tand, and yet
he feels a strange power in this mean and despised man, _vilis et
despectus_; he makes a real but futile effort to comprehend, and now I
see in this pope, who lived upon lemons,[11] something that recalls
another choice mind, theocratic like his own, sacrificed like him to his
work: Calvin. One might think that the painter had touched his lips to
the Calabrian Seer's cup, and that in the attitude of these two men he
sought to symbolize a meeting of representatives of the two ages of
humanity, that of Law and that of Love.[12]

A surprise awaited the pilgrims on their arrival in Rome: they met the
Bishop of Assisi,[13] quite as much to his astonishment as to their
own. This detail is precious because it proves that Francis had not
confided his plans to Guido. Notwithstanding this the bishop, it is
said, offered to make interest for them with the princes of the Church.
We may suspect that his commendations were not very warm. At all events
they did not avail to save Francis and his company either from a
searching inquiry or from the extended fatherly counsels of Cardinal
Giovanni di San Paolo[14] upon the difficulties of the Rule, counsels
which strongly resemble those of Guido himself.[15]

What Francis asked for was simple enough; he claimed no privilege of any
sort, but only that the pope would approve of his undertaking to lead a
life of absolute conformity to the precepts of the gospel. There is a
delicate point here which it is quite worth while to see clearly. The
pope was not called upon to approve the Rule, since that came from Jesus
himself; at the very worst all that he could do would be to lay an
ecclesiastical censure upon Francis and his companions for having acted
without authority, and to enjoin them to leave to the secular and
regular clergy the task of reforming the Church.

Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo, to whom the Bishop of Assisi presented
them, had informed himself of the whole history of the Penitents. He
lavished upon them the most affectionate tokens of interest, even going
so far as to beg for a mention in their prayers. But such assurances,
which appear to have been always the small change of the court of Rome,
did not prevent his examining them for several successive days,[16] and
putting to them an infinite number of questions, of which the conclusion
was always the advice to enter some Order already existing.

To this the unlucky Francis would reply as best he could, often