f St. Francis have preserved to us an incident which
shows how great was the religious ferment even in the little city of
Assisi. A stranger was seen to go up and down the streets saying to
every one he met, "Peace and welfare!" (_Pax et bonum._)[1] He thus
expressed in his own way the disquietude of those hearts which could
neither resign themselves to perpetual warfare nor to the disappearance
of faith and love; artless echo, vibrating in response to the hopes and
fears that were shaking all Europe!

_"Vox clamantis in deserto!"_ it will be said. No, for every heart-cry
leaves its trace even when it seems to be uttered in empty air, and that
of the Unknown of Assisi may have contributed in some measure to
Francis's definitive call.

Since his abrupt return from Spoleto, life in his father's house had
become daily more difficult. Bernardone's self-love had received from
his son's discomfiture such a wound as with commonplace men is never
healed. He might provide, without counting it, money to be swallowed up
in dissipation, that so his son might stand on an equal footing with the
young nobles; he could never resign himself to see him giving with
lavish hands to every beggar in the streets.

Francis, continually plunged in reverie and spending his days in lonely
wanderings in the fields, was no longer of the least use to his father.
Months passed, and the distance between the two men grew ever wider; and
the gentle and loving Pica could do nothing to prevent a rupture which
from this time appeared to be inevitable. Francis soon came to feel only
one desire, to flee from the abode where, in the place of love, he found
only reproaches, upbraidings, anguish.

The faithful confidant of his earlier struggles had been obliged to
leave him, and this absolute solitude weighed heavily upon his warm and
loving heart. He did what he could to escape from it, but no one
understood him. The ideas which he was beginning timidly to express
evoked from those to whom he spoke only mocking smiles or the
head-shakings which men sure that they are right bestow upon him who is
marching straight to madness. He even went to open his mind to the
bishop, but the latter understood no more than others his vague,
incoherent plans, filled with ideas impossible to realize and possibly
subversive.[2] It was thus that in spite of himself Francis was led to
ask nothing of men, but to raise himself by prayer to intuitive
knowledge of the divine will.