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LIFE OF
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
BY
PAUL SABATIER
_Quivere monachus est nihil
reputat esse suum nisi citharam_
GIOACCHINO DI FIORE _in Apoc. 182 a 2_
TRANSLATED BY
LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON
LONDON
HODDER & STOUGHTON
1919
Copyright, 1894, by Charles Scribner's Sons, for the
United States of America.
Printed by the Scribner Press
New York, U.S.A.
* * * * *
_TO THE STRASBURGHERS_
_Friends!_
_At last here is this book which I told you about so long ago. The
result is small indeed in relation to the endeavor, as I, alas! see
better than anyone. The widow of the Gospel put only one mite into the
alms-box of the temple, but this mite, they tell us, won her Paradise.
Accept the mite that I offer you to-day as God accepted that of the poor
woman, looking not at her offering, but at her love_, Feci quod potui,
omnia dedi.
_Do not chide me too severely for this long delay, for you are somewhat
its cause. Many times a day at Florence, at Assisi, at Rome, I have
forgotten the document I had to study. Something in me seemed to have
gone to flutter at your windows, and sometimes they opened.... One
evening at St. Damian I forgot myself and remained long after sunset. An
old monk came to warn me that the sanctuary was closed._ "Per Bacco!"
_he gently murmured as he led me away, all ready to receive my
confidence_, "sognava d'amore o di tristitia?" _Well, yes. I was
dreaming of love and of sadness, for I was dreaming of Strasbourg._
* * * * *
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION, xi
CHAPTER I.
YOUTH, 1