It was the cry which met the friars in every street they passed, so that the name of their former Vicar-General became hateful to them. And yet even now Elias must have had some friends in the Order, as at a council held at Genoa in 1244 there were a few who wished to reinstate him. The Pope commanded him to appear, but as the papal brief never arrived he was thus again debarred from clearing his much damaged character. The consequence of these efforts in his behalf only ended in his falling still deeper into disgrace; and for the second time he was excommunicated. We next hear of him roaming about the country with Frederic II, who found him useful on more than one occasion as a diplomatic agent. Elias was sent with strong letters of recommendation from Pier delle Vigne to Baldwin II, Emperor of Constantinople, and to Hugo I, King of Cyprus, and he was even charged to arrange a marriage for a daughter of Frederic. Among his various talents Elias seems to have been able to accommodate himself to a military life. We hear of him, both at the siege of Faenza and of Ravenna, riding out to battle on a magnificent charger. At other times he found a peaceful asylum at the Emperor's court, presenting a strange contrast to the "strolling minstrels, troubadours, poets, warriors, jugglers and artists of every grade" who frequented it. Upon the Emperor's death Elias returned to Cortona where the citizens received him kindly as he had obtained privileges for them at various times from his patron. Here, at the small hermitage in the ilex wood, he passed the last few years of his life in building a Franciscan church and convent, aided by the citizens who gave the ground for the site. While the last touch was being put to the building of the great Assisan Basilica and it was about to be consecrated by Innocent IV, in 1253, Elias lay dying in his little cell at Cortona. His loneliness touched the heart of a lay brother, who with gentle words expressed his sorrow at seeing him an outcast from the Order and offered him help. Elias, no longer the proud ambitious churchman, answered very gently: "My brother, I see no other way save that thou shouldst go to the Pope and beg him for the love of God and of St. Francis His servant, through whose teaching I quitted the world, to absolve me from his excommunication and to give me back again the habit of religion." The lay brother hastened to Rome and pleaded so humbly that Innocent "permitted him to go back, and if he found Brother Elias alive he was to absolve him in his name from the excommunication and restore unto him the habit; so full of joy the friar departed and returned in hot haste to Brother Elias, and finding him yet alive but nigh unto death he absolved him from the excommunication and put on him again the habit, and Brother Elias quitted this life and his soul was saved by the merits of St. Francis and by his prayers in which Brother Elias had reposed such great faith."