frankness he had declared to him at Florence that many of the prelates
would do anything to discredit him with the pope.[33] It is evident the
success of the Order, its methods, which in spite of all protestations
to the contrary seemed to savor of heresy, the independence of Francis,
who had scattered his friars in all the four corners of the globe
without trying to gain a confirmation of the verbal and entirely
provisional authorization accorded him by Innocent III.--all these
things were calculated to startle the clergy.

Ugolini, who better than any one else knew Umbria, Tuscany, Emilia, the
March of Ancona, all those regions where the Franciscan preaching had
been most successful, was able by himself to judge of the power of the
new movement and the imperious necessity of directing it; he felt that
the best way to allay the prejudices which the pope and the sacred
college might have against Francis was to present him before the curia.

Francis was at first much abashed at the thought of preaching before the
Vicar of Jesus Christ, but upon the entreaties of his protector he
consented, and for greater security he learned by heart what he had to
say.

Ugolini himself was not entirely at ease as to the result of this step;
Thomas of Celano pictures him as devoured with anxiety; he was troubled
about Francis, whose artless eloquence ran many a risk in the halls of
the Lateran Palace; he was also not without some more personal
anxieties, for the failure of his _protégé_ might be most damaging to
himself. He was in all the greater anxiety when, on arriving at the feet
of the pontiff, Francis forgot all he had intended to say; but he
frankly avowed it, and seeking a new discourse from the inspiration of
the moment, spoke with so much warmth and simplicity that the assembly