Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Victoria Woosley and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI BY PAUL SABATIER _Quivere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi citharam_ GIOACCHINO DI FIORE _in Apoc. 182 a 2_ TRANSLATED BY LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON LONDON HODDER & STOUGHTON 1919 Copyright, 1894, by Charles Scribner's Sons, for the United States of America. Printed by the Scribner Press New York, U.S.A. * * * * * _TO THE STRASBURGHERS_ _Friends!_ _At last here is this book which I told you about so long ago. The result is small indeed in relation to the endeavor, as I, alas! see better than anyone. The widow of the Gospel put only one mite into the alms-box of the temple, but this mite, they tell us, won her Paradise. Accept the mite that I offer you to-day as God accepted that of the poor woman, looking not at her offering, but at her love_, Feci quod potui, omnia dedi. _Do not chide me too severely for this long delay, for you are somewhat its cause. Many times a day at Florence, at Assisi, at Rome, I have forgotten the document I had to study. Something in me seemed to have gone to flutter at your windows, and sometimes they opened.... One evening at St. Damian I forgot myself and remained long after sunset. An old monk came to warn me that the sanctuary was closed._ "Per Bacco!" _he gently murmured as he led me away, all ready to receive my confidence_, "sognava d'amore o di tristitia?" _Well, yes. I was dreaming of love and of sadness, for I was dreaming of Strasbourg._ * * * * * TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION, xi CHAPTER I. YOUTH, 1 CHAPTER II. STAGES OF CONVERSION, 15 CHAPTER III. THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209, 28 CHAPTER IV. STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPHS, 53 CHAPTER V. FIRST YEAR OF APOSTOLATE, 71 CHAPTER VI. ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III., 88 CHAPTER VII. RIVO-TORTO, 103 CHAPTER VIII. PORTIUNCULA, 120 CHAPTER IX. SANTA CLARA, 147 CHAPTER X. FIRST ATTEMPTS TO REACH THE INFIDELS, 168