Our little hotel, the Albergo Subasio, is close to San Francesco, and from its windows commands a most exquisite view of the valley and the richly-tinted hills. If time served, one could spend hours in enjoying the beauty of this landscape, so full of colour and of variety.

We passed by San Francesco, and up the long, solemn street which it seems to guard. Grass grows freely between the stones that pave the street, which mounts very steeply; farther up were shops, but all were full of silence. No one seemed to be alive within the dark openings on either side, though from the wares displayed it was evident that inhabitants were not far off; doubtless all sound asleep at this time of day.

At the top of the street on either side are tall old grey palaces; one of these, on the right, has a projecting roof, supported by long and beautifully-carved brackets. This is the Ospedale, with its curious door. On the left is the Palazzo Allemanni; over every door and window is the legend, In Domino confido.

The blue mountains, each range paler and more exquisite in tint as it rose behind another, were seen through a glimmering veil of sparsely-planted olives, and seemingly ended the street we were mounting; but, going on, we presently came out on the Piazza di Minerva.

Here is a fine, very ancient portico, supported by five columns of travertine, once the front of a temple to Minerva. Behind it is the more modern church of Santa Maria della Minerva. We were now on the site of old Roman Assisi, for the Forum lies below the Piazza, and one goes down steps to it. Formerly a flight of steps in front of the temple led to the Forum, and the effect must have been very fine; now the artificially raised ground of the Piazza takes away from the apparent height of the portico, which has no longer so lofty a position in the general view as of old. It seems a pity that the space round it is not clearer.

Up a turning not far from the Temple of Minerva we came to the cathedral of Assisi, San Rufino, built by Giovanni da Gubbio in twelfth and early part of thirteenth century. It has an interesting brown faÇade and a picturesque campanile; its three fine doorways and rose windows are full of beauty, but the interior is comparatively modernised, although a triptych by Niccolo da Foligno is worth seeing. There are many frescoes and pictures in Assisi, by Matteo da Gualdo, Tiberio di Assisi, l'Ingegno, and one at least by that rarely found master, Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. There are some in the small church of San Paolo, near the Temple of Minerva, some in the Palazzo Pubblico, and elsewhere. Beyond the Piazza Grande is the house wherein Metastasio was born.

But we found it difficult to detach our interest from Francis Bernardone, who is truly the moving spirit of Assisi, and, turning downwards to the right, we were soon in the little square of Chiesa Nuova. We knocked at the church door, and, after some delay, a very old monk, wearing the Franciscan habit, opened it.

He only nodded or shook his head in answer to our questions. The interest attaching to Chiesa Nuova lies wholly in the fact that it stands on the site of the Bernardone house. The shop of El Poverello's father is still preserved in the Via Portici. The high altar in Chiesa Nuova is supposed to occupy the place of the saint's bedchamber; a side-chapel on the right is an unaltered room of the house, that in which his mother, Madonna Pica, dreamed her wonderful dream. The door is still standing at which, in her vision, the angel appeared to her, with the tidings that her expected child would be born in a stable; this is said to be a later invention of the Franciscans. There is a dark cave in the church, said to be part of the cellar in which his father imprisoned Francis to cure him of his so-called fanatical follies. It looked dismayingly dismal. He was probably flung in here on his return from San Damiano. The little Piazza before the church was not that which witnessed the young saint's renunciation of the world, and heard his memorable vow. That scene took place in front of the now decayed romanesque church of Santa Maria Maggiore, near the Bishop's palace. This was one of the churches partly restored by St. Francis, who rebuilt its eastern end. It was probably on the Piazza here that Francis flung down money and clothing, and, sheltered only by the Bishop's mantle, borrowed the serge garment of a rough countryman, and began his new life.

Francis, when he left the Piazza, was free. He at once set to work to repair San Damiano, begging bricks and other needful materials from the more charitable of the citizens. He next restored another chapel in the neighbourhood; this completed, he fell to work on the wayside shrine to which his mother had often taken him as a child, the well-known chapel of the Little Portion of St. Mary, or, as it is to this day called, La Portioncula.

It belonged to the Benedictine abbey on the heights of Subasio, whence a priest occasionally came down the mountain to celebrate mass for worshippers. Francis found much comfort in this service, and it was a delight to him to restore with his own hands the little building to a weather-proof condition.

One day the Gospel read by the officiating priest greatly impressed Francis; it seemed to him that the life he was leading could not be altogether pleasing to God, because its aim was only the saving of his own soul: he ought surely to incite others to share the light he had received. From this time there began in him that intense hunger after souls which was, next to his love of God, the chief motive-power of his life. He had once been pre-eminent in folly, and by his vainglorious and prodigal example had led many souls to sin: he was bound, he decided, not only to submit himself joyfully to every trial, as a means sent to subdue his will and his self-pleasing nature, but he must try to prevail on others to follow the same discipline.

His character seems to have developed with every fresh demand on his exertions, a development caused not so much by impulse, as by a humble feeling that he had not done nearly enough to prove his penitence.

He walked to Assisi, and began to preach in its streets. He at once attracted listeners; disciples soon followed.

The first of these was a wealthy noble, called in the Fioretti and elsewhere in connection with Francis, Bernard di Quintavalle. This nobleman, also called in the Fioretti, "Bernard of Assisi, who was of the noblest and richest and wisest in the city," wisely began to take heed unto St. Francis,—how exceeding strong must be his contempt of the world, how great his patience in the midst of wrongs, because albeit abominated and despised for two whole years by everyone, he seemed yet more patient; Bernard began to think and to say to himself, "This could not be, unless the Brother has the fulness of God's grace." He invited the preacher that evening to sup and lodge with him, and St. Francis consented thereto.... Thereat Bernard set it in his heart to watch his sanctity, wherefore he let make ready for him a bed in his own proper chamber, in the which, at night-time, ever a lamp did burn. And St. Francis, for to hide his sanctity, when he was come into the chamber, incontinent did throw himself upon the bed, and made as though he slept; and likewise Bernard, after some short space, did lie him down, and fell to snoring loudly.... St. Francis, thinking truly that Bernard slept, rose up from his bed, and set himself to pray ... "My God, my God" at intervals through the night. When morning came, Bernard professed himself ready to become a follower of the new teaching. Francis, though overjoyed in his heart, told his convert that this was a task so great and difficult that it behoved them to seek for Divine guidance in the matter. He proposed that they should go together to the Bishop's house, and find there a good priest he knew; and, after mass had been said for them, that the priest, at the request of Francis, should open the missal thrice and read each time the words at which it opened.

At the first opening the words were, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast," etc.

At the second opening the words were, "Take nothing for your journey," etc.

At the third, "If any one will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me."

Bernard at once obeyed Christ's words: he sold all his possessions, distributed his money among the poor and suffering, and went to live with El Poverello, as Francis was called, in a small hut not far from the lazar-house. The house of Bernard still stands, also the room in which the friends talked; it is now called Palazzo Sbaraglini, and is in the same street as the home of Clara Scifi.

The next convert who came to seek Francis in the hut, to ask leave to share his labours in tending the lepers, was the learned Pietro di Cataneo, a canon of the cathedral of San Rufino. The third was Fra or Fratello Egidio, called in English "Brother Giles," a poor labourer, who proved to be one of the most remarkable of the group termed by Francis his "Knights of the Round Table." Egidio seems to have been willing as well as able to set his hand to any work he was asked to do. Besides helping to tend the lepers, these men begged their daily bread in the streets of Assisi, and Francis preached constantly, sometimes in several adjacent villages the same day, so fervently that crowds flocked to listen.

The number of penitents soon increased, and, seeing this, Bishop Guido of Assisi, at first so kind, grew jealous of the new power of the penitent brothers. He advised Francis to join either the Dominican community, or the Benedictines, a branch of whom had already established themselves on the heights of Subasio.

"Your present life," the Bishop said, "is impracticable."

Francis answered that, "as the Bishop knows, money is at the root of all quarrels, therefore I and my brother penitents, wishing to live in peace, prefer to be without it."

As time went on the number of penitents increased. Francis was perplexed how to dispose of them; he felt also that if he could gain the Papal sanction the power of his mission would be strengthened. He resolved to make a pilgrimage to Rome, in order to ask Pope Innocent the Third to consider his Rule, and to give it his approval.

Eleven of the brothers went with him cheerfully to the Imperial City, singing hymns of praise as they walked. They were received very coldly: it was considered that such a dusty, travel-soiled handful of men, with so small and insignificant a leader, could not have the capacity to found a new Order, and that its Rule of Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity was unseemly and preposterous.

But when at length Francis was admitted to the Pope's presence, Innocent saw in the face of his suppliant something that pleaded too powerfully to be resisted, and, after a little more delay, against the advice of his worldly, pleasure-loving cardinals, he gave his sanction to the objectionable Rule, and named the new community, The Order of Brothers Minor.

They quitted Rome as soon as they could; they seem to have suffered much privation on their homeward journey, so that they were glad, as they approached Assisi, to find and take refuge in a small, empty dwelling at Rivo Torto, near the leper-house.

They established themselves here, but their number increased so rapidly that they soon outgrew their quarters, and were shown that they were unwelcome guests.

When he found that he and his followers could no longer live by themselves at Rivo Torto, Francis went to Guido, the Bishop of Assisi, and begged to be allowed the use of an oratory, or of any chapel, in which he and his brethren could say the Hours of Prayer. He was told that no such building could be allotted him; and, almost weeping with earnestness and baffled hope, Francis climbed the side of Subasio till he reached, near the top, the abbey of the Benedictines. As this side of the great hill belonged to the Abbot, the kindly man, who seems to have fully sympathised with Francis, granted him the chapel of "the Little Portion of St. Mary," to have and to hold for his own.

At once the overjoyed Francis and his disciples, as has been said, set to work and built themselves huts to dwell in, near their place of worship.

Next to the rapidity with which the new Order made its way, its most remarkable feature was its social aspect.

In those days, when the haughty nobles and the still more haughty Church dignitaries seem to have ignored the existence of the peasantry, we find in the Franciscan brotherhood, from its beginning, a complete union of all classes. Its first four members were a canon, a nobleman, a rich merchant's son, and a labourer.

The Palazzo Scifi, in which the future Santa Chiara (the first member of the Second Order founded by St. Francis) was born, is only a very short distance from the church, afterwards built on the site of the old San Giorgio, and called, in memory of the Abbess of the Poor Clares, Santa Chiara.

On his return from Rome, when it became public talk that he had received tonsure, with the Pope's sanction to his Rule for the Order of Brothers Minor,—Frati Minori, as they were called,—Francis found himself in much higher favour with the Assisans.

Instead of the street preaching he and his Brothers had daily practised, he was offered the pulpit of San Giorgio; but that church was found too small for the multitudes who flocked to hear El Poverello, he was therefore invited to preach in the cathedral of San Rufino. This was considered a great honour, and it fixed public attention on the founder of the new brotherhood.

It was in San Rufino that this beautiful young girl, named Clara Scifi, daughter of the powerful Count Favorini Scifi, as despotic as he was powerful, heard the new preacher. Listening with rapt attention to these new doctrines of Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity for the love and glory of God, and in imitation of his life, the girl contrasted this teaching with the life lived around her. This new way, the way of the Cross, opened out to her a new revelation.

At that time, her father, a cruel and violent despot, had just laid his commands on her, his elder daughter, to wed a young noble of Assisi. While the girl listened to the saintly preacher, her heart and mind were deeply stirred; she determined to ask the Poverello's advice in her trouble. How could she follow out the purpose that had formed in her heart, that of leading the life he pictured, if she wedded the husband destined for her by her father. Her mother, the Lady Ortolana del Fiume, a daughter of the Fiumi, those hated enemies of the Baglioni of Perugia, and rivals of the Nepi of Assisi, was a devout and good woman. But Clara shrank from consulting her on this subject, lest she might breed discord between her parents; she therefore opened her heart to her aunt, Bianca Guelfucci, who seems fully to have sympathised with her niece's perplexity.

Francis was sorely troubled when the trembling girl sought him out at the Portioncula, and begged him to advise her. He said she must not act rashly, she must prove the reality of her vocation before he could counsel her to take the veil, and thus withdraw herself from her parents' guardianship. He bade her wrap herself in a sackcloth robe, with a hood drawn over her head so as to conceal her face, and thus, clad like a mendicant, beg her bread from door to door through the town of Assisi. Clara did this secretly; but it only added to the fervent strength of her vocation, and finally Francis consented to her wish.

On the night of Palm Sunday the girl quitted the Scifi Palace, and, accompanied by her aunt Bianca Guelfucci and a waiting-maid, went rapidly out by the Porta Nuova, and across the starlit plain. As they drew near the little brown chapel, surrounded by a thick wood, they heard the Brothers of the Poor chanting a Psalm, and, waiting till this had ceased, the trembling Clara knocked on the door and asked leave to enter.

Francis bade her come in, and he questioned her a little, then bade her kneel; she obeyed, and took the vows he prescribed, after which he cut off all her golden hair and laid it as an offering on the altar. When her companion had wrapped her in the veil and sackcloth garment of the Order, El Poverello led her and her aunt, through the dark night, to the way they had to follow to reach the convent of the nuns of San Paolo, about an hour's distance from Assisi. He told her that she would there be safe from persecution.

This Second Order of Franciscans was called, when Clara had established herself at San Damiano, the Sisterhood of "the Poor Clares." Her sister Agnes soon joined Clara, provoking the stormy displeasure of her father and her uncle, who was savagely cruel in his treatment of this young girl. The church of Santa Chiara was built after Clara's death by Fra Campello, in red and cream-coloured marble. It has a graceful campanile, and the flying buttresses are very remarkable; they spring completely across the pathway beside the church.

The building was begun in the year after Santa Clara's death, but the nuns remained at San Damiano for fifteen years longer; then the body of their foundress was removed to Santa Chiara, and they took up their abode in the convent adjoining the church. There are interesting pictures in this fine building, especially in the chapel of San Giorgio, and by this date the chapel probably contains the famous and very ancient crucifix brought here from San Damiano, before which Francis was kneeling when he heard the voice bidding him rebuild the ruined houses of God. This crucifix was, I think, when we saw it, in the convent of Santa Chiara, but we heard that it would be placed by the altar of the chapel.

Santa Chiara was built on the site of the old church, San Giorgio, the first burial-place of Francis, but it is not clear how much of the original edifice was spared by Fra Campello when he designed the new building; there is much mention of the older church in the Life of Francis Bernardone. Clara was buried in the chapel of San Giorgio, but her tomb there was not discovered till 1850.

There was great rejoicing in the town at this discovery; her remains were carried through Assisi with much splendour of ceremonial, and were followed by an immense procession. The coffin was reburied in a crypt made to receive it in front of the high altar, reached by a double flight of steps. The public are permitted to go down to view the body of the saint in a glass case; candles are ever burning before it.

We did not, however, visit the crypt, and our gentle-faced conductress seemed surprised by our lack of devotion.

When we set out to visit San Damiano, and again passed by the church of Santa Chiara, we noticed the contrast of colour between the rose-tinted church and the brown convent walls.

We followed the road till it reached a gate on the brow of the hill. Here is a lovely view over rugged hill and fertile valley, wilder and more picturesque than any we saw from Perugia. A breeze had sprung up; now and again a light purple cloud-shadow varied the rosy tint of Subasio, already darkened in places by ravines that gaped in his rugged side, while the glint of a mountain rill showed here and there like a stray gem on the grassy tufts that helped to mark its course. Leaving the gate, we went down the steep descent on the right, between silvery veils, the deep valleys being clothed with olive-groves; their pale leaves gleamed in the sunshine against bright green berries, and ancient trunks so gnarled and shrunken that we wondered at the abundant crop of fruit overhead. Huge brown patches glowed like velvet on these grey trunks; and through the silver veil we saw ranges of hills in varied shades of blue, a more delicate tint indicating the valleys that lay between them.

There was not anywhere a hope of shade, unless we climbed the bank and walked on the rough ground under the olive-trees, but these did not grow closely enough to give shelter worth having, and the road under foot being fairly smooth, we trudged downhill in the sunshine.

The way proved longer than we expected. At last, concealed among trees, we found San Damiano.

We rang a bell beside the entrance; after a long pause, our summons was answered by a beautiful young Franciscan, who showed us about very courteously. He first took us into the quaint little chapel, and pointed out an ancient crucifix; he told us how an angel had come during the night, and had carved the unfinished head of the figure. He showed us on the right of the entrance the hole below the window into which St. Francis flung the money gained at Foligno by the sale of his possessions; also, he showed the little cracked bell with which Santa Chiara summoned her Sisters to prayer.

It is interesting to learn that, though she ran away from her father's house at night to adopt a religious life, Clara's mother, the Lady Ortolana, after Count Scifi's death, was received into the Second Order, and joined the community under her daughter's rule, then called the Poor Ladies of San Damiano.

Behind the little chapel is the choir of the nuns, left just as it was when Santa Chiara died. The refectory on the other side of the cloisters is also unaltered, and above it is the dormitory of the nuns; at the end is Clara's cell. Every step makes the poetic history more real. There is still the little garden in which this sweet, brave woman took daily exercise, and tended the flowers she so dearly loved.

When we came out we found the artist of our party sketching. Beside him was a small boy about seven years old, a curiosity as to clothing. He had on part of some ragged knee-breeches, the remains of a shirt, and a portion of a straw hat; he seemed a bright, intelligent little fellow. He was very much interested in the sketch, and delighted to be talked to in his own language. Between his praises he held out a grimy little hand, in a saucy, smiling way.

Said the artist, "How much would you like, my man,—would a hundred lire suit you?"

The urchin grinned all over. "Si, Signore, I should much like a hundred lire, but I would take less!"

We went back up the olive-bordered hills to the pleasant little inn, which seems to hang over the lovely valley behind the house. Just before reaching Hotel Subasio there is a picturesque view looking upwards, the great convent and churches of San Francesco towering above us.

Even apart from the touching interest with which the story of St. Francis invests the little town, Assisi is delightful, so many churches and religious houses exist there, full of picturesque charm is the exquisite setting of landscape beyond and around them.

Wherever one looks between the old grey houses, one sees the valley full of rich colour, and the far-off, softened outlines of the hills. The town on market-days is very bright and cheerful.

It is a steep climb up to the old grey castle, the Rocca di Assisi; it sits there crowning the hill like a falcon in its eyrie, the little town beneath its feet; and what a wonderful prospect it dominates!

To the west is Perugia, on its group of hills; eastward glistens many another town, sometimes sheltered in a hollow of the hills, sometimes standing out as Foligno does on the plain beyond.

Behind the castle there is the wildest of ravines; Monte Subasio is full of strange nooks and glens, of which the most interesting is that of Le Carceri, the group of cells built in the mountain caves by Francis and his brethren. He retired here for prayer and penance when he found his life at the Portioncula distracting. Close by is the little mountain stream of the Tescio, and the ilex-wood in which Francis held discourse with the nightingale.

In thinking and writing about St. Francis, one forgets the history of Assisi. Till the Roman invasion of Umbria, this history seems chiefly traditional. Dardanus is said to have built Assisi before he built Troy; in consequence of a dream that came to him while he lay sleeping on the slope of Subasio, he founded the famous Temple of Minerva, and the city grew up round it.

Goethe greatly displeased the Assisans by journeying to their city only to see this temple; he passed by San Francesco without so much as entering the church.

The number of subterranean passages leading to the Rocca from all parts of the town seems to prove that the little city greatly needed shelter from surrounding foes.

From the time that the Etruscans possessed themselves of a large part of Umbria, and built the city of Perugia, Assisi was constantly persecuted by this powerful neighbour, till the Romans overspread the country, conquering the Etruscans, and the grim, hitherto unconquered city of Perugia, burning most of it to the ground.

In the Middle Ages, Assisi had frequently to submit to the despotism of great leaders of Condottieri and others who bore rule in Perugia,—Galeazzo Visconti, Biordo Michelotti, Forte Braccio of Montone, Nicola Piccinino, Sforza, and others. Before these, however, Charlemagne is said to have taken the city and utterly destroyed it. After its destruction, the citizens built walls around their new town, they also built the castle on the hilltop. This was at one time occupied by Frederick Barbarossa, and then by Conrad of Suabia and other despots.

The two noble houses of the Fiumi and the Nepi, one being Guelph and the other Ghibelline, though less bloodthirsty than the Baglioni and the Oddi of Perugia, seem to have been constantly at strife till the advent of St. Francis, who prevailed on them to live more peaceably.

Later on there was again terrible strife and carnage in Assisi, and when his lordship the Magnifico Gianpaolo Baglione took upon himself to settle matters, famine and misery almost destroyed the inhabitants of the brave little city. Miss Lina Duff Gordon, in the chapter called "War and Strife" of her charming Story of Assisi, gives a vivid account of this siege.