n the wrath of Francis against Brother Philip, a
Zealot of the Poor Ladies, who had accepted this privilege in his
absence. His attitude was so firm that other documents of the same
nature granted by Ugolini at the same epoch were not indorsed by the
pope until three years later.

The cardinal's ardor to profit by the enthusiasm which the Franciscan
ideas everywhere excited was so great that we find, in the register of
his legation of 1221, a sort of formula all prepared for those who would
found convents like those of the Sisters of St. Damian; but even there
we search in vain for the name of Francis or Clara.[30]

This old man had, however, a truly mystical passion for the young
abbess; he wrote to her, lamenting the necessity of being far from her,
in words which are the language of love, respect, and admiration.[31]
There were at least two men in Ugolini: the Christian, who felt himself
subdued before Clara and Francis; the prelate, that is, a man whom the
glory of the Church sometimes caused to forget the glory of God.

Francis, though almost always resisting him, appears to have kept a
feeling of ingenuous gratitude toward him to the very end. Clara, on the
contrary, had too long a struggle to be able to keep any illusions as to
the attitude of her protector. After 1230 there is no trace of any
relations between them.

All the efforts of the pope to mitigate the rigor of Clara's vow of
poverty had remained vain. Many other nuns desired to practise strictly
the Rule of St. Francis. Among them was the daughter of the King of
Bohemia, Ottokar I., who was in continual relations with Clara. But
Gregory IX., to whom she addressed herself, was inflexible. While
pouring eulogies upon her he enjoined upon her to follow the Rule which
he sent to her--that is, the one which he had composed while he was yet
cardinal. The Rule of the Poverello was put among the utopias, not to
say heresies.[32] He never, however, could induce St. Clara to
completely submit herself. One day, indeed, she rebelled against his
orders, and it was the pope who was obliged to yield: he had desired to
bring about a wider separation between the friars and the Sisters than
had formerly prevailed; for a long time after the death of Francis a
certain familiarity had continued between St. Damian and Portiuncula;
Clara especially loved these neighborly relations, and often begged one
or another Brother to come and preach. The pope thought ill of this, an