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A great number of legendary anecdotes put Francis's disdain of privileges in the clearest light. Even his dearest friends did not always understand his scruples.

"Do you not see," they said to him one day, "that often the bishops do not permit us to preach, and make us remain several days without doing anything before we are permitted to proclaim the word of God? It would be better worth while to obtain for this end a privilege from the pope, and it would be for the good of souls."

"I would first convert the prelates by humility and respect," he replied quickly; "for when they have seen us humble and respectful toward them, they themselves will beg us to preach and convert the people. As for me, I ask of God no privilege unless it be that I may have none, to be full of respect for all men, and to convert them, as our Rule ordains, more by our example than by our speech."12

The question whether Francis was right or wrong in his antipathy to the privileges of the curia does not come within the domain of history; it is evident that this attitude could not long continue; the Church knows only the faithful and rebels. But the noblest hearts often make a stand at compromises of this kind; they desire that the future should grow out of the past without convulsion and without a crisis.

The chapter of 1217 was notable for the definitive organization of the Franciscan missions. Italy and the other countries were divided off into a certain number of provinces, having each its provincial minister. Immediately upon his accession Honorius III. had sought to revive the popular zeal for the crusades. He had not stopped at preaching it, but appealed to prophecies which had proclaimed that under his pontificate the Holy Land would be reconquered.13 The renewal of fervor which ensued, and of which the rebound was felt as far as Germany, had a profound influence on the Brothers Minor. This time Francis, perhaps from humility, did not put himself at the head of the friars charged with a mission to Syria; for leader he gave them the famous Elias, formerly at Florence, where he had had opportunity to show his high qualities.14

This Brother, who from this time appears in the foreground of this history, came from the most humble ranks of society; the date and the circumstances of his entrance into the Order are unknown, and hence conjecture has come to see in him that friend of the grotto who had been Francis's confidant shortly before his decisive conversion. However this may be, in his youth he had earned his living in Assisi, making mattresses and teaching a few children to read; then he had spent some time in Bologna as scriptor; then suddenly we find him among the Brothers Minor, charged with the most difficult missions.

His adversaries vie with one another in asserting that he was the finest mind of his century, but unhappily it is very difficult, in the existing state of the documents, to pronounce as to his actions; learned and energetic, eager to play the leading part in the work of the reformation of religion, and having made his plan beforehand as to the proper mode of realizing it, he made straight for his goal, half political, half religious. Full of admiration for Francis and gratitude toward him, he desired to regulate and consolidate the movement for renovation. In the inner Franciscan circle, where Leo, Ginepro, Egidio, and many others represent the spirit of liberty, the religion of the humble and the simple, Elias represents the scientific and ecclesiastical spirit, prudence and reason.

He had great success in Syria and received into the Order one of the disciples most dear to Francis, Cæsar of Speyer, who later on was to make the conquest of all Southern Germany in less than two years (1221-1223), and who in the end sealed with his blood his fidelity to the strict observance, which he defended against the attacks of Brother Elias himself.15

Cæsar of Speyer offers a brilliant example of those suffering souls athirst for the ideal, so numerous in the thirteenth century, who everywhere went up and down, seeking first in learning, then in the religious life, that which should assuage the mysterious thirst which tortured them. Disciple of the scholastic Conrad, he had felt himself overpowered with the desire to reform the Church; while still a layman he had preached his ideas, not without some success, since a certain number of ladies of Speyer had begun to lead a new life; but their husbands disapproving, he was obliged to escape their vengeance by taking refuge at Paris, and thence he went to the East, where in the preaching of the Brothers Minor he found again his hopes and his dreams. This instance shows how general was the waiting condition of souls when the Franciscan gospel blazed forth, and how its way had been everywhere prepared.

But it is time to return to the chapter of 1217: the friars who went to Germany under conduct of Giovanni di Penna were far from having the success of Elias and his companions; they were completely ignorant of the language of the country which they had undertaken to evangelize. Perhaps Francis had not taken into account the fact that though Italian might, in case of need, suffice in all the countries bathed by the Mediterranean, this could not be the case in Central Europe.16

The lot of the party going to Hungary was not more happy. Very often it came to pass that the missionaries were fain to give up their very garments in the effort to appease the peasants and shepherds who maltreated them. But no less incapable of understanding what was said to them than of making themselves understood, they were soon obliged to think of returning to Italy. We may thank the Franciscan authors for preserving for us the memory of these checks, and not attempting to picture the friars as suddenly knowing all languages by a divine inspiration, as later on was so often related.17

Those who had been sent to Spain had also to undergo persecutions. This country, like the south of France, was ravaged by heresy; but already at that time it was vigorously repressed. The Franciscans, suspected of being false Catholics and therefore eagerly hunted out, found a refuge with Queen Urraca of Portugal, who permitted them to establish themselves at Coimbra, Guimarraens, Alenquero, and Lisbon.18

Francis himself made preparations for going to France.19 This country had a peculiar charm for him because of his fervent love of the Holy Sacrament. Perhaps also he was unwittingly drawn toward this country to which he owed his name, the chivalrous dreams of his youth, all of poetry, song, music, delicious dream that had come into his life.

Something of the emotion that thrilled through him on undertaking this new mission has passed into the story of his biographers; one feels there the thrill at once sweet and agonizing, the heart-throb of the brave knight who goes forth all harnessed in the early dawn to scan the horizon, dreading the unknown and yet overflowing with joy, for he knows that the day will be consecrated to love and to the right.

The Italian poet has given the one name of "pilgrimages of love" to the farings forth of chivalry and the journeys undertaken by dreamers, artists, or saints to those parts of the earth which forever mirror themselves before their imagination and remain their chosen fatherland.20 Such a pilgrimage as this was Francis undertaking.

"Set forth," said he to the Brothers who accompanied him, "and walk two and two, humble and gentle, keeping silence until after tierce, praying to God in your hearts, carefully avoiding every vain or useless word. Meditate as much while on this journey as if you were shut up in a hermitage or in your cell, for wherever we are, wherever we go, we carry our cell with us; Brother body is our cell, and the soul is the hermit who dwells in it, there to pray to the Lord and to meditate."

Arrived at Florence he found there Cardinal Ugolini, sent by the pope as legate to Tuscany to preach the crusade and take all needful measures for assuring its success.21 Francis was surely far from expecting the reception which the prelate gave him. Instead of encouraging him, the cardinal urged him to give up his project.

"I am not willing, my brother, that you should cross the mountains; there are many prelates who ask nothing better than to stir up difficulties for you with the court of Rome. But I and the other cardinals who love your Order desire to protect and aid you, on the condition, however, that you do not quit this province."

"But, monsignor, it would be a great disgrace for me to send my brethren far away while I remained idly here, sharing none of the tribulations which they must undergo."

"Wherefore, then, have you sent your brethren so far away, exposing them thus to starvation and all sorts of perils?"

"Do you think," replied Francis warmly, and as if moved by prophetic inspiration, "that God raised up the Brothers for the sake of this country alone? Verily, I say unto you, God has raised them up for the awakening and the salvation of all men, and they shall win souls not only in the countries of those who believe, but also in the very midst of the infidels." 22

The surprise and admiration which these words awoke in Ugolini were not enough to make him change his mind. He insisted so strongly that Francis turned back to Portiuncula, the inspiration of his work not even shaken. Who knows whether the joy which he would have felt in seeing France did not confirm him in the idea that he ought to renounce this plan? Souls athirst with the longing for sacrifice often have scruples such as these; they refuse the most lawful joys that they may offer them to God. We cannot tell whether it was immediately after this interview or not till the following year that Francis put Brother Pacifico at the head of the missionaries sent into France.23

Pacifico, who was a poet of talent, had before his conversion been surnamed Prince of Poesy and crowned at the capital by the emperor. One day while visiting a relative who was a nun at San Severino in the March of Ancona, Francis also arrived at the monastery, and preached with such a holy impetuosity that the poet felt himself pierced with the sword of which the Bible speaks, which penetrates between the very joints and marrow, and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.24 On the morrow he assumed the habit and received his symbolical surname.25

He was accompanied to France by Brother Agnello di Pisa, who was destined to be put at the head of the first mission to England in 1224.26

Francis, on sending them forth, was far from dreaming that from this country, which exerted such a fascination over him, was to come forth the influence which was to compromise his dream—that Paris would be the destruction of Assisi; and yet the time was not very far distant; a few years more and the Poverello would see

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