Francis was permeated with the ideas of chivalry, and his language was its phraseology. So much was he in love with chivalry that he became the founder of a new order, whose patroness should be the Lady Poverty. Never had there been a time in Europe since the decay of the Roman empire, when poverty was more derided. Princes, merchants, even many prelates and priests, neglected and contemned the poor. The voices of the outcasts and the leper went up to God, and he sent their terrible echoes to awaken the heart of Francis. In Sicily, Frederick II.--the Julian of the time--lived among fountains and orange blossoms and gorgeous pomegranate arches,--a type of the arrogant voluptuousness of the time, a voluptuousness which Dante symbolized later as the leopard. Against this luxury Francis put the lady of his love, Poverty. In the 'Poetes Franciscains,' Frederick Ozanam says:-- "He thus designated what had become for him the ideal of all perfection,--the type of all moral beauty. He loved to personify Poverty as the symbolic genius of his time: he imagined her as the daughter of Heaven; and he called her by turns the lady of his thoughts, his affianced, and his bride." The towns of Italy were continually at war, in 1206 and thereabout. Francis was taken prisoner in a battle of his native townsmen with the Perugians. Restless and depressed, unsatisfied by the revelry of his comrades, he threw himself into the train of the Count de Brienne, who was making war on the German Emperor for the two Sicilies. About this time, he was moved to give his fine military clothes to a shivering soldier. At Spoleto, after this act of charity, he dreamed that the voice of God asked what he valued most in life. "Earthly fame," he said.--"But which of two is better for you,--the Master, or the servant? And why will you forsake the Master for the servant, the Lord for the slave?"--"O Lord, what shall I do?" asked Francis.--"Return unto the city," said the voice, "and there it will be told you what you shall do and how you may interpret this vision." He obeyed; he left the army; his old companions were glad to see him, and again he joined the _corti_. But he was paler and more silent. "You are in love!" his companions said, laughingly. "I am in truth thinking of a bride more noble, more richly dowered, and more beautiful than the world has ever seen." Pietro was away from home, and his son made donations to the poor. He grew more tranquil, though the Voice had not explained its message. He knelt at the foot of the crucifix one day in the old chapel of St. Damian, and waited. Then the revelation came:--"Francis, go to rebuild my house, which is falling into ruin!" Francis took this command, which seemed to have come from the lips of his crucified Redeemer, literally. It meant that he should repair the chapel of St. Damian. Later, he accepted it in a broader sense. More important things than the walls of St. Damian were falling into ruin.