[21] The attempt of Durand of Huesca to create a mendicant order has not yet been studied with sufficient minuteness. Chief of the Waldenses of Aragon, he was present in 1207 at the conference of Pamiers, and decided to return to the Church. Received with kindness by the pope he at first had a great success, and by 1209 had established communities in Aragon, at Carcassonne, Narbonne, Beziers, Nimes, Uzes, Milan. We find in this movement all the lineaments of the institute of St. Dominic; it was an order of priests to whom theological studies were recommended. They disappeared almost completely in the storm of the Albigensian crusade. Innocent III., _epistolae_, xi., 196, 197, 198; xii., 17, 66; xiii., 63, 77, 78, 94; xv., 82, 83, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 137, 146. The first of these bulls contains the very curious Rule of this ephemeral order. Upon its disappearance vide Ripoli, _Bullarium Praedicatorum_, 8 vols., folio, Rome, 1729-1740, t. i., p. 96. Cf. Elie Berger, _Registres d'Innocent IV._, 2752. [22] Burchard, of the order of the Premostrari, who died in 1226. See below, p. 234. [23] 3 Soc., 52; Bon., 38. [24] 3 Soc., 52 and 49. [25] St. Antonino, Archbishop of Florence, saw very clearly that it was _quaedam concessio simplex habitus et modi illius vivendi et quasi permissio_. A. SS., p. 839. The expression "approbation of the Rule" by which the act of Innocent III. is usually designated is therefore erroneous. * * * * * CHAPTER VII RIVO-TORTO 1210-1211 The Penitents of Assisi were overflowing with joy. After so many mortally long days spent in that Rome, so different from the other cities that they knew, exposed to the ill-disguised suspicions of the prelates and the jeers of pontifical lackeys, the day of departure seemed to them like a deliverance. At the thought of once more seeing their beloved mountains they were seized by that homesickness of the child for its native village which simple and kindly souls preserve till their latest breath. Immediately after the ceremony they prayed at the tomb of St. Peter, and then crossing the whole city they quitted Rome by the Porta Salara. Thomas of Celano, very brief as to all that concerns Francis's sojourn in the Eternal City, recounts at full length the light-heartedness of the little band on quitting it. Already it began to be transfigured in their memory; pains, fatigues, fears, disquietude, hesitations were all forgotten; they thought only of the fatherly assurances of the supreme pontiff--the vicar of Christ, the lord and father of the Christian universe--and promised themselves to make ever new efforts to follow the Rule with fidelity.