was won.[34]

The biographers are mute as to the practical result of this audience. We
are not to be surprised at this, for they write with the sole purpose of
edification. They wrote after the apotheosis of their master, and would
with very bad grace have dwelt upon the difficulties which he met during
the early years.[35]

The Holy See must have been greatly perplexed by this strange man,
whose faith and humility were evident, but whom it was impossible to
teach ecclesiastical obedience.

St. Dominic happened to be in Rome at the same time,[36] and was
overwhelmed with favors by the pope. It is a matter of history that
Innocent III. having asked him to choose one of the Rules already
approved by the Church, he had returned to his friars at Notre Dame de
Prouille, and after conferring with them had adopted that of St.
Augustine; Honorius therefore was not sparing of privileges for him. It
is hardly possible that Ugolini did not try to use the influence of his
example with St. Francis.

The curia saw clearly that Dominic, whose Order barely comprised a few
dozen members, was not one of the moral powers of the time, but its
sentiments toward him were by no means so mixed as those it experienced
with regard to Francis.

To unite the two Orders, to throw over the shoulders of the Dominicans
the brown cassock of the Poor Men of Assisi, and thus make a little of
the popularity of the Brothers Minor to be reflected upon them, to leave
to the latter their name, their habit, and even a semblance of their