LIFE OF
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI

BY

PAUL SABATIER

Quivere monachus est nihil
reputat esse suum nisi citharam

Gioacchino di Fiore in Apoc. 182 a 2

TRANSLATED BY
LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON

LONDON

HODDER & STOUGHTON

1919

Copyright, 1894, by Charles Scribner's Sons, for the
United States of America.

Printed by the Scribner Press
New York, U.S.A.

TO THE STRASBURGHERS

Friends!

At last here is this book which I told you about so long ago. The result is small indeed in relation to the endeavor, as I, alas! see better than anyone. The widow of the Gospel put only one mite into the alms-box of the temple, but this mite, they tell us, won her Paradise. Accept the mite that I offer you to-day as God accepted that of the poor woman, looking not at her offering, but at her love, Feci quod potui, omnia dedi.

Do not chide me too severely for this long delay, for you are somewhat its cause. Many times a day at Florence, at Assisi, at Rome, I have forgotten the document I had to study. Something in me seemed to have gone to flutter at your windows, and sometimes they opened.... One evening at St. Damian I forgot myself and remained long after sunset. An old monk came to warn me that the sanctuary was closed. "Per Bacco!" he gently murmured as he led me away, all ready to receive my confidence, "sognava d'amore o di tristitia?" Well, yes. I was dreaming of love and of sadness, for I was dreaming of Strasbourg.

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