lows:

"In the name of God!

"May the supreme grace of the Holy Spirit assist us! To the
honor of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Virgin Mary, the
Emperor Otho, and Duke Leopold.

"This is the statute and perpetual agreement between the
_Majori_ and _Minori_ of Assisi.

"Without common consent there shall never be any sort of
alliance either with the pope and his nuncios or legates, or
with the emperor, or with the king, or with their nuncios or
legates, or with any city or town, or with any important person,
except with a common accord they shall do all which there may be
to do for the honor, safety, and advantage of the commune of
Assisi."

What follows is worthy of the beginning. The lords, in consideration of
a small periodical payment, should renounce all the feudal rights; the
inhabitants of the villages subject to Assisi were put on a par with
those of the city, foreigners were protected, the assessment of taxes
was fixed. On Wednesday, November 9, 1210, this agreement was signed and
sworn to in the public place of Assisi; it was made in such good faith
that exiles were able to return in peace, and from this day we find in
the city registers the names of those _emigres_ who, in 1202, had
betrayed their city and provoked the disastrous war with Perugia.
Francis might well be happy. Love had triumphed, and for several years
there were at Assisi neither victors nor vanquished.

In the mystic marriages which here and there in history unite a man to a
people, something takes place of which the transports of sense, the
delirium of love, seem to be the only symbol; a moment comes in which
saints, or men of genius, feel unknown powers striving mightily within
them; they strive, they seek, they struggle until, triumphing over all
obstacles, they have forced trembling, swooning humanity to conceive by
them.

This moment had come to St. Francis.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 1 Cel., 34; 3 Soc., 53; Bon., 39.

[2] Probably at Otricoli, which lies on the high-road between
Rome and Spoleto. Orte is an hour and a half further on. It is
the ancient _Otriculum_, where many antiquities have been found.

[3] 1 Cel., 35; Bon., 40 and 41.

[4] The only road connecting Celano with Rome, as well as with
all Central and Northern Italy, passes by Aquila, Rieti, and
Terni, where it joins the high-roads leading from the north
toward