ture of the early days of the Order, a picture of incomparable
freshness and intensity of life; but strangely enough, after having told
us so much at length of Francis's youth and then of the first days of
the Order, the story abruptly leaps over from the year 1220 to the death
and the canonization, to which after all only a few pages are
given.[34]

This is too extraordinary to be the result of chance. What has happened?
It is evident that the Legend of the Three Companions as we have it
to-day is only a fragment of the original, which was no doubt revised,
corrected, and considerably cut down by the authorities of the Order
before they would permit it to be circulated.[35] If the authors had
been interrupted in their work, and obliged to cut short the end, as
might have been the case, they would have said so in their letter of
envoy, but there are still other arguments in favor of our hypothesis.

Brother Leo having had the first and principal part in the production of
the work of the Three Companions, it is often called Brother Leo's
Legend; now Brother Leo's Legend is several times cited by Ubertini di
Casali, arraigned before the court of Avignon by the party of the Common
Observance. Evidently Ubertini would have taken good care not to appeal
to an apocryphal document; a false citation would have been enough to
bring him to confusion, and his enemies would not have failed to make
the most of his imprudence. We have at hand all the documents of the
trial,[36] attacks, replies, counter replies, and nowhere do we see the
Liberals accuse their adversary of falsehood. For that matter, the
latter makes his citations with a precision that admits of no
cavil.[37] He appeals to writings to be found in a press in the
convent of Assisi, of which he gives sometimes a copy, sometimes an
original.[38] We are then authorized to conclude that we have here
fragments which have survived the suppression of the last and most
important part of the Legend of the Three Companions.

It is not surprising that the work of Francis's dearest friends should
have been so seriously mutilated. It was the manifesto of a party that
Crescentius was hunting down with all his power.

After the fleeting reaction of the generalate of Giovanni di Parma we
shall see a man of worth like St. Bonaventura moving for the suppression
of all the primitive legends that his own compilation may be substituted
for them.

It is truly singular that no one has pe