more grave
for having been uttered in the presence of a stranger, a knight of that
district. The latter was stupefied on hearing Francis command the guilty
one to eat a lump of ass's dung which lay there, adding: "The mouth
which has distilled the venom of hatred against my brother must eat this
excrement." Such indignation, no less than the obedience of the unhappy
offender, filled him with admiration.[21]

It is very probable, as Wadding has supposed, that the missionaries
debarked at St. Jean d'Acre. They arrived there about the middle of
July.[22] In the environs of this city, doubtless, Brother Elias had
been established for one or two years. Francis there told off a few of
his companions, whom he sent to preach in divers directions, and a few
days afterward he himself set out for Egypt, where all the efforts of
the Crusaders were concentrated upon Damietta.

From the first he was heart-broken with the moral condition of the
Christian army. Notwithstanding the presence of numerous prelates and of
the apostolic legate, it was disorganized for want of discipline. He was
so affected by this that when there was talk of battle he felt it his
duty to advise against it, predicting that the Christians would
infallibly be beaten. No one heeded him, and on August 29th the
Crusaders, having attacked the Saracens, were terribly routed.[23]

His predictions won him a marvellous success. It must be owned that the
ground was better prepared than any other to receive the new seed; not
surely that piety was alive there, but in this mass of men come together
from every corner of Europe, the troubled, the seers, the enlightened
ones, those who thirsted for righteousness and truth, were elbowed by
rascals, adventurers, those who were greedy for gold and plunder,
capable of much good or much evil, the sport of fleeting impulses,
loosed from the bonds of the family, of property, of the habits which
usually twine themselves about man's will, and only by exception permit
a complete change in his manner of life; those among them who were
sincere and had come there with generous purposes were, so to speak,
predestined to enter the peaceful army of the Brothers Minor. Francis
was to win in this mission fellow-laborers who would assure the success
of his work in the countries of northern Europe.

Jacques de Vitry, in a letter to friends written a few days later, thus
describes the impression produced on him by Francis:

"I announce