Third, and to ask from him some formal recognition. The pontiff, so
the story goes, was walking in the garden of the Lateran when the
momentous meeting took place. Startled by the sudden apparition of an
emaciated young man, bareheaded, shoeless, half-clad, but--for all
his gentleness--a beggar who would take no denial, Innocent
hesitated. It was but for a brief hour, the next he was won.

Francis returned to Assisi with the Papal sanction for what was,
probably, a draught of his afterwards famous "Rule." He was met by
the whole city, who received him with a frenzy of excitement. By this
time his enthusiasm had kindled that of eleven other young men, all
now aglow with the same divine fire. A twelfth soon was added--he,
moreover, a layman of gentle blood and of knightly rank. All these
had surrendered their claim to everything in the shape of property,
and had resolved to follow their great leader's example by stripping
themselves of all worldly possessions, and suffering the loss of all
things. They were beggars--literally barefooted beggars. The love of
money was the root of all evil. They would not touch the accursed
thing lest they should be defiled--no, not with the tips of their
fingers. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon."

Beggars they were, but they were brethren--_Fratres (Frères)_.
We in England have got to call them _Friars_. Francis was never
known in his lifetime as anything higher than _Brother Francis_,
and his community he insisted should be called the community of the
lesser brethren--_Fratres Minores_--for none could be or should
be less than they. Abbots and Priors, he would have none of them. "He
that will be chief among you," he said, in Christ's own words, "let
him be your servant." The highest official among the _Minorites_
was the _Minister_, the elect of all, the servant of all, and if