his right of primogeniture; the second was, to renounce all the rest
of his fortune. It was in the same town that he lived a most holy life,
as had been foretold, honored by many miracles; now by permission of
the Holy See, he is publicly invoked.

The love of prayer and retirement made Francis wish to find in the
neighborhood of Crotona a fit place for building a house suitable for
the education of his novices. Guy pointed one out to him in the valley,
near a place called Celles. This location greatly pleased him, because
it was solitary; and by the aid of some pious persons, he built a very
poor dwelling, which he soon filled with novices, and where he received
the celebrated Brother Elias, of whom we shall have much to say
hereafter.

Having spent nearly two months in preaching at Crotona, and in forming
his novices at the Convent of Celles, he was inspired to pass over to
a desert island in the middle of the Lake of Perugia. Lent was drawing
near. He recommended the care of the house to Sylvester, without letting
him know what his own intention was; and on Ash-Wednesday he caused
himself to be taken to the island by a boatman, having with him only
two loaves of bread. The boatman was a worthy man and his friend. He
begged him not to tell any one where he was, and only to come to him
on the Wednesday of Holy-Week, to take him back to the shore.

Having made himself there a sort of hut in one of the thickets, to
preserve himself from the cold, he had his intercourse with God alone
during two and forty days; and his fast was so rigorous, that of the
two loaves he brought with him he only ate half a one.--In
ecclesiastical history we meet with examples of these miraculous fasts,
of which the Holy Fathers have had an assured knowledge, and which the