My Patron extended this brotherly love to the very animals, over whom he appeared to have reconquered by his innocence the empire which man exercised over them before his fall; he spoke to them as if they understood him; he gave them the name of "brothers" and "sisters." Near Baveno, as he was passing, a multitude of birds gathered around him; he greeted them and said: "My winged brothers, love and praise God, for He hath clothed you with feathers and given you the power to fly in the sky." The birds of the Lake of Rieti followed him. He rejoiced when he met flocks of sheep; he had a great compassion for them: "Brothers," he said to them, "come to me." Sometimes he would give his clothes in exchange for a sheep which was being led to the butcher's; he remembered a very meek Lamb, _illius mentor agni minissimi_, offered up for the salvation of mankind. A grass-hopper lived on the bough of a fig-tree near his door at the Portiuncula; he called it to him; it came to lie upon his hand and he said to it: "Sister grasshopper, sing God thy Creator." He did the same by a nightingale and was beaten at the concerts by a bird which he blessed and which flew away after its victory. He was obliged to have the little wild animals which ran up to him and sought shelter in his breast carried far away into the woods. When he wished to pray in the morning, he ordered silence of the swallows and they were dumb. A young man was going to Siena to sell some turtle-doves; the servant of God begged him to give them to him, so that doves, which, in the Scriptures, are the symbol of innocence and candour, might not be killed. The saint carried them to his convent at Ravacciano: he planted his stick at the door of the monastery; the stick changed into a tall evergreen oak; the saint let the turtle-doves go to it and commanded them to build their nest in its branches, which they did for many years. Francis dying wished to leave the world naked, as he had entered it; he asked that his stripped body might be buried in the spot where the criminals were executed, in imitation of Christ, whom he had taken for his model. He dictated a will which was wholly spiritual, for he had nothing to leave to his brethren except poverty and peace: a sainted woman laid him in his tomb. [Sidenote: Back in Paris.]