.
However, this friar proved to be an extremely timid if worthy man,
selected precisely on account of his great modesty, simplicity, and
absolute lack of influence in order that he might not abuse his position
with respect to the Holy Father. And doubtless there was an affectation
of humility on the latter's part in taking for confessor a member of the
humblest of the regular orders, a friend of the poor, a holy beggar of
the roads. At the same time the friar certainly enjoyed a reputation for
oratory; and hidden by a veil the Pope at times listened to his sermons;
for although as infallible Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII could not receive
lessons from any priest, it was admitted that as a man he might reap
profit by listening to good discourse. Nevertheless apart from his
natural eloquence, the worthy friar was really a mere washer of souls, a
confessor who listens and absolves without even remembering the
impurities which he removes in the waters of penitence. And Pierre,
finding him really so poor and such a cipher, did not insist on an
intervention which he realised would be futile.

All that day the young priest was haunted by the figure of that ingenuous
lover of poverty, that delicious St. Francis, as Narcisse Habert was wont
to say. Pierre had often wondered how such an apostle, so gentle towards
both animate and inanimate creation, and so full of ardent charity for
the wretched, could have arisen in a country of egotism and enjoyment
like Italy, where the love of beauty alone has remained queen. Doubtless
the times have changed; yet what a strong sap of love must have been
needed in the old days, during the great sufferings of the middle ages,
for such a consoler of the humble to spring from the popular soil and
preach the gift of self to others, the renunciation of wealth, the horror
of brutal force, the equality and obedience which would ensure the peace
of the world. St. Francis trod the roads clad as one of the poorest, a
rope girdling his grey gown and his bare feet shod with sandals, and he
carried with him neither purse nor staff. And he and his brethren spoke
aloud and freely, with sovereign florescence of poetry and boldness of
truth, attacking the rich and the powerful, and daring even to denounce
the priests of evil life, the debauched, simoniacal, and perjured
bishops. A long cry of relief greeted the Franciscans, the people
followed them in crowds--they were the friends, the liberators of all the
humbl