Part 14 (2/2)

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 a.s.sisi 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 a.s.surances 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.

Full of these thoughts they had set out, without provisions, to cross the Campagna of Rome, whose few inhabitants never venture out in the heat of the day. The road stretches away northward, keeping at some distance from the Tiber; on the left the jagged crest of Soracte, bathed in mists formed by the exhalations of the earth, looms up disproportionately as it fades in the distance; on the right, the everlasting undulations of the hillocks with their wide pastures separated by thickets so parched and ragged that they seemed to cry for mercy and pardon. Between them the dusty road which goes straight forward, implacable, showing, as far as the eye can reach, nothing but the quivering of the fiery air. Not a house, not a tree, not a pa.s.sing breeze, nothing to sustain the traveller under the disquietude which creeps over him. Here and there are a few abandoned huts, their ruins looking like the corpses of departed civilizations, and on the edge of the horizon the hills rising up like gigantic and unsurmountable walls.

There are no words to describe the physical and moral sufferings to which he is exposed who undertakes without proper preparation to cross this inhospitable district. To the weakness caused by lack of air soon succeeds an insurmountable la.s.situde. The feet sink in a soft, tenuous dust which every step sends up in clouds; it covers you, penetrates your skin, and parches your mouth even more than thirst. Little by little all energy ebbs away, a dumb dejection seizes you, sight and thought become alike confused, fever ensues, and you cast yourself down by the roadside, unable to take another step.

In their haste to leave Rome Francis and his companions had forgotten all this, and had imprudently set forth. They would have succ.u.mbed if a chance traveller had not brought them succor. He was obliged to leave them before they had shaken off the last hallucinations of fever, leaving them amazed with the unexpected succor which Providence had sent them.[1]

They were so severely shattered that on arriving at Orte they were obliged to stop awhile. In a desert spot not far from this city they found a shelter admirably adapted to serve them for refuge;[2] it was one of those Etruscan tombs so common in that country, whose chambers serve to this day as a shelter for beggars and gypsies. While some of the brethren hastened to the city to beg for food, the others remained in this solitude enjoying the happiness of being together, forming a thousand plans, and more than ever delighting in the charm of freedom from care and renunciation of material goods.

This place had so strong an attraction for them that it required an effort of will to quit it at the end of a fortnight. The seduction of a life purely contemplative a.s.sailed Francis, and he asked himself if instead of preaching to the mult.i.tudes he would not do better to live in retreat, solely mindful of the inward dialogue between the soul and G.o.d.[3]

This aspiration for the selfish repose of the cloister came back to him several times in his life; but love always won the victory. He was too much the child of his time not to be at times tempted by that happiness which the Middle Ages regarded as the supreme bliss of the elect in paradise--peace. _Beati mortui quia quiesc.u.n.t!_ His distinguis.h.i.+ng peculiarity is that he never gave way to it.

The reflections of Francis and his companions during their stay at Orte only made their apostolic mission more clear and imperative to them. He, above all, seemed to be filled with a new ardor, and like a valiant knight he burned to throw himself into the thick of the fray.

Their way now led through the valley of the Nera. The contrast between these cool glens, awake with a thousand voices, and the desolation of the Roman Campagna, must have struck them vividly; the stream is only a swollen torrent, but it runs so noisily over pebbles and rocks that it seems to be conversing with them and with the trees of the neighboring forest. In proportion as they had felt themselves alone on the road from Rome to Otricoli, they now felt themselves compa.s.sed about with the life, the fecundity, the gayety of the country.

The account of Thomas of Celano becomes so animated as it describes the life of Francis at this epoch that one cannot help thinking that at this time he must have seen him, and that this first meeting remained always in his memory as the radiant dawn of his spiritual life.[4]

The Brothers had taken to preaching in such places as they came upon along their route. Their words were always pretty much the same, they showed the blessedness of peace and exhorted to penitence. Emboldened by the welcome they had received at Rome, which in all innocence they might have taken to be more favorable than it really was, they told the story to everyone they met, and thus set all scruples at rest.

These exhortations, in which Francis spared not his hearers, but in which the sternest reproaches were mingled with so much of love, produced an enormous effect. Man desires above all things to be loved, and when he meets one who loves him sincerely he very seldom refuses him either his love or his admiration.

It is only a low understanding that confounds love with weakness and compliance. We sometimes see sick men feverishly kissing the hand of the surgeon who performs an operation upon them; we sometimes do the same for our spiritual surgeons, for we realize all that there is of vigor, pity, compa.s.sion in the tortures which they inflict, and the cries which they force from us are quite as much of grat.i.tude as of pain.

Men hastened from all parts to hear these preachers who were more severe upon themselves than on anyone else. Members of the secular clergy, monks, learned men, rich men even, often mingled in the impromptu audiences gathered in the streets and public places. All were not converted, but it would have been very difficult for any of them to forget this stranger whom they met one day upon their way, and who in a few words had moved them to the very bottom of their hearts with anxiety and fear.

Francis was in truth, as Celano says, the bright morning star. His simple preaching took hold on consciences, s.n.a.t.c.hed his hearers from the mire and blood in which they were painfully trudging, and in spite of themselves carried them to the very heavens, to those serene regions where all is silent save the voice of the heavenly Father. ”The whole country trembled, the barren land was already covered with a rich harvest, the withered vine began again to blossom.”[5]

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