This is only a man from Assisi who speaks to you." (A precaution he
took because Perugia and Assisi, neighboring towns, were always opposed
to each other.) "What I tell you, I do not tell you as man. God has
raised you above all the adjacent countries; in gratitude for which
you should humble yourselves, not merely in His eyes, but before all
the world. But, on the contrary, your strength and your glory have so
inflamed your pride, that you have pillaged and laid waste all that
surrounds you, and you have killed no inconsiderable number. For which
reason I declare to you that, unless you be speedily converted, and
repair the damage you have done, the Lord, who suffers no evil to be
committed with impunity, will take revenge on your sins. In order to
create in you the greater dismay, He will suffer you to rise up one
against the other, to excite a popular commotion, and to do yourselves
much greater injury than any of your neighbors could do to you."

He remained some time at Perugia, where they soon saw the effect of
his threats. The nobles were irritated against the plebeians, the
clergy joined the party of the nobles, and they came to blows; the
people, who were the strongest, drove the others out of the town. The
discomfited party, in order to be revenged, laid waste everything in
the country which belonged to the people; who, by way of reprisals,
pillaged the houses of the nobles, and massacred their servants and
even their children. Indeed the disaster was so great, that, according
to the prediction, armed neighbors could not have caused any greater.

The Perugians having thus, at their cost, discovered the holiness of
the preacher, wished to retain him in their city, and entreated him
to choose what place he pleased for his abode. Many young persons of
pure morals joined his Order; one among others, whose vocation was
very singular. As he was walking one day out of the town, his mind