e. A noble Roman, Pietro
Parentio, the deputy of the Holy See in this place, endeavored to
exterminate the Patarini. He was assassinated.[31]

But Francis needed not to go even so far as Orvieto to become acquainted
with heretics. In Assisi the same things were going on as in the
neighboring cities. In 1203 this town had elected for podesta a heretic
named Giraldo di Gilberto, and in spite of warnings from Rome had
persisted in keeping him at the head of affairs until the expiration of
his term of office (1204). Innocent III., who had not yet been obliged
to use vigor with Viterbo, resorted to persuasion and despatched to
Umbria the Cardinal Leo di Santa Croce, who will appear more than once
in this history.[32] The successor of Giraldo and fifty of the principal
citizens made the _amende honorable_ and swore fidelity to the Church.

It is easy to perceive in what a state of ferment Italy was during these
early years of the thirteenth century. The moral discredit of the clergy
must have been deep indeed for souls to have turned toward Manicheism
with such ardor.

Italy may well be grateful to St. Francis; it was as much infected with
Catharism as Languedoc, and it was he who wrought its purification. He
did not pause to demonstrate by syllogisms or theological theses the
vanity of the Catharist doctrines; but soaring as on wings to the
religious life, he suddenly made a new ideal to shine out before the
eyes of his contemporaries, an ideal before which all these fantastic
sects vanished as birds of the night take flight at the first rays of
the sun.

A great part of St. Francis's power came to him thus through his
systematic avoidance of polemics. The latter is always more or less a
form of spiritual pride; it only deepens the chasm which it undertakes
to fill up. Truth needs not to be proved; it is its own witness.

The only weapon which he would use against the wicked was the holiness
of a life so full of love as to enlighten and revive those about him,
and compel them to love.[33] The disappearance of Catharism in Italy,
without an upheaval, and above all without the Inquisition, is thus an
indirect result of the Franciscan movement, and not the least important
among them.[34]

At the voice of the Umbrian reformer Italy roused herself, recovered her
good sense and fine temper; she cast out those doctrines of pessimism
and death, as a robust organism casts out morbid substances.

I have already endeavored to s