sake of this country alone? Verily, I say unto you, God has
raised them up for the awakening and the salvation of all men,
and they shall win souls not only in the countries of those who
believe, but also in the very midst of the infidels."[22]

The surprise and admiration which these words awoke in Ugolini were not
enough to make him change his mind. He insisted so strongly that Francis
turned back to Portiuncula, the inspiration of his work not even shaken.
Who knows whether the joy which he would have felt in seeing France did
not confirm him in the idea that he ought to renounce this plan? Souls
athirst with the longing for sacrifice often have scruples such as
these; they refuse the most lawful joys that they may offer them to
God. We cannot tell whether it was immediately after this interview or
not till the following year that Francis put Brother Pacifico at the
head of the missionaries sent into France.[23]

Pacifico, who was a poet of talent, had before his conversion been
surnamed Prince of Poesy and crowned at the capital by the emperor. One
day while visiting a relative who was a nun at San Severino in the March
of Ancona, Francis also arrived at the monastery, and preached with such
a holy impetuosity that the poet felt himself pierced with the sword of
which the Bible speaks, which penetrates between the very joints and
marrow, and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.[24] On the
morrow he assumed the habit and received his symbolical surname.[25]

He was accompanied to France by Brother Agnello di Pisa, who was
destined to be put at the head of the first mission to England in
1224.[26]

Francis, on sending them forth, was far from dreaming that from this