“The most brilliant scholar of his Church….’Life of St. Francis’ may stand on the same shelf with Villari’s ‘Life of Savonarola.’” -The Expositor “Mr. Sabatier is not a novice in the art of biography. His mastery volume upon St. Paul, a few years since, prepared a welcome in advance for any of its author’s subsequent writing….Each period and each character unfolds its secrets under one method of laborious investigation, sound judgment, and sympathetic vision. The author looks out of his own eyes and suffers no mists of tradition to befog him. Yet he is no iconoclast. He reverences the essential humanity of his heroes.” -The Dial “Drawn with almost scientific precision, with great sympathy, and in a most fascinating literary form…Represents such an amount of research and so critical an insight that it places Paul Sabatier among those who have rendered signal services to mediaeval studies.” -The Outlook “The author belongs emphatically to the Church universal. A sturdy Protestant, his is so large a creed that it includes a real reverence for the many benefits which the Roman Catholic Church has conferred, ad for the other great men besides St. Francis whom she has inspired. Hence it is that liberal Roman Catholics of our day delight to do him honor.” -New Outlook “The life of St. Francis of Assisi seems to find an increasing number of students in this country. M. Paul Sabatier’s French life is, of course, the leading authority upon the legend of the Saint….This looks as if there are plenty of readers interested in the story of the most beautiful figure in medieval Christendom, and the editor of the Quarterly Review evidently holds this opinion, since the first article in the January number is about St. Francis.” -Literature “This book, translated by Mrs. Houghton, is written by a French Protestant clergyman, and the spirit in which it is written marks well the happy change from a controversial to a sympathetic attitude on the part of Protestant scholars. M. Sabatier writes with enthusiasm and a strong admiration for his subject, with a disposition, possibly, to pare down the supernatural element, but showing in this rather a general Protestantism than a distinct antagonism. The effect of the memoir is to bring into clear light the human and very beautiful spirit of St. Francis, and to show pathetically how apparently futile was the escape of such a man from the net of ecclesiasticism which wound and wound around him, hampering him and enmeshing his disciples.” -The Atlantic Monthly “‘Life of St. Francis of Assisi’ is creating such a stir in the literary and religious circles of Europe, has just received the honorable distinction of being crowned by the Academie Francaise.” -Literary News TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction CHAPTER I. Youth CHAPTER II. Stages of Conversion CHAPTER III. The Church about 1209 CHAPTER IV. Struggles and Triumphs CHAPTER V. First Year of Apostolate CHAPTER VI. St. Francis and Innocent III CHAPTER VII. Rivo-Torto CHAPTER VIII. Portiuncula CHAPTER IX. Santa Clara CHAPTER X. First Attempts to reach the Infidels CHAPTER XI. The Inner Man and Wonder-working CHAPTER XII. The Chapter-General of 1217 CHAPTER XIII. St. Dominic and St. Francis CHAPTER XIV. The Crisis of the Order CHAPTER XV. The Rule of 1221 CHAPTER XVI. The Brothers Minor and Learning CHAPTER XVII. The Stigmata CHAPTER XVIII. The Canticle of the Sun CHAPTER XIX. The Last Year CHAPTER XX. Francis's Will and Death Critical Study of the Sources APPENDIX. Critical Study of the Stigmata and of the Indulgence of August 2, 433