It was winter; the cold, the wind, the rain made any journey impossible, so the cardinal begged him to pass a few days in his house and to take his food there, like the other poor folk who came there to eat. ... "I will give you," he added, "a good lodging, quite retired, where if you like you may pray and eat." Then Brother Angelo, one of the twelve first disciples, who lived with the cardinal, said to Francis: "There is, close by here, a great tower standing by itself and very quiet; you will be there as in a hermitage." Francis went to see it and it pleased him. Then, returning to the cardinal, "Monsignor," he said, "it is possible that I may pass a few days with you." The latter was very joyful, and Brother Angelo went to prepare the tower for the Blessed Francis and his companion. But the very first night, when he would have slept, the demons came and smote him. Calling then to his companion, "Brother," he said, "the demons have come and smitten me with violence; remain near me, I beg, for I am afraid here alone." He was trembling in all his members, like one who has a fever. They passed the night both without sleeping. "The demons are commissioned with the chastisements of God," said Francis; "as a podesta sends his executioner to punish the criminal, so God sends demons, who in this are his ministers.... Why has he sent them to me? Perhaps this is the reason: The cardinal desired to be kind to me, and I have truly great need of repose, but the Brothers who are out in the world, suffering hunger and a thousand tribulations, and also those others who are in hermitages or in miserable houses, when they hear of my sojourn with a cardinal will be moved to repine. 'We endure all privations,' they will say, 'while he has all that he can desire; 'but I ought to give them a good example--that is my true mission." ... Early next morning, therefore he quitted the tower, and having told the cardinal all, took leave of him and returned to the hermitage of Monte Colombo, near Rieti. "They think me a holy man," he said, "and see, it needed demons to cast me out of prison."[26] This story, notwithstanding its strange coloring, shows plainly how strong was his instinct for independence. To compare the hospitality of a cardinal to an imprisonment! He spoke better than he knew, characterizing in one word the relation of the Church to his Order. The lark was not dead; in spite of cold and the north wind it gayly took its flight to the vale of Rieti. It was mid-December. An ardent desire to observe to the life the memories of Christmas had taken possession of Francis. He opened his heart to one of his friends, the knight Giovanni di Greccio, who undertook the necessary preparations.