him in entire liberty to carry out this new expedition.[14] Several
authors have deemed that Francis, having found in him a true protector,
felt himself reassured as to the future of the Order; he might indeed
have thought thus, but the history of the troubles which burst out
immediately after his departure, the astounding story of the kind
reception given by the court of Rome to some meddlers who took the
opportunity of his absence to imperil his Order, would suffice to show
how much the Church was embarrassed by him, and with what ardor she
longed for the transformation of his work. We shall find later on the
detailed account of these facts.

It appears that a Romagnol brother Christopher was at this same chapter
nominated provincial of Gascony; he lived there after the customs of the
early Franciscans, working with his hands, living in a narrow cell made
of the boughs of trees and potter's earth.[15]

Egidio set out for Tunis with a few friars, but a great disappointment
awaited them there; the Christians of this country, in the fear of being
compromised by their missionary zeal, hurried them into a boat and
constrained them to recross the sea.[16]

If the date of 1219 for these two missions has little other basis than
conjecture, the same is not the case as to the departure of the friars
who went to Spain and Morocco. The discovery has recently been made of
the account of their last preachings and of their tragic death, made by
an eye-witness.[17] This document is all the more precious because it
confirms the general lines of the much longer account given by Mark of
Lisbon. It would be out of place to give a summary of it here, because
it but very indirectly concerns the life of St. Francis, but we must
note that these _acta_ have beyond their historic value a truly