reputation, but only in his Lord. No profounder
lesson could be given to those wondering, simple
monks, or to the still more deeply marvelling world,
to which the very robe ot a Brother Minor seemed a
protection against both death and devil.
While the dying saint thus lay extended like an
offering upon the altar, with his sightless eyes turned
to heaven, and all his soul given up to God, one of the
four brethren who had charge of him, tlie one whom
he called specially his guardiano, and whom he had
bound himself to obey, came to him with a tunic in
his hand. Thus the quaint peculiarities of the time
break upon the everlasting human significance of the
story, making it in a moment mediaeval and archaeo
logical. This new-comer broke through the sad group,
with the garment which was not the one Francis had
just laid aside, and addressed him, " knowing his wish

XVIII.] HIS DEATH-BED. 291

by divine inspiration." " I bring thee this," he said,
" as to one who has made himself poor for the love of
God : receive it by the command of holy obedience."
" Then," the narrative goes on, " the holy man rejoiced
with great gladness of heart when he saw that he had
kept faith with his lady. Poverty, even to the end ;
and raising his hands to heaven, he gave thanks to
Christ his Lord that, being delivered from every
burden, he was free to go to Him. And all these
things he did out of his zeal for poverty, so that he
would not even have a habit but what was lent him
by another. For in all things assuredly he desired to
be conformed to Christ crucified, who hung naked
upon the cross in poverty and pain."
When Francis was carried back to his death-bed he
called his followers around him to bid them farewell,
and spoke to them as his failing strength permitted.
And here again occurs a scene which would seem to
evidence the disputes of two parties in the Order,
rather than any intentional action on the part of
Francis himself The story on the one hand — and it
is that given by Celano — is, that crossing his arms
across his breast, as Jacob did when he blessed the
children of Joseph, he laid his hand upon a head at
the right and left hand. He then asked who it was
upon whom his right hand had fallen, as if he had
been once more, in a slightly different way, recurring
to his favourite divination to discover what was God's
will. When he was told that it rested upon the head of
Elias, he answered, " Thus I willed that it should be,"
and blessed him accordingly as the head of the Order
with a comprehensive and all-embracing blessing.
The other version of the story is, that he called for
Bernard, " his first-born," and that as Bernard out of
humility placed Elias above him, the hand of the
dying saint was placed upon his head in mistake ;
u 2

292 HIS DEATH-BED. [chap.
upon which Francis said, " This is not the head of my
son Bernard," and crossing his hands as Jacob did,
thus conveyed the blessing to its original destination,
viz. to Bernard, and not to Elias. This later version
would not appear, however, to be worthy of any credit,
as there never seems to have been a question of
Bernard succeeding Francis, or being placed by him
in the first place, which Elias for a long time had
undoubtedly filled. The story probably arose in later
times, when Elias had scandalized and divided the
Order, and when new legends had sprung up, instinc
tively coloured by the knowledge of a later generation.
All that Bonaventura says of any such event is this :
"And as all the brethren surrounded him, he extended
his hands over them in the form of a cross, crossing his
arms in the form of that sign which he had ever loved ;
and so he blessed all the brethren, whether present or
absent, in the name and in the power of the Cruci
fied.' ' Farewell, my children in the fear of the
Lord,' he said. 'Great tribulation and temptations
will come upon you ; but blessed are they who perse
vere in the work which they have begun. And now I
go to God, to whom I commend you aU.' "
When this farewqll had been said, it is evident that
Francis felt, even the family which hung about him,
the most intimate refuge of his heart on earth to be
put aside ; and was no longer conscious of any human
shadow, or suggestion, or thought of any duty or
responsibility between him and his God. And as
he had lived like Christ, in the simplest literal adop
tion of all His precepts, so he desired to die with his
heart and eyes intent upon the end of his Master's life.
In all this there is so perfect a simplicity, and an
absence so absolute of any reference to the marks of
the Lord Jesus, which it is supposed he bore about in
his body, that the reader's waning traditionary belief

XVIII.] HIS DEA TH-BED. 293
in the Stigmata cannot but be sadly shaken ; for even
the utmost reach of modesty and humility possible to
man could scarcely have bani.shed from the mind of one
so distinguished, all thoughts of or reference to, these
dear marks of uttermost communion. His mind was
full of the last details of his Master's passion ; but yet
he never raised his dying hand to contemplate upon
it the wound which was a copy of Christ's wounds,
nor breathed one sigh of supreme joy and pain on
that account into any friendly soul. Everything is
natural, unaffected, and real, about that deathbed.
When he had said all he had to say, he commanded
the Gospels to be brought to him, and the passage to
be read beginning Ante diem festum paschce — " Before
the feast of the Passover," the beginning of the
thirteenth chapter of St. John. When the reading
was ended, he began with his broken and feeble voice
to sing. Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi — "With my
voice have I cried unto the Lord " — the 142nd Psalm.
How solemnly through the still cell, over the heads
of the kneeling brethren, must these words have
sounded : " I cried unto Thee, O Lord, and said.
Thou art my hope and portion in the land of the
living : consider my complaint, for I am brought very
low. Oh, deliver me from my persecutors, for they
are too strong for me : bring my soul out of prison,
that I may praise Thy name : the righteous shah
compass me about, for Thou shalt deal bountifully
with me."
Such, so far as any record informs us, were the last
words of Francis. They rose trembling on that voice,
once so sonorous, full, and sweet which had praised
God by all the Umbrian ways, and proclaimed his
name from East to West to Gaul and Spaniard, to
Turk and Saracen, in knights' castles and seamen's
galleys — wherever the herald of God could penetrate.

294 HIS DEATH-BED. [chap.
It sank now in dying quavers under the humble roof
in that rude and miserable cell, where not a luxury,
not a comfort, solaced the closing life, but only love
and faith — those supreme riches which are the inheri
tance of the poor. Amid the brethren kneeling round
him, weeping or exulting as personal feeling or
spiritual triumph rose highest in them, Francis lay
absorbed, wrapt in that ineffable separation, in which
the shadow of death enfolds the still living, singing,
with interrupted breath and pathetic pauses, his
death-song — Me expectant justi donee retribuas mihi,
says the Latin version — " The righteous wait expectant
till I receive my recompense." Where could words
more appropriate be found for the close of such a
life } The companions of his toil around, the cloud
of witnesses above — his brethren on earth and his
brethren in heaven waiting till the end was accom
plished, and his life made perfect.
" Laudato sia mio Signore per suor nostra morte corporale  "

Such had been the outburst of his heart when the
intimation was made to him that his Sister Death
was on her way. Now she had come and lulled him
into that shadowy land between the two worlds. His
voice came faint and ever fainter as the dim, languid
distance swallowed him up. And his Master, whom
he loved, and his brethren, the saints, in those heavens
so full of awe and rapture, waited-^and the mortal
love below wept and waited — and the voice failed and
sank, and died away — and the recompense came.
Such was the end of the life of Francis of Assisi —
a life filled with one great master-thought which domi
nated all other motives of humanity and impulses of
nature — the desire to be like Christ. For this he gave
up everything that makes existence sweet, choosing
the worst, and hardest and bitterest of all lots. His

XVIII.] HIS DEATH-BED. 295
fashion of living is not ours, nor is it always possible
to follow with our sympathy that literal, childlike
rendering of every incident in the life of the Master,
which sometimes looks fantastical and often un
meaning. He was a man of his time, and could
live only under the conditions which that time
allowed. He made visible to a literal, practical,
unquestioning age the undeniable and astounding
fact that the highest of all beings chose a life of
poverty, hardship, and humbleness ; that He chose
submission instead of resistance, love instead of
oppression, peace and forghreness instead of revenge
and war. Christ had died in their hearts, as said the
legend of that Christmas at Greccia ; and, as in one
of the bold and artless pictures just then beginning
to yield to a more refined and subtle art, Francis set
forth before the world the image of his Master. The
Son of man was lifted up, as on another cross, before
the eyes of Umbria, before all Italy, warlike and wily,
priest and baron, peasant and pope. In this world
Francis knew nothing, acknowledged nothing, cared for
nothing save Christ and Him crucified — except indeed
Christ's world, the universe redeemed, the souls to be
saved, the poor to be comforted, the friends to be
cherished, the singing birds and bubbling fountains,
the fair earth and the sweet sky. Courteous, tender,
and gentle as any paladin, sweet-tongued and har
monious as any poet, liberal as any prince, was the
barefooted beggar and herald of God. We ask no
visionary reverence for the Stigmata, no wondering
belief in any miracle. As he stood, he was as great
a miracle as any then existing under God's abundant
miraculous heavens ; more wonderful than are the day
and night, the sun and the dew ; only less wonderful
than that great Love which saves the world, and which
it was his aim and destiny to reflect and show forth

CHAPTER XIX.

CONCLUSION.

The breath was scarcely out of Francis's worn and
weary body before the worship of his relics began.
All Assisi came pouring down towards the Portiun
cula at the great news — not mourning as for the
loss of a friend ; but exulting that at last their object
had been achieved, and that their saint belonged to
them beyond any possibility of alienation. "As
soon as the departure of the holy father was heard
of," says Bonaventura, " all the people came together
to sec with their own eyes what might remove any
doubt from their minds, and satisfy the love of their
hearts." It would be difficult, however, to believe in
the pure love of the Assisans, which filled them with
so vociferous a joy on the death of their townsman
and friend. Motives less elevated, we fear, will ex
plain it better. They had secured his person, his
power, the miracles that were sure to follow, the more
substantial benefit of throngs of pilgrims, and a dis
tinction for their city such as had no parallel in Umbria.
With this proud consciousness in their minds, and all
the thirst of popular inquirers for a wonder and prodigy,
they poured out of the city gates towards the little
convent low down on the edge of the plain, " praising
God," says Celano, and saying, " Praised and blessed
art Thou O Lord our God, who has given such a

chap, xix.] CONCLUSION. 29^
precious treasure to us unworthy. Praise and glory
be to Thee, ineffable Trinity." Thus the entire town
made its way, with songs of triumph, to the dark
little house enveloped in the shadow of death, where
there were still some unreasonable brethren left, who,
with sad hearts and many tears, lamented their com
panion and master. And now the historians permit
themselves their full freedom in the description of
those mysterious wounds which the modesty and
humility of Francis were supposed to have hidden up
to this moment with so scrupulous a care. Bona
ventura's narrative is perhaps the most full, but all
the early biographers agree substantially in the
details. " Now were discovered in those blessed members the
nails which by the Divine power had been marvellously
fashioned out of his own flesh, so that on being pressed
on either side they moved to the other. In his body
was found also an open wound in the side, made by
no human hand, like to the wound which our Redeemer
bore for us, and from which issued forth the sacra
ments of redemption and regeneration. The appear
ance of the nails was black like iron ; the wound in
the side was red and rounded, after the appearance of
a beautiful rose. All the rest of his body, which had
been dark by nature, and become darker by reason
of his infirmities, was now of a marvellous white
ness, and so dazzling as to show forth the bright
ness of the state of glory. His limbs seemed to
those who touched them so soft and supple as to
appear like the limbs of a young child, thus figuring
the innocence with which he was adorned. Now
beholding the black nails in that white flesh, and the
wound in the side ruddy as a rose in spring, it is no
marvel that all who saw them were filled with wonder

'298 CONCLUSION. [chap.
and admiration. The sons wept for the loss of so
beloved a father, and yet were filled with unspeakable
gladness when they kissed the seals of the King of
Heaven. The novelty of the miracle changed their
tears into joy, and the understanding remained in
amazement at the sight."
This account is virtually the same as the first state
ment of Celano, who follows it with assumptions of
praise to God, and honour to Francis. The Three
Companions are much more brief but equally distinct
" Many who did not believe in the man of God, and
doubted the existence of his Stigmata, were by the
cogency of the truth, and the good working of God,
changed into faithful preachers, and filled with praise."
It is very hard to understand how contemporaries
could have made any mistake on such a subject ; and
still more hard to imagine that it was an utter fiction
to which all those men thus committed themselves.
Whether it is not harder still to disbelieve all the
evidence against the Stigmata, the vagueness of asser
tion, which is all we have in their favour, the absolute
silence of Frarxis, the absence of all reference to such
a wonder even in the conversation and writings of his
deathbed, is a question which every reader must solve
for himself It is to us impossible to understand how
Francis could have kept such perfect silence on the
subject ; and why, at least after his death, some formal
and solemn proof was not taken of so wonderful a
miracle. But it is at the same time almost equally
impossible to believe that Leo, Angelo, and Ruffino
were setting their seal to an absolute lie.
The accounts vary also as to the numbers who saw
the body. The Three Companions say "all the
brethren and many seculars." "A great multitude
of people," says Celano, " were admitted (curious ex-

XIX.] CONCLUSION. 299
pression), not only to kiss, but also to see the same
wounds," as if some mystery of darkness had still been
kept up about the sacred corpse so far as the multi
tude was concerned. " Many of the citizens of Assisi
were admitted to see and kiss the sacred Stigmata,"
repeats Bonaventura, with greater moderation ; and he
proceeds to tell us of Hieronymo, " a certain soldier,
a learned and prudent man, held in high estimation
in the city," who doubted, like another Thomas, and
more boldly and eagerly than the rest moved the nails
in the presence of his fellow-citizens, and touched with
his own hands the hands and feet of the holy man — an
evidence which would be very satisfactory had we
received Hieronymo's own word for it; or had not
the presence of a Thomas become a recognized
necessity in hagiography. He is said to have " con
firmed it by oath on the Holy Gospels" — which is
very strong ; but still some fuller satisfaction is
necessary, as to who Hieronymo, or Girolamo as hc
would probably be called in Assisi, was.
It was on Saturday, the 4th October, that the saint
died, and all the rest of the day and night solemn
court was held at the Portiuncula over what remained
of him. " All the brethren and children of the holy
father who had been called to witness his departure,
with the great multitude of people who were come
together on the night in which Christ's glorious
confessor departed to Him, passed the night in the
praising of God, so that it seemed not to be a requiem
for the dead, but the rejoicing of angels." It is easy to
imagine the excited crowds which must have thronged
in and out of the little church through the long October
night. Signora Giacobba from Rome, according to the
story, had brought wax for the burial, and the poor
little place no doubt was twinkling all about the altar

300 CONCLUSION. [chap.
with an unusual magnificence of lights. If the pale
figure, so worn and wasted, lay there, where he had
knelt so often, in the solemnity of death, to be seen
and worshipped by the faithful, we are not told.
There can be no doubt that such would have been
the case with the remains of any other man of equal
sanctity and fame. But the question of the Stigmata
makes it doubtful. However that might be, no doubt
the tiny shrine was overflowing with worshippers —
crowds continually changing, who made their brief
devotions, and gazed their eager gaze at whatever
was afforded them to look at, and departed again into
the mellow Italian night, to tell their tale outside to
those who were pressing to enter in their turn. One
seems to see as in a picture that strange scene — the
dark-frocked brethren, who must have been kneeling
motionless about the bier or on the altar steps, if no
bier was there ; and the shifting, fluctuating, awe-
stricken, yet anxious crowds, losing themselves in all
the dark corners, faintly visible, head after head
bowed in worship or raised in curiosity, between the
darkling door and the blazing altar. Italy has changed
so little, that no one who has ever witnessed her popular
devotions, and seen the changing, varying ranks, reach
ing to the very door, and often far outside, all kneeling,
all devout, all silent, with here and there an upturned
face or pair of clasped hands, catching the light, can
have any difficulty in realizing this scene.
As soon as morning dawned, the mass awakened to
another manifestation of their reverence and strange
joy. Why the funeral should have been so hastened we
cannot tell ; nor can we contradict the doubts of those
who see in this speedy sepulture a desire to prevent
any formal inspection of the supposed Stigmata. The
multitude tore down the branches of the trees, no

XIX.] CONCLUSION. 301
doubt spoiling that wood in which Francis loved to
pray, and which plays so large a part in what we
may call the domestic history of his earher years.
Sprigs of sweet myrtle and box and resinous fragrant
pine were doubtless strewed along the way, as is still
the custom of Italy. With branches of the sweet grey
olive, oak boughs, and luxuriant foliage of chestnut ;
with "innumerable lights," tapers and torches, hymns
and canticles ; the great throng gathered ready for the
procession. All the clergy of Assisi, chanting solemn
hymns, came out to meet the bier, and thus they
climbed the hill to the birthplace of the saint the
city of his toils and tears and blessing. When they
came to St. Damiano an affecting pause was made.
Clara within, with all her maidens, waited the last
visit of their father and friend. Slowly the triumphant
crowd defiled into the church of the nuns, hushing, let
us hope, their songs of joy, their transports and gratu-
lations, out of respect to the grief which dwelt there,
and could scarcely, by all the arguments of family
pride, or the excitement of this universal triumph, be
brought to rejoice. The bier was set down within the
chancel, the coffin opened, and opened also was the
little window through which the nuns received the
Sacrament on ordinary occasions. To this little
opening the pale group of nuns, ten of them, with
Clara at their head, came marching silently, with
tears and suppressed cries. Clara herself even in
face of that multitude, could not restrain her grief
" Father, father, what wiH become of us.?" she cried
out ; " who will care for us now, or console us in our
troubles.?'' "Virgin modesty," says Celano, stopped
her lamentations, and with a miserable attempt at
thanksgiving, reminding heraelf that the angels were
rejoicing at his coming, and all was gladness on his

302 CONCLUSION. [chap.
arrival in the city of God, the woman who had been
his closest friend in this world, whose sympathy he
had sought so often, kissed the pale hands — " splendid
hands," says Celano, in his enthusiasm, "adorned
with precious gems and shining pearls " — and dis
appeared from the little window with her tears into
the dim convent behind, where nobody could reprove
her sorrow. This pathetic last meeting in the midst
of all the noise and vulgar satisfaction of the crowd is
doubly touching in its brevity, the only real outcry of
nature for the life so soon extinguished, so deeply
valuable, which we are permitted to hear.
The procession moved on again " with great joy
and exultation," the cries and songs no doubt all the
louder from the compulsory pause, perhaps the com
pulsory tears which had vindicated nature — and pro
ceeded to the Cathedral of Assisi, where the body of
Francis was laid. " In the sacred place, but then more
sacred, they deposited the most sacred body," says
Celano, with a quaint expansion characteristic of his
style. This was on the Sunday, not twenty-four hours
after his death — certainly a very speedy interment
They laid him in the very heart of his native town, in
the place where h\. had learned his earliest lesson, and
preached his first sermon. The shopkeeper's son, the
young gay bourgeois leader of the revellers, jongleur,
and king of feasts — Cecco Bernardone, who must have
been the contemporary, familiarly known from his
cradle, of half the men at least who thus attended him
with songs and shouts to his grave — was henceforward
more than the king, the saint of Assisi, its grand
distinction to Italy and the world.
It is painful to have to add that four years later,
when the great convent church dedicated to him was
ready to receive the remains of the saint, a conflict

XIX.] CONCLUSION. 303
took place between the townsfolk and the Order for
the possession of that precious body. It is revolting
to think of such a struggle, but it was not unnatural
to the age ; and that the victory finally rested with the
Franciscans, after many violent struggles and the free
use of interdicts and every description of spiritual
missile, seems to be indisputable. He lies there
under the great altar, as tradition tells, but no one
knows the precise spot of his grave ; and a mysterious
legend has crept about whispered in the twilight for
ages, that far underneath, lower even than the sub-.
terranean church, the great saint, erect and pale,
with sacred drops of blood upon his five wounds,
and an awful silence round him, waits rapt in some
heavenly meditation, for the moment when he, like
his Lord, and with his Lord, shall rise again. In the
meantime his memory possesses the sacred old
Umbrian city, musing over its past upon the slope of
Apennine. Life went out from it once over all Italy
and to the ends of the earth ; but now its existence
is over, its part in the world played. Only the pilgrims
that come from far, only the feeble, languid interest of
travellers who seek the scene in which a great figure
of history lived and died, not eager crowds believing
in a saint, haunt its streets and disturb the silence.
The work of Francis in its grandest phase is over ;
but the memory of a soul so pure, so simple, so
loyal and tender and courageous, can never die.
We have no space to enter into the details of the
canonization of Francis, which took place two years
after his death, in the year 1228, under the auspices
of the reigning Pope, Gregory IX. The day conse
crated to him in the Roman calendar is the 4th of
October, the day on which he died ; and the popular
devotion which did all but deify his name in the

304 CONCLUSION. [CH. xix
immediately surrounding ages, is yet warm and pro
found in the church he loved so well. Before the
century ended the great early Master of Italian Art
had lent his genius to the celebration of the humble
name of Francis ; and the greatest of all Italian
poets, in his weird and wonderful wanderings through
the unseen world, had met the saint in the fourth
circle of Paradise, that radiant planet known to us
as the Sun, the home of those who burn with the
everlasting love of God " in seraphic ardour." Dante
pauses in his marvellous journey to give a full narrative
of the life of the beloved saint, his brother poet, the
spouse of poverty, of all popular heroes the one most
stainless and blameless. Assisi he says no longer must
be called Ascesi (kindled), but rather Orient, the East,
as from it has risen another sun. Thus the greatest
lights of genius which have ever risen on Italy,
identified the poor and humble apostle ; to whom
since then many a devout heart has turned, as to a
living epistle such as may be read of all men, a true
and touching Imitation of Christ

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY.

YALE UNIVERSITY

a39002 00185^26!