Life of St. Francis of Assisi
manuscripts and editions more at length.
[19] Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series.
Macmillan & Company, 1883.
[20] 2 Cel., 3, 58; _Spec._, 123a.
[21] _Spec._, 124a. Cf. _Miscellanea_ (1889), iv., p. 88.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIX
THE LAST YEAR
September, 1225-End of September, 1226
What did Ugolini think when they told him that Francis was planning to
send his friars, transformed into _Joculatores Domini_, to sing up and
down the country the Canticle of Brother Sun? Perhaps he never heard of
it. His _protege_ finally decided to accept his invitation and left St.
Damian in the course of the month of September.
The landscape which lies before the eyes of the traveller from Assisi,
when he suddenly emerges upon the plain of Rieti, is one of the most
beautiful in Europe. From Terni the road follows the sinuous course of
the Velino, passes not far from the famous cascades, whose clouds of
mist are visible, and then plunges into the defiles in whose depths the
torrent rushes noisily, choked by a vegetation as luxuriant as that of a
virgin forest. On all sides uprise walls of perpendicular rocks, and on
their crests, several hundred yards above your head, are feudal
fortresses, among others the Castle of Miranda, more giddy, more
fantastic than any which Gustave Dore's fancy ever dreamed.
After four hours of walking, the defile opens out and you find yourself
without transition in a broad valley, sparkling with light.
Rieti, the only city in this plain of several leagues, appears far away
at the other extremity, commanded by hills of a thoroughly tropical
aspect, behind which rise the mighty Apennines, almost always covered
with snow.
The highway goes directly toward this town, passing between tiny lakes;
here and there roads lead off to little villages which you see, on the
hillside, between the cultivated fields and the edge of the forests;
there are Stroncone, Greccio, Cantalice, Poggio-Buscone, and ten other
small towns, which have given more saints to the Church than a whole
province of France.
Between the inhabitants of the district and their neighbors of Umbria,
properly so called, the difference is extreme. They are all of the
striking type of the Sabine peasants, and they remain to this day entire
strangers to new customs. One is born a Capuchin there as elsewhere one
is born a soldier, and the traveller needs to have his wits about him
not to address every man he meets as Reverend Father.
Francis had often gone over this district in every direction. Like its
neighbor, the hilly March of Ancona, it was peculiarly prepared to
receive the new gospel. In these hermitages, with their almost
impossible simplicity, perched near the villages on every side, without
the least care for material comfort, but always where there is the
widest possible view, was perpetuated a race of Brothers Minor,
impassioned, proud, stubborn, almost wild, who did not wholly understand
their master, who did not catch his exquisite simplicity, his
impossibility of hating, his dreams of social and political renovation,
his poetry and delicacy, but who did understand the lover of nature and
of poverty.[1] They did more than understand him; they lived his
life, and from that Christmas festival observed in the woods of Greccio
down to to-day they have remained the simple and popular representatives
of the Strict Observance. From them comes to us the Legend of the Three
Companions, the most life-like and true of all the portraits of the
Poverello, and it was there, in a cell three paces long, that Giovanni
di Parma had his apocalyptic visions.
The news of Francis's arrival quickly spread, and long before he reached
Rieti the population had come out to meet him.
To avoid this noisy welcome he craved the hospitality of the priest of
St. Fabian. This little church, now known under the name of Our Lady of
the Forest, is somewhat aside from the road upon a grassy mound about a
league from the city. He was heartily welcomed, and desiring to remain
there for a little, prelates and devotees began to flock thither in the
next few days.
It was the time of the early grapes. It is easy to imagine the
disquietude of the priest on perceiving the ravages made by these
visitors among his vines, his best source of revenue, but he probably
exaggerated the damage. Francis one day heard him giving vent to his bad
humor. "Father," he said, "it is useless for you to disturb yourself for
what you cannot hinder; but, tell me, how much wine do you get on an
average?"
"Fourteen measures," replied the priest.
"Very well, if you have less than twenty, I undertake to make up the
difference."
This promise reassured the worthy man, and when at the vintage he
received twenty measures, he had no hesitation in believing in a
miracle.[2]
Upon Ugolini's entreaties Francis had accepted the hospitality of the
bishop's palace in Rieti. Thomas of Celano enlarges with delight upon
the marks of devotion lavished on Francis by this prince of the Church.
Unhappily all this is written in that pompous and confused style of
which diplomats and ecclesiastics appear to have by nature the secret.
Francis entered into the condition of a relic in his lifetime. The mania
for amulets displayed itself around him in all its excesses. People
quarrelled not only over his clothing, but even over his hair and the
parings of his nails.[3]
Did these merely exterior demonstrations disgust him? Did he sometimes
think of the contrast between these honors offered to his body, which he
picturesquely called Brother Ass, and the subversion of his ideal? We
cannot tell. If he had feelings of this kind those who surrounded him
were not the men to understand them, and it would be idle to expect any
expression of them from his pen.
Soon after he had a relapse, and asked to be removed to
Monte-Colombo,[4] a hermitage an hour distant from the city, hidden
amidst trees and scattered rocks. He had already retired thither several
times, notably when he was preparing the Rule of 1223.
The doctors, having exhausted the therapeutic arsenal of the time,
decided to resort to cauterization; it was decided to draw a rod of
white-hot iron across his forehead.
When the poor patient saw them bringing in the brazier and the
instruments he had a moment of terror; but immediately making the sign
of the cross over the glowing iron, "Brother fire," he said, "you are
beautiful above all creatures; be favorable to me in this hour; you know
how much I have always loved you; be then courteous to-day."
Afterward, when his companions, who had not had the courage to remain,
came back he said to them, smiling, "Oh, cowardly folk, why did you go
away? I felt no pain. Brother doctor, if it is necessary you may do it
again."
This experiment was no more successful than the other remedies. In vain
they quickened the wound on the forehead, by applying plasters, salves,
and even by making incisions in it; the only result was to increase the
pains of the sufferer.[5]
One day, at Rieti, whither he had again been carried, he thought that a
little music would relieve his pain. Calling a friar who had formerly
been clever at playing the guitar, he begged him to borrow one; but the
friar was afraid of the scandal which this might cause, and Francis gave
it up.
God took pity upon him; the following night he sent an invisible angel
to give him such a concert as is never heard on earth.[6] Francis,
hearing it, lost all bodily feeling, say the Fioretti, and at one moment
the melody was so sweet and penetrating that if the angel had given one
more stroke of the bow, the sick man's soul would have left his
body.[7]
It seems that there was some amelioration of his state when the doctors
left him; we find him during the months of this winter, 1225-1226, in
the most remote hermitages of the district, for as soon as he had a
little strength he was determined to begin preaching again.
He went to Poggio-Buscone[8] for the Christmas festival. People
flocked thither in crowds from all the country round to see and hear
him. "You come here," he said, "expecting to find a great saint; what
will you think when I tell you that I ate meat all through Advent?"[9]
At St. Eleutheria,[10] at a time of extreme cold which tried him much,
he had sewn some pieces of stuff into his own tunic and that of his
companion, so as to make their garments a little warmer. One day his
companion came home with a fox-skin, with which in his turn he proposed
to line his master's tunic. Francis rejoiced much over it, but would
permit this excess of consideration for his body only on condition that
the piece of fur should be placed on the outside over his chest.
All these incidents, almost insignificant at a first view, show how he
detested hypocrisy even in the smallest things.
We will not follow him to his dear Greccio,[11] nor even to the
hermitage of St. Urbano, perched on one of the highest peaks of the
Sabine.[12] The accounts which we have of the brief visits he made
there at this time tell us nothing new of his character or of the
history of his life. They simply show that the imaginations of those who
surrounded him were extraordinarily overheated; the least incidents
immediately took on a miraculous coloring.[13]
The documents do not say how it came about that he decided to go to
Sienna. It appears that there was in that city a physician of great fame
as an oculist. The treatment he prescribed was no more successful than
that of the others; but with the return of spring Francis made a new
effort to return to active life. We find him describing the ideal
Franciscan monastery,[14] and another day explaining a passage in the
Bible to a Dominican.
Did the latter, a doctor in theology, desire to bring the rival Order
into ridicule by showing its founder incapable of explaining a somewhat
difficult verse? It appears extremely likely. "My good father," he said,
"how do you understand this saying of the prophet Ezekiel, 'If thou dost
not warn the wicked of his wickedness, I will require his soul of thee?'
I am acquainted with many men whom I know to be in a state of mortal
sin, and yet I am not always reproaching them for their vices. Am I,
then, responsible for their souls?"
At first Francis excused himself, alleging his ignorance, but urged by
his interlocutor he said at last: "Yes, the true servant unceasingly
rebukes the wicked, but he does it most of all by his conduct, by the
truth which shines forth in his words, by the light of his example, by
all the radiance of his life."[15]
He soon suffered so grave a relapse that the Brothers thought his last
hour had come. They were especially affrighted by the hemorrhages, which
reduced him to a state of extreme prostration. Brother Elias hastened to
him. At his arrival the invalid felt in himself such an improvement that
they could acquiesce in his desire to be taken back to Umbria. Toward
the middle of April they set out, going in the direction of Cortona. It
is the easiest route, and the delightful hermitage of that city was one
of the best ordered to permit of his taking some repose. He doubtless
remained there a very short time: he was in haste to see once more the
skies of his native country, Portiuncula, St. Damian, the Carceri, all
those paths and hamlets which one sees from the terraces of Assisi and
which recalled to him so many sweet memories.
Instead of going by the nearest road, they made a long circuit by Gubbio
and Nocera, to avoid Perugia, fearing some attempt of the inhabitants to
get possession of the Saint. Such a relic as the body of Francis lacked
little of the value of the sacred nail or the sacred lance.[16] Battles
were fought for less than that.