UCSB LI8KAKY
 
 CATHARINE OF SIENA 
 
 A BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 BY JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER, 
 
 AUTHOK OF THE "MEMOIR OF JOHN GREY 
 OF DILSTON;" ETC. 
 
 (Third Edition). 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HORACE MARSHALL & SON, 
 TEMPLE HOUSE, TEMPLE AVENUE, & 125, FLEET STREET. 
 
 1894.
 
 CHATHAM : 
 W. & J. MACKAY & Co., "Observer" Works.
 
 TO 
 
 MY DEAR SONS.
 
 LETTER FROM THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 
 When the first edition of "Catharine of Siena" appeared, 
 Mr. Gladstone wrote as follows to Canon Butler : 
 
 " / received Mrs. Butler's kind gift yesterday morning and 
 spent some lime in reading the first three chapters with intense 
 interest. It is evident that she is on the level of her subject, 
 and it is a very high level. To say this is virtually saying all. 
 Her reply (by anticipation) to tlwse who scoff down ike visions 
 is, I think, admirable. It is interesting to divine the veins of 
 sympathy which may have guided Mrs. Sutler in the choice 
 of Jier subject. 
 
 With many thanks, 
 
 Most faithfully yours, 
 
 W. E. GLADSTONE. 
 Hawarden, 
 
 October 14th, 1878.
 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION OF 
 "CATHARINE OF SIENA." 
 
 THERE have been more than forty lives written of Catharine 
 of Siena in Latin, Italian, French, German, Dutch and 
 Spanish. 
 
 Until recently her life and character have been very little 
 known in England. 
 
 The principal chroniclers or historians who have been 
 consulted in the following record are : Malavolti, " Historia 
 di Siena;" Tomasi, "Historia di Siena;" Muratori, "Annali 
 d'ltalia ; " Fillani, " Istorie;" Machiavelli, " Istorie Fioren ; " 
 and Sismondi, " Histoire des Republiques Italiennes." 
 
 The most interesting details, however, of Catharine's 
 inner life and active labours are drawn from the " Acta 
 Sanctorum " and the annals kept by her friend, confessor, 
 and companion in labours, Raimondo of Capua. 
 
 It is desired, by the publication of a less expensive edition 
 of this book, which is continuously asked for, to place it 
 more within the reach of persons who have hitherto only 
 been able to obtain it from circulating libraries.
 
 CATHARINE or SIENA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN order to be able to realize with greater clearness the 
 character and career of the woman whom I desire to 
 make better known among us in England, it is desirable 
 to give some brief account of the principal events of 
 the time in which she lived, and on some of which she 
 exercised so great a moral influence. 
 
 Siena is situated in the undulating plains of Southern 
 Tuscany, south of Florence, and between the Apennines 
 and the sea. 
 
 This city is in many respects unique. The number of 
 its inhabitants was about 1 200,000 in the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, when it ranked as the rival of Florence among 
 the Italian Republics. Its population has slowly and 
 gradually diminished since that time, and the city has 
 not spread out one foot beyond its ancient walls. Its 
 streets are narrow and steep ; so steep in some cases 
 that no carriage can ascend them, and sometimes re- 
 sembling irregular stone staircases rather than streets. 
 It had originally thirty-nine gates, of which all but nine 
 
 1 Sismondi, " History of the Italian Republics." 
 B
 
 2 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 are now closed. The city stands on the top of a hill 
 of tertiary sandstone, and commands an extensive view. 
 The citadel stands apart on the summit of another hill of 
 the same range, with a small grassy valley dividing them. 
 
 The following sketch, written by an English lady in a 
 letter to a friend in the winter of 1877, may give some 
 idea to those who have not visited Siena of the scenery 
 around the city : 
 
 "Leaving the long narrow winding streets, we passed 
 through one of the great gateways, and came direct out 
 into the open country, where there are no straggling 
 houses nor suburb of any kind. There is a wonderful 
 charm about this sudden transition. The town stands on 
 a hill, so that the country roads all lead up to its nine 
 gates. One could imagine oneself in Palestine, near the 
 ' city set upon an hill,' with the outer slopes covered with 
 olive trees. 
 
 " The graceful, tender landscape stretches far away be- 
 fore yovi ; hills crowned with ancient castles ; the soil of 
 a beautiful auburn or burnt-siena tint, and copses of 
 oak, still covered with their russet autumn leaves. We 
 went upon the ramparts of the citadel, upon which there 
 are paths with tender green grass. There was a splendid 
 winter sunset. Looking across the landscape, I could 
 count nine or ten beautiful undulating lines, each like 
 a horizon line, but always with one beyond it, and one 
 beyond that again, and each distinguished from the one 
 before it by showing fainter and fainter through a light 
 haze, till the scene ended at last in a pale line of 
 snow mountains. The shades were too delicate for any 
 painter to have caught, and the haze only veiled without
 
 Aspect of the Country around Siena. 3 
 
 hiding the soft purples and mauves ; while the visions 
 of castles, convents, and campaniles varied and gave life 
 to the undulating lines of each ridge. 
 
 "This part of Tuscany is sometimes described by 
 travellers as desolate and bare ; but I confess that I love 
 the look of the country round Siena. There is something 
 tender and warm and homelike in it. Certainly one may 
 admire more the richer and grander features of other 
 parts of Italy, but this country attracts me more as 
 country to live in. One feels possessed by a wish to 
 explore it, to visit the villas and castles which crown the 
 tops of the low hills, to find out where every path leads 
 to, and to ride about the tempting roads, which are open, 
 with hedges studded with oaks as in England. The 
 landscape is probably more tender and dreamlike in winter 
 than in the glare of the summer light, when it appears 
 more flat and uniform, and when you do not see one range 
 of wave-like hills beyond another, as indicated by the lines 
 of haze in autumn or winter. 
 
 " Down at our feet, as we looked from the ramparts, 
 there were wooded valleys falling away from the city 
 walls, before rising again into the opposite ridges, and 
 close at our side was Siena itself, crowning the hill, all its 
 towers and walls bathed on one side with the red glow 
 of the winter sunset, and on the other in cobalt blue 
 shade. There were sweet winding lanes with the long 
 evening shadows cast across them, ascending the ridges, 
 and then often following along the backbones of the little 
 hills ; many old fortified houses with olive-yards and 
 cypresses around them, and sometimes even green lawns 
 with sheep feeding an uncommon sight in Italy. 
 
 B2
 
 4 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 " The people appear to live scattered about the country 
 in single villas or castles, and not wedged into villages com- 
 posed of a crowded street of tall houses, as is so common in 
 Italy. These are signs of a very old-established civilization. 
 
 " Although the city itself is nothing in importance 
 compared with what it once was, it is not ruinous or 
 dilapidated. Everyone knows that it is in Siena that the 
 purest Italian is spoken. The people are very proud of 
 their fine old city and their past history. It offends them 
 to say that this or that is like Florence, for they consider 
 that Siena stands in the front rank among Italian cities. 
 
 " A little valley lies between the ancient city and a low 
 hill to the west, on which stands the great churcli of St. 
 Dominic. In this depression there was formerly the old 
 district inhabited by the poor people of Siena, and known 
 as the Contrada d'Oca. This was the birthplace of 
 Catharine. Her father's house still stands there, also 
 his workshop, and the chapel which was erected to her 
 memory, over the door of which are written in letters 
 of gold the words ' Sposse Christi Katharine domus.' We 
 visited the house and cell of Catharine, and saw the rough, 
 stone on the floor, which they say served her as a pillow, 
 and the little lantern which she carried in her hospital 
 visits during the plague." 
 
 The American translator of Father Raymond's " Life 
 of St. Catharine " says : " When going from Rome to- 
 Siena, as one descends the rough declivities of the Radi- 
 cofani, the lines gradually soften on the horizon, and 
 plantations of olive trees in graceful rows adorn the 
 hill sides. The valleys present a high state of cultiva- 
 tion and broad streamlets murmur beneath shady foliage..
 
 Italy in the Fourteenth Century. 5 
 
 Chateaux of the middle ages, with farm-houses of pic- 
 turesque architecture, animate the landscape, and as one 
 advances on this road, festooned by luxuriant vines, nature 
 appears milder and more gay. One could fancy one heard 
 the distant strains of a concert, whose chords sound louder 
 as one approaches the city which presents little of the 
 agitation and feverish life of our modern cities. The 
 Italian language is more melodious here than elsewhere, and 
 the population offers types of a beauty distinctly its own." 
 
 Sismondi, in his " History of the Italian Republics," 
 mentions the high estimation in which Catherine of Siena 
 was held throughout Italy, during and after her life. 
 In his history also we have a vivid picture of the troubles 
 of Italy during the period in which she lived. 
 
 The revival of Greek and Roman literature, the forma- 
 tion of the Italian language, and the creation of modern 
 poetry, the perfecting of jurisprudence, and the rapid 
 progress made in painting and sculpture, architecture and 
 music, are due in a great degree to the men of the 
 fourteenth century ; yet that period was far from being 
 a happy one for humanity. Many of the old-fashioned 
 virtues had disappeared, and revolting vices prevailed, 
 especially in the courts and palaces of princes, both lay 
 and ecclesiastical. Base intrigues were the order of the 
 day, and the only recognized means of earthly success. 
 The aristocracy set an example of every crime, and the 
 grossest debauchery reigned in their palaces and castles. 
 Poison and the knife were daily resorted to in the struggle 
 to hold their own against rivals. Troops of assassins were 
 retained in their pay, and a complete protection was 
 granted to brigands in return for the services they ren-
 
 6 CatJiarine of Siena. 
 
 dered their lordly employers. Magistrates were corrupt, 
 and justice sold. Princes derived revenue out of the pun- 
 ishment of criminals. Confessions were extorted ~hy the 
 rack from suspected persons, and criminals were punished 
 with indescribable torture. In politics, frequent treachery 
 destroyed all confidence in treaties and all friendly security 
 among citizens. In Avar, foreign mercenaries sold them- 
 selves to him who paid the highest, and in their marches 
 ruthlessly outraged the innocent inhabitants of the country, 
 and ruined their agriculture. The contempt in which 
 princes and nobles held all law and morality had an 
 influence all the more pervading, because in every city 
 of Italy at that time there reigned a little court, and this 
 little court was for the citizens of each city a school of 
 vice and crime. The several Republics of Italy were at 
 continual war with the great dukes and princes who lived 
 around or in the midst of them, and who, strong in the 
 traditions of their former absolute and despotic sove- 
 reignty, looked with an evil eye on the independent 
 spirit of the Republics. This independent spirit mani- 
 fested itself in constantly renewed struggles to cast off the 
 yoke, first of one tyrant, and then of another ; at one time 
 of some aggressive noble, at another of a foreign invader ; 
 now of the insolent emissaries of the Pope, claiming with 
 the sword and excommunication the restoration of the 
 revolted temporal estates of the Church, and now of an 
 arrogant oligarchy in their midst, developed from the 
 elected rulers of the people themselves. 
 
 No sight could have been more sad, more indecent, it 
 may be said, for a Christian soul to contemplate than the 
 sight which the Christian Church then presented in the
 
 Italy in the Fourteenth Century. 7 
 
 persons of its prominent representatives. It was that of a 
 worldly, greedy, grasping power, a power which had lost its 
 influence for good over the conscience of Christendom, and 
 had thrown itself into the fierce conflict of arms and of intri- 
 gue with all who disputed its claims to a despotic material 
 sovereignty. The Pope Clement V. had removed the seat of 
 the Papacy to Avignon, in 1305. Six popes after him con- 
 tinued to live in this voluntary exile, far from their duties 
 and their people. They purchased from Joanna, Queen of 
 Naples and Countess of Provence, the sovereignty of Avig- 
 non, with vast surrounding estates in that fair and sunny 
 province of southern France. There they established 
 themselves as though they never meant to return. Mag- 
 nificent palaces and castles were built by them. The 
 College of Cardinals came to be almost entirely com- 
 posed of Frenchmen. Urban V. and Gregory XL were' 
 French, and strongly attached to their native land. The! 
 French king used all his influence to retain the Papal 
 Court in his kingdom, and the prelates were only too 
 ready to yield to this influence, preferring a residence 
 among a people in whom no restless desire of liberty or 
 turbulent spirit of reform disturbed their tranquillity, or 
 interrupted the gay and easy tenour of the Court life of 
 Avignon. This period was compared by Italian writers 
 to the Babylonish captivity. The voluntary exile of the 
 Pope, and his neglect of the interests of his subjects, had 
 a most melancholy influence upon the faith, the morals and 
 the politics of the Church. The corruption of the prelates, 
 the dishonourable and scandalous lives of the young car- 
 dinals, and the universal licence of the city were so notorious 
 to all Europe that Avignon received the name of the
 
 8 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Western Babylon. 1 This epithet is found in the bitter 
 invectives of Petrarch, and in the writings of all the most 
 religious men of that time. Avignon gathered to itself 
 the scum of the French and Italian populations, and 
 intriguers and adventurers of all nations nocked thither. 
 " The morals of Avignon," it was said, " are what are called 
 vices in other nations." In the preceding century the Court 
 of Rome had been sufficiently ambitious, avaricious, and 
 dissimulating; but duringjts^establishment at Avignon it 
 became more and more venal and perfidious in its adminis- 
 tration, while the Italians marked with disgust its ever- 
 increasing servility to the Court of France. 2 The Sovereign 
 Pontiff gradually lost the affections of the Italian people. 
 He treated Italy as a mere dependency, making over the 
 management of the estates of the Church to agents who 
 became a plague and a curse to the people. These agents 
 were the infamous Cardinal Legates, whose rapacity and 
 cruelty exceeded even those of the ambitious families under 
 whom Italy already had suffered more than she could bear. 
 The conduct of these Legates continually brought the 
 Papacy into worse and worse repute among the Italians. 
 Under the plea of gathering in the revenue of the Church, 
 they plundered the people, and, to enrich themselves, cheated 
 the absent Pontiff of that which he too often exacted with 
 harshness and injustice. 
 
 Another grief which pressed heavily on Italy at that 
 time was the presence of the hosts of foreign mercenary 
 troops to which I have already referred. These troops 
 were chiefly composed of English and Bretons, who had 
 
 1 Sismondi'a "Italian Republics, " Vol. viL 2 Ibid.
 
 Italy in the Fourteenth Century . 9 
 
 taken part in the long war between England and France, 
 and who had been driven from their own countries as de- 
 moralized military refuse, and unfit to return to the duties 
 of citizenship. There were also Germans, and malcontents 
 of all countries, who travelled over the Alps to sell their 
 services to princes or republics to whom the offer of their 
 alliance was itself a calamity ; l for, after a victory won 
 by their aid, those who had themselves accepted these 
 dangerous auxiliaries found themselves vanquished in their 
 turn. It was impossible to get rid of these mercenaries; they 
 remained, and lived at the expense of the country; they 
 sometimes retired to the strong castles of the Apennines, 
 whence they periodically emerged, swooping down like birds 
 of prey upon the country populations, pillaging and ravaging 
 and carrying terror wherever they appeared. The fierce 
 English brigand, John Hawkwoocl, led an immense English 
 and Breton troop into Italy. He sold himself and his 
 followers first to the Pope and afterwards to the Florentine 
 Republic ; performing, in the interval, some well-paid 
 services for the Visconti and other fighting princes. He 
 became the chief of that great "school of Italian condot- 
 tieri" which warred in Italy for two centuries. His troops 
 were accustomed to encamp disbanded and without order ; 
 they always fought on foot, carrying great lances such as 
 were used in boar hunting, and advanced on the enemy in 
 closely seried ranks, howling in their uncouth foreign 
 tongues, the harsh sound of which was most terrible to the 
 Italians. Catharine of Siena was several times stopped on 
 her journeys and missions with her companions by the sound 
 
 1 " Economic Politique du Moyen Age."
 
 10 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 of the approach of these dreaded brigands. This happened 
 on her journey to Florence, where she had been invited 
 to act as a pacificator between that Republic and the 
 Pope ; she was obliged to turn out of her path till the 
 danger had passed. One of her most eloquent letters is 
 addressed to John Hawkwood (or Giovanni Augud as the 
 Italian chroniclers write him). Hawkwood was, however, 
 outdone in cruelty by the Papal Legate whom he served 
 at the destruction and massacre of Cesena and Faenza, in 
 1377. Several of the northern Italian cities had entered 
 into a league against the Pope, and for the defence of 
 their liberties. The Pope sent his Legate, Cardinal Robert 
 of Geneva, with an army to break up this league, if possible. 
 Cardinal Robert drove a hard bargain with Hawkwood for 
 his services in this campaign, and commenced proceedings 
 by endeavouring to detach Bologna from the league. He 
 promised the Bolognese " the pardon of their faults if they 
 would acknowledge the sovereignty of the Church and of 
 the Pope's ministers." The Bolognese replied : " We are 
 ready to suffer all things rather than again to submit our- 
 selves to the rulers whose luxury, insolence, and avarice 
 we have so cruelly experienced." Cardinal Robert, on 
 receiving this reply from the ambassadors of Bologna, sent 
 back word : " Tell them that I shall not leave Bologna 
 till I have washed my hands and my feet in their blood." 
 The Legate's actions were worthy of his threat ; he slew, 
 burnt, and plundered. The summer being past, he found 
 himself in need of winter quarters, and obliged the city of 
 Cesena, which had not revolted or joined the league, to 
 receive his troops. His barbarous soldiers, incapable of 
 discipline, began to treat this city as one which they had
 
 The Massacre of Cesena. 11 
 
 taken in battle, forcing open the houses, robbing property, 
 and carrying off the daughters of the citizens for outrage 
 and captivity. The inhabitants endured patiently for 
 several weeks, but on the night of February 1, 1377, they 
 made a sudden attack upon the mercenaries, and drove 
 them out of the city. Cardinal Robert, on receiving this 
 news, sent a deceitful message to the people of Cesena r 
 confessing that his soldiers had deserved this punishment, 
 and promising a complete amnesty on condition that they 
 would again open their gates to him. They opened their 
 gates ; and the perfidious Cardinal entering, ordered a 
 universal massacre. He sent for Hawkwood, who was 
 at that moment doing the Cardinal's work at Faenza. 
 Hawkwood hesitated for a moment to execute this horrible 
 deed ; the Cardinal, persuading, taunting, and bribing, 
 urged him on to the massacre, crying out, " I want blood, 
 blood, blood ! " None were spared, neither the aged nor 
 the young ; mothers, maidens, and infants at the breast 
 were murdered and flung in heaps in the streets. From 
 morning till night the slaughter continued. The Cardinal 
 stood all day as the presiding genius of the scene, a crucifix 
 held aloft in one hand, and a sword in the other, reiterat- 
 ing, " Kill them, kill them ! all, all ! " and resting not until 
 the last of the five thousand of the peaceful inhabitants of 
 Cesena was slain. This Cardinal Robert was the man who- 
 was afterwards, in 1378, elected Pope as Clement VII., the- 
 rival of Urban VI. 
 
 It was Catharine the wool-dyer's daughter who first 
 dared to address to the Pope at Avignon letters full of 
 severe truth, setting forth to him the miseries of his 
 Italian subjects, the evils of his non-residence, and the
 
 12 CatJutrine of Siena. 
 
 gross cruelty of his unworthy legates ; it was she who pre- 
 vailed in her endeavour to bring back the Sovereign Pontiff' 
 to his country, and to awaken him to a sense of his respon- 
 sibilities towards his torn and distracted flock. 
 
 "Catharine of Siena," says her biographer Raymond, 
 " was to the fourteenth century what St. Bernard was to 
 the twelfth, that is, the light and support of the Church. 
 At the moment when the bark of St. Peter was most 
 strongly agitated by the tempest, God gave it for pilot a 
 poor young girl who was concealing herself in the little shop 
 of a dyer. Catharine travelled to France to lead the Pontiff 
 Gregory XI. away from the delights of his native land ; she 
 brought back the Popes to Rome, the real centre of Chris- 
 tianity. She addressed herself to cardinals, princes, and 
 kings. Her zeal inflamed at the sight of the disorders 
 which prevailed in the Church, she exerted all her activity 
 in order to overcome them ; she negotiated between the 
 nations and the Holy See ; she brought back to God a 
 multitude of souls, and communicated, by her teaching and 
 example, a new vitality to those great religious orders which 
 were the life and pulse of the Church." " When she entered 
 the world (after years spent in prayer and fasting), it was 
 to preach to infuriated mobs, to toil among plague-stricken 
 men, to execute diplomatic negotiations, to harangue the 
 Republic of Florence, to correspond with queens, and to 
 interfere between kings and popes. . . . It is well 
 known how, by the power of her eloquence and the 
 ardour of her piety, she succeeded as a mediator between 
 Florence and her native city, and between Florence and 
 the Pope ; that she travelled to Avignon and induced 
 Gregory XI. to return to Rome, that she narrowly
 
 The Corruptions of the Church. 1$ 
 
 escaped political martyrdom during one of her embassies 
 from Gregory to the Florentine Republic, that she preached 
 a crusade against the Turks, and that she aided by her 
 dying words to keep Pope Urban VI. on the papal 
 throne." 1 We shall see how, like St. Francis, St. Bernard, 
 and Savonarola, Catharine, though a devoted daughter of 
 the Church, became its faithful and fearless monitor, and a 
 prophet to it of warning and rebuke. Appalled by the 
 knowledge which she rapidly attained of the hollowness, 
 hypocrisy, and abominable vices which prevailed among 
 the clergy of all ranks, she shrunk not from open denun- 
 ciation of their evil deeds ; she rebuked the evil-doers, 
 whether princes, cardinals, or the " Holy Father " him- 
 self, with the severity of one who has a commission from 
 Heaven, and with the passionate pleading and tenderness- 
 of a woman whose soul is filled with Christian love and 
 pity for her kind. The Roman Church had not yet filled 
 up the measure of her sins; the time had not yet come for 
 the grand defection from her ranks of the bold spirits of a 
 Luther and a Calvin. But through all the centuries, from 
 the time when the supreme bishops of Rome ceased to be 
 what they were in the earliest period saints and martyrs, 
 men of virtue and of humble piety there never was 
 wanting a succession of prophets, who rose up one by 
 one, to repudiate in the name of Christ and in the face 
 of the world, the corruptions, follies, and crimes com 
 mitted in the name and by the authority of the professed 
 ministers of Christ's religion, the ecclesiastical rulers wha 
 had become, in fact, the ministers of injustice and op- 
 
 1 " Siena and St. Catharine," by J. Symonds.
 
 14 CatJiarine of Siena. 
 
 pression. That the spiritual life was not extinct, however, 
 in those corrupt times, and that pure teaching and a Christ- 
 like life were recognized and ardently loved far and wide 
 by the nations, is proved by the ascendency which these 
 prophet-like beings (and none more than Catharine) gained 
 over the affections of the people, by the reverence and awe 
 which they inspired even in the worldly courts of princes, 
 by the fact that even the pride of haughty ecclesiastics 
 bowed before them, by the recognition given to them by 
 the Church herself, and by the loving devotion with which 
 their names and memories continued to be cherished long 
 rafter their death. 
 
 While Italy was thus shaken by the moral and political 
 disorders above described, a terrible scourge visited her, in 
 common with the other nations of Europe. The plague, 
 which appeared in 1348, and again in 1361 and 1374, has 
 been described by Boccaccio and other writers. A suc- 
 cession of extraordinarily rainy seasons was succeeded by 
 famine in 1345 and 1347. The plague followed. Terror 
 seized the inhabitants of every town and village where the 
 first symptoms of the disease appeared ; the contagion 
 spread with unheard-of rapidity; even to converse with one 
 smitten was often fatal, without touching him ; men and 
 women, and even cattle, fell dead in the streets; nature's 
 wild scavengers, the wolf and the vulture, would not come 
 near the tainted dead ; large ditches were prepared, into 
 which the bodies were hurled, so long as anyone could be 
 found to convey them thither. The utmost of human 
 egotism and selfishness were manifested side by side with 
 noble examples of courage and devotion. An impression pre- 
 vailed that sadness or lowness of spirits predisposed persons
 
 The Plague in Italy. 15 
 
 to take the disease, and consequently wild laughter and jest- 
 ing, gambling and revelling, were heard and seen in the midst 
 of dying agonies and hurried funeral obsequies ; all business 
 was neglected, and the population seemed like a vast crowd 
 awaiting certain death, in very various and strongly con- 
 trasted attitudes of mind. In Florence three out of every 
 five persons died, as affirmed by Boccaccio. At Siena, in 
 the months of May, June, July, and August, 1348, the 
 plague carried off 30,000 persons. In the later visitations 
 of this scourge, Catharine appears as the guardian angel of 
 her own city, and the devoted helper of the stricken and 
 dying, forsaken often by their nearest relatives. So great 
 was the terror of the nobles at the first sight of the second 
 approach of the dreaded scourge, that many of them fled to 
 the mountains and forests. The famous Bernabos Visconti, 
 the powerful Duke of Milan, unable to pursue his favourite 
 occupation of war, the plague having sounded a truce for a 
 season to the fratricidal shedding of blood, betook himself 
 to desperate hunting. " In the pursuit of this amusement, 
 he contrived to perpetrate infinite cruelties, a task, by- 
 the-bye, to him always familiar. Under pain of death, 
 he forbade anyone to slay a hare, a wild hog, or any 
 other game ; and this wicked law he scrupulously carried 
 out, applying it even to those who within four years pre- 
 viously had either killed or eaten of the game. He 
 kept SjOOO hunting dogs, which he caused to be dis 
 tributed among the country people, who had orders to 
 feed them well, and to bring them once a month to be 
 reviewed in a certain place. Woe to him whose charge 
 was found to be lean or out of condition ! Still greater 
 woe to him who had lost a dog by death ! These were
 
 16 Catliarine of Siena. 
 
 punished by the confiscation of all their goods, by torture 
 arid other penalties. More feared were the dog-keepers of 
 Bernabos than the princes of the earth. At the sight and 
 sound of these and other tyrannies of this inhuman prince 
 everyone trembled, and no one dared to whisper. Two 
 friars ventured one day to expostulate with him, and he 
 immediately had them burnt to death." l The excitement 
 of the chase prevailed for a time to quiet his fears, but 
 the reports of a tyranny more irresistible than his own 
 pursued Bernabos. Even while following the wolves of the 
 Apennines with his well-fed hounds in full cry, he would 
 come suddenly upon an untenanted hut, in which, on 
 entering with some imperious demand, he would find the 
 blackened corpse of the owner slain by the plague. Villani 
 and Muratori both speak of the extraordinary terror of 
 Bernabos when he realized that death was at his heels 
 Sismondi records that " so great was the fright of the Prince 
 Bernabos Visconti that he shut himself into his castle of 
 Marignano ; and, determined that no one should come near 
 him, he gave orders to the bell-ringer on his watch-tower to 
 sound the bell the moment he saw anyone enter the territory 
 around the castle. One day Bernabos perceived some 
 gentlemen afar off approaching on the road from Milan, and 
 yet no warning bell had sounded. Indignant, he gave the 
 order to punish the bell-ringer for his negligence by pitching 
 him headlong from his own bell-tower : his servants hastened 
 up the tower to execute the order, and found the bell- 
 ringer, dead of the plague, beside his bell. The fright 
 of Bernabos was intensified by this circumstance ; he fled 
 
 1 Muratori.
 
 Great Pilgrimage to Rome, 17 
 
 further, to a hunting-tower which he possessed in the 
 middle of wild forests, surrounding himself with a barri- 
 cade at a mile's distance from the tower, on which barricade 
 he caused to be placed a number of notices, threatening 
 with instant death anyone who dared to cross that barrier. 
 He survived the plague. At the same time, Catharine, 
 full of faith in God, was passing incessantly, night and day, 
 through the streets and hospitals of Siena, and comforting 
 with peaceful words, and kindly, smiling face the terror- 
 stricken and the dying. She also survived the plague. In 
 the one we see the triumph of selfishness, in the other the 
 triumph of faith. 
 
 In several of the nations of Europe a strong religious' 
 awakening succeeded the devastations of the plague. 
 Multitudes of people humbled themselves before God,, 
 seeking to learn wisdom from the chastisement which he : 
 had suffered to visit the earth. This penitent desire for 
 reconciliation with God found expression in the under- 
 taking of a vast pilgrimage to Home, in order to receive 
 there the pardon and blessing which the Pope had offered 
 to all who should undertake this pilgrimage. 
 
 In the winter and spring of 1350 a ceaseless stream of 
 pilgrims poured into Italy from all parts of Europe. They 
 bore with unmurmuring patience the rigours of a very 
 severe season, toiling on through ice and snow, piercing 
 blasts, and violent rains, which had destroyed many of the 
 roads. All the inns and other houses on or near the high- 
 ways being crowded by the first bands of pilgrims which 
 arrived, others chiefly those from Germany and Hungary 
 were compelled to camp out at night in large companies 
 on the highways. They lit fires in the open air, and sat 
 
 C
 
 18 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 closely crowded together, the better to resist the cold. 
 Historians of the time declare that these pious wanderers, 
 conscience-stricken, humble, and fervently desiring salva- 
 tion, set an example of Christian virtue to all. No disputes 
 or divisions arose among them, nor were they ever heard 
 to murmur at the hardships they endured. The inn- 
 keepers of the hostels where they crowded, unable to 
 check any dishonesty or even to receive the payment due 
 from each, owing to their great numbers, gave up the 
 attempt ; but never, it was said, was any pilgrim seen to 
 depart without leaving on the table the money which he 
 owed for his food. They sang litanies and hymns, offered up 
 daily prayers on the road, without ostentation, yet with a 
 humble disregard of any scorn or opposition they met with. 
 In general their conduct inspired with awe and reverence 
 the people of the country through which they passed. 
 Several millions of penitents thus made the journey to 
 Rome without any disorders or scandal arising in the 
 midst of the vast multitude. 1 
 
 Such were some of the events of the age and country in 
 which Catharine of Siena lived and laboured. 
 
 1 Villaui, Vol. i., Chap. Ivi.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GIACOMO BENINCASA, the father of Catharine, was a dyer ; 
 his occupation was chiefly the preparation of colours em- 
 ployed in dyeing wool; hence his surname of Fullone, or 
 dyer, and hence the name generally given to his and 
 Catharine's abode, " The Fullonica." This house was 
 situated, as I have said, in the humble quarter of the 
 common people, in the Contrada d'Oca. His wife Lapa 
 was simple, strong, and virtuous ; Giacomo himself being, 
 according to the testimony of all the contemporary bio- 
 graphers of Catharine, a loyal man, fearing God, and 
 separated from every vice. 
 
 There was, without doubt, a decline throughout Italy 
 of the stern virtues and simplicity of life of the previous 
 century; yet in some cities, and pre-eminently in Siena, 
 these stem traditions lingered on for several centuries, 
 and at the time of which I write there were many families 
 of the Italian Republics who maintained the primitive purity 
 of their ancestors, and continued to worship God with the 
 same honesty of conviction. Dante describes the simple 
 life of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the words 
 which he places in the mouth of Cacciaguida, his ancestor : 
 
 C2
 
 20 Catlmrine of Siena. 
 
 "I saw Bellincion Bert i walk abroad 
 With leather girdle and a clasp of bone ; 
 And with no artful colour on her cheeks 
 His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw 
 Of Nerli and of Vecchio, well content 
 With unrobed jerkin ; and their good dames handling 
 The spindle and the flax. Oh ! happy they ! . . . 
 In such composed and simple fellowship, 
 Such faithful and such fair equality, 
 In such sweet household, Mary at my birth 
 Bestowed me." 
 
 Villani, the historian of Italy, observes that in the 
 thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century the 
 Italian republicans lived soberly, on coarse viands and at 
 little cost. " The men and women dressed in coarse cloths ; 
 many wore plain leather, and the Tuscan women were with- 
 out ornament. Their manners were simple, and in many 
 customs and courtesies of life they were rude and un- 
 polished; but they were of good faith and loyal both among 
 themselves and to the State, and with their coarse way of 
 living and poverty they did greater and more virtuous deeds 
 than have been done in our times and with greater refine- 
 ment and wealth." 1 The virile character of the people of 
 Siena was celebrated by Boccaccio and other contemporaries 
 of Catharine. Nicholas Tommaseo of Milan, who wrote in 
 1860 on "The Spirit and the Works of St. Catharine," 
 remarks on the strong and manly character of her mind : 
 " This citizen of an august Republic," he says, " was born 
 in the midst of a turbulent, restless, and warlike people, 
 a people nourished in severe customs, and who, whatever 
 their faults, were in no sense enervated or feeble." Accord- 
 
 1 Villani, Book vi., Chap. Ixxi.
 
 The Family of Catharine. 21 
 
 ing to Sismondi, the Sienese were esteemed the proudest of 
 all the Italian people. The parents of Catharine manifestly 
 belonged to the generation then passing away ; they were 
 simple, virtuous, and inured to hardship and effort. Al- 
 though of a humble class in life they won for themselves 
 a certain position among their fellow-citizens. Lapa de- 
 scribed the character of her husband to one of the con- 
 temporaries of Catharine in the following words : " He was 
 so mild and moderate in his words that he never gave way 
 to anger, although he had many occasions for doing so ; and 
 on seeing any of his household excited or vexed he would 
 calm them by saying, 'Now, now, do not say anything 
 which is not just or kind, and God will give you his bles- 
 sing. He was greatly injured on one occasion by a fellow- 
 citizen who had robbed him of money and who employed 
 falsehood and calumny in order to ruin his character and 
 the business he carried on. He never would hear his 
 enemy spoken of harshly, and when I, thinking no harm 
 of it, used to express my anger against my husband's 
 detractor, he would say, ' Let him alone, dear, let him 
 alone, and God will bless you. God will show him his 
 error, and will be our defence.' This soon came true, for 
 our enemy acknowledged openly his error." The neigh- 
 bours of Giacomo also testified to his uprightness and virtue. 
 He was pure and reserved in his speech ; consequently 
 his family grew up sensitive to any coarseness or unseemli- 
 ness in conversation. One of his daughters, Bonaventura, 
 married a young man of Siena who sometimes received 
 in his house foolish and vain companions. Bonaventura 
 became so depressed by the tone of the conversation around 
 her that she fell ill. Her husband inquiring the cause
 
 22 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 of her illness, she replied, " I have never been accustomed 
 to hear in the house of my father language such as I hear 
 in yours. My education has been widely different, and I 
 assure you that if such conversation continues around me 
 it will be the cause of my death." Her reply inspired her 
 husband with great respect for her and her family. He 
 forbade his guests to speak one word in his house which 
 could displease her. They obeyed, and thus the good 
 government in the family of Giacomo rebuked the licence 
 in the house of his son-in-law. 
 
 Giacomo and Lapa had twenty-five children ; Catharine 
 was one of two delicate little twins born in 1347. Little 
 Jane, the twin sister of Catharine, died in a few days. 
 " She winged her way to heaven," leaving Catharine on 
 earth to become the mother of many souls. The stories 
 told of our little saint to Raymond, her biographer, by 
 admiring friends and neighbours of the Benincasa family, 
 are full of naivete arid grace, and abound in miraculous 
 incidents which I shall pass over very briefly. Beyond all 
 doubt the child was the darling of her neighbourhood from 
 her earliest infancy, as she was the beloved of her country 
 in her later years. 
 
 As soon as she could walk, we are told, she contracted 
 a habit of wandering from home ; a habit which developed 
 in her maturer age, and which became the subject of 
 many outward criticisms and of some inward question- 
 ings of her own heart. The little vagrant was so beloved, 
 and her childish prattle was "so discreet and so full of 
 grace," that her mother with difficulty kept her at home, 
 and sometimes took alarm when the repeated announce- 
 ment was made in the large family, that "The baby is
 
 Her Childhood. 23 
 
 lost again." Before she could even speak plainly, we are 
 assured that " the people of the Contrada d'Oca found such 
 consolation and sweetness in her society that she received 
 the name of Euphrosyne, which means joy or satisfaction." 
 " As soon as one conversed with her," says Raymond, 
 " sadness was dispelled from the heart, vexations and 
 troubles were forgotten, and a ravishing peace took posses- 
 sion of the soul." Her smile, of which we hear so often 
 throughout her life, was so bright and sweet that it " took 
 souls captive." She smiled with her eyes as well as her 
 lips, and her friends speak of an " ineffable joy which shone 
 in her eyes." She possessed all her life a frankness of 
 manner which disarmed all prejudice and dispelled reserves 
 and fears : her nature was open and joyous, and her spirit 
 truthful and clear as the day. She loved every living 
 thing. Nature, beasts, birds, and flowers were very dear 
 to her. Every man, woman, and child was to her a friend, 
 a dear fellow-creature to be greeted without reserve, to be 
 comforted, consoled, congratulated, pleaded with or gently 
 rebuked as one beloved of the common Father, and 
 redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. 
 
 She began early to have her little visions of celestial 
 glory, and even some premonitions of the career to which 
 she was to be called. The old church of St. Dominic in 
 Siena stands, as I have said, on the summit of a little 
 hill or rising ground separated by a pleasant little valley 
 from the quarter in which Catharine's family resided. 
 This valley so often traversed by her, and this venerable 
 church with its adjacent monastery, were spots familiar 
 and dear to her heart. We shall have to people them in 
 imagination by-and-by with the most intimate friends
 
 24 Catlutrine of Siena. 
 
 of Catharine, the devoted friar preachers of St. Dominic, 
 and the sisters of the Militia of Jesus ; Christ, who shared 
 her active life and accompanied her in many of her mis- 
 sions. The chapel by the side of the -church was one of 
 her favourite resorts for prayer : it was there that she spent 
 long hours in ecstatic communion with her Lord ; and in 
 the nave and on the steps of the great church she daily en- 
 countered the radiant faces of her brethren arid sisters in 
 the faith, and held sweet converse with them. The bell- 
 tower of the church can be seen from the wool- dyer's house 
 in the Contrada d'Oca, and its matin and vesper bells sound 
 clear across the little valley. When Catharine was six years 
 old, her mother sent her with her little brother Stephen to 
 take a message to the house of their sister Bonaventura : 
 their errand being accomplished, the children were about to 
 return by the valley, when Catharine, looking up to the 
 golden clouds of evening, saw over the gable end of the 
 church of the Friar Preachers, a vision of Jesus, very glori- 
 ously apparelled, and terrible in majesty and beauty. As 
 she gazed in awe, the Saviour, she said, looked towards her 
 and smiled lovingly upon her, extending his hand in bless- 
 ing. While she was lost in the contemplation of this vision, 
 her little brother continued to descend the hill, imagining 
 that she was following : turning round, he saw his sister 
 far off, looking up to heaven ; he called to her as loud as he 
 could call, but she made no answer ; at length he ran back 
 to her and took her by the hand, saying, " Come on, why 
 are you stopping here 1 " Catharine appeared to awake 
 from a deep sleep, and bursting into loud weeping, she 
 replied, " O Stephen, if you could only see what I see, 
 you would never have disturbed me thus ! " and her eyes
 
 Adventures of her Ckttdhood. 325 
 
 again turned towards heaven, "but the vision had vanished, 
 to Catharine's great grief, who turned homewards weeping. 
 From this moment she Avas observed to become graver and 
 -more thoughtful than before. 
 
 She had heard many recitals of the lives of the Fathers 
 of the Desert, and about a year after this incident she con- 
 ceived a strong desire to imitate them. In this she was not 
 singular: it is not uncommon to find children in modern 
 as well as early times, possessed with a romantic idea of 
 pilgrimage, or retirement to the desert. St. Theresa of 
 Spain read with her little brother, when she was a child, 
 the lives of martyrs and hermits. " They determined to be 
 martyrs, they would go to the nearest Moorish kingdom, 
 .where as soon as they arrived, their heads would be cut 
 off; and without asking leave, or saying a word to any- 
 one, they started, and had crossed the bridge out of the 
 town, when an uncle encountered them and took them 
 home. The martyrdom project coming to an end, they 
 thought of turning hermits, and built themselves cells in 
 the garden ; but here their mechanics failed them ; the 
 roofs fell in, and they lost heart." * And some of ourselves 
 have known children who, after reading the " Pilgrim's 
 Progress," have hopefully started in search of the land of 
 Beulah and the heavenly City, and after having lost their 
 shoes and been covered with mud in some wayside bog 
 which they would gladly have believed was the veritable 
 Slough of Despond, with the wicket gate and its angel- 
 porter beyond, have returned home, draggled and weary, 
 to the mother's fireside. Little Catharine was so fired 
 
 1 ' ' Saiita Teresa, a Psychological Study. " J. A. Froude.
 
 26 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 with the desire to imitate the Fathers of the Desert, that 
 she frequently ran away to short distances from home to 
 hide in some retired spot, where, however, her solitary 
 musings were often rudely or comically broken in upon. 
 One morning, in spite of past disappointments, she set 
 out very early in search of the desert. She believed the 
 ravens would kindly bring her food, yet the little woman 
 was prudent and practical enough to provide herself with 
 a loaf of bread to last over the first day, until she should 
 ascertain more certainly what the conduct of the ravens 
 was to be. Gliding through the gates for the first time 
 in her life, she left the city behind her, and crossed a 
 valley towards a range of little hills beyond. There she 
 saw that the houses were more distant one from another, 
 and thought that she was certainly now approaching the 
 desert. She found a little grotto under a shelving rock, 
 crept in, and with great joy set herself to pray and medi- 
 tate. She remained there till the evening, when suddenly 
 " God revealed to her that he designed for her another 
 mode of life, and that she must not leave the house of 
 her father." l On leaving her grotto, she became anxious 
 on seeing the evening far advanced, and afraid, not of the 
 anger, but on account of the anxiety of her parents. 
 " They will think I am lost, and how sorry they will be ! " 
 she said, and the active, swift-footed little girl flew as 
 fast as her feet would carry her, and never paused till she 
 reached her father's house. The gossips said that she 
 was carried by angels, or miraculously transported with- 
 out once touching the ground, so rapid was her return. 
 
 1 Raymond of Capua, " Life of St Catharine."
 
 Her Parents idsh lier to Marry. 27 
 
 Good sense and affection never failed to correct in her any 
 tendency to exaggeration or to egotistical forms of piety. 
 
 The desire to be allowed to preach arose very early in her 
 mind. She dreamed that she was changed to a man and 
 received the ordination of St. Dominic, and sighed on 
 awaking to find herself still a girl. She used to collect 
 around her in the little valley an assembly of little girls of 
 her own age, and preach to them with " wonderful eloquence 
 and power." She gained so much the hearts and imagina- 
 tions of these little girls, that many of them imitated in 
 their degree her manner of life, and continued to be her 
 friends and fellow-workers when they grew up. 
 
 A.t twelve years of age her parents and brothers began 
 to talk of marriage for Catharine. Her father was par- 
 ticularly anxious about her future, and could not be per- 
 suaded that anyone of his acquaintance was worthy of 
 such a child, ignorant as he was of the choice she had 
 already made of a Tinion far above all human alliances. 
 Lapa took great pains in dressing and adorning her in- 
 teresting daughter, caused her to deck her hair with 
 graceful kerchiefs and pins, and "to ornament her neck 
 and arms in a manner calculated to please such as might 
 ask her hand in marriage." 
 
 Catharine had other thoughts ; her absence of mind 
 and little regard for even such innocent display as her 
 mother's pride in her suggested, perplexed her parents. 
 Lapa called in the aid of Bonaventura, a sister to 
 whom Catharine was much attached. Bonaventura's 
 little mano3uvres were for a time successful. Catharine 
 swerved for a brief moment from the straight and diffi- 
 cult path which she had set herself to pursue, but her
 
 28 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 countenance became sad, her manner nervous, and she 
 often fled suddenly from any company in which she found 
 herself. Her secret determination to devote herself wholly 
 in the unmarried state to the service of God and man was 
 never, however, given up, and the "life angelical" con- 
 tinually attracted her in the midst of the pleasures of earth, 
 in which her heart found no rest. Her habit of prayer, 
 however, had abated, and her spiritual life was in danger of 
 being extinguished. At this time Bonaventura, still young, 
 loving, and beloved, died in giving birth to a child. 
 Catharine's grief was bitter ; this blow revealed to her the 
 vanity of all earthly things, and she consecrated herself 
 afresh to a life of prayer and holy service. The desire of 
 her parents that she should marry was now, however, more 
 openly expressed, and a young man of highly honourable 
 character and family was introduced to her as desiring her 
 hand in marriage. She continued a friendly but gentle 
 resistance. This brought upon her a species of domestic 
 persecution which tested her courage and strength of 
 character. Her biographers, in their devout desire to heap 
 honour upon the head of the saint, exaggerated, it seems to 
 me, the unkindness of her parents. Their sternness was, 
 perhaps, even not unwise ; for many a young girl in those 
 <lays, captivated by the thoughts of a life of consecration, 
 would turn a longing eye towards the monastery, and at the 
 first severe trial would waver in her resolution, or having 
 taken the irreparable step, would make the discovery too 
 late that she had mistaken her vocation. There was no 
 intentional cruelty in the conduct of Giacomo and Lapa 
 towards their child; they believed it necessary to test 
 her resolution, and they acted sternly, in accordance with
 
 Her Father's Judgment of her. 29 
 
 this belief. The storm thus raised and prolonged in their 
 household by the divergence and opposition of the wills of 
 those who really loved each other was, however, very pain- 
 ful to both parties. Catharine laboured cheerfully, never- 
 theless, to fulfil every task imposed on her. She was 
 forbidden to have a room to herself, and was ordered to 
 share one with another member of the family. She chose to 
 share the room of her little brother Stephen, because she 
 could profit by his long hours of absence in the day, and his 
 profound sleep at night, to continue her prayers and vigils. 
 Here she cried daily to her Saviour to direct her path, and 
 to claim her wholly as his own. Her brothers observed 
 her constancy, and said to each other, " we are beaten ; 
 Catharine has won." Her father observed her silently, and 
 became daily more convinced that she was not following the 
 fancies of a capricious maiden, but the call of God. He 
 chanced to enter her room one evening when she was 
 absorbed in prayer. When he turned from her door he 
 was covering his face with his hand, as if dazzled ; he told 
 Lapa that he had seen a wonderful light resting upon and 
 enveloping the girl ; some said that the light he saw rested 
 in the form of a snow-white dove upon her head. What- 
 ever the appearance, it is certain that Giacomo became still 
 more thoughtful and more tenderly respectful towards his 
 daughter from that hour in which he learned how direct 
 and intimate were her relations with heaven. 
 
 About this time Catharine had a dream, suggested, no 
 doubt, by the constant and fervent desire of her waking 
 hours to be enrolled in the Dominican Order, and to be- 
 come a preacher. She dreamed that the good and great 
 St. Dominic approached her, smiling, and said to her,
 
 30 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 " Daughter, be of good cheer ; fear no hindrance, for the day 
 is coming in which you shall be clothed with the mantle 
 you so much desire." She awoke with her heart filled with 
 joy, and on that very day she assembled her father, mother, 
 brothers, and sisters, saying she had a communication to 
 make to them, and thus she addressed the assembled 
 family : " For a long time you have resolved that I should 
 marry, and my conduct must have convinced you that I 
 cannot entertain such a proposal. I have never, however, 
 explained myself clearly, because of the respect I feel for 
 you, my parents; but duty forbids me to be silent any 
 longer : I must now speak candidly to you, and reveal to 
 you a resolution I have made, which is not of yesterday, 
 but which dates from my infancy. Know, then, that I 
 have made a vow, not in levity, but deliberately, and with 
 full knowledge of what I was doing. Now that I am of 
 maturer age, and have a better acquaintance with the 
 nature of my own actions, I persist, by the grace of God, 
 in my resolution, and it would be easier to dissolve a rock 
 than to induce me to change my mind. Give up, therefore, 
 for me, dear friends, all these projects for an earthly union ; 
 it is impossible for me to satisfy you on this point, for I 
 must obey God rather than man. If you wish me to 
 remain as a servant in your house, I will cheerfully fulfil 
 all your will to the best of my power ; but if you should be 
 so displeased with me as to make you desire me to leave 
 you, know that I shall remain immovable in my resolve. 
 He who has united my soul to his, has all the riches of 
 heaven and earth, and he can provide for and protect 
 me." At these words all present wept ; sobs and tears 
 prevented for a time any response. Awed by the firmness
 
 Catharine prevails. 31 
 
 and courage of the hitherto silent and gentle girl, the 
 whole family felt that further opposition was impossible. 
 At last the father spoke : " God preserve us, dearest child, 
 from any longer opposing the resolution which he has in- 
 spired; experience proves to us that you have not been 
 actuated by caprice, but by a movement of divine grace. 
 Fulfil without hindrance the vow you have taken ; do all 
 that the Holy Spirit commands you ; henceforth your time 
 shall be at your own disposal ; only pray for us, that we 
 may become worthy of him who has called you at so 
 tender an age." Then, turning to his wife and children, 
 he said, " Let no one hereafter contradict my dear child, or 
 seek to turn her from her holy resolution ; let her serve 
 her Saviour in the way she desires, and may she seek his 
 favour and pardoning mercy for us ; we could never find 
 for her a more beautiful or honourable alliance, for her soul 
 is wedded to her Lord, and it is not a man, but the Lord 
 who dieth not, whom we now receive into our house." 
 After these words some still wept, and especially the poor 
 mother, who loved her daughter in a more earthly fashion, 
 perhaps, than the father did. Catharine humbly thanked 
 her parents, and rejoiced exceedingly. 
 
 She was now permitted to arrange for herself the little 
 private room, or cell, which became her sanctuary, and the 
 scene of her marvellous converse with God for so many 
 years, and which is shown in Siena to this day. Here she 
 devoted herself to prayer and to the study of the will of 
 God. For three years she scarcely quitted this cell. She 
 put forth during those years the strength of an athlete in 
 her wrestlings with heaven, determined first to know her 
 Saviour and her own heart, and then to do and to bear in
 
 32 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 this world whatever he should ordain for her, awaiting the 
 time when he should call her to a still nearer communion 
 with himself. These years were not a time of listless con- 
 templation nor of sentimental piety for the dyer's daughter. 
 They were a stern and energetic preparation for the com- 
 bats of her future life. 
 
 She was very sparing in her diet; she gave but little time 
 to sleep, and her bed was composed of a few planks with- 
 out any covering; she wore coarse clothing, but "as she 
 cherished cleanliness and exterior neatness as a sign of in- 
 terior purity," she frequently changed her woollen garments, 
 and allowed no outward marks of asceticism to appear in 
 her person. It was her custom to continue in prayer until 
 the hour of matins, when, at the first sound of the matin 
 bell from the tower of her dearly-beloved church of St. 
 Dominic, she stretched herself on her wooden bed for a 
 brief hour of sleep; she loved to think that an unbroken 
 chain of prayers was ascending to God from the people's 
 quarter of the city, and she would not cease until the 
 brothers and sisters of St. Dominic had begun the matin 
 prayer and hymn of praise. She confided to Raymond, in 
 later life, that this victory over sleep had cost her more than 
 any other, and that she had undergone inexpressible conflicts 
 in triumphing over the natural desire for repose. Such con- 
 quests over self and over the infirmities, even over many of 
 the just and natural demands of the body, have never been 
 absent in the lives of those whom, par excellence, we call 
 " the saints," those who have left behind them an influence 
 which is of God, and imperishable; an influence which 
 even the most sceptical must confess to have been benign, 
 and charged with blessing for humanity. Catharine's
 
 Her Austerities. He)' Mother's Solicitude. 33 
 
 health was delicate, yet she possessed an extraordinary 
 nervous energy, and even a muscular strength which 
 astonished those who saw her exert it in the performance of 
 any generous or helpful act. She suffered all her life from 
 a weakness of the stomach, which made it difficult for her 
 to take any food without pain, succeeded often by violent 
 sickness and vomiting. She was also subject to attacks of 
 weakness and prostration, especially in the spring, which 
 would last several weeks. 
 
 Her mother was distressed at the sight of her austerities, 
 and implored her to eat more, as indeed did all her family. 
 The obedient daughter would make the attempt, in order 
 to please her family, but with very poor results; for the 
 sickness became more severe and spasmodic, so that she 
 sometimes fainted away and remained insensible for a long 
 time, through the violence of her sufferings. Lapa would 
 sometimes enter her room in the early morning, and lifting 
 her in her arms, would carry her to her own bed and gently 
 place her there for greater comfort; but her daughter, 
 thanking her kindly, begged the favour of being allowed to 
 return to her planks in her own dear little room ; or if she 
 found her mother herself had fallen asleep, she would rise 
 softly, and kneel and pray for that dear anxious mother, 
 and for all her family. 
 
 The desire to enter into the third order of St. Dominic 
 continually increased. It may be useful to say a few words 
 here concerning that valiant soldier of Christ, St. Dominic. 
 This active and zealous apostle laboured for very needful 
 reforms in the Church and in the world. In order to work 
 more effectually for these reforms, he brought together a 
 number of laymen, and organized them into a kind of militia.
 
 34 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Those who enrolled themselves swore to sacrifice, if necessary, 
 their earthly goods and their lives ; and their wives engaged 
 themselves also by a vow never to hinder, but to assist as 
 much as possible, their husbands in their work. These 
 associates took the title of Brethren and Sisters of the 
 Militia of Jesus Christ; they wore the black and white 
 habit of St. Dominic. This Militia, after the death of St. 
 Dominic, was placed under the direction of his own Friar 
 Preachers, and assisted that hardworking and truly apostolic 
 body in their labours for the reform of morals and the 
 salvation of souls. The Sisters of the Militia changed their 
 title later into that of the Sisters of Penance of St. Dominic. 
 Catharine had seen and heard many of the wandering Friar 
 Preachers who, in default of a temple made with hands, 
 would gather the people in the fields and by the wayside in 
 the cool of the evening to hear the glad tidings of grace. 
 What life, she thought, could be so blessed as this ? what 
 mission so sacred as this of carrying the lamp of truth from 
 city to city 1 Who so happy as these messengers, disencum- 
 bered of all worldly ties, and ready for all the martyrdom 
 of life as well as for death ? But she was a woman ! That 
 she should ever share so blessed a life, that she should ever 
 be permitted to pour forth in words of fire the burning 
 love of her heart for humanity, seemed for a time an idle 
 dream. Still the desire continued; still she longed to 
 become a preacher, and the first step was that she should be 
 enrolled as a Maritellata ; (such was the name given to the 
 wearers of the cloak or mantle of St. Dominic). We 
 find her mother so far won to accept her child's ideas as 
 to go herself to the Fraternity of St. Dominic to request 
 this favour for her daughter. She received for reply that
 
 Her Manners and Personal Appearance. 35 
 
 " it was not the custom to give the mantle to young 
 maidens; that hitherto none but widows of very mature 
 age, or wives consecrated to work with their husbands, had 
 received it; also that the Mantellatas had no cloister or 
 building devoted to them, and that each Sister must be 
 able to rule her life in her own home." On a second 
 application being made by Lapa, the Elders among the 
 Sisters replied, " If she be not too handsome, nor of a 
 beauty too remarkable, we will receive her on your account 
 and hers ; but if she be exceedingly pretty, we shall be 
 obliged to refuse, for we are bound to avoid the incon- 
 veniences that might spring from the malice of men at the 
 present period." After having conversed with Catharine 
 herself, and observed the maturity of her thoughts, and the 
 strength of her purpose, the Fraternity decided to admit 
 her. Catharine was not beautiful. We gather from the 
 slight mention of her personal appearance, and from the 
 bust and portrait of her executed by contemporary artists, 
 that her face expressed, above all things, candour, sweetness, 
 and vigour. Her countenance was frank and open as the 
 day ; she had a habit of looking straight at everyone whom 
 she addressed ; her forehead was broad and open, a little 
 too receding for beauty ; her hair and eyebrows dark brown ; 
 her eyes a clear grey or hazel ; her nose was straight and 
 extremely delicate; her chin and jaw strong and rather 
 prominent ; her smile is continually mentioned ; a loving, 
 gracious smile, which pervaded her whole countenance, lit 
 up her eyes, and often broke into a joyous laugh. Her 
 charm was not that of positive beauty, but of kindness, 
 frankness, and grace. All her movements were full of 
 native grace. " An artist born," as Chavin de Malan says 
 
 D2
 
 36 CatJuirine of Siena. 
 
 of her, " her attitudes and manner were all unconsciously 
 artistic and beautiful." A true Italian, she used much action 
 in speaking, gesticulated freely, but not excitedly. She 
 spoke rather rapidly and in the sweetest Sienese accent ; she 
 had a particularly graceful and gracious manner towards all 
 who came to visit her, bowing low to greet them, as was the 
 custom in her time, sometimes kneeling when saluting 
 persons whom she deemed especially venerable, and then 
 seating herself by their side for frank and friendly converse. 
 Her manners, with men and women alike, outstripped some- 
 what the prescribed conventionalities of her times. Young 
 men who would come with some feeling of awe to visit the 
 far-famed saint, and not without fears concerning the inter- 
 view, were taken by surprise, gladdened and reassured by 
 her frank approach, her two hands held out for greeting, her 
 kind, sisterly smile, and the easy grace with which she 
 invited them to open their hearts. She was, in fact, a true, 
 simple, and self-forgetting woman, a frank and generous 
 friend, the " gracious lady " of Siena, who well deserved all 
 the love and all the confidence which her fellow-citizens 
 first, and afterwards the whole of Italy, lavished upon her. 
 There was nothing affected, nothing artificial about her. 
 With all her refined grace, she yet bore with her to the end 
 the simple and almost blunt manners and habits of the 
 " Daughter of the People." The honest pride in, and affec- 
 tion for her entertained by the Sienese is illustrated in the 
 various titles by which they delighted to speak of her, as 
 well as in many other expressions in regard to her. She is 
 called "the Daughter of the Republic," "the Child of the 
 People," " Our Lady of the Contrada d'Oca," " the Mantel- 
 lata," "the People's Catharine," "the Beloved Sienese," "the
 
 The Secret of her Spiritital Life. 37 
 
 Painter's Daughter," the " Beata Popolana," which may be 
 translated the "Blessed Plebeian, or Daughter of the People," 
 &c., &c. On receiving the habit of St. Dominic, she did 
 not at once enter upon an active life. Indeed, it appears 
 that it required some holy constraint to draw her out of 
 her cell and to launch her upon the stormy sea of social and 
 political life before her. 
 
 And here I must pause to speak of that great secret of 
 Catharine's spiritual life, the constant converse of her soul 
 with God. Her book, entitled " The Dialogue," represents 
 a conversation between a soul and God, mysterious and per- 
 haps meaningless to many, but to those who can understand, 
 full of revelation of the source of her power over human 
 hearts. All through her autobiography (for such her Dia- 
 logue and Letters may be called) no expressions occur more 
 frequently than such as these : " The Lord said to me," &c. 
 " My God told me to act so and so " " While I was 
 praying, my Saviour showed me the meaning of this, and 
 spoke thus to me." I shall not attempt to explain, nor shall 
 I alter this simple form of speech. It is not for us to limit 
 the possibilities of the communications and revelations 
 which the Eternal may be pleased to make to a soul which 
 continually waits upon him. If you are disposed, reader, 
 to doubt the fact of these communications from God, or to 
 think that Catharine only fancied such and such things, 
 and attributed these fancies to a divine source, then I would 
 give you one word of advice, and one only. Go you and 
 make the attempt to live a life of prayer such as she 
 lived, and then, and not till then, will you be in a posi- 
 tion which will give you any shadow of a right, or any 
 power to judge of this soul's dealings with God. But
 
 38 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 observe that a brief or fitful effort will not suffice to place 
 you in this position : you must persevere long in the diffi- 
 cult path of divine research ; you must bring to the task 
 the sustained self-denial and untiring diligence which some 
 men bring to the pursuit of discovery in natural science. 
 Let us imagine a person who had never seen a telescope, 
 and who was profoundly ignorant of the most elementary 
 laws which govern the motions of the planets, and suppose 
 this person to have stepped in between Newton and the 
 stars, and declared, " Philosopher, I do not believe what 
 you tell me of the wonderful action of these heavenly 
 bodies ; I believe you to be deceiving yourself ; I have not 
 tried any such experiments as you have tried ; and I do 
 not believe that any such experiments can conduct to any 
 such results as you speak of, even if any such experiments 
 can be made. The whole thing is beyond the range and 
 scope of my own experience, and I cannot conceive how it 
 can be true. In fact, I deny it." Such a person would be 
 pronounced unscientific at least ; perhaps he might justly 
 be called a fool. Not less unscientific is he who, never 
 having used the means for the discovery of spiritual truth, 
 and being profoundly ignorant of the most elementary 
 laws which must be understood and followed in order to 
 arrive at such truth, declares that he does not believe there 
 is a God, or does not believe that any communication can 
 be established between a creature and his Creator, and 
 attributes to delusion and fancy all that experimental 
 philosophers in divine things have told us they have 
 found and seen. Perhaps it might not be unjust to apply 
 a stronger word than unscientific also to such a one. The 
 science of which Catharine was a devotee is, let it be
 
 The Science of Prayer. 39 
 
 remembered, pre-eminently an experimental science. For 
 many, however, it is needless that I should speak thus ; nor 
 will I attempt any explanation or apology for the manner 
 in which our saint constantly speaks of that which the 
 natural eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, but which God 
 has in all times revealed to them that persistently seek him. 
 Those who have any experience of real prayer know full 
 well that in the pause of the soul before God, after it has 
 uttered its complaint, made known its desires, or sought 
 guidance in perplexity, there comes the clearer vision of 
 duty, and the still small voice of guidance is heard, rectify- 
 ing the judgment, strengthening the resolve, and consoling 
 the spirit ; they know that this influence, external to us, 
 and yet within us, gently and forcibly moves us, deals with 
 us, speaks with us, in fine. Prayer cannot be truly called 
 communion, if the only voice heard be the voice of the 
 pleader. Be still, be silent, then, dear reader, if you are dis- 
 posed to object. If i,ou have not yet heard that voice of God 
 speaking within you, it is because you have not yet pleaded 
 enough with him ; it is because you have not yet considered 
 or acted in this matter in a truly scientific manner. 
 
 Catharine now learned from our Lord that she "was 
 henceforth to banish from her heart all anxious thoughts 
 concerning herself and her own salvation," so that no dis- 
 traction should keep her back from the service of the 
 souls of others. Some presentiments, however, of ap- 
 proaching conflict seemed to have urged her at this time 
 to pray especially for the gift of fortitude, and this forti- 
 tude was soon to be severely tried. She was to pass 
 through one of those bitter conflicts, the very memory of 
 which is pain to those who have endured them. "The
 
 40 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 great enemy of man advanced to the dread assault of her 
 soul," as he did with our Lord himself when he was "alone 
 in the wilderness, and tempted of the devil." She was 
 assailed "by the most humiliating temptations, and by 
 exciting phantoms of the imagination which haunted her 
 sleeping and waking. She saw in her dreams impure orgies, 
 wherein men and women seemed to invite her by words 
 and gestures to join with them ; she was tormented in- 
 wardly ; her eyes, her ears, her soul, seemed to her to be 
 defiled." She endured combats too horrible to relate. All 
 the passion of her young southern blood seemed to rise up 
 in a fierce rebellion against her own resolution and the 
 ruggedness of the via crucis. She combated valiantly, 
 prayed the more earnestly, worked the more assiduously 
 in household work, and augmented her vigils. The enemy 
 refused to retire. She seemed to see persons who came to 
 pity and advise her. " Why, poor little one," they said, 
 " do you thus torture yourself so uselessly 1 Why all these 
 efforts and self-mortification 1 You will not be able to con- 
 tinue them ; you will destroy yourself, and become guilty 
 of suicide. It is better to renounce these austerities and 
 enjoy the world while you are young ; you are naturally 
 strong, and would soon recover health if you live as other 
 people do." To all these suggestions Catharine only op- 
 posed prayer. She afterwards gave the advice in general 
 to others in such cases, never to dispute with the enemy, 
 " for he relies," she said, " very much on vanquishing us by 
 the subtilty of his reasonings." 
 
 But this deadly trouble passed away, and then there 
 came a period of sadness and bitter conflict which ap- 
 peals far more pitifully to all our human sympathies.
 
 Conflict. 41 
 
 The woman's heart within her was beating fresh and warm : 
 she was young ; her soul was full of music and of poetic 
 imaginations; who more fitted by nature than she to realize 
 the highest and sweetest of human love 1 It was the era 
 of romance, the age of the troubadours. She had heard 
 many a fair tale of love ; the noblest of earthly lovers 
 seemed to woo her ; the vision stood near her, and looked 
 in her eyes ; his exquisite human pleadings broke in upon 
 the songs of angels, and extinguished the voice of her 
 heart's Spouse. When she slept, exhausted, she dreamed 
 herself in the midst of a sweet home her own; she 
 seemed to clasp in her arms the little infant which hung 
 upon her breast ; and waking, the woman's heart within 
 her was well-nigh broken. Her little room was filled with 
 a strange mingling of heavenly and earthly music. The 
 love-songs of the troubadours interrupted the strains of 
 the Magnificat and the penitential psalms. She had hours 
 of agonizing hesitation of will. Wise and practical coun- 
 sellors seemed to advise her : " Why be so rash as to 
 choose a life in which you cannot persevere ? Why ex- 
 tinguish within you the holy impulses of nature which 
 God has implanted in you 1 Many among the saints were 
 married. Think of Sarah and Eachel, and of many of 
 recent years; of your contemporaries; of St. Bridget, 
 Queen of Sweden, wife, mother, and prophet." But the 
 celestial wooer prevailed. The love of loves was again 
 more perfectly manifested to her, the agony was over, and 
 she fell at the feet of Jesus. 
 
 Many in our days will disapprove of Catharine's choice ; 
 it will appear to them an error, a sin even, against herself, 
 and perhaps against society ; for what greater boon, some
 
 42 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 will say, could she have bestowed than descendants who 
 would, no doubt, more or less, have inherited her own 
 nobility and genius 1 Doubtless Catharine might have 
 married, and given to the world twenty-five children, as 
 her mother Lapa did. No doubt she might have been 
 in this state the recipient and dispenser abundantly of 
 spiritual life to all around her : but she would not have 
 done the work which Catharine of Siena, the subject of 
 this biography, did : her whole soul, her whole time, the 
 whole strength of her affections would not have been 
 reserved to be lavished upon that great family for whom 
 she elected to live humanity. 
 
 I do not find that there entered into her thoughts the 
 smallest idea of merit or of reward in renouncing earthly 
 joys and human ties. The most careful search through all 
 her utterances, written or spoken, fails to reveal a single 
 word claiming to herself any merit. Her dying words give 
 the key to the faith or the philosophy which she embraced 
 from her childhood. Barduccio, one of her secretaries, who 
 gathered up her last words, tells us that when she knew she 
 was dying, "she blessed us all, and pronounced these words: 
 ' Yes, Lord, thou callest me, I come to thee ; I go to thee, 
 not on account of my merits, but solely on account of thy mercy, 
 and that mercy I have implored in the name, Jesus, of 
 thy precious blood.' " The words in italics are emphasized 
 by Barduccio himself, as if to preserve the solemnity 
 with which they were pronounced by Catharine. Nor 
 does she speak of reward, except the reward of bringing 
 blessing to her fellow-creatures. Like St. Paul, she was 
 ready "to be accursed from Christ for her brethren's 
 sake." She was ready to give up all things for the love
 
 Conflict. 43 
 
 she bore to her brethren, to humanity. Yet she knew that 
 he who labours to bring his fellow-men to God, will not be 
 required to give up the blessed reward of seeing him face 
 to face to whose feet he has brought this multitude of souls : 
 " For they that are teachers shall shine as the light, and 
 they that have brought many to righteousness, as the stars 
 for ever and ever." Had Catharine's choice been other- 
 wise, she might have been blessed indeed, yet would have 
 missed the peculiar blessing of those of whom Christ spake 
 emphatically, who have " left father and mother, and wife 
 and children, and houses and lands, for my sake, and for 
 the gospel." And what was that peculiar blessing 1 In 
 her case, at least, it was a greater power power to win, to 
 convert, to suffer, to rule, to command, for the salvation of 
 erring man, and for the glory of God. 
 
 For a time peace was granted to the soul of Catharine 
 after this prolonged conflict of many weeks. But " the 
 infernal foe," as the mediaeval historians have it, "annoyed 
 at her perseverance and victory," again " changed his 
 weapons," and recommenced his tortures. A still darker 
 period arrived, in which her sufferings were such as 
 almost to deprive her of reason. Diabolical beings seemed 
 to pursue her with screams, inviting her to partake in 
 their abominations; the most cynical suggestions were 
 poured into her mind, and to crown her affliction, her 
 divine helper, who had usually in the worst moments 
 made his sustaining presence felt by her, now seemed to 
 have forsaken her, and she was left with no relief, visible 
 or invisible ; her soul was plunged into a profound melan- 
 choly, and the strength to continue in prayer seemed 
 about to forsake her. She now summoned all her energy,
 
 44 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 adjured her own soul, so to speak, to renew and to multiply 
 its efforts in prayer, instead of diminishing them. She cast 
 herself at the feet of God, determined not to murmur, but 
 patiently to await his return and help. Her little room at 
 the Fullonica seemed to be " infested with these impure 
 spirits ; " she therefore wisely left it, and remained as long 
 as possible in the church on the hill, where these " infernal 
 obsessions tormented her less." Here she continued for the 
 greater part of three days engaged in constant prayer. The 
 evil spirit seemed still to taunt her, saying, " Poor miserable 
 creature, thou canst never pass thy whole life in this state ; 
 we will torment thee to death, unless thou dost obey us." 
 Catharine replied with patience, yet with determination, 
 " Be it so ; I have chosen suffering for Christ's sake, and I 
 am willing, if need be, to endure this till death." Imme- 
 diately on pronouncing this determination, a great light 
 seemed to descend from above, filling the place where she 
 kneeled with heavenly brightness. The devils left her, and 
 One better than the angels came and ministered to her. The 
 Lord Jesus himself drew nigh to her, and conversed with her 
 of her trial and her victory. But she, like St. Anthony, 
 said to him, " Lord, where wast thou when my heart was 
 so tormented 1 " "I was in the midst of thy heart," he 
 replied. "Ah, Lord," she answered, "thou art everlast- 
 ing Truth, and I humbly bow before thy word ; but how 
 can I believe that thou wert in my heart when it was filled 
 with such detestable thoughts 1 " The Lord asked her, 
 " Did these thoughts and temptations give thee pleasure or 
 pain?" "An exceeding pain and sadness," she replied; 
 to whom the Lord : " Thou wast in woe and sadness, be- 
 cause I was hidden in the midst of thy heart; my pre-
 
 The Victory. 45 
 
 sence it was which rendered those thoughts insupportable 
 to thee ; thou didst strive to repel them, because they filled 
 thee with horror, and because thou didst not succeed, thy 
 spirit was bowed down with sorrow. When the period 
 which I had determined for the duration of the combat had 
 elapsed, I sent forth the beams of my light, and the shades 
 of hell were dispelled, because they cannot resist that light. 
 Because thou hast accepted these trials with thy whole 
 heart, thou art delivered from them for ever ; it is not thy 
 trouble that pleases me, but the will that has supported 
 that trouble courageously." Catharine was now absorbed 
 in a joy which could find no expression in words. She had 
 asked the gift of fortitude, and she saw that her request 
 had been granted. "This generous young athlete," says 
 Raymond, "thus combated alone in the arena," and return- 
 ing victorious, became for the future a fit teacher and guide 
 of men, to whom among all her counsels she gave most 
 frequently this, " Quit yourselves like men ; be strong in 
 the Lord, and in the power of his might." 1 She never 
 again suffered from a renewal of this form of temptation. 
 
 It was shortly after the cessation of this conflict that 
 Catharine entered into that yet more intimate covenant 
 with the Saviour of her soul, the recital of which to some 
 of her friends became the occasion of the propagation of 
 the legend immortalized by so many Italian painters of 
 the mystical marriage of St. Catharine. The pictures 
 
 1 Tommaseo remarks on the frequency in Catharine's letters to 
 princes and potentates, and men of every degree, of the use of the 
 words " virile " and " virilmente," and of her charges to women as 
 well as to men to act in a manly spirit.
 
 46 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 generally represent the Virgin Mary guiding the hand of 
 the Child Jesus to place on the finger of Catharine a ring, 
 which was to be a sign of her divine espousals. Fra 
 Bartolommeo, himself a Dominican, was the first to put 
 the idea on canvas. One of the most beautiful and often 
 repeated works of Correggio is the " Marriage of St. Catha- 
 rine." One of these is in the Studj Gallery at Naples. 
 Other repetitions are at St. Petersburg, in the gallery of 
 the Capitol at Rome, and in other places. Catharine's own 
 account of this dream or vision which she had is very 
 simple. She saw her Saviour approach, and place on her 
 finger a ring, on which blazed a diamond of unearthly 
 purity and beauty. He had said to her, " I, thy Creator 
 and Redeemer, espouse thee in faith and love. Preserve 
 this token in purity, until we celebrate in the presence of 
 the Father, the eternal nuptials of the Lamb. Daughter, 
 now acquit thyself courageously ; perform with a dauntless 
 spirit the works which my providence will assign to thee ; 
 thou shalt triumph over all enemies. " She had been long and 
 intensely dwelling upon the words spoken by our Lord to 
 his disciples, " With desire have I desired to eat this Pass- 
 over with you ; " and she had realized in all its extent and 
 meaning what she had given up in order to be more entirely 
 the servant of God and of humanity. That her heavenly 
 Guide should have at this moment granted her such strong 
 consolation and such a perfect sense of mutual recognition 
 and union between her spirit and his, was consistent with the 
 infinite loving-kindness and fidelity with which he treats 
 the souls which give up all for the kingdom of heaven's 
 sake. 
 
 About this time Catharine taught herself to read, for
 
 Her Progress in Knowledge, 47 
 
 she had had hitherto no knowledge whatever of letters. 
 She desired to be able to study for herself the Scriptures, 
 especially the Psalms and Gospels, as well as the lives and 
 writings of the fathers, confessors, and martyrs. She 
 learned with such rapidity that her friends declared that 
 the angel Gabriel himself had come down to her cell with a 
 spelling-book to teach her, for nothing but a miracle, they 
 thought, could account for her sudden accession of learning. 
 It was not till many years later that she learned to 
 write ; and yet some Italian writers rank this woman with 
 Petrarch and Boccaccio, as one of those who " formed the 
 Italian language, such as it was in the fourteenth century." 
 The dignity and beauty of her language have even led 
 writers to compare her style, not unfavourably, with that 
 of Dante. She wrote several poems of some merit ; but 
 her books, in which her own " philosophy " is set forth, 
 her letters, many of which are preserved to us, and her 
 written prayers, afford the chief justification for the high 
 opinion formed of her powers as an author by her con- 
 temporaries and by later historians. 
 
 Up to this period she had never been under the direction 
 of any spiritual pastor or guide. Raymond says : " He 
 whom she loved gave her neither an angel nor a man to 
 be her director, but appeared to her himself in her little 
 cell, and taught her all that was most needful for her to 
 know. 'Be assured, father,' she said to me one day, 
 ' that nothing that I have learned concerning God and our 
 salvation was taught me by man ; it was my Master, our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, who revealed it to me by his in- 
 spirations.' " This Raymond of Capua, so often quoted, 
 did not make her acquaintance until the period of the
 
 48 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 plague of 1373 in Siena, when Catharine was twenty-six 
 years of age. Raymond was, indeed, one of the spiritual 
 sons of Catharine, having been a mere formal functionary 
 of the Church up to the time of his acquaintance with 
 her. He afterwards became her intimate friend and fellow- 
 labourer, and finally her biographer ; but more of this 
 hereafter. 
 
 With this part of Catharine's history terminates her 
 silent and retired life. We shall now see how she was 
 gradually drawn among the busy haunts of men, how she 
 was claimed as a guide to consciences, and called to public 
 action as a counsellor and diplomatist.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE Sienese manifested from the earliest period of their 
 history the proud spirit of independence which character- 
 ized them throughout. Tacitus tells how they drove out 
 the senator Manlius Patruitus, and how the Roman Govern- 
 ment was obliged by a solemn decree to teach them a lesson 
 of humility. 1 When the tide of the Gothic invasion had 
 swept over Italy, the Northern conquerors set their affec- 
 tions more especially on fair Tuscany, and sought to establish 
 themselves in her plains and mountains, always preferring 
 the country to the cities. Siena, gathering herself together, 
 so to speak, with all her force, succeeded in preserving her- 
 self from the foreign influence, and maintained throughout 
 the dark ages her own municipal administration. Her 
 inhabitants continued to live by industry, manufactures, 
 and the arts. From the eighth to the tenth century was 
 the period of the lowest state of political and spiritual servi- 
 tude for Italy. Siena, with other powerful cities, received, 
 however, during that period, the training of misfortune, and 
 
 i "Additumque senatus consultum, quo Senesium plebes modes- 
 tiaeadmoneretur." TACITUS, hist., Lib. iv., Tom. iii.
 
 50 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 emerging from it, strove for and won many rights and 
 franchises. She declared herself independent, and became 
 the first city of Tuscany. She maintained for a long time 
 this place of honour, although she had an illustrious rival in 
 the republic of Florence, which afterwards eclipsed her. A 
 long series of conflicts between the Florentines and the 
 Sienese succeeded the first great rupture between the two 
 republics in 1082. 
 
 The internal administration of the republic of Siena was 
 as follows : The city was divided into three portions, called 
 the Tierce of the City, the Tierce of Cauiollia, and the 
 Tierce of St. Martin. Each Tierce had its own banner, and 
 its auxiliaries in the country around. The poet Tondi sang 
 of the valour of the citizens of Siena, ranged under their 
 three banners. There then came a subdivision of the 
 inhabitants, which was according to the arts or trades. 
 There were the Great Arts and the Inferior Arts. The 
 seven great arts comprised jurists and notaries, merchants 
 in foreign tissues, bankers or exchangers, clothiers, physi- 
 cians, chemists, and merchants in silk and in furs. The 
 inferior arts were those of retail clothiers, butchers, sad- 
 dlers, shoemakers, and masons. Each division of the 
 Great Arts had its council, a chief magistrate or consul 
 for the administration of justice in that division, and 
 its gonfalonier, or standard-bearer, around whom it ral- 
 lied in times of battle. There was no paid or permanent 
 army, but every citizen bore arms in time of war. Com- 
 merce, which was the source of the wealth of the Italian 
 republics of the Middle Ages, was also in a great mea- 
 sure the source of their independence. The rich bour- 
 geoisie supplied the cavalry for war ; no " cavaliere "
 
 Civil Life in Siena. 51 
 
 was admitted into the army till he had passed a severe 
 novitiate in military exercises, supplemented by pilgrim- 
 ages, fasts, and trials of moral and physical strength. "He 
 then," says Brantome, " spent the night in vigil and prayer ; 
 in the morning he was clothed in a white tunic, emblematic 
 of the purity of life which he was expected henceforth to 
 maintain." The infantry, drawn from the representatives 
 of the Inferior Arts, also passed through a novitiate which 
 tested their valour and skill. In the centre of the repub- 
 lican army was the famous Carroccio, a car upon four 
 wheels, drawn by four pairs of oxen covered to the feet in 
 rich cloths. A horn or " antenna " rose from the centre of 
 the car to a great height, upon which floated the standard 
 of the republic, with its device of a golden lion, not ram- 
 pant, but marching forward ; x a fitting device, " for these 
 intrepid artisans were never known to flee." Lower down, 
 about the middle of the antenna, a Christ upon the Cross, 
 with outspread arms, seemed to bless the army. A kind 
 of platform in the front of the car was reserved for the 
 most valiant soldiers, told off for its defence; behind was 
 another platform for the trumpeters and musicians. An 
 act of religious consecration and worship was celebrated 
 upon the car before it left the city, and white-robed priests 
 accompanied it to the battle-field. As the Carroccio of 
 Siena, drawn by the large mild -eyed oxen of Tuscany, 
 wound its way through the gates and down the sloping 
 olive-clothed hills from the city, crowds followed its course 
 with straining eyes, from the walls and ramparts and house- 
 tops. The loss of the Carroccio was to the republic like 
 
 l "Non rampante, ma caminante." TOMMASI, Historia di Siena. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 the loss of the Ark of the Lord to the Hebrews the 
 greatest public calamity ; and all that each city possessed 
 of most valorous, the nerve and flower of the army, was 
 chosen to act as the guard of the sacred car ; the fiercest of 
 the conflict was waged around it ; and its presence often 
 decided the fate of the battle. It was looked upon with 
 superstitious reverence, and by a law of the republic a lamp 
 was caused to burn night and day before the car which bore 
 the destinies of the people. The Carroccio had a great 
 influence upon military art in Italy. It was necessary to 
 make the city infantry redoubtable, in order to resist the 
 feudal cavalry, to give them firmness, equilibrium, weight, 
 and self-reliance. Their evolutions must be measured and 
 deliberate, even their retreat slow and well-ordered ; all 
 must needs be harmonized with the strong and steady 
 march of the oxen of the Apennines. 
 
 In 1260 a great battle was fought between the rival 
 republics of Florence and Siena. During the fiercest hour 
 of the action, near the Castle of Montaperti, " an unusual 
 alarm and disorder appeared in the Florentine ranks ; sud- 
 denly many soldiers dropped their arms and stood still, 
 each under the delusion that he was betrayed by his com- 
 rade." 1 Jacopo del Nacca, the brave gonfalonier of Florence, 
 rallied his followers and held aloft his standard, until his 
 own treacherous countryman Bocca degli Abbati cut off his 
 right hand, and he and his colours fell together. 
 
 It was a great victory for the Sienese, who returned 
 triumphant to their city with troops of prisoners ; the 
 captive soldiers gathered round the women who had 
 
 1 Villani, Lib. vi.
 
 Victory of the. Sienese over tJie Florentines. 53 
 
 carried out bread to the army, imploring their protection ; 
 the bells rang and the people rejoiced; young girls pre- 
 sented bread and wine to the wearied soldiers ; and the 
 victorious army marched to the great cathedral to give 
 thanks to God in solemn anthems. In that cathedral there 
 may be seen to this day the antenna of the Florentine Car- 
 roccio, firmly riveted to one of the pillars, a memento of 
 the military greatness of an extinct republic. 1 When the 
 dust and the passion of the battle had subsided, the results 
 were reckoned up. Florence had lost 10,000 men ; the 
 river Arbia had rolled its waves, reddened with blood, over 
 heaps of slain ; and " the flowers on its banks remained 
 faded all that year;" there were 15,000 captives; the 
 Florentine Carroccio had been taken; and the "beautiful 
 city sitting upon her hills, wept, disconsolate." It was the 
 memory of this defeat which Dante, some years later, in 
 the bitterness of his exile from his beloved Florence, 
 recalled to his countrymen, in his great poem, where the 
 Tuscan Camiccione asks the poet, with tears, if he desires 
 to wound him by reviving the memory of that terrible 
 
 day : 
 
 "Piangendo mi sgrido ; perche mi peste ? 
 Se tu non vieni a crescer la vendetta 
 Di Mont 'Aperti, perche mi molesti ? " Inferno, xxxii. 
 
 At the close of the twelfth century Siena exchanged its 
 modest municipal government for the dignity of a consu- 
 late. In less than eighty years this form of government 
 expired ; the rivalries of the Guelphs and Ghibellines 
 hastened its ruin; and towards the end of the thirteenth 
 century the last consul, Ugurgieri, was driven forth from 
 
 1 Chavin de Malau.
 
 54 CatJiarine of Siena. 
 
 the city gates with execration, and the clerk of the city 
 exchequer paid ten florins to the artisans Avho provided the 
 ropes and grappling-irons by which they pulled down and 
 demolished his house. The chiefs of the popular party now 
 took the management of affairs into their own hands, and 
 in order, if possible, to shut out the nobles henceforth from 
 all share in the government, they established a cunningly- 
 devised system of elections which would insure the future 
 members of the government being exclusively of the ple- 
 beian class. The government was composed of nine persons, 
 three from each of the Tierces of the city. This govern- 
 ment, or signory, was called the " Mount of the Nine." 
 The elections were so managed that the sovereign authority 
 became in effect the monopoly of fewer than a hundred 
 citizens ; this was a violation of the ancient charter of the 
 city. The Nine soon became a kind of " Oligarchy of the 
 Inferior Arts." They became odious to the nobility who 
 were excluded from all share in the administration, and 
 finally lost the confidence of the mass of the people them- 
 selves, who resented the outrage upon the constitution of the 
 republic. The three principal Guelph republics of Tuscany, 
 i.e., Florence, Siena, and Perugia, ought, by an understood 
 agreement which had been formed, to have made common 
 cause in defence of their liberties ; but the Nine failed in 
 their allegiance to their allies. The widely-feared and ill- 
 famed family of the Visconti, Dukes of Milan, already 
 possessors of almost the whole of Lombardy, dreamed of 
 a day when they should bear rule over the whole of 
 Italy ; they were the enemies of the peace of the country 
 and the scourge of its inhabitants for nearly a century. 
 The Nine of Siena were discovered to have made some
 
 The Emperor Charles IV. enters Siena. 55 
 
 secret overtures to this ambitious family, actuated by 
 selfish political motives, and in fear of the increasing dis- 
 affection of the people of Siena. This increased the anger 
 of the Sienese, and especially of the division of the Inferior 
 Arts, upon which more especially the Nine had brought 
 dishonour by their acts. This state of things lasted till 
 the year 1355, when Charles IV., Emperor of Germany, 
 entered Siena on his way through Italy to be crowned 
 King of Rome. The terrible internal wars and troubles 
 of Italy had drawn upon her the ambitious regard of the 
 German sovereigns. " The yellow-haired German never 
 crossed the Alps except with the view of conquest ; he 
 thought it would be an easy thing to leap into the empty 
 saddle of the wild horse of the Apennines, to master its 
 fury, and render it obedient to his rule." * Charles IV. 
 was an intriguing and greedy prince, possessing little 
 courage ; all his negotiations with the Italians were 
 deceitful ; he had no intention of embracing their quar- 
 rels ; he made fictitious alliances with all the Northern 
 Italian republics, and while treating in a friendly manner 
 with the enemies of the Visconti, he was receiving the 
 ambassadors of the great Duke of Milan and drawing up 
 conditions of alliance with him also. He believed he 
 should thus remove every obstacle to his triumphal march 
 to Rome, to be crowned king of the imperial city, this 
 title having being conferred on him by Pope Innocent VI., 
 with a promise of making it a reality. The Sienese, who 
 cared little about the personal designs or prospects of 
 
 Dante apostrophizes Italy as " The riderless horse of the 
 Apennines," and asks, " What does it avail thee that Justinian 
 adjusted thy bridle if thy saddle is empty ? "
 
 56 CatJiarine of Siena. 
 
 Charles, took advantage of his passing through Siena in 
 order to enable them to cast off the hated yoke of the Nine, 
 which they had endured for seventy years. The moment 
 he entered the city he was greeted by cries of " Welcome 
 the Emperor ! Down with the Nine ! " Charles was 
 greatly alarmed ; he came seeking allies who would streng- 
 then him, not a people with a grievance who would seek 
 his help. He looked about him eagerly to try and dis- 
 cover, without delay, which was likely to prove the stronger 
 party in this divided State, in order that he might give his 
 royal countenance to that, independently of the justice of 
 the question contended. His sympathies were with those 
 actually in power ; but, on the other side he saw the chiefs 
 of the nobility of Siena, who had thrown in their lot with 
 the people to rid themselves of the oligarchy of the Inferior 
 Arts. Among these there were the Tolomei, the Malavolti, 
 the Piccolomini, the Sarracini, and the Salimbeni. The last 
 were a powerful race, " as hard as oak," an immense tribe, 
 and proud of their fecundity. He saw rich merchants and 
 the mass of the humbler people also ranked against the 
 government. This party was evidently the one on whose 
 side he should declare himself. Charles made no effort, 
 therefore, to check the popular revolution, and by the 
 third day the sedition had assumed a very serious charac- 
 ter. All business ceased; ateliers were closed; the streets 
 were barricaded ; the Nine, shut up in the palace of 
 the Signory, sent to the Emperor to implore his aid. 
 The Emperor came, rode his horse into the palace, and 
 commanded the Nine to give up to him the seals of office ; 
 he bade them release him from a promise he had made 
 before his arrival to maintain their authority, asked for
 
 Revolutions and Political Change. 57 
 
 the charters he had given them, and burnt them before 
 their eyes. The people forced the prisons, freed the 
 prisoners, entered the church in which were kept the 
 banners of the Nine, and dragged them through the mud 
 of the streets. The cry was heard on all sides, " Down 
 with the tyrants ! let them die the death !" The houses of 
 the ruling faction were burnt to the ground, their persons 
 insulted, and several of them murdered. 1 
 
 The humble industries of the Contrada d'Oca suffered at 
 this time with all other industrial and commercial interests. 
 The workshop of Giacomo was closed. Catharine's two 
 eldest brothers, Benincasa and Bartolommeo, were old 
 enough to join in the popular revolt, and they, with the 
 other apprentices of Giacomo, had left their wool-dyeing 
 for the crowded streets. Catharine was then eight years 
 old, of an age to understand her just and gentle father's 
 comments on the events passing before them; none more 
 than he resented the violation by the Nine of the con- 
 stitutional rights of the people, but in him indignation was 
 always tempered with mercy. Catharine, in her visits to 
 the church of the Friar Preachers, saw the aisles silent and 
 deserted ; the benches, wooden chairs, and every available 
 portion of the church furniture had been removed for 
 building barricades in the narrow streets. All that she 
 saw and heard contributed to encourage in the young girl 
 the strong republican love of liberty, and to confirm her in 
 the conviction that human life is no holiday pastime, but a 
 prolonged struggle between opposing elements, for nations 
 as well as for the individual. 
 
 1 Murabori, Vol. xv. t p. 148,
 
 58 CatJutrine of Siena. 
 
 When the first excitement of the revolution had been 
 partly subdued, the Emperor, acting on the counsels of some 
 of the popular citizens and nobles, appointed thirty com- 
 missioners to make inquiry with a view to the reform of the 
 government, and continued on his way towards Rome. On 
 his return he found Siena still in a state of revolution. The 
 people had excluded to perpetuity the order of the Nine 
 from all participation in the government. They had elevated 
 in their place twelve magistrates, chosen from the bourgeoisie. 
 The Emperor did not favour the change, seeing that it 
 promised no advantage to himself. He proposed to give 
 to the Eepublic an arbitrator, or chief, to act as a 
 moderator between the different parties, and succeeded in 
 persuading the people to accept, in this capacity, his natural 
 brother, the Bishop of Prague and Patriarch of Aquileia, 
 who was then in his suite. The instinct of liberty, so 
 strong in this people, led them to suspect and revolt 
 against this arrangement almost as soon as it was com- 
 pleted. It was an unpleasant sight to them to see the 
 blonde face of the German Patriarch at the windows of 
 the Pallazzo Pubblico; and they sent him to live in a 
 private house. A sense of general uneasiness prevailed, 
 and the Patriarch could not move or speak without giving 
 offence. On the 14th of May, 1355, some incident occurred 
 which excited the anger of the people ; the hot sun of the 
 approaching summer stimulating the passions already so 
 turbulent. They fixed iron chains across every street to 
 stop the cavalry which guarded the Patriarch, and forced 
 him in person to recall the lately-appointed and superseded 
 Twelve to the Pallazzo. Charles was then at Pisa; he 
 confessed himself in fear and terror of these obstinate
 
 Continuance of Political Conflicts. 59 
 
 republicans, and wrote from Pisa that the Patriarch must 
 be sent to him, safe and sound, and that without delay. 1 
 "The Patriarch placed his resignation in the hands of the 
 people, gave back to the republican officers all the neigh- 
 bouring castles which he had garrisoned, and decamped, 
 to the great relief of the Sienese, who re-established the 
 Twelve, and returned to their merchandise and workshops." 
 Thirteen years later, in 1368, a fresh revolution took 
 place. The Twelve had, in this interval, become as 
 tyrannical and hateful to the people as the Nine had 
 been ; but they were still more detested by the ancient 
 nobility. The two great families of the Tolomei and the 
 Salimbeni, living in their fortified chateaux in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Siena, called together all their vassals, and 
 marching to the city, demanded the possession of the 
 Pallazzo Pubblico and the reins of government. The 
 Twelve retired in terror, without a conflict; the nobles, 
 masters of the Eepublic, proclaimed the restoration of 
 the Consulate of the twelfth century. Ten consuls were 
 chosen by them from among themselves, and three from 
 the number of the proscribed Nine. The people could 
 not, however, accept their own exclusion from all share in 
 the government, and revolted ; both parties had recourse 
 again to the Emperor Charles. Charles, promising his 
 protection to all, caused to be installed at Siena, as his 
 imperial vicar, Malatesta Unghero, with a guard of eight 
 hundred German soldiers ; the nobles vigorously opposed 
 this step ; they defended their rights to a supreme part in 
 the government, and resorting again to arms, they fought 
 
 1 Muratori.
 
 60 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 during one long clay in the streets, and not until they had 
 been beaten from gate to gate of the city, did they retire 
 to their country castles. The popular party, now in the 
 ascendant, set themselves the task of constituting a new 
 form of government, and establishing a just distribution of 
 political rights among the different orders of the State. 
 Not desiring to obliterate their past, they recognized the 
 existence of the Nine, and that of the Twelve, by the 
 election, from their ranks, of a certain number of members 
 of the new administration. They created, however, a new 
 and more numerous order, largely recruited from the popular 
 party, and this order received the name of the Keformers. 
 The Twelve, still smarting under their recent deprivation 
 of power, began, however, at once a series of intrigues 
 with the view of recovering the supreme authority. They 
 eagerly entertained the secret propositions of the Emperor 
 Charles, who had formed a plan to sell Siena, and several 
 other Tuscan cities, to the Pope. Charles needed money 
 above all things; he had left his crown of gold in pawn 
 with the Florentines for one thousand six hundred florins, 
 and was anxious to redeem it. The city of Siena, which 
 he was plotting to betray, had already lent him a large 
 sum of money. Seeing that he could count on the 
 alliance of the party of the Twelve, and of the numerous 
 tribe of the Salimbeni, who had deserted the side of 
 the nobles and joined the Twelve, he marched towards 
 Siena, and haughtily demanded that the great Castle of 
 Talamone, and four other strong fortresses surrounding 
 Siena, should be delivered up to him. These fortresses, 
 and especially that of Talamone, were the necessary de- 
 fences of the Sienese against attacks from without. The
 
 Republican Victory. 61 
 
 government of the Reformers rejected the demand. Diplo- 
 macy having failed, Charles resorted to force. In January, 
 1369, the party of the Twelve and the Salimbeni had offered 
 a direct insult to three members of the new government, 
 and endeavoured to drive them out of the Pallazzo Pubblico; 
 at the same moment the Emperor, armed from head to 
 foot, marched with his German troops to the aid of his 
 representative, Malatesta Unghero ; the Cardinal Guy de 
 Montfort, who had come to collect the spoils of treason, 
 rode by Charles's side. The Reformers stood firm ; they 
 sounded the tocsin, and the "Captain of the People," 
 Mattenio Menzano, made a dashing attack upon the 
 German army. The enraged people joined in the fray ; 
 Malatesta and his troop were driven back. The Emperor, 
 who had advanced as far as the Croce del Travaglio, was 
 impetuously attacked by the artisan militia ; his Germans 
 took to flight after some hard fighting, and he himself took 
 refuge in the palace of the Tolomei ; for seven hours he de- 
 fended himself there, until the slain of both parties choked 
 up the entrances and the streets near the palace. He was 
 finally forced from this retreat into the stronger castle of 
 the Salimbeni. Towards evening a complete victory wa& 
 proclaimed for the Republic. The honour of this victory 
 belongs to the illustrious plebeian Menzano, the captain, 
 or tribune, of the people. Menzano was a man justly 
 esteemed, even by his foes. Malavolti, the chronicler of 
 Siena, and a noble, remarks, with aristocratic insolence, 
 " This man, Menzano, although a plebeian, was a man of 
 a great soul, and very valiant." Menzano entreated the 
 Emperor to quit the city, and "in order to render this 
 entreaty more efficacious, he published, with sound of.
 
 62 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 trumpet, a declaration forbidding anyone to furnish Charles 
 or his soldiers with food." Neri di Donate, a contem- 
 porary plebeian historian, gives the following account of 
 the humiliation of Charles: "The Emperor was alone in 
 the Salimbeni Palace, a prey to the most abject fear. The 
 eyes of the whole people were turned upon him ; he wept, 
 he sobbed, he apologized, he embraced everyone who 
 came near him, protesting that he had been betrayed by 
 Malatesta, by the Salimbeni, by the Twelve. ... At 
 the same time he was treating, as well as he could, with the 
 government and the people alike, offering freely his for- 
 giveness, and many more favours than anyone asked of 
 him. Trembling from head to foot, and half dead with 
 hunger, he seemed to have lost his head ; he wished to get 
 away, but could not, having neither horses nor money. 
 Menzano then restored to Charles a portion of what he had 
 lost. Scarcely had this relief been accorded him when 
 Charles regained a degree of his old assurance, and de- 
 manded, in consideration of the affronts he had endured 
 and the favours he had granted, a sum of twenty thousand 
 florins, payable in four years. The Sienese consented, and 
 flung him the first year's contribution on the spot, on condi- 
 tion that he would leave the city that moment, which he did." 
 The Sienese had fought nobly for their liberties, and 
 against imperial treachery ; it was long, however, before 
 the agitation subsided, and the citizens could return to 
 their industrial occupations. Such was the great revolu- 
 tion which confirmed the freedom of the Republic in the 
 days of Catharine of Siena, and during which she was more 
 than once summoned by her fellow-citizens to act as a 
 pacificator.
 
 Industrial Disturbance in Siena, 63 
 
 These revolutions which had their heroic side, had also 
 their bad side. They tended to estrange from each other the 
 different classes of citizens. The "Popolo Minuto," or class 
 of the Inferior Arts, were the first to suffer : political strife 
 invaded the workshops and created suspicion between the 
 working people and the manufacturers. The workmen in 
 the manufactories of woollen stuffs revolted against their 
 employers ; they demanded a greater share in public affairs, 
 arid formed themselves into a band or trades-union, which 
 was foremost in acts of violence during this revolution. A 
 long conflict between the Great Arts and the Inferior Arts 
 ensued, the last act of the drama being the execution of the 
 Captain of the people and the Gonfalonier of the city in 
 1371. Commerce was almost ruined, and a great number 
 of families emigrated, carrying their industries to other 
 cities : amongst others, the family of Catharine went to 
 establish their art in Florence ; her three brothers, Benin- 
 casa, Bartolommeo, and Stephen, appear to have settled in 
 Florence on the death of their father, which occurred dur- 
 ing these times of commercial depression. The widowed 
 Lapa, with Catharine, and some others of the family, 
 remained in the old house at Siena ; Catharine's niece, the 
 eldest daughter of Benincasa, although still very young, 
 was esteemed sufficiently skilful and prudent to take the 
 management of a Fullonica, or wool-dyer's establishment, 
 in Siena. Possibly she carried on a portion of the business 
 in her grandfather's premises, when her father migrated to 
 Florence ; or she may have opened an establishment of her 
 own. Many of Catharine's letters during this period are 
 addressed to her three brothers in Florence, from her own 
 little room in Siena.
 
 64 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Another unfavourable result of these popular revolutions 
 was the gradual extinction of the nobility of the Apennines, 
 which was a valuable element in Tuscan life. That nobility 
 served to curb the excesses of the democracy of the cities ; 
 (this is acknowledged by Tommasi and other democratic 
 historians) ; they offered an asylum to all citizens banished 
 for their opinions, they encouraged the cultivation of the 
 soil, and endowed the Republic with a flourishing agricul- 
 ture. 1 Many of these noble families were of a character 
 worthy of their high descent ; some of them lived in great 
 simplicity and virtue, having profited by the lessons of 
 adversity learned in their exile. Dante has immortalized 
 the chivalrous Salvani, who came down one day from his 
 mountain home, and appeared in the great square of Siena, 
 where, forcibly repressing his native pride, he kneeled down, 
 and continued kneeling until by his humble attitude he had 
 moved the proud people to release from political imprison- 
 ment a blood relation of his own. The people, touched by 
 his prayers, threw down before him, piece by piece, the ten 
 thousand florins of gold required for the prisoner's ransom. 
 Dante, with his own proud soul bitterly wounded by unjust 
 exile, has well described the repressed scorn and the mortal 
 " trembling in the veins " of the proud gentleman forced to 
 beg for so touching and so honourable a cause. 2 
 
 The chief biographer of Catharine records concerning 
 her, that apparently about the year 1364 or 1365, "the 
 Lord engaged her little by little to mix herself up with 
 her brethren and sisters in this earthly exile." The first 
 charge given to her by her divine guide in regard to her 
 
 1 Clmvin de Malan. 2 Purgatorio, xi.
 
 She fears to leave lier Solitude. 65 
 
 entrance into active life, would not seem to us a very for- 
 midable one : " Go, quickly, my daughter," the divine 
 monitor said, "it is the hour of the family repast ; join thy 
 parents and thy family ; remain with them, and I will be 
 with thee." But Catharine had lived so long in solitude, 
 that to her mind such a step appeared as a very grave one, 
 as an exchange of a life of perpetual prayer for one of 
 dangerous and worldly interests and occupations. The 
 family was very numerous; and several of her father's 
 apprentices lodged in the house. There was much busy 
 life at the Fullonica, much coming and going, and constant 
 intercourse with workmen, traders, and manufacturers of 
 Siena and other cities. Catharine burst into tears on hearing 
 this injunction of her Lord. "Wherein have I offended 
 thee, my God ? " she cried, " that thou dost send me from 
 thee 1 What should I do at table 1 It is not by bread 
 alone that man lives : are not the words that proceed out of 
 thy mouth far better to impart vigour and energy to the 
 soul of a pilgrim ? Thou knowest better than I that I fled 
 from the society of men that I might find thee, my Lord 
 and my God; and must I now mingle anew in worldly affairs, 
 to fall again into my former worldliness and stupidity, and 
 perhaps offend against thee 1" Then the Lord answered her. 
 The answer, she told her confessor in reply to his question- 
 ing, " was not given in these very words ; but these," she 
 said, " are the things which he made me to understand as 
 the expression of his will concerning me." The words, 
 (given as translated from the "Acta Sanctorum" of the 
 Bollandists), were as follows : " Be calm, my child ; thou 
 must accomplish all justice, that my grace may become 
 fruitful in thee and ill others. I desire not that thou 
 
 F
 
 66 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 shouldst be separated from me ; on the contrary, I desire 
 that thou shouldst become more closely united to me by 
 charity towards thy fellow creatures. Thou knowest that 
 love has two commandments, to love me and to love thy 
 neighbour. I desire that thou shouldst Avalk, not on one, 
 but on two feet, and fly to heaven on two wings. Call to 
 mind that from thy infancy I have encouraged thee by my 
 spirit in zeal for the salvation of souls. This zeal increased 
 in thy heart so much, that thou didst wish to disguise thyself 
 as a man, to enter into the order of preachers, arid go forth 
 into foreign countries, so that thou mightest become useful 
 to souls. Why then dost thou wonder and grieve if I now 
 lead thee to that which thou hast desired from thy child- 
 hood ? " Then Catharine answered : " Lord, not my will, 
 but thine be done ; for I am only darkness and thou art all 
 light. But I beseech thee, Lord, if I presume not too 
 much, how shall that be done which thou hast said, and how 
 can I, who am so miserable and so fragile, be useful to my 
 fellow creatures 1 for my sex is an obstacle, as thou, Lord, 
 knowest, through many causes, as well because it is con- 
 temptible in men's eyes, as because propriety forbids me any 
 freedom of converse with the other sex." To whom the 
 Lord, as the angel Gabriel to Mary: "The word impossible 
 belongeth not to God : am not I he who created the human 
 race, who formed both man and woman ? I pour out the 
 favour of my spirit on whom I will. With me there is 
 neither male nor female, neither plebeian nor noble, but all 
 are equal before me ; and I can do all things equally well ; 
 it is as easy for me to create an angel as the lowest insect, 
 the whole host of heaven as one worm. It is written 
 concerning me that I have done whatsoever I will; and
 
 She is directed towards an Active Life. 67 
 
 nothing that is intelligible can be impossible to me. Why, 
 therefore, dost thou ponder concerning how this thing is to 
 be done ? Dost thou think that I cannot accomplish 
 what I have resolved upon 1 But, inasmuch as I know that 
 thou hast spoken thus, not because of faithlessness, but 
 through humility, I will answer thee. I desire thee then 
 to know that at the present time the pride of man has 
 become so great especially in those who esteem themselves 
 to be learned and wise that my justice can no longer bear 
 with them, and is about to visit them with a just chastise- 
 ment. But, because I love mercy, and because my pity is 
 ever over all my works, I will first send to them a salutary 
 and useful confusion, that they may acknowledge their 
 error and humble themselves ; even as I did with the Jews 
 and Gentiles when I sent them simple persons filled by me 
 with divine wisdom. Yes, I will send to them women, 
 unlearned, and by nature fragile, but filled by my grace 
 with courage and power, for the confusion of their froward- 
 ness. If the) 7 acknowledge their error and humble 
 themselves, I will cause my pity and mercy to increase 
 towards them, that is, towards those who shall receive with 
 reverence my messengers, and obey my teaching conveyed 
 to them by these frail but chosen vessels. But if they 
 contemn this rebuke designed for their healing, I will visit 
 them with so many humiliations that they will become a 
 by-word to the whole world ; for herein is the most just 
 and most frequent punishment of the proud, that whereas 
 they, carried away by the wind of their pride, seek to 
 exalt themselves above themselves, they are cast down, 
 and fall even below themselves. Wherefore, my daughter, 
 do thou make haste to obey me, without further hesitation, 
 
 F2
 
 68 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 for I have a mission for thee to fulfil, and it is my will 
 that thou appear before the public. Wheresoever thoit 
 inayest go in the future, I will be with thee ; I will never 
 leave thee, but will visit thee, and direct all thy actions." 
 Catharine, prostrating herself at the feet of her Redeemer, 
 replied, "Behold the hand-maiden of the Lord; be it unto 
 me even as thou wilt." She then immediately quitted her 
 cell, and joined her family as God had commanded her. 
 
 After an apprenticeship in active duty in her father's 
 house, where she was the ever-ready and joyous servant 
 of all, she began to visit and relieve the poor of Siena. 
 There was at that time no public or organized charity; 
 neither was there in Siena any considerable destitute 
 class ; yet there, as everywhere and at all times, there 
 were individuals and families reduced to sore distress by 
 sickness, the chances of war, or other misfortune. Catha- 
 rine, it is said, " had the gift of discernment, giving only 
 to those whom she knew had a real need, and in such 
 cases she did not wait to be asked to give." There were 
 some poor families in her neighbourhood reduced to great 
 poverty, who would never solicit alms. She used to rise 
 early every morning, and leaving her father's door at the 
 first sound of the great bell of the Pallazzo Pubblico, (for 
 it was forbidden to the people of Siena to leave their 
 houses before this signal was given), she would carry to the 
 dwellings of these poor people what would serve them 
 for the day's necessities, and lifting her gift through the 
 opening in the upper part of the door, which, in summer, 
 the poorer people used generally to leave open for cool- 
 ness, she would pray for God's blessing on the house, and 
 glide quickly away in the cool shadows of the early
 
 She serves tlie Poor. 69 
 
 morning, leaving the sleeping inmates ignorant of who 
 their daily benefactor might be. What she had to bestow 
 being exhausted, she sought her father, and asked him if she 
 might deduct, according to her conscience, the portion of 
 the poor from the ample means which he had realized by his 
 industry. Giacomo cheerfully consented, because he saw 
 clearly that his daughter " was walking in the way of per- 
 fection ; " he announced to his assembled family the per- 
 mission he had granted. " Let no one," he said, " prevent 
 my beloved child from bestowing our goods on the poor. I 
 grant her full liberty ; indeed, she may, if she likes, dis- 
 pense all that is in the house." Catharine made use almost 
 too literally of the generous permission of her father, so 
 much so, that "all the inmates of the house, her father 
 excepted, complained of her donations, and locked up what 
 they had that she might not distribute it to the poor." 
 
 I have spoken of the favour and affection Avith which 
 Catharine was regarded by her fellow-citizens ; but this 
 favour was the reward of her long perseverance in well- 
 doing, and of her own sweet, unfailing charity, extended, 
 during many years, to her enemies as well as friends. 
 The goodwill of society is easily and quickly won by 
 those who maintain an amiable and harmless mediocrity 
 in virtue ; but those who are inspired and enabled to rise 
 above the ordinary standard of excellence, or who step 
 beyond the conventional limits of what is commonly 
 esteemed becoming and consistent, run the risk of incur- 
 ring more or less, for a time at least, the displeasure of 
 society. Their sternness of virtue seems to rebuke the 
 lower attainments of others; and it is more frequently 
 among the pious and the good that their critics and
 
 70 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 detractors are to be found than among the ignorant and 
 erring multitude. In the history of the Thebiad it is re- 
 lated that a young man in secular clothing presented himself 
 at the gate of a great monastery under the direction of St. 
 Pacomius. He was invited to enter the community, but the 
 extraordinary austerity of his life, and his exalted spiritu- 
 ality, so frightened the other monks, who were at that time 
 also men of austere lives, that they revolted against the 
 superior, and came in a body one day to tell him that un- 
 less he immediately dismissed this monk they would one and 
 all leave the monastery that very day. In like manner a 
 kind of revolt broke out for a time among the Dominicans 
 of Siena and the friends and neighbours of Catharine, on 
 account of the singularity of her life of painful self-denial. 
 " Everyone murmured against her," says Raymond ; "some 
 spoke against her fasting, and said, ' I warrant you she 
 feeds herself well enough in secret ; ' others said that all 
 the saints had taught by their word and example that we 
 should never be singular in our way of living ; others said 
 that all excess, even excess in self-denial, is vicious, and 
 that such as fear God should avoid it ; some declared that 
 they respected her intentions, but believed her to be the 
 victim of dangerous illusions ; others, again, more coarse 
 and vulgar, calumniated her publicly, and declared con- 
 tinually that she was actuated by mere vanity, which 
 prompted her to wish for notice." ..." She scarcely 
 could at this time attend any public exercise of piety 
 without drawing on herself the censures of those who 
 ought to have been her defenders." 1 . . . "It was 
 especially odious to those religious professors in Avhom 
 1 Raymond, Part ii. , Chap. iv.
 
 The Juirsh Judgment of Society. 71 
 
 self-love was not wholly conquered, that one so young 
 should surpass all others by the severity of her morals and 
 the fervour of her prayers. If they allowed her to go to 
 Communion, they demanded that she should finish her 
 prayers immediately, and leave the church." 1 It very often 
 happened that Catharine " fell into an ecstasy " while en- 
 gaged in prayer. She became absorbed in the contempla- 
 tion of heavenly things, and lost to all sense of the world 
 around her. When in this rapt state of contemplation, her 
 soul would seem to leave her body, and she sometimes 
 became for a time quite insensible to all that was passing 
 around her. On one such occasion Raymond found her in 
 the church " ravished out of her senses," and heard her 
 saying, in an undertone in Latin, " Vidi arcana Dei " (I 
 have seen the secrets of God). She continued to repeat 
 these words some time after, when she had returned to her 
 house. Raymond asked her, " Why do you repeat these 
 words 1 Can you not speak to us of some of the glorious 
 things you have seen 1 " She replied that it was impossible : 
 " The distance is so vast between what my spirit contem- 
 plated when God caught up my soul to himself, and what I 
 could describe to you in human language, that I should feel 
 I was falsifying what I saw in speaking of it ; all I can say 
 is that I saw ineffable things." Like St. Paul, she was 
 caught up to the seventh heaven, and " saw things which it 
 is unlawful for a man to utter." On one of these occasions 
 she was observed by some of her detractors, rudely carried 
 out of the church, and brutally flung down upon the church 
 steps in a state of insensibility, these persons protesting 
 against her "illusions," and pretending to believe that 
 i Raymond, Part ii., Chap. iv.
 
 72 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 harsh measures might prove a salutary cure for them. 
 Raymond came to the spot, and found two or three of 
 her female friends bending over her under the burning 
 rays of the noonday sun, weeping, chafing her hands, 
 and waiting for her return to consciousness. Catharine 
 herself never spoke of this or any ill-treatment she re- 
 ceived. During this time she also suffered much in health, 
 especially from severe headache, and a continual and some- 
 times violent pain in her side, accompanied by extreme thirst. 
 Catharine was the first young girl who had ever been 
 enrolled as a sister of St. Dominic. She was not much more 
 than sixteen when she first appeared on her errands of mercy 
 in the garb of a Mantellata. From the age of eighteen to 
 twenty she became constantly engaged more and more in 
 many and varied active labours and offices of charity. The 
 courage and originality of mind required in her time to set 
 aside the maxims of traditional propriety were beyond what 
 we can at this day easily imagine. Among the Greeks and 
 Romans in ancient times, the highest praise that could be 
 bestowed on a woman was that " she was never seen out of 
 her own house," and the Christian tradition had been so 
 far in accordance with the heathen one : the Apostle had 
 commanded that the young women should be " keepers 
 at home." Monastic ideas and customs in the middle 
 ages had strengthened this tradition in prescribing but 
 one alternative for the young maiden, marriage or the 
 cloister. Yet despite the minute directions of the Apostle 
 Paul, wise and prudent, no doubt, for the state of the 
 society in which he lived, the germs of all true free- 
 dom which dwelt in the doctrine and teaching of Christ 
 slowly became fruitful in this direction, and to those who
 
 Acts the part of a Peace-maker. 73 
 
 waited upon God, as Catharine did, for direct personal 
 guidance, the path before them gradually widened into 
 greater freedom, and the sphere of responsibility and duty 
 presented itself more largely, and was judged by them 
 more courageously and directly, apart from conventional 
 traditions. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, however, that even in repub- 
 lican and liberty-loving Siena the conduct of the youthful 
 Mantellata should have been severely judged ; there can be 
 no doubt that the discipline this severe judgment involved 
 for Catharine led her more fully to know herself and her 
 motives, while it fortified her character. She had already 
 begun to act, in stormy scenes, the part of a peace-maker. 
 During the revolution of 1368, the artisans, as we have 
 seen, were often at variance with their employers ; Catha- 
 rine on several occasions sought to reconcile the contending 
 parties and to persuade each to make concessions ; she was 
 also frequently entreated by the wives of banished nobles 
 to visit them in their chateaux near Siena, to advise in 
 difficulty and console in adversity. Full of loving kindness 
 and simplicity of purpose, she obeyed all such calls without 
 hesitation. One of her contemporaries records that he 
 " had seen her address a multitude of two thousand persons 
 in the streets," beseeching them for the love of Jesus to be 
 at peace with each other, and to search each one his own 
 heart to discover there any lurking egotism, and give up 
 any selfish demand which could only be gratified at the 
 expense of his neighbour. "Those who could not hear 
 her voice were moved even to tears by the beaming 
 charity and sweetness of her countenance while she spoke 
 and pleaded."
 
 74 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 The first intimation Catharine received that evil reports 
 were circulated against her was from the mouth of a poor 
 beggar woman called Tecca, whom she nursed when deserted 
 by everyone else. Tecca was a leper, and had been con- 
 demned, as was the custom, to be carried outside the walls 
 of the city to a kind of pest-house. Catharine heard of it 
 and the tears filled her eyes; she exclaimed, "This dear 
 one also was redeemed by my Saviour. He loves her ; she 
 shall not be cast forth thus." She had her placed in a 
 hospital where she herself waited on her till she died. This 
 poor ignorant woman, however, ill-requited her benefac- 
 tress. Catharine was a few minutes late one morning in 
 arriving at the hospital. Tecca lost her temper and taunted 
 her, saying, "Good morning, my lady, queen of the Con- 
 trada d'Oca ; you love to stay all day in the church of the 
 Dominican friars, don't you ! it is there you waste your 
 time, my fine lady; you are never tired of those dear friars!" 
 A sudden blush covered Catharine's face, for she heard 
 in the poor woman's words an echo of what was falling 
 from many idle or spiteful tongues ; but she kept silence 
 and continued to minister to the leper to the last. Much 
 more serious were the reproaches of Andrea, one of the 
 Sisters of St. Dominic, who also was tenderly nursed by 
 Catharine when dying of a frightful cancer. The disease 
 was so repelling that no one could be found to wait on 
 Andrea. As soon as Catharine knew this, "she compre- 
 hended that God had reserved for her this poor forsaken 
 one, and hastened to comfort her." According to liay- 
 mond, "the devil blinded this afflicted woman, and so 
 far succeeded in filling her with malice against Catharine 
 that she publicly calumniated her ; " she was, however,
 
 Assailed by Slander. 75 
 
 only the exponent of the injurious opinion which had 
 been gaining strength in many minds against the young 
 Mantellata. 
 
 These slanders gained ground so much that the elder 
 and more experienced of the Sisters of St. Dominic formed 
 themselves into a kind of committee of inquiry to examine 
 into the matter. Some of the sisters addressed to Catharine 
 during the inquiry very cruel and cutting remarks ; at last 
 the chief among them requested her to reply and say how 
 it was that she had suffered herself to be seduced. Catharine 
 replied patiently and gently, "I assure you, ladies and dear 
 sisters, that by the grace of Jesus Christ, I am innocent. 
 I am, indeed I am, a virgin." She appears to have taken 
 this trial less to heart than many others which assailed her ; 
 yet she was observed to dwell more alone at this time in 
 her secret chamber, and to be constantly in prayer. Her 
 friend Alessia, who always maintained her part, overheard 
 her in prayer, pleading thus with her Lord : " Thou 
 knowest, my Saviour, the efforts of the ' father of lies ' 
 to hold me back from what thy love urges me to undertake; 
 help me, then, my Lord and my God, for thou knowest 
 I am innocent ; and suffer not the evil one to prevail 
 against me." Having poured out her soul to God, "her 
 Saviour appeared to her, holding two crowns, one of gold 
 and another of thorns, and bidding her choose which she 
 would. She took the crown of thorns and pressed it on 
 her own head. After this time she was tilled with a 
 greater joy than ever, and her countenance was always 
 radiant and covered with smiles, so that all men won- 
 dered at her secret joy, seeing how many pains and trials 
 she had."
 
 76 CatJuirine of Siena. 
 
 Palmerina, a distinguished lady of Siena, had publicly 
 consecrated all her great wealth to God, and joined the 
 sisterhood of St. Dominic. She had a noble nature, but 
 a strange jealousy of Catharine entered her mind, and, 
 yielding to it more and more, she became like one possessed. 
 So great was her hatred of Catharine that she could not 
 hear her name mentioned without becoming violent, and 
 took every occasion of speaking against her. The fact 
 became notorious, and Catharine frequently heard men 
 speak of it. It filled her with grief ; she shut herself up in 
 her room, and had recourse, as always, to praj^er. "Lord 
 God," she said, " wilt thou suffer that I should be the 
 occasion of loss to a soul which thou hast created so nobly 1 
 Is this the good that thou hast promised to effect by me 1 
 No doubt my sins have been the cause of it, but I will con- 
 tinue to claim thy mercy for my sister, till thou savest the 
 soul of that beloved one from sin and death." Her prayers 
 were heard. Palmerina sent for her, and with a changed 
 heart and an abundance of generous tears, asked her for- 
 giveness. Moreover, she would not rest until she had 
 proclaimed publicly her error, and the blamelessness of 
 Catharine. Catharine had been impressed by seeing this 
 generous soul under so dark a cloud, so distorted and dis- 
 figured, so to speak, by malign influences ; and she prayed 
 earnestly that God would grant to her the special favour 
 of being able in future, under all circumstances, to see 
 spiritually the oeauty of every human soul, and to discern 
 the truth through all exterior appearances. " Thus she, 
 giving thanks to God, humbly prayed with her whole 
 heart that he would grant her the favour that she might 
 always see the beauty of the soul of everyone who cou-
 
 Controversy ivith Society. 77 
 
 versed with her, in order that she might thus be the more 
 fired to procure their salvation." 1 She added, when re- 
 counting these things to Raymond, " Father, could you 
 but see the beauty of a rational soul, you would sacrifice 
 your life a hundred times, were it necessary, for its salva- 
 tion." From this time she showed a wonderf ul discernment, 
 and was able to see the truth concerning those who came to 
 her, through all outward disguise or appearances. 
 
 The fault-finding of neighbours, however, did not cease, 
 and her confessor, who was at that time Father Thomas 
 della Fonte, a reverend and good man, was so far influ- 
 enced by all he heard around him as to think it his duty 
 to take Catharine severely to task, and to ask her to 
 moderate her fasts and her prayers, and to live a little 
 more like other people. This seems to have been a great 
 addition to her trials. Though she had "learned all 
 that she knew from God alone," and was accustomed to 
 take refuge at all times in prayer, yet she was too dutiful 
 and right-minded not to feel troubled by the rebukes of 
 her friend and confessor. A long controversy with him 
 ended, however, by his admitting that she was right ; he 
 said to her, " Henceforth act accordingly to the inspira- 
 tions of the Holy Ghost ; for I perceive that God will ac- 
 complish great things in you." Father Raymond, whose 
 narrative is usually dry and tedious, and who seems 
 rarely to be carried away by undue enthusiasm, sums up 
 his account of these conflicts between Catharine and her 
 critics with the following burst of eloquence and honest 
 emotion i 1 " They who surrounded her measured not her 
 
 l "Acta Sanctorum," Bollamlists.
 
 78 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 words and deeds by God's nile, but by their own. They, 
 dwelling in the valley, presumed to judge of the tops of 
 the mountains; they ignored principles, yet discoursed pru- 
 dently about results ; they disturbed themselves unreason- 
 ably, and blamed the rays of that radiant star; they desired 
 to direct her whose lessons they themselves could not even 
 understand." 
 
 I will not dwell on the accounts given by her biographers 
 of the long internal conflict of that humble courageous 
 soul, on the wondrous visions granted to her, arid her ever- 
 deepening experience of the power of God and of the love 
 of Christ, which passeth knowledge. Catharine's own 
 Dialogue and letters must be read by those who desire to 
 become further acquainted with her inner life, her doctrine, 
 and the secret of her sustained communion with God. About 
 this time, when emerging from the period of trial arising 
 from the narrow criticisms of those who did not yet know 
 the secret of her power, nor understand the awful simplicity 
 of the one sustaining motive of her life, she was admitted 
 into a fresh spiritual baptism ; peace, strength, and con- 
 fidence were renewed and increased ; she saw, heard, and 
 conversed with her Lord; the path she ought to tread was 
 revealed, plain and straight before her, and she had only to 
 obey that beloved voice which spoke to her heart. " One 
 day when she was praying in her little room, the Lord 
 appeared to her and said to her, 'Learn, my daughter, that 
 henceforth thy life shall be filled with such wonders that 
 ignorant and sensual men will refuse to believe them ; 
 many even of those who are attached to thee will doubt 
 thee ; thy heart shall become so ardent for the salvation 
 of men that thou shalt forget thy sex and all its fears ;
 
 Again receives a Commission. 79 
 
 thou shalt no more avoid, as formerly, the conversation of 
 men, but thou shalt cheerfully endure every kind of fatigue 
 to save their souls ; thy conduct will scandalize many ; but 
 be not afraid ; I will be ever with thee, and deliver thee 
 from the deceitful tongue and from them that speak falsely ; 
 follow, therefore, courageously my inspiration, for I will 
 draw, by thy aid, many souls from destruction, and guide 
 them to my kingdom in heaven.' " And again, at a time 
 when Catharine had been so ill as to believe herself to be 
 dying, being absorbed in deep contemplation, Christ said to 
 her : " Iteturn, my daughter, to life ; for the salvation of 
 many souls demands it. Thou shalt no longer live as thou 
 hast done ; thou must leave the retirement of thy chamber, 
 and continually pass through the city, in order to save souls. 
 I will be with thee continually ; in thy going out and in thy 
 coming in 1 will lead thee. I will entrust to thee the 
 honour of my holy name, and thou shalt speak of me to 
 the lowly and the great, to the multitude, to seculars, 
 priests, and monks. I will impart to thee speech and wis- 
 dom, which none can resist; thou shalt stand before kings 
 and rulers and pontiffs for my name's sake ; for thus, and 
 by this means, will I bring low the arrogance of the 
 mighty ! " l 
 
 Catharine answered : " Thou art my God ; I am but thy 
 poor handmaid ; may thy will ever be accomplished in me ; 
 but remember me, my Lord, and ever incline unto my aid, 
 according to the greatness of thy mercy." 
 
 1 "Acta Sanctorum."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ONE of the greatest of the evils which prevailed in 
 the age in which Catharine lived was the spirit of strife 
 and discord which reigned everywhere, not only in the 
 country at large, but between rival families and factions 
 in every commune and every province. The history of 
 the Italian republics is one long record of personal jea- 
 lousies, family feuds, and civil wars. It is evident from 
 Catharine's letters that she did not shrink from strife and 
 conflict in any case where the establishment of true peace 
 involved a struggle between opposing principles; yet she 
 saw in the actual strife around her only elements which 
 were hostile to all true progress towards that advent of 
 Christ on earth for which she laboured. She continually 
 urged the necessity of war with evil, and in many forcible 
 passages in her letters, she reminded the restless and am- 
 bitious spirits with whom she pleaded that it was impos- 
 sible they should rightly govern others until they had 
 learned to govern themselves ; she declared that their 
 rivalries, animosities, and lust of power were a sign of 
 weakness and not of strength ; while she prophesied to 
 them that those among them who were then striving to 
 be the greatest would eventually take the lowest position.
 
 A Minister to Prisoners and Outcasts. 81 
 
 Her words were very remarkably fulfilled in many in- 
 stances. She continually laboured to inspire her own 
 chosen friends with a cheerful and holy calm in the midst 
 of the political agitations continually renewed around them. 
 She wrote to Monna Mitarella, the wife of the Senator 
 Mugliano, whose life was in danger during one of the 
 Sienese revolutions : " It seems to me you have both been 
 in great fear, but that you have placed your hope in God 
 and in the power of prayer. I entreat you in the name of 
 Jesus to continue firm in this sweet and steadfast peace. 
 My sister, fear nothing that men can do ; fear God only." 
 To the proud and unhappy wife of Duke Bernabos Visconti 
 she wrote beseeching her to exercise a spirit of trust and 
 humility, so that the cruel and stormy spirits of those 
 among whom she dwelt might recognize the power in her 
 of that peace which is founded on the Rock of Ages. She 
 was often called to mediate between hostile families ; she 
 visited regularly the prisons of the city, comforted and 
 sometimes procured the release of political prisoners, and in 
 her walks through the city she would track the steps of 
 the poor outcast woman, ask to be allowed to enter her 
 dwelling with her, and, embracing her tenderly and frankly, 
 would sit down by her side and plead with her concerning 
 the beauty of that soul which was in peril of eternal death. 
 One of her letters, addressed to " a woman of the city 
 who was a sinner," reveals more than any other, perhaps, 
 the gift which she had asked, and which had been granted 
 to her, of seeing the loveliness of human nature evert in 
 its utmost degradation. " I weep, my child, and am full 
 of sorrow because thou, created in the image of God, and 
 redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, regardest not 
 
 G
 
 82 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 thy own dignity. Return, I entreat thee, as a daughter 
 and a servant redeemed, to the wounded side of the Son 
 of God." 1 The families of the Tolomei and the Malavolti 
 have been mentioned in the record of the political troubles 
 of Siena. Over both of these families Catharine exercised 
 a great influence. The eldest son of the family Tolomei, 
 a licentious young man, "whose hand, though so young, 
 had been twice imbrued in the blood of his neighbour," 
 became, under her influence, a sincere convert, and perse- 
 vered in virtue till his death. His two beautiful and 
 worldly sisters gave up all the frivolities they had de- 
 lighted in, and became active coadjutors of Catharine in the 
 " Militia of Jesus Christ." The younger brothers followed 
 in the steps of their elder brother and sisters, and their 
 gentle mother, Rabes, whose prayers had been unceasing 
 for the salvation of her children, called for Catharine and 
 blest her, in great joy pronouncing the words : " Now 
 lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes 
 have seen thy salvation." The house of the Malavolti 
 fell under the blight of its own haughty and licentious 
 character. Several of Catharine's letters, addressed to 
 Agnesa, the widow of Orso Malavolti, reveal the melan- 
 choly story of that lady's trials. Her son, Antonio, was 
 beheaded in 1372 for a shameful outrage on a young 
 girl, in which foul deed he was abetted by his cousin, 
 Deo di Veri Malavolti. The widow Agnesa never again 
 quitted her solitary home, but she sought for and cherished 
 
 1 ' ' Pero figliuola mia io piaugo e dogliomi che tu, creata alia 
 imagine di Dio, ricomperata del pretioso saugue suo, non raguardi 
 la tua dignita. Tu, come figliuola e serva ricomperata di sangue, 
 entra allora nelle piaghe del figliuolo di Dio. Lettera a una 
 meretrice, Lett. 373.
 
 Intercession for the Erring. 83 
 
 the poor girl who had been the victim of her son's 
 licentiousness. Catharine writes to the widowed lady : 
 " I think God is calling you to a great perfection in thus 
 severing you from earthly ties. I understand that you 
 have called to you this child. It pleases me much that 
 God should have thus chosen you, and drawn her out of 
 so much trouble." Another of the family, young Francis 
 Malavolti, " a youth of noble birth," says Eaymond, " but 
 of contemptible manners," was taken by one of his father's 
 friends to visit Catharine. He frequently came to talk 
 with her, " enjoyed her salutary lessons, but would return 
 to his former habits, especially to gambling, of which he 
 was passionately fond." Catharine prayed earnestly for 
 his salvation, but he gave her much trouble, and tested 
 severely her patience and hopefulness. She wrote to him : 
 " You come to see me, and then, like an untamed bird, you 
 fly back to your vices ; fly as often as you please, but the 
 time will come when God will enable me to throw a noose 
 round your neck which will prevent your ever escaping 
 again." After many warnings to the irresolute youth, 
 she concludes : " Come back, come back, my dearest son ! 
 I may well call thee dear, so much hast thou cost me 
 in tears, and prayers, and bitter grief." Catharine died 
 before her prayer was answered ; but after her death 
 Francis gave up his evil habits ; great domestic trials 
 subdued his heart, and he became steadfast in the service 
 of God. Andrea di Nandino, a rich citizen, "a gambler, 
 and addicted to every vice," was induced by the earnest 
 entreaties of his wife and children to listen to the words 
 of Catharine, but for a very long time he continued hard 
 and unmoved. Then Catharine, seeing she could not 
 
 G2
 
 84 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 prevail with him, addressed herself to God alone. She con- 
 tinued for a whole night to plead for this soul. " Remember, 
 Lord," she said, "that thou didst promise to aid me in 
 saving souls. I have no other joy in life than that of 
 seeing them return to thee. Didst thou not, loving 
 Jesus, bear this man's sins with ours ? restore to me 
 my brother, and draw him out of his hardened state." 
 Andrea was soon after smitten with remorse for his sins, 
 and became " a new creature in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Catharine was spending some hours one day in the house 
 of her dearest friend and fellow-worker, Alessia, who was 
 also a Mantellata. Alessia, happening to look out of the 
 window, saw, at a distance, a great crowd approaching, and 
 in the midst a cart, in which were chained two notorious 
 brigands, who were being taken from prison to the place of 
 execution. They were condemned to have their flesh torn 
 with hot pincers, and then to be beheaded. The first part of 
 the sentence was actually being executed in the sight of the 
 multitude, whose shouts mingled with the agonized cries of 
 the tortured men. Hearing Alessia's cry of horror, Catharine 
 went to the window and looked out. She turned away, and 
 fell on her knees, the tears streaming down her cheeks, and 
 thus, as Alessia records, she cried to the Lord : " Ah, Lord, 
 who art so full of pity, abandon not in their hour of agony 
 these poor creatures of thine, redeemed by thy precious 
 blood. The thief who was crucified by thy side was visited 
 by thy grace and confessed thee publicly, and to him thou 
 didst sa}', ' This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' In 
 that word thou didst give hope to all who might resemble 
 him. Thou didst not abandon Peter when he denied 
 thee ; thou didst not despise Mary the sinner, nor Matthew
 
 Vanni the Painter. 85 
 
 the publican, nor the Canaanite, but didst invite them to 
 thee. I entreat thee by all thy mercies, Lord, hasten to 
 relieve these souls." Catharine obtained leave to accompany 
 the criminals as far as the city gates ; she prayed and wept 
 continually. When the cart containing the criminals halted 
 at the city gate, " a ray of divine light penetrated the hearts 
 of the two unhappy men ;" they expressed an earnest desire 
 to make full confession, and when the man of God came to 
 them, they wept and expressed heartfelt sorrow for their 
 crimes ; they accused themselves and prayed aloud to the 
 Eedeemer that he would wash away their sins and receive 
 their souls ; they then marched onward to death with 
 countenances full of frankness and joy. They spoke gently 
 to their executioners, and gave thanks to God ; their 
 torturers themselves were deeply affected, and dropped their 
 horrid instruments, not daring to continue their cruelties. 
 
 There dwelt in Siena a painter of great genius called 
 Vanni. As was so common among his countrymen, he 
 harboured a secret hatred against certain persons whom he 
 deemed dangerous rivals or enemies, and he had more than 
 once satisfied his vengeance by striking in the dark. Several 
 assassinations had been perpetrated at his instigation; he 
 was wily and hypocritical in his treatment of those who 
 tried to mediate between him and the objects of his hatred. 
 Catharine heard of him often, and desired earnestly to 
 arrest him in his evil course, and to save those who might 
 become his victims ; but he carefully avoided her. A 
 venerable man, Friar William of England, living in Siena, 
 and whose portrait Vanni seems to have painted, pressed 
 him much to see Catharine ; he at last consented sullenly, 
 refusing to pledge himself to follow any advice she might
 
 86 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 give him. " I myself," says Eaymond, " was at the 
 Fullonica, waiting for Catharine, who was occupied some- 
 where in the city in the salvation of souls, when Varini 
 arrived. I went to meet him with a glad heart, told him of 
 her absence, and pressed him to wait a little; and, to 
 beguile the time, I introduced him into her little room. 
 After ten minutes or so, Vanni grew weary, and said list- 
 lessly, ' I promised Friar William I would call on this lad}', 
 but she is absent, and my work makes it impossible for me 
 to stay longer; be so kind as to excuse me to her.' I was 
 much distressed at Catharine's absence, and in order to 
 detain him I began to speak of reconciliation with one's 
 enemies ; but he interrupted me, saying, ' See, now, you 
 are a priest and a religious man, and this good lady has a 
 great reputation for sanctity ; I must not deceive you, and 
 therefore I tell you frankly that I do not mean to do 
 anything of the kind which you advise me ; it is useless to 
 preach to me on this subject ; you will gain nothing by it. 
 It is already a great concession on my part to have spoken 
 to you with so much freedom of what I conceal from others ; 
 but you will obtain no more ; so do not torment me fur- 
 ther on the subject.' At that moment Catharine arrived, 
 and her appearance was evidently as disagreeable to Vanni 
 as it was welcome to me. As soon as she perceived us 
 seated in her room she smiled, and received this man 
 of the world with great grace and kindness. She seated 
 herself, and inquired the motive of his visit. Vanni 
 repeated what he had just said to me, declaring that 
 he would make no concession. She represented to him 
 with much force and sweetness how much he was his own 
 enemy, but he hardened his heart against her arguments.
 
 Vanni the Painter. 87 
 
 She then retired in order to pray alone, and I conversed 
 with Vanni so as to gain time. Not many minutes had 
 expired before he looked up and said to me, ' For politeness 
 sake I will not refuse her entirely. I have four great 
 enmities ; I will give up the one which it will give you 
 the most satisfaction for me to give up.' He then rose 
 to go away, but before he had reached the door he 
 suddenly exclaimed, ' My God ! what a consolation my 
 heart feels through this one word of peace which I have 
 uttered ; ' and he added, ' my Lord and my God ! what 
 power is it which retains and triumphs over me ? Yes, 
 I am vanquished I confess it. I cannot draw my breath/ 
 The heart which had been so long bound in the iron 
 bonds of hatred and sullen revengefulness was stirred to 
 its depths, and struggling to free itself from that cruel 
 bondage, it already experienced the sense of approaching 
 freedom and peace. Catharine again approached him. 
 He fell on his knees sobbing, and said, ' Dear lady, 
 behold me ready to do whatever you desire me relative 
 to peace and all else. I see now that Satan held me 
 in chains. I resign myself to your guidance : in pity, 
 direct my soul.' Catharine regarded him with a joyous 
 smile, and gave thanks to God. 'Dear brother,' she 
 said, ' I spoke to you, and you refused to listen ; then 
 I turned to God, and he has not rejected my petition.'" 
 Vanni went straightway and was . reconciled with all 
 his enemies. " For many years after this," (continues 
 Raymond), " I was Vanni's confessor, and am witness that 
 he made constant progress in virtue, and that he bore with 
 resignation some sore trials which befel him through the 
 hostility of others."
 
 88 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Catharine's labours were so much increased that the 
 Pope, Gregory XL, to whom a report had been conveyed of 
 her good influence, granted to her, by a special bull, three 
 companions, invested with the powers reserved to bishops, 
 to accompany her in all her missions, to hear confessions, 
 and to aid her in her work. One of these was the good 
 and honest Raymond, so often quoted, an indefatigable 
 labourer, a simple-hearted Christian, and an excellent man 
 of business. Every evening after her day's work was over, 
 Catharine, says Raymond, went up the hill, rejoicing, to the 
 old Dominican church, and laid at the feet of her Lord and 
 Saviour the spiritual conquests of the day ; and there she 
 would remain till the sun had set, and the stars lighted the 
 sky, absorbed in the contemplation of the love and power 
 of Christ, and pouring out her soul in prayer for the fuller 
 accomplishment of the great promise of the Redeemer, the 
 descent of the Holy Spirit on all flesh. " Breathe on these 
 slain and they shall live," she cried ; and when, in answer 
 to her prayers, there was " a shaking " among the multitude 
 for whom she prayed, she asked again that this multitude 
 might "stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army;" 
 and the divine breath was felt, and many that were 
 spiritually in their graves came forth. " I have seen," 
 says Raymond, " thousands of men and women hastening 
 to her from the tops of the mountains and from all the 
 country round Siena, as if summoned by a mysterious 
 trumpet : frequently she was obliged to speak to a great 
 number of people at once ; sometimes her words did 
 not reach them, but her very look and presence made 
 them desire to renounce their sins and become sharers 
 in the deep peace and joy which shone in her dear face."
 
 The Multitude gathers round her. 89 
 
 " We worked all day," Raymond says, " we heard the con- 
 fessions of men and women, soiled with every variety of 
 crime. We sometimes remained fasting until the evening 
 (having no time to eat) and yet we were not able to receive 
 all who came. I acknowledge, to my shame, that the mul- 
 titude was often so great that I was fatigued and depressed; 
 but as for Catharine, she never interrupted her prayers and 
 efforts, but rejoiced continually in conquering souls for 
 her Master, while she simply recommended her friends, 
 (Alessia and the other Mantellatas,) to take care of us and 
 our material wants, while we held the nets which she knew 
 so well how to fill. The sight of her consoled us greatly, 
 and made us forget our fatigues." 
 
 Some years after the revolution of 1368, which inaugu- 
 rated the government of the Reformers, the Sienese repub- 
 licans, wearied and impoverished by internal strife, too 
 easily allowed themselves to fall under the rude domina- 
 tion of certain proud and ambitious plebeians, who sought 
 out, by means of a system of espionage, all whom they 
 suspected of disloyalty to their persons and government, 
 and made use of their administrative powers to secure 
 their condemnation. Agnolo d'Andrea was condemned 
 to death for not having invited these tyrants to a fete 
 which he gave in the environs of the city. Catharine was 
 present at his execution, to impart strength and consola- 
 tion to the victim ; returning to her cell, she was aroused 
 by the rushing movement of a crowd, in pursuit of the 
 Senator Mugliano, whose conduct during the execution 
 had offended the majesty of the plebeian leaders and 
 whose life was now threatened. She went boldly forth to 
 calm, if possible, the multitude, and followed the senator
 
 90 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 to his hiding-place to strengthen his faith and rally his 
 courage. The letters to the wife of this Senator Mugliano 
 have already been alluded to. 
 
 A young knight of Perugia, named Nicola Tuldo, was 
 accused at this time of having spoken against the govern- 
 ment, and of having incited his friends at Siena to revolt 
 against their haughty and oppressive rule ; he was declared 
 guilty of high treason and condemned to die. Indignant, 
 or rather enraged at this unjust and cruel sentence, the 
 poor young man paced up and down his prison like a caged 
 lion, driven to desperation. He was too proud to humble 
 himself and ask pardon ; his turbulent and passionate soul 
 had carried him far away from the early instructions in 
 virtue which lie had received, and now, proud, wayward, 
 and sullen, he was left without a ray of hope or Christian 
 consolation. During his stay at Siena he had often heard 
 the name of Catharine. " Perhaps," he said to himself, 
 " this poor girl might save me ; they tell wonderful things 
 of her conquests of faith and charity ; she would pit}- me, I 
 am sure she would, and if I must die, I so young, if I must 
 leave this life so full of brilliant hope for the future, if I must 
 leave my beloved mother and family at Perugia Perugia ! 
 my country." . . . His jailer, who overheard his broken 
 utterances, sent a messenger to the Fullonica to ask if 
 Catharine would come. The rest of the story is told by 
 Catharine herself, in a letter to Raymond, then absent 
 from Siena. (It is one of the very few letters in which 
 she mentions her own acts.) " I went to visit him whom 
 you know ; he was very much comforted and consoled ; 
 he saw Friar Thomas, and confessed, full of humility. 
 He besought me by the love of God to promise that I
 
 Execution of Nicola Tuldo. 91 
 
 would be with him at the hour of execution ; I promised, 
 and I have kept my promise. In the morning, before the 
 bell of the Campanile had sounded, I was with him in the 
 prison ; he was greatly comforted by my arrival. I went 
 with him to the holy communion, which till then he had 
 never received. He was perfectly submissive to the will of 
 God, and the only cloud which now rested on his soul was 
 the fear that he might not be strong at the last moment. 
 But the Saviour in his infinite mercy so fortified him, and 
 so inspired him with the desire of his presence, that he con- 
 tinued to repeat without ceasing, ' Lord, be near me ; Lord, 
 do not leave me ; if thou wilt be near me, all will be well 
 with me, and I shall be content ;' and as he prayed thus 
 he leaned his head upon my breast. I felt a great desire to 
 shed my blood, with him, for my beloved Saviour. Long- 
 ing for this joy, and perceiving that he still had some fear, 
 I said, ' Courage, my brother beloved, we are soon going to 
 your heavenly marriage feast ; you are going there bathed 
 in the precious blood of the Son of God, and with the dear 
 name of Jesus on your lips -0 pronounce that name without 
 ceasing and I am going to meet you at the place of execu- 
 tion.' At these words, (think of it, dear father,) every 
 vestige of fear seemed to leave him, and a great light visited 
 his heart : he who had before raged and rebelled, now 
 called the place of justice a holy place ; he seemed filled 
 with exiiltation, and asked, ' How comes such grace to be 
 shown to me ? and will you, joy of my soul, indeed await 
 me at that holy place ! 1 will go there then with a 
 strong and joyous step, and you will there speak to me 
 sweet and blessed words of the love of God 1 Observe, 
 father, how changed he now was, to call the place of
 
 92 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 execution a holy place. I went then, to the place of 
 execution, early, and continued without ceasing to pray. 
 Before the arrival of the melancholy cortege, I kneeled 
 down and placed my neck on the scaffold, wishing for 
 that martyrdom for myself ; but the axe did not respond 
 to my wishes ! I prayed earnestly that at the supreme 
 moment light and peace might be abundantly shed into 
 the heart of Nicola ; and resting on the promise, ' If ye 
 abide in me. ye shall ask what ye tvill, and it shall be 
 done,' I asked further that the favour might be granted 
 to me of seeing in a vision his soul ascend to God. My 
 heart was so full, and so powerful was the impression 
 granted to me that this promise would be fulfilled to me, 
 that in the midst of that vast crowd of people I saw no 
 one, and heard nothing but the promise. Then Nicola 
 arrived, walking like a gentle lamb, and laughed for joy 
 when he saw me : he turned to me, and asked me to 
 make on his breast the sign of the cross ; I did so, say- 
 ing in low voice : ' Go, gentle brother, to your eternal 
 marriage ; soon you will have entered into the life which 
 knows no ending.' He kneeled down calmly, and I, 
 kneeling by his side, placed his neck on the scaffold, and 
 whispered to him of the Immaculate Lamb. His lips 
 murmured but two words, ' Jesus' and 'Catharine.' l As he 
 spoke these words, the axe fell, and I caught his head in 
 my hands. I closed my eyes, and said, ' Lord, / will ; 
 thou hast promised me what I will ;' and as clear as the 
 daylight I saw the Son of God receive into his bosom this 
 dear soul ; full of love and mercy, he received him who 
 
 1 " La bocca sua non diceva se non Jesii e Catarina," Letter 97.
 
 Her Niece Eugenia. 93 
 
 had so meekly accepted the death of a criminal, received 
 him not for his own works, but for love's sake alone. . . . 
 A deep peace fell upon my soul. So dear was that blood to 
 me that I could not bear that they should ever wash it off 
 my dress, which was all sprinkled with it. I envied him, 
 because he had gone on before ; he left us, full of joy and 
 love, like a bride, who having reached the bridegroom's 
 door, turns and bows her head in thanks and farewell to the 
 companions who have accompanied her to the threshold, 
 and enters the home of her beloved." 1 
 
 Catharine dwelt in her native city till she was about/ 
 twenty-five years of age, at which time she undertook the- 
 first of her important missions to other cities ; during this 
 period, however, she accomplished several evangelizing jour- 
 neys in the country around Siena, and more than once 
 visited Monte Pulciano, not far distant from the Lake 
 Thrasymene, to visit the sisters of the monastery of St. 
 Agnes of Monte Pulciano, where two of her nieces, the 
 daughters of her sister Lysa, had been received. To one 
 of these, Eugenia, a girl of a gay and easy temperament, 
 Catharine wrote many letters. Reproving her on one 
 occasion for frivolous conversations of which she had heard 
 a rumour, Catharine says : " Take care ; if I hear of it 
 again I shall run to you and administer so severe a dis 
 cipline that you will never forget it ! Be always self-pos- 
 sessed and calm. ... If a stranger asks to see you, 
 and your superior wishes you to respond, go and see him r 
 in the name of obedience, but waste no time, and show 
 yourself as savage as a porcupine ! " 
 
 1 Some passages of this beautiful letter have been omitted, us dis- 
 connected with the recital.
 
 94 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 In 1372 good Giacomo, Catharine's father, died. While 
 the family all wept around his bed, Catharine alone re- 
 mained calm and even joyful, for she realized the fulness 
 of peace into which her beloved father had entered. She 
 kissed him, and said, "Blessed be the Lord God for this 
 entrance into eternal life. How happy should I be were I 
 where thou art now, my father !" 
 
 Then Lapa fell ill, and drew near to death. She was a 
 true and simple-hearted Christian, but she dearly loved life, 
 and revolted against the thought of dying. She besought 
 her daughter to obtain for her the favour of a longer life. 
 Catharine, seeing her mother so far from resigned to the will 
 of God, and too much devoted to the things of earth, retired 
 to her room, and prayed earnestly that her beloved mother 
 might live and become more prepared for the kingdom 
 of God. The physicians had already pronounced Lapa's 
 malady to be past cure ; but she recovered, and lived till 
 her ninetieth year. Long before she died she wished and 
 prayed for death, and often said that God had " riveted 
 her soul to her body." " How many," she said, " of my 
 children and grand-children have I followed to the grave ! 
 it is I alone who cannot die." 
 
 In 1374 the plague broke out in Siena. Multitudes fell 
 dead in the churches and in the streets, as spoiled fruit falls 
 from the trees. 1 The harvests stood unreaped, and all 
 business was arrested. The hoarse cries of the grave- 
 diggers (beccamorti) resounded through the streets "Bring 
 out your dead ! " The doors of the houses opened, and 
 
 1 " Morti cadevano a terra a guisa che i pomi fracidi.' TOMMASI, 
 History ofHiena, Book x.
 
 Labours during tlie Plague. 95 
 
 "corpses were seen carried out by other corpses ;" some- 
 times the priests, and those who carried the dead, sat down 
 for a moment of repose, and never rose again. In some 
 streets no voice responded to the cry of the leccamorti ; the 
 terrible smell of putrefaction alone signified the presence of 
 death. The strongest minds were subdued by melancholy 
 or fear ; the tribunals were empty ; the laws were no longer 
 enforced ; at each assembling of the Signory there were fresh 
 vacant places, and no one any longer dared to ask the cause 
 of absence. Many of the rich and the powerful quitted 
 the city and isolated themselves in their country chateaux. 
 The conduct of Catharine and her friends the Mantellatas in 
 this emergency was sublime ; they devoted themselves to 
 the poorest of the stricken population, entering without 
 fear the most infected quarters ; they sang hymns of joy 
 while wrapping the poor discoloured corpses in their wind- 
 ing-sheets ; many of the sisters fell, chilled by the icy hand 
 of death, in the midst of their holy work ; " but their com- 
 panions, knowing well that they had entered into the 
 presence of Jesus, pressed the last kiss on their foreheads, 
 and hastened back with increased zeal to their labour of 
 love." 1 It was during this time of severe trial that some of 
 the firmest of Catharine's life-long friendships were begun, 
 or more closely cemented. 
 
 It may be well here to gather into a group the principal 
 friends, fellow-workers, and disciples of Catharine, so that we 
 may realize a little the varied and pleasant character of that 
 "mystic family," as it was sometimes called, which went 
 forth with her on the great highway of the world, bringing 
 
 l Chaviu de Malan, Chap. xL
 
 96 Catlwrine of Siena. 
 
 hope and blessing to their fellow-men, and leaving foot- 
 prints worthy to be traced by those who came after. 
 
 The good Raymond of Capua must be first mentioned ; 
 he tells us himself of his introduction to Catharine. " In 
 1373 I was summoned to Siena, where I exercised the 
 function of lector in the convent of my order, that of 
 the Dominicans. I was serving God in a cold and for- 
 mal manner, when the plague broke out in Siena, where 
 it raged with greater violence than in any other city. 
 Terror reigned everywhere. Zeal for souls, which is the 
 essence of the spirit of St. Dominic, urged me to labour 
 for the salvation of my neighbours. I necessarily went 
 very often to the Hospital of la Misericordia. The direc- 
 tor of that hospital at that time was Father Matthew of 
 Cenni, an attached friend of Catharine. Every morn- 
 ing, on my way to the city, I inquired at the Misericordia 
 whether any more of the inmates there had been attacked 
 with the plague. One day on entering, I saw some of 
 the brothers carrying Father Matthew like a corpse from 
 the chapel to his room ; his face was livid, and his 
 strength was so far gone that he could not answer me 
 when I spoke to him. ' Last night,' the brother said, 
 ' about eleven o'clock, while ministering to a dying person, 
 he perceived himself stricken, and fell at once into ex- 
 treme weakness.' I helped to lay him on his bed ; . . . . 
 he spoke afterwards, and said that he felt as if his head 
 was separating into four parts. I sent for Dr. Senso, his 
 physician ; Dr. Senso declared to me that my friend had 
 the plague, and that every symptom announced the ap- 
 proach of death. ' I fear,' he said, ' that the House of 
 Mercy (Misericordia) is about to be deprived of its good
 
 FatJter Matthew's Recovery. 97 
 
 director.' I asked if medical art could not save him; 'We 
 shall see,' replied Dr. Senso, ' but I have only a very faint 
 hope ; his blood is too much poisoned.' I withdrew, pray- 
 ing God to save the life of this good man. Catharine, how- 
 ever, had heard of the illness of Father Matthew, whom 
 she loved sincerely, and she lost no time in repairing to 
 him. The moment she entered the room, she cried, with a 
 cheerful voice, ' Get up, Father Matthew, get up ! This is 
 not a time to be lying idly in bed.' Father Matthew roused 
 himself, sat up on his bed, and finally stood on his feet. 
 Catharine retired ; at the moment she was leaving the 
 house, I entered it, and ignorant of what had happened, and 
 believing my friend to be still at the point of death, my 
 grief urged me to say, 'Will you allow a person so dear ta 
 us, and so useful to others, to die V She appeared annoyed 
 at my words, and replied : ' In what terms do you address 
 me ? Am I like God, to deliver a man from death V But 
 I, beside myself with sorrow, pleaded, ' Speak in that way 
 to others if you will, but not to me ; for I know your 
 secrets : and / know that you obtain from God whatsoever you 
 ask in faith.' Then Catharine bowed her head, and smiled 
 just a little ; after a few moments she lifted up her head 
 and looked full in my face, her countenance radiant with 
 joy, and said : ' Well, let us take courage ; he will not die 
 this time;' and she passed on. At these words I banished 
 all fear, for I understood that she had obtained some favour 
 from heaven. I went straight to my sick friend, whom I 
 found sitting on the side of his bed. ' Do you know,' he 
 cried, 'what she has done for me?' He then stood up and 
 joyfully narrated what I have here written. To make the 
 matter more sure, the table was laid, and Father Matthew 
 
 H
 
 98 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 seated himself at it with us ; they served him with vege- 
 tables and other light food, and he, who an hour before could 
 not open his mouth, ate with us, chatting and laughing gaily. 
 Great was our joy and admiration; we all thanked and 
 praised God. Nicolas d'Andrea, of the Friar Preachers, was 
 there, besides students, priests, and more than twenty other 
 persons, who all saw and heard what I have narrated." 
 
 Catharine's prayers brought health to many sick per- 
 sons. She believed in the promise, " The prayer of faith 
 shall save the sick ;" and doubted not its fulfilment in 
 answer to earnest prayer, in every case in which that ful- 
 filment was for the good of the sufferer and for the glory 
 of God. The other methods she employed, besides the 
 all-powerful one of prayer, were to persuade the patient 
 to make a full confession of sin, then to speak peace to 
 his conscience, through faith in Jesus Christ, and to in- 
 spire him with a joyous courage and resolution. Physi- 
 cians well know how closely connected is bodily health 
 with mental conditions ; but most will question the power 
 even of the highest faith to arrest the progress of a poison 
 actually working in the blood. Into such questions it is 
 not my present intention to enter ; my part is to present 
 a simple narrative, concerning which those who read may 
 draw their own conclusions. After our Lord Jesus Christ 
 had ascended to heaven, the first apostles received, to- 
 gether with many other spiritual gifts, showered down 
 on the day of Pentecost, such gifts of healing, that the 
 sick were brought by their friends and laid in the streets 
 of Jerusalem, that perchance the shadow only of Peter 
 passing by might overshadow them and restore them to 
 health and life. No historian of the Church has yet
 
 Character of Raymond. 99 
 
 ventured to assign an exact date to the cessation of the so- 
 called miraculous gifts of healing ; perhaps when we see all 
 things more clearly, we shall know that these gifts only 
 ceased in proportion to the decay of the faith which claimed 
 and exercised them; and we may be able again by the 
 prayer of faith to heal the sick and cast out evil spirits. 
 
 Father Raymond then recounts how, having fallen ill 
 himself through his excessive exertions in the plague- 
 stricken city, he crawled to Catharine's house, where not 
 being able longer to stand up, he fell prostrate, and lay 
 half-conscious till she returned from her labours ; how she, 
 placing both her pure hands on his forehead, remained 
 absorbed in prayer for an hour and a half, how he fell 
 into a peaceful slumber, and how on awaking in perfect 
 health, she said to him, " Go now, and labour for the sal- 
 vation of souls, and render thanks to the Lord who has 
 saved you from this great danger." Raymond appears 
 to have been indebted to his great powers of work, his 
 good sense, exceeding uprightness and truth, rather than 
 to any remarkable talents or genius, for the position and 
 influence he gradually attained in the Church : an honest, 
 faithful, sensible and laborious man, he proved to be the 
 most useful if not the most inspired of Catharine's helpers. 
 He had a habit of questioning all he heard from her 
 concerning her revelations, and of frequently reporting 
 to her the opinions and criticisms of the world on her 
 actions. "People all wonder that you do so and so," he 
 said to her, or, " Many are offended with you for such and 
 such a thing; might you not modify your austerities, and 
 adapt your habits a little more to what the world under- 
 stands?" &c., &c. "One day," he says, "I rebuked her 
 
 H 2
 
 100 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 privately for not preventing some persons from bending the 
 knee when they approached her ; when she answered me, 
 ' God is my witness, Father, that I observe very little, 
 sometimes not at all, the actions of those who surround me, 
 for I am thinking only of their souls.'" He confesses that 
 he questioned her severely concerning what God had re- 
 vealed to her of the path she ought to pursue, " for I had 
 found many deluded people," he says, " especially among 
 females, whose heads are easily turned ; and the remarks 
 made by people around me troubled me." Catharine 
 accepted frankly all his warnings and advice, and he, 
 satisfied of her sincerity, soon became far more her disciple 
 than her teacher or censor. This he asserts of himself with 
 characteristic honesty. In her relations with Raymond, 
 the gentle gaiety and sense of humour which Catharine 
 possessed, appear more, perhaps, than in other relations. 
 She would rally him on account of his too great solemnity 
 and gravity on occasions which did not especially call for 
 such conditions of mind. He records her great delight in 
 talking of the things of God; when she could find a willing 
 listener, she would speak much, and rather rapidly, on these 
 topics. " While she was actively employed, or spoke of 
 heavenly things," says he, " she seemed to be redolent 
 with the vigour of youth, and when she ceased, she be- 
 came languid and without energy. Often she spoke to me 
 of the profound mysteries of God, and as I did not possess 
 her sublime elevation of soul, I would fall asleep. But 
 she, absorbed in God, would not perceive it, and continued 
 talking; and when she discovered me asleep, she would 
 arouse me in a louder voice, and gaily rebuke me for thus 
 allowing her to converse with the walls."
 
 Learned Friars. 101 
 
 Father Thomas della Fonte was one of the earliest friends 
 of Catharine's youth, and supplied to Raymond the record 
 of her life which preceded her acquaintance with the latter. 
 
 Three miles from Siena stood .'the ancient monastery 
 of Lecceto, where dwelt many good monks who were 
 Catharine's friends. William of England, already men- 
 tioned, was one of these; his soul was penetrated with 
 grief on account of the corruptions of the Church, con- 
 cerning which he often held counsel with Catharine during 
 her evening visits to the convent, when they sat under 
 the shade of the trees. Many of her letters are addressed 
 to him, whom on account of his learning and the honours 
 he had obtained at Oxford and other universities, she 
 called her bachelor (bacceliere). Brother Anthony of 
 Nice was another of her friends of Lecceto, as were also 
 John Tantucci, a doctor of theology of the University of 
 Cambridge ; Felice da Massa, who accompanied her to 
 Avignon ; and Girolamo, bursar of Lecceto, a man of an 
 ardent and daring temper, whom she calls " the sublime 
 madman of the Cross." 
 
 In a secluded hermitage in Vallombrosa there dwelt a 
 learned Florentine who had retired from the life of the 
 city to devote himself to the study of the Scriptures, and 
 to writing. He was familiarly known as " John of the 
 Cell." He was advanced in years when he made the 
 journey to Siena in order to converse with Catharine, of 
 whom he had heard. He became her firm friend and ever 
 ready servant. He preserved to his death, and in spite 
 of a life of seclusion, a sociable and merry temper ; his 
 manners were courteous, and his conversation witty and 
 pleasant. The Florentines styled him the new Socrates,
 
 102 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 on account of his wisdom and independence of character. 1 
 Many stories were told of his absence of mind ; when en- 
 grossed in solving some deep mental problem he would 
 stand with uncovered head for hours in the woods or on 
 the highway, regardless of the burning sun or falling dew. 
 Catharine selected old John of the Cell to carry many of 
 her most important despatches to Eome and elsewhere. 
 There being no postal communication in those days, 
 Catharine was often exercised in mind concerning her 
 many letter-carriers. John of the Cell was old, but 
 energetic, and his shrewdness, wit, experience, and repu- 
 tation for learning made him a fit and trusty messenger 
 in negotiations with the Pope and other princes. 
 
 Andrew Vanni, the painter, has been already mentioned. 
 In 1378 he was elected "Captain of the people " in Siena. 
 Catharine wrote him a long letter, on his election. Chavin 
 de Malan styles this letter " a noble Christian lesson in 
 political economy." She adjures him to be guided by a 
 spirit of justice in all his public life, to allow no narrow or 
 contradictory motives to mingle with the great principles 
 of justice and love of the people : "the only means to 
 preserve peace in thyself, in the city, in the world, is con- 
 stantly to guard and maintain holy justice. It is through 
 the violation of justice that so many great evils have come 
 upon us ; and it is because I so earnestly desire to see 
 justice reign in thee and our dear city, that I write thee 
 these lines. In order to be a just ruler, justice must first 
 reign in thy own conscience ; otherwise thou canst never 
 establish it in the State." 
 
 1 " Festivus Sermo, et senectus oppido jucunda, ut alterum 
 Socratem diceres." Bollandus, "ActaSanct. "
 
 The laughing Cecca and other friends. 103 
 
 We shall have to speak presently of the brothers 
 Buonconti of Pisa. Many other friends of Catharine 
 are known only by name ; they shared her labours, and 
 those who survived her strove to immortalize her teaching. 
 Among these were Gabriel Piccolomini, Francesco Landi, 
 Pietro Ventura, Cenne d'Jacomo, Neri Ugurgieri, Nicolo 
 Ugolino, the poet Anastagio di Monte Altino, Masaccio 
 the painter, and many others. 
 
 It is not easy to make a selection for special notice 
 among the brave women who worked with her, Mantellatas 
 and others, so numerous and so devoted were they. The 
 Florentine lady, Giovanna Pazzi, was one of the most intelli- 
 gent and spiritual of her friends, and a laborious worker f 01 
 God. Giovanna di Capo we find with her also in Florence 
 during the revolution there, of which we shall have to speak. 
 
 The laughing Cecca (ridente) is constantly mentioned by 
 Catharine a bright, merry soul, called sometimes also 
 by her friends the " mad " or the " mischievous Cecca." 
 Her sallies of wit often enlivened the journeys and labours 
 of the sisters. 1 
 
 Catharine Ghetti, and Angelina Vanni, sister of the 
 artist, may be mentioned ; also the noble and venerable 
 Lady Bianchina Salimbeni, widow of John Salimbeni, the 
 head of the proud aristocratic family prominent in the 
 Sienese revolutions already noticed. 
 
 Catharine, a lover of all children, conceived a great affec- 
 tion for a dear little child called Laurencia, the daughter 
 of a famous jurist at Siena. This child, when about eight 
 years of age, became lunatic, or, as it was then expressed, 
 
 1 Letters 114, 116, &c.
 
 104 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 possessed of the devil. Her parents had exhausted every 
 means within their reach for her recovery. They took her 
 to the church of St. Dominic and made use there of every 
 relic and charm connected with the saints believed to 
 exercise a special healing power over possessed persons ; 
 but in vain. Their friends then earnestly advised them to 
 take the child to Catharine. They accordingly sought 
 Catharine in her own house. Catharine, for the first time, 
 I think, in her life, felt fear. It is not permitted to us to 
 fathom this trouble of her soul, or the secret of her fear, 
 for she kept silence respecting it. She only replied to 
 the messengers who came to announce the approach of 
 the little possessed one, " Alas ! alas ! What are they 
 doing 1 I myself am daily tormented with ihe devil, and 
 do they imagine I can deliver others 1 " As the parents 
 of Laurencia entered her door, Catharine fled and hid 
 herself so effectually in the attic that she could not 
 be found, and the poor parents departed, leading away 
 their struggling, shrieking little girl. Catharine stopped 
 her ears, but the sound had entered her soul, and she 
 wept bitterly ; she, however, sternly forbade anyone to 
 speak to her of this child, or to mention the subject of 
 demoniacal possession. What hidden anguish may have 
 lain at the bottom of this apparent cowardice we know 
 not : but even in this she became " more than conqueror" 
 through his strength who loved her. Father Thomas 
 della Fonte, full of pity for little Laurencia and her 
 parents, resorted to the following stratagem : He brought 
 the child to Catharine's room when she was out, and 
 left her there, saying to the servant, " Tell Catharine 
 when she returns that I command her to let this child
 
 Little Laurencia. 105 
 
 remain near her all night." When Catharine returned, she 
 perceived in a moment, by the furious countenance and 
 wild cries of Laurencia, that this was the child she had 
 refused to see. She saw there was no escape, and kneeled 
 down, forcing the child to kneel and pray with her. This 
 was no easy task, and the struggle continued all night till 
 the morning, Catharine exerting all the force of her will to 
 subdue the child, and wrestling in prayer against the evil 
 one, till great drops of perspiration fell from her face, and 
 her strength was almost exhausted. Early in the morning 
 Alessia came in, and saw the end of the struggle, little 
 Laurencia lying in a quiet sleep on Catharine's bed, and 
 Catharine, with uplifted hands, silently praying still. 
 Catharine kept the child for many days, never leaving her, 
 instructing, soothing, and teaching her to pray. One day, 
 however, having been at the house of Alessia, she found 
 the evening so far advanced that she proposed to remain 
 there for the night. While quietly conversing with her 
 friend, she suddenly paused, arose, and said, "Haste, put 
 on your cloak and come with me; the infernal wolf has 
 again got hold of the innocent little lamb we had saved." 
 Alessia objected that it was not proper for women to go 
 out so late at night, alone, to which Catharine only replied, 
 "Make haste and come with me." They found the 
 child wildly excited and agonized with terror. Catharine 
 clasped her in her arms, and with an indignant voice 
 exclaimed, "Thou wicked serpent, thou dost think to 
 recover thy dominion ! but I have faith in Jesus, my 
 Saviour." She then kneeled down and prayed, Alessia 
 also praying with her. The child became calm, and some 
 days later was restored to her grateful parents. She
 
 106 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 lived for sixteen years after, Catharine's devoted friend, 
 perfectly sane and peaceful. 1 
 
 The people of Siena complained of a prolonged visit 
 which Catharine paid to the Lady Bianchina Salimbeni, at 
 her home, the Castel Rocca, near Siena. " She stays too 
 long," they said ; " it is not right that a daughter of the 
 people should remain so long in the house of a Salimbeni ; 
 what can a plebeian have to do with that family ? " Catharine 
 heard of the popular jealousy on her account, and sent to 
 say, " 1 am coming, but not before I have accomplished 
 what I have to do here." A fierce feud had arisen between 
 two families in the neighbourhood of La Rocca, and she 
 undertook to mediate and avert the shedding of blood. 
 While absent on this work, Lady Bianchina caused a poor 
 lunatic woman who lived near to come to the castle ; she 
 knew Catharine's repugnance to the subject of possession, 
 and feared to ask her directly to deal with this woman, but 
 placed her in the entrance of the castle. When Catharine 
 returned, she perceived the poor demoniac, and turned pale, 
 saying pleadingly to Lady Bianchina, "May God forgive 
 you, lady, for what you have done ! Do you know that I 
 myself am often tormented, and how can you expose 
 me to risk by leading before me a possessed person ? " 
 Catharine, obliged to go out again to finish her work as 
 a peace-maker, said sternly to the possessed, " See here ! 
 Place your head in this spot exactly, and do not move 
 one inch till I return." The possessed obeyed, though 
 with piercing cries and sobs. When Catharine returned, 
 she found the patient in the same position, though filling 
 
 1 Raymond, Lib. iL, Cap. viii.
 
 The Lady Bianchina, and Alessia. 107 
 
 the house with her groans and shrieks. Catharine had 
 just seen peace concluded between the rival families, and 
 returned, wearied and exhausted, to this scene of violence 
 of another kind. She appeared angry, and exclaimed, " Get 
 up, you wretch ! Hold your peace, and depart for ever 
 from this poor creature, so dear to Jesus the Son of God." 
 At these words, "Jesus the Son of God," the possessed 
 woman fell fainting on the floor, and was carried to a bed. 
 In a few minutes she seemed like one awakened out of a 
 deep sleep, and calmly asked, " Where am I ? How did I 
 come here 1 Who are these kind friends ? " " She was 
 never troubled again," says Eaymond, who took care to see 
 her occasionally for many years after. The Lady Bianchina 
 kissed her angelic plebeian guest, with her own hands folded 
 the beloved, well-patched little dominican cloak around her, 
 and bade her return to Siena, to satisfy those who murmured. 
 Of all her women friends, she whom Catharine most 
 dearly loved was Alessia. Alessia was very early left a 
 widow, and from the time that she became a Mantellata she 
 was Catharine's inseparable companion. She was a woman 
 of strong good sense, true humility, and ready powers of 
 adaptation. It is to her that we are indebted for much 
 of Catharine's inner history, for she was sometimes even 
 the sharer of her private devotions. It may be asked, 
 how it can be known that Catharine used such and such 
 words and arguments in prayer as are recorded ? The 
 explanation is in the fact that Catharine herself kept a 
 record of some of the wonderful answers which were granted 
 to her prayers, and of her own pleadings with God ; while, 
 at the request of her most intimate friends, she dictated 
 from memory a record of much of her soul's experience,
 
 108 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 including the directions and revelations she received from 
 her Lord. Much of this is developed in her book, the 
 " Dialogue." Alessia was, moreover, a witness of the travail 
 of Catharine's soul in several of those great emergencies when 
 she sought the immediate interposition of the divine hand. 
 
 Such were Catharine's friends and companions ; but 
 those of whom I am about to speak were, in a more 
 special sense, her own spiritual children. When the 
 question of her canonization first came to be discussed at 
 Eome, several of those who had been most intimately 
 acquainted with her were requested to write down their 
 recollections of her. . These documents, sought for in 
 vain by the followers of Bollandus for insertion in the 
 " Acta Sanctorum," were afterwards found in manuscript 
 at the Grande Chartreuse, and published by Dom Martene. 
 There is so much freshness and reality in these personal 
 notices that I shall here give very briefly the substance 
 of portions of them, reserving other portions for the 
 later dates to which they refer. The first is that of 
 Friar Thomas of Siena. He was very young, he tells 
 us, when he first made the acquaintance of Catharine, 
 her father, mother, and whole family ; he entered the 
 order of the Preaching Friars about the same time that 
 she became a Mantellata. " She dwelt near the church of 
 the Preaching Friars, and spent the greater part of every 
 night in prayer ; when she heard the matin-bell she 
 rested ; she constantly exhorted the brothers of St. 
 Dominic to give themselves to the Lord ; and concerning 
 some who had fallen, she would say to us, '0 let us 
 mourn and pray for them yea, let us mourn over these 
 dead ones.' She was exceedingly fond of flowers, and
 
 Recollections of Friar Thomas. 109 
 
 delighted in weaving them into crowns, wreaths, and gar- 
 lands, which she gave to her friends to remind them of 
 the love of the Creator. She often gave me a bouquet. 
 She was never idle. When not engaged in prayer or 
 active ministrations, she dictated letters to her secretaries. 
 Among those whom she called to the faith and service of 
 Jesus, were these, known to me : Gabriel Piccolomini, 
 Neri of Landoccio, Christopher Ghanni, who translated her 
 ' Dialogue ' into Latin, and collected her letters after her 
 death ; Stephen Maconi, and Francis Malavolti. I was 
 present at the execution of Nicola Tuldo ; Catharine was 
 by his side, and caught his head in her hands. Tuldo's eyes 
 were fixed on heaven with so firm a gaze that his eyelids 
 remained motionless ; the spectators wept, thinking they 
 saw in this young man before them a martyr rather than a 
 political criminal, and his funeral presented the aspect of a 
 solemn religious festival. Catharine was always affable, 
 kind, and gladsome, even in the midst of the greatest suffer- 
 ings : trials seemed welcome to her. Once a man of God 
 came from Florence to examine personally what had been 
 told him of her. She was then, on account of severe illness, 
 extended on the planks which served her as a bed. To test 
 her humility he began to administer to her the most harsh 
 and humiliating reproofs. She bowed her head and listened 
 submissively, to the end, without changing countenance, 
 and assured him that she felt very grateful for what he had 
 said. Her visitor exclaimed, after he had left her, ' She 
 is pure gold without alloy.' She generally dictated her 
 letters and book while walking up and down her room, 
 sometimes kneeling down to pray for more light. She 
 taught herself to write after she was grown up. Soon
 
 110 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 afterwards she wrote to Stephen, ' You must know, dear 
 son, that this is the first letter I ever wrote with my own 
 hand;' and to Raymond, ' I wrote this letter myself, for 
 God has given me facility in writing, that when I come from 
 prayer I may unburden my heart.' She valued much her 
 dominican cloak, because in it she had been solemnly con- 
 secrated to the service of Christ. ' I will never part with 
 this dear mantle,' she said ; and whenever the precious 
 cloak became worn or had a rent in it, she mended and 
 patched it with the greatest care ; the many pieces in it were 
 all inserted by her own hand. I took that cloak myself, 
 after her death, from Siena to Venice, where it is preserved 
 in the Dominican church there. Barduccio, of Florence, 
 who was one of her secretaries, was particularly dear to the 
 blessed one ; he was with her when she died, in Home, and 
 afterwards returned to Siena, sick, where he died, still very 
 young, with a smile on his face." 
 
 Friar Bartholomew, of Siena, was a pupil of Thomas 
 della Fonte, who often took him with him to visit Catha- 
 rine at the Fullonica. He afterwards accompanied her on 
 her missions to Pisa, Lucca, Genoa, Avignon, Florence, 
 and Rome. He also says of her, that " she was very fond 
 of lilies, roses, violets, and all flowers, and used to make 
 them up into superb wreaths and bouquets. Her com- 
 panions were young maidens like herself, wearing the 
 mantle of St. Dominic. I often saw them sitting weaving 
 flowers and singing together. When I began visiting her 
 in the house, she was young, and always wore a smiling 
 countenance ; I also was young ; but I never experienced 
 any trouble in her presence. On the contrary, the more 
 I conversed with her, the more I became in love with all
 
 Recollections of Friar Bartholomew. Ill 
 
 the stern virtues. I knew many young laymen and monks 
 who used to visit her, and they all experienced impressions 
 similar to mine ; the sight of her, and all her conversations, 
 breathed angelic purity. Her eloquence was wonderful, 
 and great multitudes of men and women flocked to hear 
 her preach. Ignorant people asked, 'Whence comes so 
 much knowledge, seeing she has never been to school 1 ' 
 Some thought the Friar Preachers had taught her, but, 
 on the contrary, it was she who taught them. Frequently 
 she dictated to two or three secretaries at once, and 
 that without any hesitation or confusion. She told me 
 of the command she had received from the Lord, after 
 she had remained so long in prayer that her soul was 
 separated from her body, and she was caught up to his 
 presence. God then said to her, 'I have appointed thee, 
 my daughter, to a new manner of life. Thou shalt travel ; 
 thou shalt go from city to city as I will indicate to thee ; 
 thou shalt live with the multitude, and speak in public : 
 I will send some to thee, and I will send thee to others, 
 according to my good pleasure. Be thou ever ready to do 
 my will.' 1 
 
 " I never saw the least shade of melancholy in her 
 countenance, which was always cheerful, and even merry. 
 When the pain in her side tortured her cruelly, and hin- 
 dered her from rising, her friends pitied her, and said, 
 
 l Deposition of Bartolommei di Dominici di Siena, given Oct., 
 1412, received and written out by Adama (Notary) with all requisite 
 formalities, sent to the Bishop of Venice, and deposited afterwards 
 in the library of the Grande Chartreuse at Grenoble. The words 
 are exactly translated, as given by Bartolommei from Catharine's 
 own mouth. This deposition was also copied by Tomaseo Petra, 
 Secretary to the Pope.
 
 112 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 ' Mother, how you are suffering ! ' She would smile and 
 say, ' I feel a gentle trouble in my side ; ' and she would 
 add, ' I think I know how my Lord suffered when one of 
 his hands was already nailed, and they drew the other arm 
 with such violence that his ribs were disjointed.' When- 
 ever she spoke of the martyrs, her face would flush and her 
 eyes gleam, and she would spread out her white robe, and 
 smilingly say, ' 0, how lovely it would be if it were all 
 stained with blood for the love of Jesus ! ' Till the last 
 years of her life our Lord granted me the grace of being 
 united to her by the bonds of a pure and holy affection." 
 
 It is from Friar Bartholomew that we have the account 
 of the influence of Catharine with a venerable nobleman 
 of Siena, called Francis, but whose family name he con- 
 ceals. This gentleman was more than eight}^ years of 
 age, when Alessia, who had married his son, and who 
 now in her widowed state lived in the house of her father- 
 in-law, besought Catharine to see and converse with him. 
 To facilitate this, she begged Catharine to become her 
 guest for some weeks in winter, in order that in the 
 long evenings she might have opportunities of conversing 
 with him. Catharine found the old nobleman very hard 
 and worldly, as he had been indeed all his life ; at first 
 he mocked, and turned to laughter her efforts with him ; 
 but at last, he " yielded to the fire of her discourse," and 
 said : " I am determined to confess and to pray ; but I 
 must tell you that I bear a deadly hatred against a cer- 
 tain prior, and intend if I can to kill him." Catharine 
 said " such affecting things to him concerning this prior," 
 that at last he exclaimed : "I will do whatever you order 
 me ; speak, then ; I obey." Catharine, kneeling before him,
 
 The old Knight and the Falcon. 113 
 
 then said, " For the love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ, I beseech you, dear father, to forgive this prior, 
 and to go and be reconciled to him." He promised, and 
 before sunrise on the morrow he took a splendid falcon of 
 which he was very fond, and bent his steps, alone, to the 
 church at which the prior officiated. The prior, seeing his 
 enemy enter, immediately fled ; but the old man sent a 
 canon after him to assure him that he had come to bring 
 him good news, and not to injure him. The prior, on 
 hearing that Francis was alone and unarmed, surrounded 
 himself with many friends, and then permitted his visitor 
 to be introduced. Francis, with his falcon on his wrist, 
 bowed low, and said, " The grace of God has touched my 
 heart, and I am come to offer to be reconciled with you ; 
 and in proof of my sincerity, I beg your acceptance of this 
 falcon, which is my great pet." The prior, in astonish- 
 ment, accepted peace, and Francis, returning to Catharine, 
 said, " I have obeyed your orders ; now what else shall I 
 do ? " Catharine begged him to see and converse with one 
 of the most fervent of the Fathers of St. Dominic, who 
 refrained from imposing any penance upon him, for "he 
 was very aged, and in great indigence, although he was 
 noble." The only penance which Catharine prescribed 
 was that he should pray very earnestly ; and he who had 
 scarcely ever in his life entered a church, now rose early 
 every day, and walked in silence to the cathedral, where 
 he passed prolonged hours at the foot of the cross. This 
 child-like and teachable old disciple continued ever faith- 
 ful ; and full of love and charity to all men, in a few years 
 he slept peacefully in God. 
 
 The same witness also records the story of the conver- 
 I
 
 114 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 sion of Lazarini. Lazarini was a learned man, and pro- 
 fessor of philosophy at Siena; his lectures were brilliant, 
 and attracted crowds of pupils. He was one of the severest 
 critics of the life of Catharine, and openly attacked her 
 character. He resolved to pay her a visit, thinking to find 
 material for further condemnation. He repaired to her 
 house one day, at the hour of vespers. " He asked me 
 to go with him," says Bartholomew, "and I consented, 
 believing he would repent of his motive. We entered her 
 room ; Lazarini sat down on a chest, and Catharine on the 
 floor at his feet ; I remained standing. After some moments 
 of silence, Father Lazarini began : ' I have heard many 
 persons speak of your sanctity, and I have been anxious to. 
 visit you, hoping to hear something edifying and consol- 
 ing to my soul ! ' Catharine, who understood him perfectly, 
 promptly replied : ' And as for me, I am rejoiced at your 
 arrival, for I desire an opportunity of profiting by that 
 learning with which you daily delight your numerous 
 disciples.' She paused, showing no disposition to impart 
 anything. This interchange of empty compliments con- 
 tinued for some time, and as the night was coming on, 
 Father Lazarini said: 'I see it is late; I must go; I will 
 return at a more suitable hour.' As he arose, Catharine sin- 
 cerely commended herself to his prayers, and he, as a matter 
 of form, asked her also to pray for him, which she cheerfully 
 promised to do. He went away, thinking that Catharine 
 might be a good person, but that she was far from deserv- 
 ing her great reputation." Early the following morning, 
 when he arose to study the subject he was to explain 
 to his pupils that day, he felt a great oppression at his 
 heart, and involuntarily began to weep. When they
 
 Professor Lazarini. 115 
 
 called him at the hour of the class, he could not speak to 
 his pupils. Returning to his room, he became indignant 
 with himself : " What ails me ? " he said ; " this is too 
 absurd ! Is my mother dead ? or has my brother fallen 
 in battle ? " The day passed, and the second morning 
 came, and yet the sadness continued ; he then began to 
 desire to converse with Catharine again. The sun was 
 scarcely risen when he again knocked at the door of her 
 room, in a very different frame of mind from that in 
 which he first visited her. Catharine, who had never 
 ceased to pray for him, and who knew what her Lord had 
 done, opened the door gladly. They had a long interview, 
 at the end of which Professor Lazarini conjured her to direct 
 him in the way of salvation. Overcome by his instant 
 entreaties, she at last said : "The way of salvation for you 
 is to despise the world, its vanities and its smiles, and to 
 become humble, poor, and destitute, like our Lord Jesus, 
 and like the blessed St. Francis." Lazarini saw that 
 she had read his heart; for he had loved the world' 
 and its favours and pleasures. He went home, distributed 
 his money and costly furniture, and even his books, 
 reserving only such as were necessary to aid him in his 
 lectures, and became truly poor, and a follower of our 
 Redeemer. From this time his pupils increased in numbers ; 
 for to his learning and eloquence there was now added a 
 kindliness and humility which won for him the affection as 
 well as the admiration of those who heard him. 
 
 Stephen Maconi, a young nobleman of Siena, also 
 wrote down his personal recollections of Catharine, at 
 the time when her canonization was proposed. He says : 
 " I must confess that, though a citizen of Siena, neither 
 
 12
 
 116 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 I nor my family became acquainted with Catharine and her 
 relatives previous to the year 1376. At that time I was 
 engrossed with the business arid pleasures of life, and had 
 no idea whatever of becoming acquainted with her. Our 
 family were then at open war with a family more powerful 
 than our own, and it seemed impossible ever to come to any 
 agreement, notwithstanding the repeated efforts of honour- 
 able citizens to act as mediators. Catharine had then a great 
 reputation in Tuscany, especially as a reconciler of hostile 
 persons and tribes. I was told that she could certainly 
 obtain peace for us, if I asked her. I paid her a visit, and 
 she received me, not as I had expected, with the bashful 
 timidity of a young maiden, but with the tenderness of a 
 sister towards a brother who had been absent on a long 
 journey. I was perfectly astonished, and listened eagerly to 
 her when she engaged me to repent and live like a good 
 Christian. I said to myself, ' digitus Dei est hie.' When 
 I explained the object of my visit, she said without 
 hesitation, ' Go, my son, trust in the Lord ; I will do all in 
 my power to bring about a reconciliation.' " 
 
 The enemies of the Maconi were the Tolomei and the 
 Rinaldini. Catharine fixed a day for the reconciliation, 
 in the church of St. Christopher ; but the pride of these 
 two families would not yield, and they failed to keep the 
 appointment. When Catharine was informed of it, she 
 said, " They will not listen to me ; but whether they will 
 or no, they will be obliged to listen to God." She went 
 to the church, where she expected to find Stephen, his 
 father, and his other relatives. There she kneeled down 
 before the altar, and offered up instant prayer to Heaven. 
 While she was praying, those who had refused to be
 
 Stephen MaconL 117 
 
 reconciled entered the church, unknown to each other. 
 "God had brought them there." They paused at the 
 sight of Catharine kneeling in prayer, unconscious of their 
 presence. While standing silently for some minutes, it 
 seemed to all the members of those rival families that the 
 Spirit of God, the Spirit of peace and goodwill, descended 
 upon them ; they were vanquished, and ready to give up 
 all their animosities. They charged Catharine with the 
 arrangement of the conditions of peace, and became per- 
 fectly reconciled. 
 
 Stephen was one of the members of a confraternity which 
 held its meetings for religious exercises in a subterranean 
 room of a church at Siena. On one of these occasions he 
 suffered himself to be drawn into a conspiracy against the 
 government, planned in this room. Catharine discovered it, 
 and said to him, " Stephen, my son, what evil are you 
 plotting in your heart 1 Is it thus that you change the house 
 of God into a workshop for treason 1 What a stupid pro- 
 ject 1 and for this you risk the loss both of your soul and 
 body." Stephen repented of his design, and perceived that 
 there were many things of which he must purge himself in 
 order to become worthy of Catharine's friendship. Stephen 
 continues : " I now visited her often, and by the influence 
 of her words and example, I felt within me a blessed 
 change. She one day asked me to write some letters for 
 her at her dictation. I accepted with joy, and as I con- 
 tinued to record her thoughts and advice in this way, my 
 heart became inflamed with the love of God, and filled with 
 contempt for the things of this world. I was also so 
 filled with shame for my past life, that I could not bear 
 to think of it. This change, of course, appeared outwardly,
 
 J18 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 and nearly all the city was in astonishment. A little 
 while after, Catharine said to me when we were alone, 
 ' You will presently see, Stephen, that the dearest wish 
 of your heart will be accomplished.' Her words amazed 
 me, for I was not conscious that I now wished for any- 
 thing at all in this world, and I said, ' What is that dearest 
 wish 1 ' She replied, ' Look into your own heart, and see.' 
 I said, 'My very dear mother, I do not find there any 
 greater desire than that of ever remaining near you.' She 
 answered at once, ' It shall be fulfilled.' For myself, I 
 could not understand how that could be, without violating 
 the rules of propriety, for I thought of the great difference 
 there was in our rank and outward circumstances ; but He 
 to whom nothing is impossible, willed that she should be 
 sent to Avignon, and then, notwithstanding my great un- 
 worthiness, I was chosen to travel in her company. I quitted 
 with joy my father, my mother, my brothers and sisters, 
 and all ni}' kindred, so happy was I to serve her. 1 It will 
 be seen that for several years I had very intimate relations 
 with Catharine, because I wrote her letters. She also con- 
 sulted me about her thoughts and movements, and dictated 
 to me a portion of her book. She loved me with the tender- 
 ness of a mother, and indeed far more than I deserved ; 
 consequently several of her disciples conceived a strong 
 sentiment of jealousy. I studied with the greatest care her 
 life and actions, and I declare, on my soul and conscience, 
 and before God and the Church militant, that I have 
 
 1 Letter of Stephen Maconi to Fra d'Antonio, of the Convent of 
 SS. John and Paul in Venice, and afterwards found in the library 
 of the Grande Chartreuse.
 
 Nicholas del Sarracini. 119 
 
 been intimately acquainted with several great servants of 
 God, but have never seen anyone of so exalted a virtue. 
 I never heard a frivolous word from her lips. She suffered 
 constantly from ill-health and pain, but never did a shadow 
 of trouble overcast her face ; never did she utter a word 
 which might indicate anger or impatience ; and this last is 
 assuredly a mark of high perfection." 1 
 
 I shall return later to the narrative of Stephen. It re- 
 mains only to notice briefly a venerable disciple of Catharine, 
 whom she called " My Lord Nicholas dei Sarracini," an 
 old soldier who had achieved glorious exploits on the battle- 
 field, and whose pious wife continually urged him to con- 
 fession and a godly life. He remained long indifferent to 
 all her pleadings. One morning, however, he said to her, 
 " I saw in a dream last night that lady of whom you so 
 constantly speak to me, Catharine of the Contrada d'Oca ; 
 let us go and speak with her." Catharine, from her know- 
 ledge of the human heart, spoke to the old knight in such 
 a manner that he affirmed " she told me all things whatso- 
 ever I did;" he learned to pray, and became a humble 
 believer. In about a year from this time he died in great 
 peace. This concludes the notice of the principal friends 
 and fellow-workers of Catharine. 
 
 1 Letter of Stephen Maconi to Fra d' Antonio.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE plague had subsided in Siena. The report of Catharine's 
 devoted labours among the stricken people having reached 
 Pisa, many of the inhabitants of that city expressed a strong 
 desire to see her. They therefore sent a deputation to Siena 
 to entreat her to pay them a visit, promising, in order the 
 more to attract her, that her presence would be profitable to 
 many erring souls. Catharine, suspecting her own instinc- 
 tive love of journeying and adventure, hesitated for some 
 time ; but after taking counsel with her divine guide, and 
 talking the matter over with Raymond, she set out, ac- 
 companied by several fathers of St. Dominic, including 
 Raymond himself, by her mother, Lapa, and by three or 
 four of the most devoted of the Mantellatas. She was hos- 
 pitably received at the house of the brothers Buoriconti, 
 merchants. It was a beautiful evening in the month of 
 June, 1375, when this faithful little band of pacific con- 
 querors entered Pisa and crossed the well-known Piazza, 
 where those four striking monuments, the Baptistery, the 
 Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, and the Campo Santo, at 
 that time almost modern, had been irregularly scattered 
 by the hand of genius. 1 Catharine paused to gaze for 
 
 1 Chaviu de Malan.
 
 Visit to Pisa. 121 
 
 the first time, on these great masterpieces, and over the 
 plain beyond, sweeping towards the mountains which rise 
 between Pisa and Lucca. At Lucca, she and her companions 
 had tarried several days ; she was there a sufficient time to 
 add a group of disciples in that city to the "mystic family," 
 now greatly increasing in numbers and strength. Gerard 
 Buonconti, at Pisa, came forth with a goodly company to 
 meet Catharine and her friends, and conduct them to the 
 apartments prepared for them. In this company there were 
 many of the Mantellatas of Pisa; there was the archbishop, 
 Francis Moricotto di Vico ; Peter Gambiacorti, the signore, 
 or chief of the government of the republic of Pisa, lead- 
 ing by the hand his little daughter Tora, who afterwards 
 became the Mother Clara of happy memory in the annals 
 of the Church; Bartolomeo Serafini of the Carthusians, 
 and others. There were Dominicans, solitaries from the 
 hills, artizans, merchants, and good men and women of 
 every condition. This Peter Gambiacorti is worthy of a 
 special notice. The Pisans had maintained a long contest 
 against the tyrannical rule of Giovanni Agnello, the late 
 head of the government, who, at the instigation of the 
 Emperor Charles IV., had usurped the unconstitutional 
 title of Doge. The father and uncles of Gambiacorti had 
 been prominent in this resistance, and, by a most unjust 
 sentence, had been condemned and beheaded ; he and his 
 family were banished, and his estates were confiscated. 
 The popular party however prevailed, and after some years 
 its chiefs reversed the sentence of exile against the family, 
 and Peter was recalled. He and his children, after a long 
 time of absence, spent in great poverty, re-entered Pisa on 
 foot, carrying olive branches in their hands. The streets
 
 122 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 re-echoed with shouts of congratulation, and the bells of 
 the Leaning Tower rang out joyfully. Peter, his wife, and 
 his children, boys and girls of various ages, proceeded to 
 the cathedral, where he offered, at the foot of the great 
 altar, solemn thanks to God, " in the name of all exiles," 
 and took an oath to " live as a good citizen among his 
 equals, and to forget and forgive all past injuries." But 
 the men of the new regime did not all share Gambiacorti's 
 magnanimous sentiments, and the smouldering revenge 
 burst forth that very day in acts of violence against the 
 persons and property of the colleagues of Agnello. They 
 set fire to the house of the deposed Doge ; a high wind 
 blew, and carried the fire so rapidly that there was danger 
 of the whole city being burnt down. The first act of 
 Peter Gambiacorti, after his vow made before the altar, 
 was to hasten to the defence of his former enemies ; he 
 fought all day against the fire, drove back the incendiaries, 
 and calmed the excited people. Standing in the midst of 
 the smoke and flames, he cried to the people, "/ have- 
 pardoned with all my heart I, whose father and friends 
 perished unjustly on the scaffold ! By what right do you 
 refuse to pardon I" 1 
 
 It is not surprising that such a man should have become 
 one of Catharine's friends and correspondents, or that she 
 should have found the chief of the republic the most eager 
 recipient among her Pisans, of all that she could impart 
 concerning God and eternal things. 
 
 Catharine had a commodious room assigned to her in 
 
 1 Bernard Marangoni, "Chronicles of Pisa." Quoted by Sis- 
 mondi, Vol. vii., Chap, xlviii.
 
 Correspondence concerning a Crusade. 123 
 
 the house of the brothers Buonconti, and here she spent 
 many hours every day in writing letters on the affairs of the 
 Church and the Republics. Neri de Landoccio, a young 
 knight of Siena, of whom mention has already been made, 
 was her first secretary : he was with her at Pisa, and to him 
 and to Raymond she dictated her correspondence. For 
 social and spiritual converse with friends, the little chapel 
 of St. Christina was reserved. It adjoined the house of the 
 Buonconti, and here the Mantellatas and others assembled 
 in the evenings for pleasant intercourse and sacred music. 
 
 The thought of a crusade had early taken possession 
 of Catharine's mind. During this visit to Pisa the idea 
 attained greater prominence in her thoughts, and she 
 began at once to communicate to others her zeal in this 
 direction. The ambassador of the Queen of Cyprus was 
 at this moment in Pisa, on his way to the papal court at 
 Avignon, to convey to Gregory XL the earnest entreaty 
 of the queen that he would call upon all the Christian 
 poAvers to unite in a crusade against the Turks and 
 Saracens. This queen's territory had been invaded by" 
 the Turks, and she had witnessed the sufferings of the 
 Christians at the hands of the infidels, her own life had 
 been in peril, and she had been obliged to place her little 
 son under the protection of Raimond Beranger, the grand 
 master of the Knights Templars at Rhodes. The Cyprian 
 ambassador, drawn by a secret sympathy, paid a visit 
 to Catharine as soon as she arrived in Pisa, and conferred 
 with her at great length concerning the project of a 
 crusade. Catharine wrote to a friend in Siena, " To-day 
 the ambassador of the Queen of Cyprus paid me a visit; 
 he is on his way to the holy father to solicit his help for
 
 124 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 the Christian lands under the infidels." This idea of the 
 crusades we know had taken hold of many great minds 
 before Catharine's time. The motives for such an enter- 
 prise are not sufficiently clear to us in our day to enable 
 us fully to comprehend the strength of the pure religious 
 fervour which filled the souls of those holy men who 
 preached the necessity of the undertaking as a pledge 
 of fidelity to Christ ; but in Catharine's case it is easy to 
 gather from her letters and conversations, that although 
 loyalty to her Lord was the leading principle in this, as in 
 all her thoughts and acts, she regarded the undertaking 
 -also from the point of view of a politician. She saw her 
 country filled with, and ravaged by troops of foreign 
 mercenary soldiers Germans, Bretons, English, and Hun- 
 garians. She saw the Visconti and other ambitious nobles 
 continual!}' at war with their own countrymen, and Chris- 
 tian blood shed every day by Christian hands. She longed 
 to see a practical means of diverting into a legitimate channel 
 the furious passions and restless fighting zeal of these lawless 
 troops, and of her own countrymen who made use of them. 
 It would be, she conceived, a double benefit to society, to 
 rid Christendom of the presence of these brigands, and to 
 change this rude military ardour itself into a chivalrous zeal 
 for a holy cause. Duguesclin had purged France of the 
 demoralizing presence of military adventurers, and she 
 dreamed of the possibility of doing the same for Italy. 
 Her task was, however, a more difficult one than his, 
 owing to the violent opposition of interests in her own 
 land ; and, as we shall see, her design was thwarted by 
 the revolt, now so near, of almost the whole of Italy 
 against the Pope, and by the great schism which followed.
 
 Her Arguments in favour of a Crusade. 125 
 
 Raymond says, in reply to some of her detractors, who 
 asserted that Catharine had prophesied that a crusade would 
 take place, and that her prophecy had proved false : " I 
 acknowledge that Catharine always desired a crusade, and 
 that she diligently laboured to bring it about ; it was one 
 of the motives of her journey to Avignon ; she wished to 
 engage the Pope Gregory in a holy war. I am witness of 
 this, because when she conversed with the Sovereign Pontiff 
 I acted as interpreter. Gregory XL spoke Prove^al, and 
 Catharine could only speak in the dialect of Tuscany. 
 Gregory therefore addressed her in Latin, which I inter- 
 preted. He said to her, ' Peace must first of all be 
 established among Christians, and after that we may or- 
 ganize a crusade.' Catharine replied, ' There is no betterl 
 means, father, of attaining to peace among Christians than 
 the undertaking of a crusade ; all the turbulent soldiers \ 
 whose presence now promotes division among us, will 
 gladly go forth on such an adventure ; few will refuse to 
 serve God in the profession they love. The fire in Italy 
 will thus be extinguished for want of the fuel which feeds 
 it. You will accomplish several good objects at once ; you 
 will obtain peace for Christians, and save many criminals 
 by removing them from the scene and occasion of their 
 criminal acts ; besides which many infidels may be con- 
 verted and saved.' " Raymond adds, however, " I never 
 heard Catharine indicate in any manner whatsoever that 
 a crusade would take place ; on the contrary, she was 
 always very reserved on the subject, resigning the whole 
 to divine Providence, while expressing a hope that God 
 would look in mercy on the people, and thus save many 
 believers and unbelievers."
 
 126 Catharine of Siena, 
 
 Catharine now set herself, with all her characteristic 
 energy, to the propagation of this idea. She wrote several 
 letters full of fire and persuasion to the celebrated Joanna, 
 Queen of Naples (" bella e turpida regina "). She acquaints 
 her with the good news that the Pope had already sent a bull 
 to the Provincial of the Friar Preachers, to the General of 
 the Minor Friars, and to another friend of her own, recom- 
 mending them to preach a crusade through all Italy. " I 
 therefore pray you, and would constrain you, madam," she 
 writes, "in the name of Christ crucified, to animate your soul 
 and prepare yourself by a humble attitude before God, to aid 
 this work. If you will take up the cross, many will follow 
 you. Awake, my sister, and act courageously ! It is no 
 time to sleep : time itself sleeps not ; it flies like the wind." 
 
 But Joanna, in the midst of intrigues, and absorbed by 
 the ambitions and pleasures of life, had no heart for any 
 such enthusiastic project. She made many beautiful 
 promises, which Catharine for some time hopefully confided 
 in, but which proved empty and vain. Hungary was con- 
 tinually threatened by Turkish invasion ; Catharine wrote, 
 therefore, in the same sense to the Queen of Hungary ; she 
 also wrote to Bernabos Viscoriti, stirring up in him his 
 ambition of glory. She then turned to the most famous 
 of the Condottieri and brigand chiefs. She had long grieved 
 over the lawlessness and cruelty of the Englishman, Hawk- 
 wood, and she eagerly entertained the idea of engaging 
 him in the holy war, for his own good and that of her 
 -country. To Hawkwood she wrote very earnestly : "Retire, 
 I beseech you, a little into yourself, my brother, and 
 contemplate the dangers and punishment to which you 
 are exposing your soul in the service of the devil. My
 
 Correspondence with Captains of Condotlieri. 127 
 
 soul earnestly desires your salvation ; I desire to see you 
 change your manner of life and become the servant and 
 soldier of Christ. . . Fight no more with Christians : it is 
 a cruel thing that we, who are Christians and members of 
 one body, should thus tear and devour one another. I be- 
 seech you to prepare yourself by humility and virtue for 
 the time which is coming, in which you may give your life 
 for Christ ; and thus you will show yourself a true and 
 valiant knight. Brother Eaymond will carry to you this 
 letter : give credence to what he says, for he is a true and 
 faithful servant of God. . . Kemember, brother, how short 
 is your time on earth." 
 
 Having despatched Eaymond with the letter to Hawk- 
 wood she wrote to other warlike captains ; among whom I 
 were Alviano, and the Count d'Agnolo. The former had a 
 great respect for Catharine, and the purity of his life was 
 such that other soldiers sometimes rallied him as being 
 secretly a member of the mystic family. She selected old 
 John of the Cell to convey the letter which she wrote to 
 Agnolo, a man who required to be very discreetly dealt with. 
 Her ardent appeals produced for a time a great movement 
 in the minds of men. The military chiefs began to dream 
 of rich harvests of glory and of spoil on the plains of Asia. 
 Preparations began to be made for departure. Women 
 shared the general enthusiasm, and formed a company which 
 they called "the servants of the pilgrims," to march to the 
 Holy Land. Their enthusiasm was sometimes more sincere 
 than wise, so much so, that Friar John of Vallombrosa was 
 obliged in his sermons to moderate their indiscreet zeal. 1 
 
 1 Letter of Friar John to Catharine, VoL iii., p. 220, Edition Gigli.
 
 128 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Catharine was beginning to hope for the realization of 
 her cherished dream, when the first shocks were felt of 
 the great Tuscan revolt against the Church, in which a 
 large portion of Italy was soon to be implicated. She soon 
 became sorrowfully convinced that the discords among 
 Christian States would, for a long time probably, prevent 
 the realization of a crusade. She saw that those souls 
 must first be reconquered who were being lost to the king- 
 dom of Christ, and that the Church itself must first be 
 purified. Raymond says : " At the moment when the cities 
 and lands which belonged to the see of Rome began to 
 revolt against the Sovereign Pontiff, we were at Pisa. The 
 news of the defection of Perugia reached Pisa ; distressed 
 to observe among Christians so little fear of God, or love of 
 his Church ... I went to see Catharine, together with Friar 
 Pierre cli Villetri ; my heart was drenched in grief, and my 
 countenance announced to her the melancholy event which 
 had occurred. At first she mingled her sorrow with ours, 
 for the loss of souls and the scandals of the Church ; but 
 very soon, perceiving that we were too much cast down, she 
 cheerfully chided us, saying : ' Do not weep before the time ; 
 there Avill be far greater cause for tears by-and-by ; what 
 you now see is but milk and honey to what will follow.' 
 I asked her, in grief and alarm : ' Can we see anything 
 worse than what we now see, unless it be the renuncia- 
 tion altogether of the faith of Christ 1 ' She replied, ' You 
 now see the laity in rebellion, but in a little while you 
 will see the clergy much more culpable than they ; as 
 soon as the Pope shall manifest an intention of reform- 
 ing the morals of the clergy, they will revolt, and present 
 the spectacle of a grievous scandal to the whole world.
 
 She foresees the future of the Church. 129 
 
 There will be a great schism ; Christendom will be divided, 
 and the robe without seam will be rent in two ; arm your- 
 selves, therefore, with patience.' When Urban VI. suc- 
 ceeded to the papal throne (continues Raymond), and the 
 Church was rent with the great schism, I beheld the 
 verification of all that Catharine had predicted. . . Some 
 years afterwards, when we were at Rome, I begged her to 
 tell me what she believed would happen in the Church after 
 these miseries. She replied : ' After many tribulations and 
 trials, God will purify the Church by means unknown to 
 man ; he will awaken many souls out of sleep ; and the 
 reform of the Church and of her ministers will be so 
 beautiful that the prospect of it fills my soul with joy. 
 . . . Give thanks to God for the great peace which he will 
 give to his people after the tempest is past.' " 
 
 Catharine had come to Pisa, exhausted by her efforts 
 during the plague, and in the hope that a rest and change 
 of scene would restore her failing powers. Since the 
 month of January in that year, she had suffered from 
 great bodily weakness ; a reaction, affecting her spirits as 
 well as her body, had succeeded the superhuman efforts 
 she had made during the year of the plague. And now 
 we are to follow her through a period of suffering of a 
 nature seldom experienced except by persons of fine and 
 nervous constitutions, possessing great strength of affection 
 and spiritual aspiration. She had not found the repose 
 she hoped for ; her labours of correspondence in connection 
 with the desired crusade, had been exhausting ; and her 
 faith was now severely tried by the gloomy signs of the 
 approaching political tempest, into the midst of which she 
 knew that she must be drawn, inasmuch as the honour 
 
 K
 
 130 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 of God and the salvation of erring souls were involved 
 in the approaching rupture. The families of her gentle 
 hosts, the Buonconti, were full of solicitude for her; she 
 was now obliged to moderate her active labours, and to 
 rest on her bed for many hours daily in silence and dark- 
 ness, on account of the severe headaches from which she 
 suffered. On one occasion the pain was so violent that 
 Gerard Buonconti, who had entered her room to ask after 
 her health, observed the contracted nerves of her fore- 
 head, the throbbing of her temples, and her poor, thin 
 hands tightly clenched in agony ; his eyes filled with tears; 
 turning over in his mind various schemes for her relief, 
 he thought that it might be of use to bathe her temples 
 with a generous wine. Having in his house only the thin 
 wine of the year, he sent to a friendly merchant who had 
 dealings with all the vineyards of France and Spain, to beg 
 some of his oldest wine. " Willingly would I give you of 
 my best," replied the merchant, "but my cask is exhausted; 
 come and see for yourself if you will." The two honest 
 men went together to the cellar on their errand of kind- 
 ness, and on tapping the cask supposed to be empty, the 
 old wine flowed abundantly, and its quality was pronounced 
 to be supremely excellent. The possessor of it was stupefied 
 with astonishment, and all his servants continued to protest 
 that for three months past the cask had been dry. "It is 
 a miracle!" they cried; "the virtue of the saint has 
 accomplished this ! " and straightway a report flew through 
 the city that Catharine had miraculously multiplied the 
 wine of her hosts, without even rising from her bed to 
 pronounce the word. 
 
 Some days after, Catharine, convalescent, was going
 
 She deprecates Popularity. 131 
 
 through the streets with Lapa to pay a visit to an apostolic 
 nuncio just arrived from the papal court, when her presence 
 was announced by some workmen who recognized her. A 
 great crowd of people gathered around her ; the excitement 
 caused by the sight of a few scores in one street, soon drew 
 together hundreds from all parts of the city, so much so 
 that " the workshops were all forsaken, the faces of the in- 
 habitants crowded the doors and windows of the houses, 
 and all business ceased for a moment in the universal desire 
 to see this wondrous person, the dyer's daughter of Siena. 
 ' Go to 1 ' they said ; ' let us see who this woman is who 
 drinks no wine, and yet can miraculously fill the casks I'" 1 
 "Catharine, "continues Raymond, " was exceedingly grieved 
 by this noise and excitement concerning her. She was 
 forced to pause; weak and trembling, she leaned on her 
 mother's arm, and lifting her eyes to heaven, she frankly 
 complained to her Saviour : ' Lord, why dost thou suffer 
 me to be covered with confusion in this way before all the 
 people 1 Did I ever ask wine from thee 1 Thou knowest 
 that, by an inspiration of thy grace, I have all my life 
 abstained from wine, and now wine is suffered to be the 
 cause of my being made ridiculous. I beseech thee to put 
 this matter right, that all this foolish excitement may 
 cease ! ' ' Very shortly (the story continues), the wonderful 
 wine came to an end, and the last which was drawn was so 
 unpalatable that those who would have drunk it dashed it 
 from their lips. The sudden brief outburst of popular favour 
 was followed by as sudden a reaction, and people murmured, 
 
 i "Qualis ist hasc qvue vinum non bibens, vas vacuum miraculoso 
 vino potuit udimplere." RAYMOND, Cap. 16. 
 
 K '1
 
 132 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 criticized, and doubted. Catharine's friends came to her the 
 same evening, with serious faces, to tell her that the people 
 were actually beginning to say things seriously derogatory 
 to her dignity. Catharine answered only with a merry 
 laugh. How much of honesty of purpose, and of shrewd- 
 ness in her estimate of the worth of popular opinion is 
 expressed in her conduct of that morning, and in the laugh 
 with which she replied to her regretful friends in the 
 evening ! Her illness increased, in spite of all the kind 
 efforts of friends, and her own fortitude in combating her 
 physical weakness. She fainted repeatedly, and on one 
 occasion she continued in a state of insensibility during the 
 whole day. The deathly pallor of her face, and her rigid 
 immovability made her anxious friends believe that she 
 was actually dead, and she herself spoke afterwards of 
 her soul having really quitted the body that day, of 
 glorious things which she had seen in the city of God 
 whither celestial beings had conducted her, and of long and 
 blessed converse with her Lord. Her mother, her hosts, the 
 Friar Preachers and Mantellatas, her companions, all con- 
 tinued kneeling in her room till the evening, with tears en- 
 treating God to restore her to life. Towards the hour of 
 vespers the sisters observed the beating of her heart, and two 
 silent tears stealing from beneath the closed eyelids. With 
 deep sighs of relief, they all gave thanks to God ; but 
 Catharine, awaking from her long trance, wept bitterly. 
 Her chastened soul was not yet made entirely willing to 
 return to the pains and toils of earth, from the ineffable 
 foretaste granted to her of the joys of heaven. A sad 
 presentiment, moreover, seemed to haunt her of ap- 
 proaching calamities for her countrymen. But she had
 
 Participation in the sufferings of Christ. 133 
 
 not yet traversed the whole length of the valley full of the 
 shadows of death. She began now to speak more than ever 
 of the sufferings of Jesus Christ ; the thought of his passion 
 was never absent from her mind ; and she whispered 
 continually in her prayers the deep desire to be made more 
 and more a partaker of his sufferings ; her soul thirsted 
 with a deeper thirst than ever for the living God, and for 
 perf ect oneness with Christ ; at times she seemed plunged 
 in sorrow, yet she embraced and clung to the sorrow; 
 words failed her when she endeavoured to speak of her 
 soul's travail at that time. "We cannot follow her," her 
 friends said ; " we must leave her alone with her Lord ; 
 there is a mystery in his dealings with her which we do not 
 fathom." And we, at this day, will do wisely to echo 
 those words, and not attempt to explain her sorrow or her 
 ecstasy, the intensity of the outgoing of her soul towards 
 God, or his deep and secret revelations of himself to her. 
 We leave her alone with her Lord. 
 
 What follows shall be told in the words of her friends, 
 the witnesses of her sorrows and her joys. Catharine 
 remained silent for many hours every day at the foot of the 
 cross, her frail body exercised with severe pain, while her 
 soul unweariedly pressed on to a closer union with Christ, 
 and participation in the sufferings of Calvary. One day 
 she was alone in the little chapel of St. Christina. " The 
 hour of the consummation had arrived." She remained 
 longer than usual, entranced : her senses seemed to be 
 dead. A few of her intimate friends entered and remained 
 in a remote corner of the church ; they saw her prostrate, 
 her forehead on the earth, like one dead : after a long and 
 motionless silence, she slowly raised herself and kneeled ;
 
 134 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 then she stretched forth her arms until her figure assumed 
 the form of a cross ; her countenance was " all on fire ; " 
 she seemed absorbed, possessed by some high, unearthly 
 passion ; her eyes were fixed, as if ravished by something 
 which others saw not ; she remained thus, perfectly motion- 
 less, for some minutes, and then suddenly fell like one who 
 had received a death-blow. She was carried to her bed in 
 the house of the Buonconti. When she began to return to 
 herself, Raymond was by her side, and she whispered to him 
 in a low voice : " Father, I bear in my body the marks of 
 the Lord Jesus." Later in the day she spoke further on 
 the subject, " I saw my Lord," she said, " extended on 
 the cross, and from each of his five wounds there streamed 
 forth towards me a ray of heavenly light. My love for him, 
 and the desire of my soul to throw itself out of the body 
 towards him, were so strong, that they raised me from 
 the ground on which I was prostrated, and supported 
 me while I gazed upon him. The five bright rays stream- 
 ing towards me, pierced my hands and my feet and 
 my side with an acute pain, and I fell as if dead. I 
 besought the Lord that his blessed wounds might not 
 appear visibly in my body ; hence none but myself 
 knows my secret pain." Catharine knew that the stig- 
 mata believed to have been borne by the great St. Francis 
 of Assisi had won for him a superstitious worship which 
 that great saint himself repudiated, and which, had it 
 been bestowed on herself, she would have dreaded and 
 fled from. Some fear of this kind, some awe which she 
 never expressed, seems to have inspired the immediate 
 and earnest request that she might not bear visibly the 
 sacred marks, at the same time that she so ardently
 
 The Legend of the Stigmata. 135 
 
 desired to be made even outwardly like unto him whom 
 her soul loved, and to realize the most intimate union pos- 
 sible in this life. Such was the incident which gave rise to 
 the belief held after her death that her experience exactly 
 coincided with that of St. Francis, or with that at least 
 which was attributed to him ; for there is no spoken or 
 written word of Francis of Assisi on record in which he 
 himself claims the honour of having received the stigmata. 1 
 Catharine remained for some days after this in a state of 
 profound weakness, and tortured with pain. She after- 
 wards told a friend that the anguish which she experienced 
 in the realization of the sufferings of Christ, was greatest 
 at the moment when she was pleading for the salvation of 
 some persons whom she dearly loved. " Promise me that 
 thou wilt save them ! " she cried, and stretching forth 
 her right hand to Jesus, she again implored in agony : 
 " Promise me, dearest Lord, that thou wilt save them. 
 give me a token that thou wilt." Then her Lord 
 seemed to clasp her outstretched hand in his, and to 
 give her the promise ; when he withdrew, and her hand 
 dropped, "she felt a piercing pain as though a nail had 
 been driven through the palm." 
 
 Her health having become gradually somewhat restored, 
 Catharine resumed her active habits. From that time 
 forward her face beamed with a still more wonderful peace 
 and joy, at the same time that her whole frame bore the 
 traces of severe conflict. An atmosphere of heaven seemed 
 to surround her ; she was like one who possessed a secret 
 
 1 Beccafumi and other painters have represented the stigmatira- 
 tion of St. Catharine in the Church of St. Christina.
 
 136 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 which all men desired to know, but which can be imparted 
 by God alone, in direct communication with the soul of man. 
 The multitudes who were attracted to her " took notice of 
 her that she had been with Jesus ; " and with that half- 
 unconscious thirst which lingers in every human soul, 
 urging it to cry, " who will show us any good 1 " many 
 besought her to tell them what she had in secret learned 
 of God. 
 
 During her stay at Pisa she encountered enemies as well 
 as friends, and there seems to have been a great conflict of 
 opinion in regard to her. Many simple folk among the 
 Pisans, not knowing how to express sufficiently their love 
 and admiration for her, knelt down, on meeting her in the 
 street, and kissed her hand. She was sharply rebuked for 
 allowing this. The austerity of her life and the fervency of 
 her prayers became the object of criticism here, as at Siena. 
 While some praised her, others maintained that she was 
 solely actuated by feminine vanity, and some even that she 
 was instigated by an evil spirit. The learned men of the 
 University thought it worth while to dispute with each other 
 as to whether she courted praise, or whether she only en- 
 joyed it when it came to her, and on this account took 
 great delight in appearing before the public. Some said, 
 " What folly it is in people to run from all sides to see her ! 
 She is only a woman ; she ought to remain in her house if 
 she desires to serve God." Two or three of these deter- 
 mined, if possible, to put an end to the scandal, as they 
 termed it, of the public admiration for her. A celebrated 
 physician among them, called John Gutalebracia, resolved 
 to confound her by propounding difficult questions on the 
 Scriptures. He invited a renowned jurist, Master Peter
 
 Master Peter Albizi. 137 
 
 Albizi, a man of mature age and great prudence, to accom- 
 pany him, and they proceeded to the villa Buonconti. The 
 doctor opened the conversation in the following manner : 
 " Master Peter Albizi and I have heard, madam, of your 
 virtues and your learning, and we are come in the hope of 
 receiving from you some spiritual instruction. We are 
 anxious to know how you understand that passage in 
 which it is said, God spoke in order to create the world. 
 Has God a mouth and a tongue ? " He addressed to her 
 several other questions of the same kind, and with assumed 
 respect awaited her reply. Catharine answered, "I am 
 astonished that you, who are teachers of others, as you 
 inform me, should present yourselves before a poor woman 
 whose ignorance it would be much more proper that you 
 should enlighten. But, as you wish me to reply, I will do 
 so as God will enable me. What benefit will it be to you 
 or to me to know how God spoke in order to create the 
 world ? God is a Spirit, and what is necessary for both 
 you and me to know is, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of God, assumed our nature, and suffered and died for 
 our salvation. Yes ; the essential for me is to believe this, 
 and to think upon it, in order that my heart may be filled 
 with love towards him who so loved me. This is the true 
 science." She continued to speak with so much fervour 
 that Master Peter was unable to restrain his tears ; sud- 
 denly, taking his bonnet of crimson velvet from his head, 
 he dropped on his knees and asked her forgiveness for 
 having come with the sole intention of perplexing or 
 tempting her. Catharine, giving him her hand, conjured 
 him to rise. She seated him beside her, and they held a 
 long and animated conversation on spiritual subjects.
 
 138 CatJiarine of Siena. 
 
 Before he left, he begged her to do him the favour of pre- 
 senting his little new-born baby at the baptismal font. 
 She cheerfully undertook to do so ; and from that hour he 
 who had been bitterly prejudiced against her, became one 
 of her warmest friends. Another gentleman, who enjoyed 
 a great reputation for piety, wrote her a letter full of ex- 
 cellent arguments, reproving her for allowing any honour 
 to be shown to her. He recalled to her the example of our 
 Lord and of the saints ; exhorted her to go home and live 
 in retirement, reminding her that the true servants of God 
 loved solitude above all things, and that only hypocrites 
 sought renown. Fra Bartholomew of Siena, who was one 
 of Catharine's companions at Pisa, says : " This letter was 
 forwarded under cover to Father Eaymond, who communi- 
 cated its contents to me. We were very indignant, and 
 intended not to show the letter to Catharine, but to answer 
 the writer ourselves, and to reproach him with his im- 
 pertinence and ignorance of spiritual things. While we 
 were whispering together on the subject, Catharine per- 
 ceived us, and inquired whether anything was troubling us. 
 As soon as we told her, she claimed the letter, and when 
 we hesitated to give it to her, she said, ' If you refuse it 
 to me, I insist at least that you read to me what concerns 
 me in it.' Kaymond then read to her part of the letter, 
 and she rebuked us gently for feeling angry. ' You 
 ought,' she said, ' to join with me in thanking the author 
 of that letter; he gives me very valuable advice. Do 
 you not see that he fears that I may wander from the 
 path of humility, and is anxious to save me from that 
 snare ? Now, I must have that letter, and return thanks 
 to the writer of it.' She did so, in fact, at once, and in a
 
 SJie refuses to converse with insincere persons. 139 
 
 most admirable manner. As Father Raymond, however, 
 would not accept her view of the matter, and continued 
 to protest that he would write himself, she gave him a very 
 severe look, and reproached him for discovering evil where 
 only good was intended." 
 
 " It often happened," says Raymond, " that persons 
 unknown to us, of honourable and respectable appearance, 
 but in reality addicted to vice, would present themselves 
 before Catharine. Having a marvellous insight into 
 character, she would refuse to look at them or answer 
 them when they addressed us ; and if they insisted, she 
 would say : ' First, let us purify ourselves from our faults, 
 and escape from the bondage of Satan, and then we will 
 converse about God.' By this means she soon disencum- 
 bered us of the presence of many whom we afterwards 
 discovered to be incorrigible profligates." 
 
 Gerard Buonconti one day brought to her a young man 
 of twenty years of age, whose system was shattered by the 
 long continuance of a quotidian fever from which he was 
 then suffering. He had consulted many physicians in vain 
 he was so weak as scarcely to be able to stand to salute her. 
 Filled with pity for him, and seeking an interview alone 
 with him, she laid her hand on his shoulder, and gently 
 whispered to him concerning the weight which she saw to 
 be pressing on his soul. He was a stranger to prayer, to 
 true faith, and to peace. She charged him at once to pour 
 forth his heart in confession of all his past sins and 
 negligence. He met her advice with truthfulness and 
 simplicity, and conferred for some time after with good 
 Friar Thomas della Fonte, to whom Catharine had com- 
 mended him. He began at once to feel his soul lightened
 
 140 CatHariru of Siena. 
 
 and his body strengthened. She then said to him, " Go, my 
 son, in the peace of Jesus Chiist, who will hear thy prayer. 
 This fever will no more torment thee." Not many days 
 after, he returned in restored health, to render thanks to 
 her and to God ; his countenance was full of happiness and 
 joy, and he walked with a firm, elastic step. Kaymond saw 
 him some few years later on a journey through Pisa, and 
 affirmed that he had become so robust that he could not 
 have known him, had he not explained who he was. He 
 continued to be a faithful follower of Christ. Raymond 
 says, moreover, " I was witness of this work of healing, 
 and can say, like St. John, 'he who hath seen beareth 
 witness.' There were also others who witnessed it; 
 Catharine's host, and Lapa, Friar Thomas, Friar Bartholo- 
 mew, and all the devout women of Siena who had come 
 to Pisa with Catharine." 
 
 Catharine, like most of the Sienese, possessed a great love 
 and cultivated taste for music. She sometimes went in the 
 evening to hear the organ in the church of St. Stephen at Pisa, 
 where "the breeze gently waved the Turkish banners sus- 
 pended from the vaulted roofs, trophies of the valour of the 
 ancient Christian knights," no doubt suggesting thoughts of 
 the new crusade for which she hoped. On leaving this church 
 one evening she was met by a messenger, who conveyed to 
 her an urgent invitation from the community of the Car- 
 thusians established in Gorgon Island, to pay them a visit. 
 This little island is situated nearly half-way between 
 the Pisan shore and the most northerly cliffs of Corsica, 
 and about thirty miles from Leghorn. Dom Bartolommeo 
 of Ravenna was then prior of the Carthusian monastery 
 in that island. He and his monks had been more than
 
 Visit to Gorgon Island. 141 
 
 once obliged to defend themselves against bands of Sara- 
 cens, who landed and overran the fields which they had 
 cultivated, and attacked the convent in the hope of plunder. 
 A few years after the date of Catharine's visit, the Saracens 
 drove out the last of the poor religious, having murdered 
 many of their companions, and took possession of the island. 
 Dom Bartolommeo had often urged Catharine to spend a 
 few days in his island, that his brethren might profit by 
 her instructions. " He entreated me," says Raymond, " to 
 second his request. Catharine consented, and we made the 
 voyage thither, to the number of about twenty persons. 
 We arrived a little after sunset ; the prior met us, and con- 
 ducted Catharine and her companions to the house where 
 they were to lodge, about a mile from the monastery. The 
 following morning he assembled all his monks outside 
 the convent, and entreated Catharine to address a few 
 words to them." It must have been an unusual spectacle, 
 that of a great community of monks assembled thus, 
 within no consecrated Avails, but under the blue skies, 
 seated on the ground, in the shade of the olive trees, or 
 standing erect, and intent on all that passed ; the dyer's 
 daughter of Siena, in all the stern simplicity of her charac 
 ter, cheerful and frank in aspect and demeanour, silently 
 waiting till stillness had fallen upon the wondering and 
 obedient crowd ; her friends, Alessia, Cecca, Lysa, and 
 others, in their white gowns and dominican cloaks, grouped 
 around her ; Raymond, Dom Bartolommeo, and her 
 youthful secretary and knight, Neri di Landoccio, con- 
 ferring together as to the most suitable arrangements for 
 this singular audience, so that the speaker might be dis- 
 tinctly heard, and the hearers freed from all distraction.
 
 142 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 One can imagine how grateful in this hot July or August 
 weather must have been the sea breezes from the blue 
 Mediterranean, so near that the splash of its waves upon 
 the shining pebbles of its tideless shore could be distinctly 
 heard ; and how pleasant the soft shade, the silence and 
 the calm, after the busy life and heat of the city. When 
 Catharine was requested, as Raymond says, to " favour 
 them with some words of edification," she at first declined, 
 " excusing herself on the grounds of her incapacity and her 
 sex ; saying that it was more meet that she should listen 
 to God's servants than that she should speak in their pre- 
 sence." Yielding at last to the earnest invitation of Father 
 Bartolommeo, and the murmured entreaties which ran 
 through the crowd of expectant monks, she began to speak, 
 " saying what the Holy Spirit inspired her to say in refer- 
 ence to the many illusions and temptations to which soli- 
 taries are liable, and concerning the means of triumphing 
 over them." Contemplating, as she spoke, the assembly 
 before her, she distinguished many a young face which 
 told a pathetic tale of disappointment, or of conflict, or 
 of yearning hope ; her maternal heart was moved to its 
 depths, and overcoming the constraint which she had 
 felt at first, she pleaded with them as a tender mother 
 with beloved sons, or as a loving sister with brethren. 
 Her clear voice was distinctly heard amidst the breath- 
 less silence which was maintained ; and there was, says 
 Kaymond, " so much method and ability in her discourse 
 that I was filled with amazement, as indeed were all her 
 audience." Another of her companions described her 
 eloquence, on this and on other occasions, as resembling 
 a flowing river : " She did not, like some orators, care-
 
 Perils at Sea. 143 
 
 fully seek and select illustrations or flowers of oratory, 
 but her speech was like an impetuous torrent, which in 
 its onward flow drags into itself, and whirls along with it 
 all the flowers growing near, and profusely scattered 
 upon its banks." When she had ceased, and the gentle 
 murmur of the wondering and grateful assembly had 
 taken the place of the hushed stillness filled only by her 
 tender voice, the prior turned to Raymond and whispered : 
 "Dear brother Raymond, I am the confessor of all these 
 brethren and disciples, and know the hearts of each ; and 
 I assure you that if this saintly lady had herself heard 
 all their confessions, she could not have spoken in a more 
 just and suitable manner ; she perceived all their wants, 
 and did not utter a word which was not useful to them. 
 It is evident that she speaks by the inspiration of God." 
 The following evening Catharine and her company em- 
 barked again for Pisa ; at midnight the wind lowered to 
 a dead calm, and the pilot of their little vessel became 
 very anxious. " We are in a dangerous channel," says 
 Raymond ; " if the wind from the north, which usually 
 follows such a calm, had risen upon us, we should have 
 been thrown upon some rocky islands, or drifted into 
 the open sea. I spoke to Catharine of our danger. She 
 answered in her accustomed tone, ' Why do you give 
 way to distraction ? There is no cause for fear.' I re- 
 mained silent, for I was reassured by her calmness ; but 
 soon the wind veered in the direction dreaded by the 
 pilot, and I drew her attention to it. ' Let him change 
 the helm, in the name of God,' she said, 'and sail in the 
 direction of the wind which heaven shall send him, and 
 not against it.' The pilot obeyed, and our vessel turned
 
 144 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 its back on the shore whither we were destined. We 
 were all troubled in mind, but she continued in prayer, with 
 her hands clasped and her head bent forward ; and we had 
 not advanced far before the favourable wind that had for- 
 saken us, blew afresh, and we sailed quickly towards the 
 shore of Italy. We arrived at the desired port at the hour 
 of matins, singing the Te Deum as we touched the shore." 
 
 In the autumn Catharine and her friends returned to Siena; 
 as the winter approached, some increase of bodily strength 
 was granted to her, and in the silence of her little room at 
 the Fullonica she sought wisdom, insight, and force for the 
 greater labours to which she was yet to be called. 
 
 The condition of Italy became more and more calami- 
 tous. We have already seen how the Republic of Siena 
 had been distracted by the rivalries of its different poli- 
 tical factions. The whole of Lombardy was ravaged by 
 " those wild beasts " l the Visconti. The kingdom of 
 Naples, under the influence of the disorderly court of 
 Queen Joanna, became a prey to rival parties, to unruly 
 passions, and to wars of revenge. The state of Rome, 
 abandoned by its popes, was still worse. In the midst 
 of its desolation there yet remained, however, a remnant 
 of its ancient spirit, which for a time enabled it to re- 
 assert its liberties under Rienzi, " the last of the tribunes," 
 whose revolution was the most prominent event of the 
 fourteenth century in Rome. Catharine of Siena was the 
 faithful ally of Rienzi in the earlier part of his career. 
 Neither the efforts of Rienzi, however, nor the warnings 
 of Catharine were sufficient to avert the impending calu- 
 
 1 Villani, L. ix., Ch. 103.
 
 Treachery of Bernabos Visconti. 145 
 
 mities of Italy and of the Church. The Tribune fell a 
 victim to his own weakness in embracing the luxurious 
 manner of life against which he had at first protested, and 
 lost the confidence of the people who had proclaimed him 
 the liberator of Italy. The prophetic spirit of Catharine 
 foresaw the great approaching defection ; but she looked 
 beyond that, to a time Avhen Christendom, purified by still 
 greater afflictions than those which befell it during her own 
 life, would return to its primitive simplicity and " acknow- 
 ledge the Saviour who had redeemed it by his own blood." 
 Bernabos Visconti, Duke of Milan, continued to incite 
 the whole of the north of Jtaly to rebellion against the 
 Pope, while Gregory ceased not to send his fighting legates 
 one after the other with their large armies of mercenary 
 Bretons, English, and Germans, to out-manceuvre the move- 
 ments of Bernabos. He publicly excommunicated him and 
 his captains. Bernabos, requiring time for the recruiting 
 of his forces, resorted to dissimulation in order to obtain 
 it. He sent Andria Doria of Genoa as his ambassador 
 to Avignon to convey to the Pope his submission, and 
 implore his pardon. Gregory, who was pacific and timid 
 by nature, readily granted it. Bernabos, however, in the 
 meanwhile had made his preparations for a treacherous 
 attack first upon Genoa and the Doria family, of whose 
 services he was availing himself ; and, secondly, upon 
 the pontifical allied army. The revulsion in the mind 
 of Gregory, on learning this, was very great, and he 
 swore to undertake a war of extermination against the 
 Visconti. More than ten Italian cities submitted to the 
 furious attack of his legates ; for indeed the people were 
 not sorry to be thus forcibly relieved from the Milanese 
 
 L
 
 ] 46 CatJuinne of Siena. 
 
 tyranny. An unexpected revolution, however, occurred, 
 which checked the success of the papal army and changed 
 the course of events. The powerful republic of Florence, 
 hitherto so loyal to the Church, now rose up with great 
 vehemence against its authority. 
 
 It is not necessary to give in all their details the causes 
 of this revolt ; it is enough to say that it was more than 
 justified by the oppressive government of the pontifical 
 legates. The long course of crimes, treasons, and cruel- 
 ties of which these legates had been guilty against the 
 Florentine subjects of the Pope was crowned by an act 
 which proved to be more than their patience could en- 
 dure. During a season of great scarcity, when the 
 harvests of Tuscany barely sufficed for the nourishment 
 of the starving citizens, the legates sent their own soldiers 
 into the fields to reap the corn ; this they shipped off in 
 their galleys from the ports of Leghorn and Genoa to be 
 conveyed to other ports, where they received good prices 
 for the cargoes. At the same time they forbade the 
 importation to Tuscany of the corn of the Campagna. 
 These measures, executed with a high hand and under 
 pretence of "teaching a salutary lesson of humility to 
 the Florentines," excited that people to fury ; and in the 
 streets of this hitherto loyal and orthodox city were now 
 to be seen crowds of rebels crying, " Down with the 
 government of the priests ! Viva la Liberta ! " They 
 burnt the convents, forced the prisons, and published a 
 plebiscite abolishing for ever the horrible institution of 
 the Inquisition. They suppressed the canonical tribunals, 
 and abandoned the clergy to popular vengeance as the 
 enemies of the public good. The news of this revolution
 
 Revolt of Florence. 147 
 
 filled the heart of Catharine with dismay. She had already \ 
 laboured assiduously, by her letters to Pope Gregory, to the ' 
 Signory of Florence, and to the Visconti, to restore peace, 
 by bringing each to the recognition of the true principles 
 which should govern the State and the Church. She had 
 entreated the Pope no longer to leave the conduct of his 
 affairs in the hands of the worldly and rapacious legates, and 
 had counselled the Florentines to endeavour to come to an 
 understanding with the sovereign pontiff by means of an 
 embassy to Avignon, rather than by resorting to arms. 
 Secretly in her heart she had determined not to rest until 
 the Pope should resume his responsibilities in Italy; this 
 aim she never lost sight of, and never ceased to commend 
 it to God in prayer until she saw its accomplishment. 
 
 Gregory trembled when he heard of the revolt of his 
 faithful Florentines, and began to be even in fear of his 
 own furious legates, who had exceeded so far the powers 
 entrusted to them. He wrote as follows to the magistrates 
 of Florence : " As for ourselves, we take God and man 
 to witness that it is not through our will or fault that 
 these wrongs of which you complain have been perpetrated. 
 Dear children, we warn you, we beseech you, we implore 
 you to put away this tumult of your spirits, and to return 
 to God. Consider the horrible misfortunes which will result 
 from this revolution. Make restitution for the crimes you 
 have committed against the Church, and we shall grant 
 to you abundantly our apostolic benediction." This letter 
 had no effect in allaying the approaching storm, though 
 the most moderate of the republican leaders employed their 
 utmost efforts to prevent the outrages committed by the 
 enraged and hunger-stricken people. The refuse of the 
 
 L2
 
 148 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 population living on the banks of the Arno, fell with 
 violence upon a Chartreuse convent in Florence, drag- 
 ged out the prior, who had assisted the legates in their 
 great corn robberies, and tortured him to death in the most 
 horrible manner. They roasted him alive by the river side, 
 tearing off his flesh with pincers, and throwing it to the 
 dogs. The laughter and mockery of the people were 
 mingled with the howling of the dogs as they quarrelled 
 over their horrible repast. The spirit of revolt spread like 
 a conflagration. The red flag bearing the word " Libertas " 
 in letters of silver was carried to Viterbo, Orvieto, Spoleto, 
 Todi, and many other cities. Perugia drove out from her 
 midst her cardinal and all the priests. The whole country 
 re-echoed with the cry of "Down with the Church." The 
 brigand chief Hawkwood, hearing in this cry the promise 
 of great gains for his mercenaries, forsook the banner of 
 the Church, which he had degraded, and went over to the 
 .service of the rebels, who offered him high pay. The soul 
 of Gregory was desolated with the news of this wide- 
 spread revolt, for he perfectly understood that this hatred 
 against the Church was bound up with deep sentiments 
 of patriotism and the love of freedom, and that it 
 could not be denounced as an unmixed evil. He had re- 
 course to ecclesiastical weapons. He excommunicated the 
 Florentines and all their adherents, as contumacious rebels. 
 The city was placed under an interdict; he ordered all 
 the churches to be closed, and prohibited the administra- 
 tion of the Sacraments. All commercial treaties with the 
 Florentines were declared null, and the nations were 
 warned to have no dealings with them. It was for- 
 bidden, under pain of excommunication, to furnish the
 
 The Florentines Excommunicated. 149 
 
 city with corn, wine, or wood. The seizure of their mer- 
 chandise was declared to be legitimate ; the right to make 
 testaments and to inherit property was forbidden them. 
 They were declared the slaves and the offscouring of the 
 world. 1 The Florentines met these ecclesiastical fulmina- 
 tions at first with derision and scorn. Gradually, however, 
 they saw their great merchants emigrating and establishing 
 themselves in London, Canterbury, Norwich, &c. They 
 found the merchants of other cities unwilling to deal with 
 them ; their vessels and their agents were shunned ; their 
 commerce was almost destroyed. The more sober of the 
 revolutionists resolved to attempt a reconciliation with the 
 Pope. Two ambassadors were selected, one of whom was 
 the generous "captain of the people," Barbadori. They set 
 out for Avignon. Gregory granted them a public audience 
 in the great hall of the Consistory. The ambassadors pros- 
 trated themselves before him, and kissed the apostolic feet. 
 Barbadori then stood upright; and in a voice tremulous with 
 emotion, he addressed the Pontiff in his beautiful Tuscan 
 tongue, which was not understood by Gregory, except 
 through the medium of an interpreter. " Most holy father," 
 he said, " we beseech you, listen to us as an equitable judge, 
 and not as one of a party. If you had sent to the Italian 
 cities good legates or prefects, who, instead of exercising 
 an accursed tyranny, would have caused your power to 
 be reverenced, you would never have had anything with 
 which to reproach us, and we should never have had to 
 plead our own defence. Your legates ought to have 
 remembered that they were not dealing with barbarians 
 
 1 Bull of Gregory XI. Raynaldus, "Eccles. Annals."
 
 150 CaiJutrine of Siena. 
 
 or Turks, but with Christians and free republicans. Their 
 tyranny has passed all bounds ; they are guilty of all crimes. 
 Beasts without reason even know how to distinguish good 
 from bad management : they submit to the one and resist 
 the other. Men are not worse than beasts if they revolt 
 against misrule." He then describes the conduct of the 
 legates, and the reaping of the cornfields of Tuscany by the 
 papal troops, and recounts the long history of the fidelity 
 of Florence to the Church. He concludes thus : " If your 
 legates, holy father, have acted with your authority, which 
 we cannot believe, we come to complain to you frankly of 
 the injustice of the Roman Church. If, on the contrary, 
 they have acted without your sanction, it was they who 
 deserved to be punished, and not the people of Florence. 
 If you do not condemn them, and if you suffer your anger 
 to fall only on those who have resisted their wickedness, we 
 must appeal to the supreme judgment of God and to the 
 verdict of public opinion." The speech of Barbadori pro- 
 duced a great sensation in the assembled consistory. The 
 Pope, who had resolved, at the advice of his cardinals, 
 not to speak one word himself to the ambassadors, was 
 so moved, that he spoke nevertheless, under a certain 
 impulse of pity and generosity, promising henceforward 
 to deal equitably with the Florentines, and by means of 
 carefully appointed officers in place of the cardinal legates. 
 For several days after this interview, consistories continued 
 to be held, in which the most violent opposition of 
 opinion prevailed. The Italian cardinals were in favour 
 of pacific measures towards their countrymen. The 
 French cardinals, who were in a large majority, and 
 who were unable to form any conception of the moral
 
 Appeal to the Justice of God. 151 
 
 force and passionate love of liberty of the Italian people, 
 cried out for inexorable and violent measures. The 
 ambassadors were again admitted on the fourth day to 
 receive the pontifical decision. Excommunication and 
 interdiction, with all their terrible results, were to be 
 maintained, and war was again declared. The two am- 
 bassadors stood silent and apparently stupefied, for several 
 minutes. Barbadori seemed to be oppressed with a deep 
 sadness ; but at last he broke silence. Looking around 
 him, and seeing none but enemies, he advanced towards the 
 great crucifix at the end of the consistorial hall, and in a 
 voice of solemn entreaty and defiance, pronounced these 
 words : " Great God ! we, deputies from the Florentine 
 people, appeal to thee and to thy j ustice from the unjust 
 sentence of thy vicar. thou, who canst never err, and 
 whose anger is ever tempered with mercy, thou who 
 wiliest that the peoples of the earth shall be free and not 
 enslaved ; thou who abhorrest the tyrant, be thou this day 
 the help and the shield of the Florentine people, who in thy 
 name will strive for their rights and their liberties." 1 The 
 ambassadors then left the room, and returned to Florence 
 with their sorrowful tidings. 
 
 The hatred of the people against the ecclesiastical 
 government now became still greater than before. They 
 spoke even of abandoning the Christian faith, and es- 
 tablishing another creed and another worship. Vast 
 preparations were made at Avignon for the renewal of 
 the war. Cardinal Kobert, Count of Geneva, took the 
 command of 10,000 men, composed chiefly of Germans 
 
 J St. Antoninus, "History of the Pontificate," Tit. xxii
 
 152 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 and Bretons. The advance of Cardinal Eobert upon the 
 revolted republics, and the horrible massacre of Cesena, 
 executed under his orders, have been already alluded to. 
 From the smaller cities he advanced towards Florence. 
 The people and signory of Florence, in dread of his 
 approach, once more took counsel together on the possibility 
 of again making overtures of peace. 
 
 Catharine, as we have seen, had been living at theFullonica, 
 after her mission to Lucca, Pisa, and Gorgona already 
 described. She had been in correspondence during the 
 winter with the magistrates and other citizens of all the 
 revolted cities. On New Year's Day of 1376 she was 
 attacked with a low fever, which lasted to the end of April. 
 Father Raymond, who had been on some religious mission 
 to Florence, returned from that city to Siena at the begin- 
 ning of May. He lost no time in visiting his friend, whom 
 he found stretched on her little bed, and suffering extremely. 
 He sat down and recounted to her all the details of that 
 terrible revolution in Florence which has just been described, 
 and of the unsuccessful embassy to Avignon. Catharine 
 listened in silence, and for several hours was plunged in 
 deep sorrow. Her prayers offered up for so many years 
 seemed not to have been heard. The peace of Christen- 
 dom a; id the reform of the Church, which she so ardently 
 desired, appeared to be farther off than ever. Great 
 darkness and depression took possession of her soul 
 during those sad hours. Raymond reports a few words 
 of bitter anguish which escaped her during the day, not 
 addressed to him nor to any man, but apparently the 
 expression of a great inward conflict. Towards evening 
 she arose, though scarcely able to stand upright ; then
 
 Her Letters to Gregory XL 153 
 
 for an hour she remained prostrated at the foot of a crucifix 
 in her room, in an agony of prayer. " She arose from that 
 attitude," says Chavin de Malan, "with the fortunes of 
 Christendom in her hand ; her voice was now to be heard 
 above all the discordant voices of the world ; and she was 
 about to trace with a firm, unfaltering hand the path in 
 which men ought to walk." The same evening, before she 
 slept, she wrote a letter to Gregory XI. The purport of 
 this letter, which is of great length and full of eloquent 
 pleadings, was to convince Gregory that it was his duty to 
 return without delay to Italy. She pointed out to him, 
 with the indignation of a true patriot, how the interests of 
 her country were made of no account in comparison with 
 the satisfaction of the avarice, and lust of power and of 
 pleasure, of its delegated rulers. She described to him how 
 his bishopric of Rome was misgoverned, and how infidelity 
 or indifference had taken possession of men's minds. She 
 says, " I wish (io voglio) that yon should be a true and 
 faithful pastor, one who would be willing, had he a hundred 
 thousand lives, to sacrifice them all for the honour of God 
 and the love of humanity." " Do all that is in your power," 
 she continues, "and having done so, you will be exonerated 
 before God and man. . . . Do not imagine that you 
 can reduce your subjects to submission by the sword. You 
 will never succeed with them unless you use weapons of 
 benignity and grace. . . . The spirit of strife and the 
 absence of virtue, these are two things which are causing 
 the Church to lose ground more and more. If you wish 
 to recover what you have lost, your only means of doing 
 so is to retrace your steps, and to reconquer your lost 
 dominions by the encouragement of virtue and by peace.
 
 154 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Pardon, beloved father, my presumptuous boldness. I 
 crave your benediction." Nicolo Tommaseo says : " Catha- 
 rine saw it necessary to strike at the root of the evil, 
 which was the immorality of the clergy and the odious 
 government of the papal legates." De Malan says : " The 
 letters which Catharine wrote at this time to Gregory 
 initiate us into a new kind of diplomacy, very unlike that 
 generally resorted to." These wonderful despatches of the 
 dyer's daughter were carried to the Pope by a poor monk 
 of La Chartreuse. About a week later she sent him other 
 letters by the hand of Neri de Landoccio the young Sienese 
 nobleman who had now been for three years her secretary. 
 Again and again she wrote to Gregory, pleading with him 
 boldly and frankly, at times as a child with a father, at 
 others as a wise and stern monitor. " Consider," she says, 
 " these two evils before you ; on the one hand your tem- 
 poral possessions, of which you are being deprived, and on 
 the other, the souls which are being lost to you. Which 
 evil is the worst 1 Open the eyes of your intelligence, and 
 look steadily at this matter. You will then see, holy 
 father, that of the two evils the latter is by far the worst, 
 and that it is more needful for you to win back souls than 
 to reconquer your earthly possessions. . . . You now 
 place your confidence in your soldiers, those devourers 
 of human flesh ; and your good desires for the reform of 
 the Church are hindered. Place your hope rather in 
 Christ crucified, and in the good government of the 
 Church by virtuous pastors ; let it please your Holiness 
 to seek out true and humble servants of God as pastors 
 in the Church, men who desire nothing but the glory of 
 God and the salvation of souls. Alas ! what corruption
 
 She urges the Reform of the Church. 155 
 
 and confusion we now see. Those who should be models 
 of virtue and simplicity, those who ought to be stewards 
 of the wealth of the Church for the good of the poor and 
 of erring souls, are a thousand times more entangled in the 
 luxury and vanities of the world than the laity ; for, in- 
 deed, many of the laity put the pastors to shame by their 
 pure and holy lives. It seems, indeed, that eternal justice 
 is now permitting to be done by force that which is not 
 done for love's sake. It seems that God permits the Church 
 to be robbed of her power and wealth in order to teach her 
 that he wills her to return to her primitive state of poverty 
 and humility, and of regard for spiritual rather than tem- 
 poral things ; for ever since she has sought temporal posses- 
 sions, things have gone from bad to worse. It seems just, 
 indeed, that he should permit her such great tribulations. 
 Open your eyes, father, and see what these people are who 
 are called apostles of the flock, and how they devour the 
 poor; how their souls are filled with greed and hatred; and 
 how they have made their bodies vessels of every kind 
 of abomination." She pleads with gentle charity for the 
 rebels : " We are in sympathy with you, holy father, and 
 I know that it is thought by all that your revolted sub- 
 jects have done ill, and are without excuse. Neverthe- 
 less, on account of their great sufferings under bad pastors 
 and rulers, and the unjust and iniquitous dealings of the 
 latter, it has seemed to them that they could not act 
 otherwise. They have been infected by the conduct of 
 some of the great captains, who, as you know, are devils 
 incarnate ; and they have also acted under the influence 
 of fear. Mercy, my father ! I ask mercy for them. Pity 
 the ignorance of your children ; give them some salutary
 
 156 Catharine of Siena, 
 
 discipline, if it pleases you : but oh ! grant us peace. . . . 
 Come back to your distracted flock and your country, to the 
 place of your predecessor, the Apostle Peter. Do not delay 
 do not fear ; for God will be with you. ... I should be 
 very blamable if I wrote thus to you with the idea of teach- 
 ing you a lesson. I am constrained only by love of the 
 truth, and the strong desire which I have to see you, gentle 
 and beloved father, in peace and quietude, for I see that at 
 present you cannot have an hour of either." 
 
 The Pope had hitherto commanded sixty episcopal 
 cities in Italy, and one thousand five hundred fortified 
 places. These cities were, for the most part, now in- 
 cluded in the league of rebellion against him, and his 
 dominion was now "reduced to a few meagre strips of 
 land." Catharine having despatched her letters to the 
 Pope, set herself to write earnest appeals to the govern- 
 ments of all the republics with whom she had any per- 
 sonal influence. She prevailed with Lucca and Pisa to 
 maintain their allegiance to the Pontiff; and she put 
 forth all her strength of persuasion to restrain the Ghi- 
 belline leaders of Florence from further violence. Some 
 of the gravest of the Florentine citizens, with Nicolas 
 Soderini at their head, supported by the ruined and de- 
 spondent merchants, determined to wait upon the Eight, 
 or Council of War, to beseech them to make terms of 
 peace with the Pope. For, it must be observed that the 
 former government of Florence had been superseded by 
 eight rulers elected by the people, and designated the 
 "Eight of War" ("Otto della Guerra"). These men 
 were chosen for their resolute and warlike dispositions, 
 and promptitude in action. They were members of the
 
 Her mission of pacification to Florence. 157 
 
 Ghibelline, or popular party. Nicolas Soderini was a 
 man of illustrious family, in politics on the side of the 
 Ghibellines. He had been chosen as Gonfalonier of Justice 
 in 1371, and was held in high esteem by the republic, on 
 account of his impartiality and moderation in all political 
 contests, and his tried patriotism. The Council of War, 
 overawed by this Aveighty deputation, consented to take 
 measures for a reconciliation with Gregory. The sincerity 
 of their desire for peace was, however, from the first, 
 doubted by Soderini. They owed their high position to 
 the emergency of the actual revolt, and the prospect of 
 continued war. The establishment of peace would be the 
 conclusion of their term of power; they had experienced 
 the fascinations of office, and, yielding to the dictates of 
 selfish ambition, they soon became, as we shall see, very 
 half-hearted seconders of those who desired to see an end 
 of this disastrous strife. Soderini had heard much of 
 Catharine, and believing that her influence with the Pope 
 would be greater than that of any of the counsellors of 
 Florence or princes of Tuscany, advised that she should be 
 invited to act as mediator. The Council of War conse- 
 quently commissioned Soderini to go to Siena and negotiate 
 this matter with Catharine. Catharine at once left the 
 Fullonica and proceeded to Florence. She saw that the 
 efforts of man had failed, and she thought she read in the 
 appeal to herself, a confession on the part of the Florentines 
 that their hopes must now be placed in God and in those 
 whose strength is derived from God. The magistrates and 
 chief citizens of Florence came out of the city to meet her, 
 and conduct her to the house of Soderini, whose guest she 
 was to be.
 
 158 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 It was the middle of the month of May when Catharine 
 entered Florence. 1 She had been there two years pre- 
 viously, to attend a chapter of the Preaching Friars and a 
 high festival of the Brothers and Sisters of St. Dominic. 
 She could not have failed to contrast the circumstances of 
 the two visits. When she first saw Florence, nature was 
 smiling and gay, such as those can imagine it who have 
 seen that beautiful city in spring ; the bells were ringing, 
 and the busy people working in the open air, were singing 
 and laughing while at work. All was activity and hopeful 
 life. But -now there rested such a blight upon the city as 
 we can only picture by endeavouring to understand the 
 vast and terrible influence of certain great religious ideas 
 or superstitions of the time. The curse which had been 
 pronounced acted like the destroying breath of some 
 pestilential vapour, blighting the social life of the people, 
 drying up the sources of their activities, and isolating them 
 from the brotherhood of the world, as outlaws and 
 criminals. The fields still bore traces of the war ; the city 
 was in deep mourning, and its excommunicated people 
 loitered sad and inactive, on the banks of the Arno. That 
 river, at other times so alive with the commerce and traffic 
 of all nations, now flowed sullenly beneath its untenanted 
 vessels, whose sails drooped idly. The splendid mer- 
 chandise which formerly was seen passing to and fro, was 
 
 i In an old manuscript at Siena, cited by G. P. Burlamacchi in his 
 notes upon Catharine's letters, there occur these words almost the 
 only notice we have of her previous visit to Florence: "There 
 came to Florence in May, 1374, during the chapter of the Friar 
 Preachers, . . . one dressed in the habit of St. Dominic, whom they 
 called Catharine, daughter of Giacomo of Siena. "
 
 Florence under the Papal Curse. 159 
 
 seen no more ; the storehouses and ateliers were closed, and 
 on all sides resounded complaints, weeping, recriminations, 
 curses, and cries of revolt. The celebration of the mass and 
 all religious services had been interdicted, and the churches 
 were forsaken. It is not to be wondered at that all eyes 
 should have been directed to that poorly-dressed and fragile 
 woman as she entered the city, the mediator elected by the 
 Eight of War, on whom all their hopes seemed now to 
 depend ; and that curiosity should have prompted crowds 
 of people to watch the gateway of Soderini's palace, in 
 order to see her as she passed out and in on her diplomatic 
 errands to the various political leaders. 
 
 Catharine spent fifteen days in Florence, making herself 
 completely mistress of the whole case in which she was 
 called to take so prominent a part. Her days were spent 
 in consultation with the chiefs of the different parties in 
 the republic, in endeavouring to calm the agitation which 
 prevailed, and to promote a common agreement upon some 
 patriotic and energetic action, which she urged them to 
 adopt, apart from all political jealousies among themselves. 
 At the end of this time all parties agreed to request her, 
 as a favour, to undertake for them a mission of pacification 
 to the papal court at Avignon, promising that chosen 
 ambassadors should follow her in a few weeks. Catha- 
 rine accepted the responsibility. She sent her faithful 
 Raymond on in advance to speak with the Pontiff, and 
 prepare him for her arrival. The Florentine republic 
 saw no further than the one important object they had 
 at heart, the removal of the papal ban, and the restoration 
 of their blighted commerce and civil life ; but Catharine 
 had larger ends in view. She cherished in her heart the
 
 160 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 hope of accomplishing three great objects : the restoration 
 of peace between the Pope and his revolted subjects, his 
 own return to Italy, and the organization of a crusade. 
 Although weak and suffering in health, she set out, in 
 the first week of June, upon this momentous embassy. 1 
 Few details of this journey are preserved. Travelling 
 then was slow and difficult, and several weeks were oc- 
 cupied in traversing the route to Avignon. That the 
 journey was performed by land appears from the Bull of 
 Pius II. for the canonization of Catharine, in which appear 
 the words, "to reconcile the Florentines and the Church, 
 she did not hesitate to cross the Apennines and the Alps in 
 order to reach Gregory, our predecessor." 
 
 We can only imagine what the toils and what the 
 pleasures of that journey may have been, along the beau- 
 tiful Riviera, passing beyond the maritime Alps and 
 the Esterels, by Frejus and Toulon to Marseilles, and 
 thence, through the flat and desolate portions of the 
 department of the Bouches du Rhone, entering the sunny 
 and verdant land of Provence. Catharine, impatient 
 to reach her destination, lost no time on the way; but 
 Stephen informs us that sometimes when they came 
 in sight of a mass of lovely mountain flowers, her face 
 would flush with pleasure, and she would call upon her 
 fellow-travellers to admire their colours; and that "on 
 descrying an anthill she said, ' those little creatures came 
 from the sacred thought of God; and he used as much 
 care in forming the flowers and insects as in creating 
 
 1 " Laborem non recusavit, et fiduciam gerens in Domino operis 
 exequendi iter assumpsit debilis corpore." S. ANTOMNUS.
 
 The Journey to Avignon. 161 
 
 the holy angels.'" A large company travelled with her; 
 among them, Stephen Maconi, who had come with her to 
 Florence ; Neri, her secretary ; Felix da Marta ; a certain 
 Brother Guido ; Neri dei Pagliaresi ; Nicolo di Mino 
 Cicerchi, and John Tantucci, the theological doctor of 
 Cambridge, a man of science, who at first had been a 
 severe critic of Catharine's actions, "strongly suspecting 
 any virtue which did not lie in the line of his own ex- 
 perience and attainments," but who became later her earnest 
 friend and coadjutor. She was joined by the generous 
 brothers Buonconti, from Pisa, who arranged for the ac- 
 commodation of the travellers on the many nights they 
 were obliged to rest on the journey ; and, finally, three of 
 her Mantellatas accompanied her. 
 
 M
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE last long, hot day of journeying was over, and 
 the evening dews were falling, when Catharine and her 
 friends entered Avignon, on the 18th of June, 1376. Pope 
 Gregory had given orders that she should be well re- 
 ceived, and he placed at her disposal, for the accommo- 
 dation of herself and her friends, the palace of an absent 
 cardinal, with the chapel attached to it. After two days 
 allowed for repose, Catharine was summoned to the 
 presence of Gregory. The papal palace stood on the 
 summit of the rock of the Domes, commanding a mag- 
 nificent view of the Rhone and the surrounding country. 
 Each succeeding Pope of the " Captivity " had added 
 something to its splendour. By the side of this French 
 Vatican stood the ancient basilica of Notre-dame-des- 
 Doms, on one side of which were the cloisters of Charle- 
 magne and on the other the houses of the canons gothic 
 buildings with massive buttresses. The great hall of the 
 Consistory and the hall of public audiences had been 
 lavishly decorated with paintings and sculpture by Clement 
 VI. The galleries of the palace, the broad marble stair- 
 cases, the colonnades, the exquisite gardens, with their
 
 Embassy to Avignon. 163 
 
 fountains and rare flowers, the suites of luxurious apart- 
 ments softly cushioned, and perfumed with the most 
 delicious odours, have all been described by annalists of 
 the Papacy, and praised in the quaint songs of the trouba- 
 dours. It was to such a scene of almost oriental luxury 
 and magnificence that the poor daughter of the wool- dyer 
 of Siena was introduced. After she had ascended the 
 winding road leading up the rock of the Domes, she was 
 conducted to the hall of the Consistory, where the Pope 
 and the cardinals were assembled in solemn state. Gregory 
 was majestically seated on a magnificent chair, the cardinals, 
 robed in purple, forming a circle round him. The royal 
 grandeur of the supreme pontiff must have presented a 
 striking contrast to the simplicity and poverty of Catharine, 
 attired in her white serge gown and her carefully-patched 
 Dominican cloak. Antoninus, in his chronicles of Florence, 
 says that there reigned in her the authority of one who 
 comes direct from the presence of God, charged with a 
 message from him to men. She evinced no timidity or em- 
 barrassment in the presence of the princes and potentates 
 of earth, for she realized the presence of one greater than 
 they, the King of kings, whom she served. Gregory re- 
 garded for a moment with silent astonishment this poor 
 and self-possessed ambassador from the proud Florentine 
 republic, but he saw in her also the generous woman who 
 had written to him with so much affectionate candour, giv- 
 ing him such wise and severe advice as none of his princely 
 counsellors would or could have offered to him. He felt 
 her power even before she had spoken. It was evident 
 to those who observed the interview that her ascendency 
 over the mind of Gregory was complete from the first 
 
 M 2
 
 164 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 moment. 1 She addressed the pontiff in the dialect of 
 Tuscany, Raymond acting as interpreter, and Gregory re- 
 plied in Latin. After a prolonged conversation, during 
 which Catharine exposed in a brief and masterly manner 
 the circumstances of the Florentine rebellion, and the 
 present condition of mind of the citizens, Gregory said : 
 "I commit the treaty of peace wholly to your decision. 
 This is a proof to you that I truly desire peace. I wish the 
 negotiation to rest entirely in your hands ; and I entrust to 
 you the honour of the Church." 
 
 Raymond says that he and the others present at that 
 interview can affirm before God and man that the holy 
 father committed the treaty of peace and interests of the 
 Church into the hands of the Mantellata. Gregory then 
 retired, and the cardinals also, the latter to consult together 
 concerning the effect upon their own personal interests 
 which the spiritual authority of this strange visitor might 
 possibly have. 
 
 The Eight of War of Florence had made an engage- 
 ment with Catharine to the effect that as soon as she 
 should have won the Pope to terms of peace they would 
 send several of their weightiest citizens as ambassadors to 
 sign the articles of the treaty. But the time passed on, 
 and no ambassadors arrived. Morning after morning and 
 evening after evening Catharine sent out her scouts, Neri 
 and her faithful Stephen, to look for their coming; but 
 in vain. Sick at heart, she endeavoured, but with little 
 success, to beat back the suspicions which haunted her, 
 
 1 " Veramente assai efficace e pronto fu 1'imperio di Catarina 
 sopra 1'animo del papa." CAPECELATKO, Storia di ts. Catarina e del 
 Papato del suo Tempo.
 
 Embassy to Avignon. 165 
 
 of treachery on the part of the Florentine leaders to the 
 cause which they had committed to her. The fidelity of 
 Soderini, however, she refused to doubt. " Thou, mine 
 own familiar friend, whom I trusted," she said to herself, 
 " thou assuredly hast not joined hands with traitors." The 
 bitterness of the internal conflict induced by this suspense, 
 which lasted several weeks, may be seen in her letters ad- 
 dressed at that time to friends in Florence. Immediately 
 after her first interview with Gregory she had written, in 
 all the joy of her heart, to inform the Eight of War of the 
 happy result of that interview, beseeching them to send 
 their ambassadors without delay to sign the terms of peace ; 
 but she had received no reply ; and meanwhile rumours 
 had reached Avignon of a fresh outrage against the Church 
 perpetrated by the Eight of War, in the form of an oppres- 
 sive tax levied upon the clergy of Florence, which occa- 
 sioned the ruin of the humbler priests. She wrote to the 
 Eight of War : " I have much reason to complain of you, 
 inasmuch as I hear you have put a very heavy tax on the 
 clergy. If this be true, it is a great wrong, on two ac- 
 counts ; first, because you have no right to do such a thing, 
 and cannot do it with a good conscience before God ; and, 
 secondly, because by this step you will destroy the hopes 
 of the peace which the holy father is ready to conclude. 
 He will now only feel a greater indignation than ever 
 against you. One of the cardinals, who really desires 
 peace, said to me : ' It seems to me that the Florentines are 
 not sincere in desiring peace ; for if they were, they would 
 avoid at this moment all that is irritating to the Holy See.' 
 And I think he is right. You do me personally a great 
 wrong, and put me to shame before the world, seeing that I
 
 166 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 am maintaining one mode of speech while you maintain 
 another. I cannot tell you how great was my joy when, 
 after a long interview, the holy father said to me, in con- 
 clusion, that, if matters at Florence were indeed as I had 
 told him, he was, on his part, disposed to do all that you 
 wished ; but you are aware that he will not give a public 
 and definite answer until the arrival of your ambassadors. 
 I am astonished that these have not yet joined us. As soon 
 as they come I shall see them, and I shall again see the holy 
 father, and I will then write to you without delay of the 
 results arrived at. But do not go and root up all the good 
 seed which has been sown, with your taxes, and your evil 
 reports, and your delays. For the love of Christ, consider 
 your own best interests ! " She wrote, moreover, to many 
 of the most influential citizens, urging them to use their 
 influence with the Eight. It became more and more ap- 
 parent, however, that the Eight of War, while talking of 
 peace, secretly desired to prolong the breach. Gregory 
 said one day to Catharine : " Believe me," my daughter, 
 " they are playing the part of hypocrites. The ambassadors 
 will not come, or if they do, they will come without ample 
 powers to treat for peace." And so it proved to be. It 
 was not until nearly two years after this that Catharine 
 saw the end of her labours attained. Meanwhile she 
 began to perceive that this delay, which was so severe a 
 trial for herself, and so great a risk for the peace she 
 ardently desired, was providentially overruled to serve an 
 end yet more important than the immediate conclusion 
 of peace between Florence and the Pope. The long weeks 
 of her enforced residence at Avignon gave her the op- 
 portunity of becoming more intimately acquainted with
 
 Embassy to Avignon. 167 
 
 Gregory, of sounding his feelings concerning his speedy 
 return to Rome, and of maintaining that long and difficult 
 conflict with his irresolution and with the opposition of the 
 cardinals, which, as we shall see, had to be encountered be- 
 fore the great exodus could be accomplished. She laboured 
 night and day towards this end. Among her published 
 prayers there is one, designated " a prayer made at Avig- 
 non," in which she dedicates herself afresh to the service of 
 God, and pours forth her heart in sorrowful pleadings for 
 her country and for all mankind. She prays also for 
 Gregory : " I implore thy boundless mercy, Lord, for thy 
 bride, the Church, and I beseech thee to enlighten thy vicar 
 on earth, that he may know thy will, and love and obey it. 
 Give him, my God, a new heart ; increase thy grace in him ; 
 make him strong to bear the standard of the holy cross, 
 and dispose him to carry to the infidels the treasures of 
 thy mercy, which we have received through the passion 
 of the spotless Lamb. Change the hearts of the people 
 who desire war, and give us peace, that we perish not." 
 
 The ambassadors arrived at last. Catharine's heart beat 
 high with hope, but only for a moment; she perceived at 
 the first glance that these were the ambassadors only of 
 the Eight of War, and not of the republic of Florence. 
 The Pope had given her full powers to treat on behalf of 
 the Church, and the Eight of War had engaged to support 
 her efforts, and ratify such terms as she should approve. 
 She hastened, therefore, to meet them, and, with a smiling 
 face, congratulated them on their arrival. They received her 
 coldly. Cavaliere Strozzi, speaking for all, said : " We 
 have come to confer with the holy father ; we have received 
 no power whatever to treat with you;" and they turned
 
 168 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 their backs on her. Catharine retired to her secret cham- 
 ber in the absent cardinal's palace. The weakness of her 
 womanhood triumphed for a moment over the courage of 
 that robust and heroic spirit, and she wept bitterly. But 
 she resorted, as was her wont, to earnest prayer, and arose 
 from her knees strengthened to prolong the struggle. The 
 letter which she wrote that evening to Buonaccorso di Lapo, 
 a powerful citizen of Florence, is full of sadness : " I have 
 not been able to confer with your ambassadors, as you 
 promised me. You are using strange methods to obtain 
 peace : this affair will never be rightly managed except by 
 true servants of God, freed from self-love and ambition. 
 I have done, and will do all I can, even to death." The 
 negotiations between the ambassadors and the Pope had no 
 result, except to postpone the conclusion of peace, and the 
 former returned to Florence. 
 
 Catharine continued to have frequent audiences with 
 Gregory, and with true womanly tact she availed herself 
 of these in order to awaken his conscience to a sense of his 
 responsibility to his Italian subjects and of the necessity of 
 his return to Rome. 
 
 Gregory was a weak and irresolute man. The morality 
 of his life has never been impugned. He was naturally 
 inclined to good, and, although surrounded on all sides 
 by an atmosphere of moral turpitude, he maintained a 
 blameless life ; but he was no hero ; he had but little of 
 that in him which Catharine so much admired in the 
 noblest of her countrymen, the virility, the power of self- 
 sacrifice and endurance, of which she so frequently makes 
 mention in her letters. He was born in France, and had 
 never been in Italy ; he loved his native land, though
 
 The Character of Gregory. 169 
 
 not exactly as a patriot loves his country ; he enjoyed his 
 beautiful residence at Avignon, and yielded to the enervating^ 
 influences of the luxury and magnificence which surrounded 
 him. The scandalous life of some of the cardinals and 
 other prelates gave him pain, but he avoided as much as 
 possible the knowledge and mention of it. It was not in \ 
 him to rebuke or restrain the excesses of his Court, 
 although he never by his acts or words encouraged or made 
 light of the prevailing laxity of morals ; he led a life of ease 
 and enjoyment, forming at times good resolutions, and 
 capable even of enthusiasm when a noble example was for 
 a moment presented to him. 
 
 In order to reach the apartments of Gregory, Catharine 
 had to pass, with Raymond, through a suite of state rooms, 
 unparalleled, it was said, in the whole world for magnificence. 
 From the windows they looked out upon a wide expanse of 
 undulating country, watered by the Rhone and the Durance, 
 studded with lordly castles and bounded by the mountains 
 of Beaucaire, and by the hills of Vauclause and the distant 
 Alps. Masterpieces of art arrested the eye at every step. 
 There were rare manuscripts and gorgeously illuminated 
 missals, lying open upon tables of inlaid marbles, or on desks 
 of carved oak and ebony. Gregory took pleasure in showing 
 his treasures to his Italian visitors. One day Catharine 
 remained for a long time apparently engrossed in the study 
 of one of these volumes. Gregory had been standing, alone 
 and silent by her side ; at last he said, " It is here that I 
 find repose for my soul, in study, and in the contemplation 
 of nature." She raised her head, looked as it were into his 
 soul, and, in a tone of inspiration, said to him, "In the 
 name of God, and for the fulfilment of duty, you will close
 
 170 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 the gates of this magnificent palace, you will turn your 
 back on this beautiful country, and set out for Rome, where 
 you will be amidst ruins, tumults, and malaria fever." 1 
 Gregory's soul was just sufficiently highly tuned to accept 
 this call and to prepare himself for martyrdom ; although 
 he did so with many sighs. 
 
 But the moment that it became known that a serious 
 impression had been made on the Pope in regard to this 
 question, an organized and determined opposition com- 
 menced. Of the twenty-seven cardinals present at Avig- 
 non, three were Italian, one was Spanish, and twenty - 
 three were French. The French cardinals abhorred the 
 idea of banishment from their native land, and still more 
 ^ of the correction of their immoral lives which such a step, 
 they instinctively felt, would render at least expedient. 
 All the associations of Avignon were dear to them, and 
 Italy seemed full of vague horrors. Even the Italian 
 cardinals showed little loyalty towards their country, 
 and increased the alarm of the others by their report of 
 the tumultuous and revengeful character of their country- 
 men. A rumour was set afloat, carefully kept alive, and 
 often repeated in the presence of Gregory, that a secret 
 plot had been formed at Rome, in connection with the 
 revolted cities of the League, to bring the Pope to Ostia 
 and there to have him poisoned. Gregory's health was 
 feeble, and but for the good Dr. Francis (Francesco), the 
 Italian physician of the Court, he would have been made 
 
 i A rgsumd of the conversations of Catharine and Gregory was 
 found among the papers of Haymond in the archives of the Domi- 
 nicans at Siena. Others of their conversations, and some of her 
 prayers, were also written down by Petra, the Pope's stenographer, 
 the same who took down the depositions of Friars Thomas and 
 Bartholomew.
 
 St. Bridget, Queen of Sweden. 171 
 
 to believe that the climate of Rome was certain death to 
 every Frenchman. The personal hatred of Catharine felt 
 by some of the cardinals is easily understood ; for she made 
 herself obnoxious to them, not only by her design to put 
 an end to the " Babylonish captivity " of the papacy, but 
 by her acute discernment of character, and her fidelity in 
 rebuking vice. By Gregory's desire she addressed the 
 assembled cardinals and prelates, several times, in the great 
 hall of the Consistory ; and curiosity attracted them to 
 hear her, where better motives were wanting. All her 
 companions seem to have been impressed by the almost 
 awful authority with which she spoke on these occasions. 
 Her soul was filled with a holy wrath against the abomina- 
 tions and vices which prevailed at Avignon, and with which 
 the very air seemed to be impregnated ; she had read the 
 bitter and fiery remonstrances which St. Bridget, the Queen 
 of Sweden, had addressed some ten years previously to 
 Gregory, on the scandalous life of the clergy and the 
 shameful example set by them. It appears that neither of 
 these Christian ladies had any heart to speak softly or to 
 prophesy smooth things, when they saw men given up to 
 the cruelty of lust, and the weak and the poor entrapped 
 and ruined to minister to their shameful pleasure ; for the 
 Queen of Sweden, as well as Catharine, used great plainness 
 of speech. The former wrote : " Listen, Pope Gregory XL, 
 to what the Lord God says to thee : He asks of thee why 
 thou dost rebel against him, why thou dost neglect the 
 poor, and give indecently of the spoils of earth to thy rich 
 ones ; for thy worldly Court is the ruin of the celestial 
 Court, the Church. All who come within the influence 
 of thy Court fall into the gehenna of perdition ; and in
 
 172 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 these days, houses of ill-fame are more honoured than my 
 holy Church." i 
 
 Catharine was requested one day by Gregory to speak 
 to the Consistory on the subject of the Church. Looking 
 round upon that magnificent Court, and on the faces of 
 those men, which were far from bearing the impress of pure 
 and saintly lives, she asked why she found in the Pon- 
 tifical Court, in which all the virtues ought to nourish, 
 nothing but the contagion of the most disgraceful vices. 
 The Court remained silent, and Catharine waited for a 
 reply. Gregory then asked how she had come to the 
 knowledge of what went on in his Court, seeing she had 
 been so short a time in Avignon, and lived so much 
 apart. He then, amidst murmured approvals, attempted 
 to soften the stern judgment which she had expressed. 
 Catharine had been maintaining a humble posture before 
 the Pope ; but she " left that position," says Raymond, 
 "and assumed an air of authority which astonished 
 everyone." Standing erect, she raised her thin white 
 hand to heaven, and said : " I declare, in the name of 
 Almighty God, that I perceived more distinctly the 
 horrors of the sins which are committed in this Court, 
 while I was yet in my little room at Siena than even 
 those do who are in the midst of these vices." " The Pope 
 remained silent," says Raymond ; " I could not overcome 
 my surprise, and shall never forget the tone of authority 
 with which Catharine spoke to that great audience." 
 Even after this, Catharine, says Stephen, " frequently 
 delivered most eloquent discourses as well as highly 
 
 i "Quia jam nunc magis veneratur lupauar quam sancta mater 
 Ecclesia " Letters of St. Bridi/et.
 
 Provencal Singers and Ladies. 173 
 
 practical ones in the presence of Gregory and the cardinals, 
 and there reigned so great an authority and so wonderful a 
 grace in her lips that all declared, 'Never man spake like 
 this woman ; ' and many said, ' It is not a woman that 
 speaks, but the Holy Spirit himself. ' ' : 
 
 But there were in the Papal Court more subtle and 
 dangerous antagonists than the prelates, who opposed 
 the scheme of the return to Italy. These antagonists 
 were the great ladies of the Court, the elegant leaders of 
 fashion. " The most brilliant and beautiful of the women 
 of Provence, attracted to the Court of Avignon, had 
 established since the reign of Clement V. a real influence 
 there an influence, unfortunately, too often dangerous 
 or criminal." Courtiers and ecclesiastics, seeking places 
 and benefices, knew that their only chance of success 
 lay in the personal favour of Madame Miramonde de 
 Maul6on, or Cecile des Baux, or En^monde de Bour- 
 bon, niece of Innocent VI., or Briande d'Agout, whose 
 wit was as captivating as her beauty, or Lauretta di 
 Sad a, or Est6phanette de Romanin, Provencal poets and 
 singers as well as graceful leaders at Court. 1 To one or 
 other of these it was necessary to pay assiduous court in 
 order to succeed in that world of pleasure and ambition. 
 This " voluptuous academy " had been all in a flutter 
 since the arrival of Catharine. At first the ladies left her 
 unnoticed, or merely regarded her with languidly critical 
 or insolent glances as she passed through the sumptuous 
 corridors to the papal audience chamber. "She is very 
 
 1 " Ces deux dames qui romansoyent promptement en toute sorte 
 de rithme provensalle, les ceuvres desquelles rendent ample te"moig- 
 nage de leiir doctrine." Vies des plus Ce'lebrea Poetes Provengaux, 
 JEAN DE NOSTRADAMUS.
 
 174 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 peculiar ; " " she has no beauty to speak of ; " " how odd is 
 her dialect ; " " it would be amusing to hear her conversa- 
 tions with the holy father." These and similar remarks 
 expressed the slight estimation in which she was held by 
 the Court ladies, who entirely failed to comprehend her 
 character, motives, and mission. But the cardinals and 
 others began to speak of Catharine as of one whose words 
 carried weight. The brother of the King of France, the 
 chivalrous Duke of Anjou, had come from Paris, at the 
 instigation of the French King, to dissuade Gregory from 
 leaving his native land, and to express the unwillingness of 
 the French Government and Court to allow him to transfer 
 the Papal Government to Rome. Gregory's reply to the 
 duke was, " I beseech you, cousin, to speak with Catharine 
 of Siena." The result of the conference of the duke with 
 Catharine was that he became one of her most ardent dis- 
 ciples, that he accepted her view of the duty of the Pontiff 
 to return to Italy, and that his soul became enflamed with 
 the desire, inspired by her, of becoming the leader of the 
 crusaders to the Holy Land. The good and gentle wife of 
 the Duke of Anjou was out of health, and suffering greatly 
 The moral atmosphere of Avignon did not please her, 
 and her husband took her to his beautiful residence at 
 Villeneuve, the Versailles of Avignon. The duchess 
 had become enamoured of Catharine's character even 
 before she had seen her, and she now earnestly en- 
 treated that she would pay her a visit at Villeneuve. 
 Catharine gladly accepted the invitation, and remained 
 many days there, enjoying the lovely country around, 
 wandering in the woods or "by the river, and spending 
 many hours by the couch of her invalid friend. This
 
 High-born Dames of Avignon. 175 
 
 honourable pair, the duke and duchess, became, in all 
 sincerity, the humble followers of Christ. France had been 
 exhausted by the long war with England, which as yet was 
 not concluded. The Duke of Anjou now earnestly invited 
 Catharine to go with him to Paris to see the King, Charles 
 V., in order to persuade him to put an end to the war. 
 Catharine respectfully but firmly declined. She did not 
 recognize it to be a duty to undertake such a journey, and she 
 had no desire to be further familiarized with the life of courts. 
 These facts reached the ears of the ladies of Avignon, and 
 created much excitement among them. This singular woman 
 was beginning to exercise an influence more powerful 
 than their own, though of a very different nature. "What 
 could it mean 1 ? what shall our part be?" they asked 
 among themselves. Obviously, they must set themselves 
 to oppose the mad design of abolishing Avignon ; for 
 to withdraw the Sovereign Pontiff was to bring to an 
 end the splendid world over which they reigned. This 
 would not be a task of great difficulty ; so much power 
 and influence, so much skill and art would be brought 
 to bear upon it. With the exquisite tact and management 
 which belong to high-born ladies, they therefore set 
 themselves to combat the influence of the Popolana of 
 Siena, acting, however, in a manner wholly different from 
 that of the prelates and ecclesiastical courtiers. They 
 took Catharine under their protection, and patronized 
 her with the sweetest aristocratic grace. They made 
 religion the fashion ; in place of balls and tournaments 
 they instituted afternoon parties for pious conversation, 
 edifying recitals, and penitential music. The Pope's 
 sister, the affable and graceful Countess of Valentinois,
 
 176 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 was the leader of this organized assault upon the stern 
 simplicity and moral fortitude of the Mantellata. She be- 
 sought Catharine to pay her a visit in her own apartments 
 in order that she might confer with her on those beautiful 
 truths of which she had spoken in the hall of the Consistory ; 
 and at the close of their first interview she whispered in 
 her ear, with that soft tone of voice which she believed the 
 " mystics " assumed, " Ah ! how happy should I be if I 
 could assist at some of your exercises of piety. At what 
 hours do you pray in the chapel 1 " Catharine had attended 
 one of the liturgical festivals in the great basilica of the 
 rock of the Domes, which perplexed her spirit and confused 
 her senses, accustomed to the comparative simplicity of the 
 offices of her own church of St. Dominic of Siena, and to 
 the silence and poverty of her room at the Fullonica. The 
 whole Court attended these high festivals. The Pope 
 presided, robed in a cope of magnificent tissue of cloth of 
 gold, of English manufacture ; a silver mitre on his head, 
 from which hung pendants of crimson silk; his feet, in 
 green velvet slippers, resting upon a cushion also of green 
 velvet, veined with gold ; his hands in gloves of cloth of 
 silver, embroidered with gold and pearls, and with the 
 words Jesu and Marie worked upon the back in very 
 fine emeralds. He was seated upon a Byzantine throne of 
 white marble, under a dais of crimson velvet. His deacon 
 and sub-deacon stood by his side in robes of scarlet cloth 
 covered with gold needlework ; the cardinals were ranged 
 in two lines, with their white mitres and scarlet copes, 
 embroidered, as was also that of the Pope, with Jieurs de 
 lis, peacocks, and griffins, in gold and precious stones. 
 The floor of the church was spread with rich Flemish
 
 Unsuccessful Manceuvres. 177 
 
 carpets representing stories from the Bible, and from the 
 roof hung great candelabra of gold and silver. The altar 
 was draped with fine linen, embroidered with gold and 
 emeralds. The light of the lamps was reflected from 
 thousands of jewels, the perfumes of the most exquisite 
 incense ascended from a hundred vases of massive silver, 
 the harmonies of the choral liturgies rose and fell, and the 
 whole formed an influence intoxicating to the senses and 
 ravishing to the souls of those who believed such sacrifice to 
 be really acceptable to God. Catharine preferred the more 
 modest worship of the chapel attached to the residence 
 allotted to her ; and thither the Court ladies followed her 
 for a short time, having gracefully bribed Stephen to inform 
 them privately of the hours when Catharine might be found 
 there absorbed in prayer. The gentle rustling of their silk 
 robes did not disturb her collected spirit ; but it was hoped 
 that on rising to leave the chapel, she might be touched 
 by the sight of the kneeling forms in remote corners of 
 the sanctuary, bowed in beautiful penitence before the 
 sculptured saints. Honest Father Raymond confesses him- 
 self that he was deceived by these delicate arts ; he was 
 "moved by such unexpected signs of grace;" he even ex- 
 pressed admiration of the beautiful costumes, the elegant 
 sweeping trains, and graceful curtsies of the grandes dames ; 
 he also thought it well to expostulate with Catharine on her 
 want of gratitude. "In truth, it is not good in you, dear 
 mother, to be indifferent to such courtesy ; all the great 
 ladies make profound reverences to you when they meet 
 you, and you turn away your head ; when they approach 
 you with amiable words about religion you reply roughly, 
 'we must first get out of the pit of hell and out of the 
 
 N
 
 178 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 grasp of the devil, and then we will speak of God ;' and 
 straightway you fly from their presence. I find it difficult 
 to forgive you, above all, for the manner in which you 
 received that beautiful lady the other day, who wished to 
 entertain you at her house; you scarcely even looked at her. 
 Is it well to treat your fellow-creatures thus?" Kaymond, 
 disposed, in his kindliness of heart, to think well of all, 
 understood more imperfectly than Catharine the private 
 character of many of those of whom he spoke. Her answer 
 was almost rude : "Father, if you could know, as I do, the 
 vileness which proceeds out of the beautiful mouths of these 
 proud mistresses of the cardinals, you would vomit forth 
 the remembrance of it." 1 The eyes of the indulgent con- 
 fessor were rudely opened, however, by several proofs of 
 petty malice on the part of the disappointed intriguers. 
 Elys de Beaufort-Turenne, the vain and pretty niece of the 
 Pope, seeing her uncle in profound meditation after an inter- 
 view with Catharine, and suspecting that his thoughts were 
 bent upon the return to Italy, conceived a desire to settle 
 the question in a fashion of her own. She followed Catha- 
 rine to the church, and, feigning a deep devotion, she 
 prostrated herself by her side, and pierced her foot with 
 a small stiletto ; either she had not the courage to strike 
 a more vital part, or her intention was limited to the in- 
 fliction of pain. Catharine limped from the church in 
 great agony, leaving the traces of the bleeding foot on 
 the pavement, and continued lame for some time, although 
 
 1 " Quasdam mulier qiiae erat cujusdam magni pnelati ecclesise 
 concubina quum loqueretur cum ea . . . Si sensissetis fcetorem 
 quern ego ex ilia sentiebam dum loqueretur mihi, evomuissetis 
 quidquid habuissetis in ventre." S. ANTONINUS, Chronicon.
 
 She addresses the Consistory of Cardinals. 179 
 
 at the moment that the wound was inflicted she took no 
 notice of it, but remained immovable in prayer. 
 
 Catharine continued, at the request of Gregory, to hold 
 conferences in the hall of the Consistory. The study of the 
 Scriptures had passed out of use at Avignon ; but Catha- 
 rine's discourses were invariably founded upon some portion 
 of the holy Word. "Her insight and clearness of inter- 
 pretation astonished the learned doctors," and in her ardent 
 love of the truths of which she spoke, she would become 
 almost unconscious of the presence of persons of authority 
 in the Church, and her countenance would glow with joyful 
 emotion, so that they looked upon her face "as it had been 
 the face of an angel." Three prelates of very high rank, 
 who had been absent from Avignon when Catharine arrived, 
 came to Gregory and asked, " Holy Father, is this Catha- 
 rine of Siena really as saintly as is pretended 1 " Gregory 
 replied, "Truly I believe she is a saint." "If it please your 
 Holiness, we will go and pay her a visit," they added 
 " I think," answered the Pope, " you will be extremely 
 edified." The following account of the interview is given 
 by Stephen, in his letter written by request to be pro- 
 duced at the canonization of Catharine, and afterwards 
 placed, with the other testimonies, in the Amplissima 
 Collectio of Dom Martene. "Now coming to our house 
 towards nine o'clock, the prelates knocked at our door. 
 It was in summer. I ran to open to them. ' Give Catha- 
 rine notice,' they said, ' that we wish to speak to her.' 
 Immediately the Blessed came down, with Friar John 
 (of Cambridge) and several other friends. The prelates 
 bade her be seated. She sat down beside them on the 
 terrace. Then they began speaking to her in a haughty 
 
 N 2
 
 180 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 tone and with biting words, endeavouring to irritate or 
 wound her. ' We come from our lord the Pope,' they said, 
 ' and we wish to know whether the Florentines did actually 
 send you to him as is pretended. If they did send you, it 
 proves that they have not a man among them of sufficient 
 ability to treat of such important business with so great a 
 potentate. If they did not send you, we are amazed that an 
 insignificant little woman such as you should presume to 
 converse with his Holiness on so high an affair.' 1 Catharine, 
 always calm, answered them humbly, but in a manner which 
 clearly excited their surprise. After she had fully satisfied 
 them on this point they proposed to her some very difficult 
 and subtle questions, especially on the subject of her own 
 intimate converse with heaven, asking her to explain the 
 meaning of the apostle's words when he declares that Satan 
 transforms himself into an angel of light, and desiring to 
 know how she could prove that her own revelations were 
 not delusions of the demon. The conference lasted till 
 late in the night, and I was witness of it. Catharine spoke 
 with marvellous prudence and wisdom. Friar John Tan- 
 tucci, who was a doctor of theology of Cambridge, often 
 desired to reply for Catharine ; but, in spite of his learn 
 ing, the prelates were so skilful that they contrived to 
 beat him in argument, and at last said to him, ' You 
 should be ashamed to argue so in our presence ; let her 
 reply ; she satisfies us better than you do.' One of the 
 prelates was an archbishop of the Minor Friars, a hard 
 
 1 " Si vero uon te miserunt, valde miramur, cum tu sis vilis fe 
 mella, quia prsesumis cle tanta materia loqui cum domino nostro 
 Papa." DOM MARTENE.
 
 Disputes with Doctors of the Church. 181 
 
 man, who disputed with a pharisaical pride ; he would not 
 accept in good faith what Catharine said, and wrested her 
 words. The two others finally turned upon him, and said : 
 ' Why question her any longer 1 She has answered all 
 these things more clearly than any doctor among us could 
 have done.' Then the dispute came to be between these two 
 and the archbishop. At last they withdrew, and reported 
 to the Pope that they had never found so humble and en- 
 lightened a soul. But Gregory, when he learned the next 
 morning how the prelates had treated Catharine, was ex- 
 tremely pained aiid mortified, and sent an apology to her, 
 assuring her that the prelates had acted entirely on their 
 own initiative, and that he had not given them any kind of 
 commission to do what they had done, and recommending 
 her to refuse to see them if they should come again. In 
 the evening, Master Francis, the Pope's physician, said to 
 me, ' Do you know who those prelates are ? ' ' No,' I 
 replied. ' Well,' said he, ' know, that if the learning of 
 these three were put in one scale of the balance, and that 
 of the whole Koman Church in the other, the acquirements 
 of these three would outweigh the others ; and if they had 
 not found Catharine so solid in knowledge and wisdom it 
 would have been the worse for her.' " 
 
 Catharine was yet to be further tried by the irresolu- 
 tion of Gregory. The Cardinals revolted openly against 
 the scheme of the return to Italy. They cited as a pre- 
 cedent the conduct of Clement IV., who never undertook 
 any important matter without taking the votes of the 
 whole college of cardinals, and declared that Gregory 
 was not justified in acting independently. They threat- 
 ened vaguely a schism in the Church and a revolution at
 
 182 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Court. Catharine daily contested all their arguments with 
 Gregory. " They tell you of the example of Clement IV.," 
 she said ; " but they say nothing of Urban V., who, when 
 he became convinced that a certain course of action was 
 right, never consulted anyone." Tried to the utmost by 
 the weakness and vacillation of the Pontiff, whom, how- 
 ever, on account of his gentleness, she sincerely loved, as a 
 mother loves a faltering and tempted son, she withdrew for 
 a season from his presence, and was no longer seen in the 
 Vatican of the rock of the Domes. She entered into the 
 secret presence of her Saviour, and her soul passed once 
 more through that baptism of strong desire, of tears, and 
 of passionate intercession, by the strength of which she 
 ever achieved her wonderful conquests in the kingdom of 
 grace, and over the souls of men with whom persuasion 
 and argument had failed. In those solitary hours her gaze 
 was fixed far beyond the present, and her heart embraced 
 all the sorrows of earth, while, like the prophets of old, she 
 prayed that the great deliverance might be hastened, and 
 cried to him who is the Desire of all nations, "Even so, 
 Lord Jesus, come quickly ! " 
 
 Tormented with conflicting emotions, Gregory, who had 
 noticed with pain her absence from the Court, again sent 
 for her. She went to him at once. In a perturbed 
 manner he asked of her " her opinion concerning his 
 return to Rome," as though that opinion had never been 
 expressed. Catharine maintained silence for a time, 
 allowing Gregory to become more and more urgent 
 in demanding her verdict on the subject. At last she 
 humbly excused herself, saying that it did not become 
 a poor ignorant woman like her to give advice to the
 
 She reminds Gregory of his Secret Vow. 183 
 
 Sovereign Pontiff, who had around him so many able coun- 
 sellors. Gregory moved uneasily in his chair, perplexed 
 as to her meaning, and beginning to tremble lest his best 
 adviser, his guardian angel, disgusted with his pusillani- 
 mity, should have forsaken him. He said, after a con- 
 siderable pause, " Catharine, I do not ask you to give me 
 advice ; I ask you to declare to me the loill of God." Still 
 she continued her reserve : she had already declared to 
 him the will of God, and he had still hesitated to obey. 
 She understood when to speak, and when to keep silence : 
 she knew that to multiply words, even in the holiest cause, 
 is often to weaken the spiritual force which impels the soul 
 of man in the direction of that cause. At last Gregory 
 said : " I command you, in the name of obedience, to tell 
 me what is the will of God in this matter." She bowed her 
 head, and replied : " Who knows more perfectly the will 
 of God than your holiness, who has pledged himself by a 
 secret vow 1 " At these words Gregory started, and re- 
 mained silent with astonishment ; for he believed that no 
 one but himself knew that he had taken a vow when under 
 the influence of the letters of the Queen of Sweden, to return 
 to Rome. From that moment his mind was made up. He 
 now took Catharine fully into his confidence, and, with a 
 softened heart, entreated her advice on all the details of 
 the great undertaking. She counselled him to resort to a 
 " pious stratagem ; " to cease to speak of the great question 
 in the presence of the cardinals and Court, but to entrust 
 the needful preparations confidentially to the Duke of 
 Anjou, and other discreet and trusty servants. She ad- 
 vised that, having acted so as to allow the opposition to 
 subside, and having made all ready, he should suddenly
 
 184 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 announce, in the most public and decided manner, his 
 determination to start for Italy, and that he should take 
 care that the briefest possible time should intervene be- 
 tween this announcement and his departure. Gregory 
 accepted the advice and acted upon it. 
 
 Catharine had now accomplished her social mission, and 
 with a deep sense of relief she prepared to return to her be- 
 loved home in Siena. But Gregory, who had now learned 
 to doubt the force of his own resolutions, prayed her not to 
 depart a single day before he himself set out for Italy. She 
 therefore consented to remain. The interval was employed 
 by her chiefly in correspondence concerning the crusade. 
 She wrote several letters to Bernabos Visconti, hoping to 
 turn the ill-applied energies of that fierce warrior in a direc- 
 tion in which they would at least cease to be a curse and a 
 terror to his countrymen. She wrote again to the true- 
 hearted Queen of Hungary, whose country was continually 
 invaded by hordes of Turks. She also wrote to the King 
 of France, pleading hard for peace with England, and repre- 
 senting to him the sufferings caused by war, to the aged, 
 to women, and to children. She had some correspondence 
 also of a more private nature. The mother of her friend 
 and secretary, Stephen Maconi, had written to reproach 
 him with the length of his absence from home. Catharine 
 wrote in reply: "Take courage, dear lady ; be patient, 
 and do not distress yourself because I have kept him too 
 long ; I have watched over him well ; for affection has 
 made of us two but one, and all your interests are mine. 
 I wish to do for him arid for you all that I can, even to 
 death. You, his mother, have borne him once ; and I 
 I travail again in birth, every day, not for him onlj-, but
 
 Letter to her Mother. 185 
 
 for you and all your family, offering to God without ceas- 
 ing, and with tears and anguish, my strong desire for your 
 salvation." 
 
 Lapa also complained of her beloved daughter's pro- 
 longed absence, and Catharine replied to her in a long letter, 
 Avhich appears to have been sent from Genoa on the return 
 home from Avignon; in common with many others, it bears 
 no date, and only an approximate date can be assigned 
 to it : " If I have remained long, my beloved mother, it has 
 been by the will of God, and not by my own, or by the will 
 of man ; if anyone tells you to the contrary, he is mistaken ; 
 for I tell you the truth. I must follow the path which God 
 indicates to me by his providence ; and you, my dear, sweet 
 mother you ought to be content, and not unwilling to 
 suffer something for the honour of God .... Remember 
 how you used to act when it was a question of our temporal 
 interests, when your sons often took long journeys and were 
 absent for a length of time on business, and in order to 
 make money ; and now, when it is a question of the things 
 which concern our eternal life, you pine so much, and tell 
 me you will die if I do not soon come home; this is 
 because you love the mortal part of me more than the 
 immortal part." 
 
 The hour of the departure was at hand. All was ready. 
 The Pope's announcement of his determination had been 
 made ; he had continued firm, in spite of the cry of dis- 
 may and grief which arose from the splendid circles which 
 adorned that " earthly paradise," as the courtiers were 
 pleased to call Avignon. The severest trial which Gregory 
 experienced was the opposition of his father, an aged man, 
 who, when he heard of the determination formed by his son,
 
 186 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 waited for him at the door of his bedroom, and when he 
 appeared, threw himself at his feet and clung to his knees, 
 uttering a shriek which echoed through the whole palace. 
 " Can it be," he cried, " that I shall never see again my own 
 flesh and blood? How couldst thou deceive, not only thy 
 country but thy own father. Thou art going to encounter 
 unheard-of dangers ! Thou shall not leave this palace, except 
 over the body of thy father, slain with grief." But Gregory 
 rose for a moment to the height of heroism : he gently 
 raised his father and replied, solemnly, " God hath spoken : 
 he will enable me to overcome all dangers and trials." 
 
 Catharine had negotiated, at the suggestion of Gregory, 
 for the preparation of three galleys at Marseilles, with- 
 out communicating the fact to anyone. On the 13th 
 of September, 1376, the gates of the papal palace at 
 Avignon were opened long before sunrise, and an un- 
 wonted excitement was seen to prevail ; for on that 
 day Gregory was to set out to restore the glory of the 
 papacy to Kome. The people of Avignon stood in 
 crowds around, mute and displeased. The Pope's favourite 
 horse on which he rode forth, reared at the gate of the 
 palace, and backed, to the risk of the rider's life. Three 
 times it repeated this capricious performance ; and finally 
 the pontifical grooms forced it back, with many curses, 
 to its stall, and brought out another horse for his Holi- 
 ness to ride. This was regarded as an extremely evil 
 omen, but Gregory maintained his presence of mind arid 
 resolution. The details of this remarkable journey, this 
 "Odyssey of the fourteenth century," have been preserved 
 to us in the rhythmical account written by Peter Amely, a 
 romantic Prove^al singer, who held the post of chaplain
 
 The Departure from Avignon. 187 
 
 to the Pope, and accompanied him on his journey. This 
 account is quoted by De Malan in his " Life of St. Catha- 
 rine." The poem is affected and prolix ; but a translation 
 of portions of it will enable us to realize, better than the 
 description given by any other chronicler, the temper of 
 mind in which the exiles quitted France. 
 
 "On Tuesday, the 13th of September, Gregory XI. left 
 the palace, with the cardinals, mounted on white horses 
 sumptuously caparisoned. Chariots followed, loaded with 
 treasure ; then came the chaplains and domestic servants of 
 the Pope, and the carriages of the cardinals and of the suite. 
 Armed knights, with equerries, soldiers, and valets, headed 
 and followed up the rear of the cortege which traversed the 
 sorrowing city. We reached Orgon, an arid and stony dis- 
 trict, where vegetation is scanty. We spent the first night 
 in this uncomfortable abode. . . . On Wednesday we 
 arrived, shortly before sunset, at the royal city of Aix. 
 There everything pleased the eye : the beauty of the coun- 
 try around, the splendour of the palaces, and the hilarity of 
 the citizens, who came out in crowds to meet the Prince of 
 the Apostles. The aged bishop of Aix, accompanied by his 
 numerous clergy, came in procession to receive the Sove- 
 reign Pontiff, whom they conducted through the streets, 
 which were carpeted with bright-coloured silk fabrics, and 
 thickly strewed with flowers. On Friday, after crossing a 
 chain of rugged hills, we halted a few hours at Trets, where 
 a sumptuous repast was prepared for us. We continued 
 our course, and spent the night at Saint-Maximin. . . . On 
 Saturday we arrived, by a rough and rocky road, at Auriol, 
 a little town picturesquely situated in a fertile country of 
 corn and vines. Towards evening, as we pursued our way,
 
 188 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 an immense and rejoicing crowd which met us, carrying 
 torches and banners, and accompanied by music and sing- 
 ing, announced that we were approaching Marseilles. Alas ! 
 we began already to be tormented by the cruel heat of the 
 south, which was made more suffocating by the pressure of 
 the multitudes of people. . . . The next morning the 
 north wind, however, was blowing freshly, and the gentle 
 Pontiff came forth from the matin service in the abbey of 
 St. Victor, and entered the magnificent galley which was 
 waiting for him. Ah ! how was my heart torn at the 
 thought of bidding adieu to my native land ! Sighs and 
 lamentations resounded on every side ; all were sobbing ; 
 the Pontiff himself wept. The wind was favourable then ; 
 but what happened afterwards I must record." 
 
 This account of the voyage, narrated by the sentimental 
 poet of Provence, enables us to realize the slowness and 
 difficulty of travelling in those times, compared with the 
 rapid transit possible in our own days, from country to 
 country, and even from one hemisphere to another. The 
 summer had been fine, but the autumn was peculiarly 
 unfavourable for the expedition, and the faint hearts of 
 the unwilling exiles almost failed before the voyage was 
 half completed. A succession of storms, accompanied 
 with thunder and lightning, and lowering skies, tried their 
 spirits to the utmost, and delayed their passage. It seems 
 hardly credible that this journey from Marseilles to Rome 
 should have extended over three months, owing to the 
 severe storms, frequent pauses, and prolonged delays 
 while waiting for the vexed sea to become calm. " We 
 set sail," continues Peter Amely, "amidst the lamenta- 
 tions of the Marseillais. At Saint-Nazaire we stopped and
 
 Stormy Voyage to Villafranca. 189 
 
 landed to dine, and embarked again. Towards evening the 
 sky darkened, the wind howled, and a horrible tempest 
 arose, which forced us to land again upon a desolate part of 
 the coast, where there was not a single habitation. A pelt- 
 ing rain, thunder and lightning, and furious winds made us 
 believe that death was at hand for us. We all huddled 
 together, trembling and in consternation. But in a few 
 hours the storm passed over, and a strong wind carried us 
 rapidly into the harbour of Toulon. We encountered a 
 second tempest, worse than the first, off the coast of Frejus. 
 Even the mariners turned pale, and the passengers moaned, 
 calling upon St. Cyriac. We ran rapidly, however, with 
 the wind, past the Isle of St. Marguerite, and in the even- 
 ing arrived in safety at Antibes, where we joyfully landed. 
 On Thursday, October the 9th, the storm continued. We 
 passed by Nice, and entered the sunny port of Villafranca 
 with indescribable joy. We had suffered the utmost horrors 
 of sea-sickness, and now fell like famished men upon the 
 excellent viands prepared for us, and afterwards slept 
 peacefully. On Friday we again set sail, although the 
 sea was tempestuous. We had reached the point of 
 Monaco, when the pilot declared that it would be dan- 
 gerous to proceed, and we were compelled to put back 
 to Villafranca. Before we regained that port the stern 
 of the galley was broken, and the sails torn to pieces. The 
 pontifical valets discharged all of the most valuable articles 
 into the small boats. All was in confusion : one could 
 hear nothing but the roaring of the waves, heartrending 
 cries, and angry vociferations. Who can describe what 
 we endured 1 But the next day the sea was more calm. 
 ' lily of pontiffs ! ' we said, ' behold how the sun shines
 
 190 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 forth ! All nature seems again to smile, and thy servants 
 salute thee in the delicious city of Savona.' " 
 
 Catherine had parted from Gregory at Avignon, to pursue 
 a route of her own, with her companions, to Toulon. Her 
 journey was much more expeditious than that of the Pontiff: 
 it was unimpeded by regrets, murmurings, or hesitations. 
 She set out with a cheerful heart, and full of hope. Gregory 
 had given her a hundred florins for the expense of the 
 journey, to which the Duke of Anjou had added a hundred 
 francs, not a mean present in those days, even from a 
 duke. She remained for two days at Toulon. She and 
 her companions arrived there towards evening, when she 
 immediately retired to her room to pray, as was her un- 
 varying custom at the evening hour. " We had been 
 careful," says Raymond, "to say nothing of her arrival in 
 the town ; but the very stones seemed to proclaim it." 
 They had not been there an hour, when a numerous multi- 
 tude of women gathered round the door of the inn, asking 
 where the saint was who had come from the pontifical court. 
 The hostler having confessed that she was there, it became 
 impossible to keep back the crowd ; for now men also came 
 in great numbers, pressing round the circle of women, and 
 desiring to see Catharine, if but for one moment. For from 
 the secret heart of the poor, hungry multitudes arises again 
 and again the protest that it is not by bread alone that man 
 lives. The mass of men will strangely and strongly at 
 times incline towards one whom they believe has dwelt in 
 a peculiar manner in the presence of God, and who can 
 impart some knowledge of that hidden well of living 
 water for which humanity thirsts, even when apparently 
 satisfied with the turgid fountains of the world's pleasures
 
 Her Halt at Toulon. 191 
 
 and interests. The foremost among the women pressed 
 into the vestibule of the inn ; but Catharine remained con- 
 cealed in her chamber. One of the women, who was very 
 retiring and careworn in appearance, carried in her arms 
 her sick baby, a pitiful object, but her treasure. She be- 
 sought the friends of Catharine that she would take the 
 infant in her arms and cure it ; " for," she said, " she has 
 power with God, and can heal diseases : she can restore to 
 me my baby which is dying." The message was taken to 
 Catharine, but she declined to undertake this, or to appear; 
 for she dreaded the publicity of the occasion. But the 
 entreaties and sobs of the poor mother, whose petitions 
 were seconded by the other women, were too much for her 
 compassionate heart : she came out of her chamber, and 
 said, " Where is the little one 1 " The mother pressed for- 
 ward, and Catharine, full of pity, took the baby in her 
 arms, and, pressing it to her breast, she prayed earnestly 
 and with tears to him who said, " Suffer the little children 
 to come unto me." From that moment the child revived, 
 and the whole city was witness of its rapid return to 
 health, and of the joy of the poor mother. The Bishop of 
 Toulon, hearing of this event, sent for Raymond, and 
 earnestly requested him to obtain for him an interview 
 with Catharine. 
 
 Catharine arrived at Genoa, and there waited several 
 days for Gregory. The papal galleys must needs stop at 
 Genoa for water and repairs ; and she knew instinctively 
 that the Pope would require to imbibe, when there, a fresh 
 stock of courage and resolution. As the days passed on, 
 and the vessels from Marseilles did not appear, fears began 
 to visit her tried soul. She knew Gregory's weakness, and
 
 192 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 the sullen, unwilling spirit of many of the companions of 
 his exile from France. The elements, too, had seemed to 
 oppose themselves to the return to Rome ; and she pictured 
 to herself in imagination all that Gregory might have had 
 to suffer, from the voyage and from the complainings of 
 those around him, and dreaded lest the trial might be 
 greater than his faltering courage could endure. In the 
 collection made of Catharine's prayers, is one entitled, " A 
 Prayer offered up at Genoa, when waiting for the Arrival 
 of Gregory XL," in which she beseeches that God will 
 pardon all the weaknesses of the Pontiff; that he will 
 deliver him from the timid counsels of those who would 
 hold him back from the performance of duty, and inspire 
 him with a true love for souls, and readiness to suffer all 
 things for the welfare of the Church. It was thus that she 
 waited, praying without ceasing for the consummation of 
 that for which she had laboured, and which she believed to 
 be in accordance with the will of God.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CATHARINE and her friends remained more than a month at 
 Genoa, at the house of an honourable lady named Orietta 
 Scott. Stephen says, in his deposition : " We were nearly 
 all sick while there. Neri di Landoccio fell ill the first. 
 He suffered dreadful pain ; he could neither lie in bed nor 
 stand up, but would crawl about on his hands and knees all 
 night when other people rested, and thus increased his pains. 
 When Catharine heard of it she was filled with compassion, 
 and ordered Father Raymond to call in the best medical 
 aid. He promptly brought two skilful physicians, who pre- 
 scribed for Neri, but he became no better." Raymond says : 
 " We were all at dinner when the news came to us that 
 Neri was rather worse than better. Stephen ceased to eat ; 
 he looked very sad, and, leaving the table, went straight 
 to Catharine's room. He threw himself at her feet, and 
 with tears adjured her not to suffer his dear friend, who 
 had undertaken this journey for God and for her, to die far 
 from his family, and be buried in a strange city. Catha- 
 rine was deeply affected ; she said : ' If God wills, Stephen, 
 that your friend should thus early reap the reward of his 
 labours, you ought not to be afflicted, but rather to rejoice.' 
 But Stephen insisted : ' dearest, kindest mother, hear 
 my request. You can do it if you will ; you can obtain this 
 
 O
 
 194 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 favour from God.' Catharine replied, with a look full of 
 pity, ' I only exhorted you to conform to God's will. To- 
 morrow, when I go to receive the Communion, remind me 
 of your request, and I will pray to the Lord for Neri ; and 
 meanwhile do you pray without ceasing for his recovery.' 
 Stephen did not fail to throw himself in her path as she 
 went to the church, and said : ' Mother, I entreat you not 
 to deceive my expectations.' Catharine remained an un- 
 usually long time in the church, in prayer. When she re- 
 turned, she smiled on Stephen, who was waiting for her, 
 and said, ' Be of good cheer, my son ; you have obtained the 
 favour you have sought.' Stephen, not quite able to believe 
 for joy, eagerly asked, ' Will Neri get well ? ' ' Undoubtedly 
 he will,' Catharine replied. Stephen hastened to the bed- 
 side of his friend. He found the physicians there, who 
 said, ' Although we had given up all hope, his symptoms 
 have changed within the last hour, and we can now entertain 
 hope of his recovery.' " In a few days Neri was quite 
 well. But Stephen, worn out by his fatigues in nursing the 
 patients, and by his anxiety about his beloved friend, was 
 attacked by a violent fever. " As everyone loved him," 
 says Raymond, " we resorted to him to try and console 
 him, and all nursed him by turns." Stephen himself gave 
 the following account of it : " Catharine came, with her 
 companions, to pay me a visit, and asked me what I 
 was suffering. I, quite delighted at her sweet presence, 
 answered gaily, ' They say I am ill ; but I do not know 
 what it is.' She placed her hand on my forehead; and 
 shaking her head and smiling, she said, 'Do you hear 
 how this child answers me 1 They say that I am ill, 
 but I do not know of what ; and he is in a violent fever ! '
 
 Delay and Suspense, 195 
 
 then she added, addressing me : ' But, Stephen, I do not 
 allow you to be ill ; you must get up and wait upon the 
 others as before.' She then conversed with us about God, 
 as usual, and as she was speaking I began to feel quite well. 
 I interrupted her to tell them so, and they were all in 
 astonishment, and very glad. I arose from my bed the same 
 day, and I have enjoyed perfect health since that time." 
 
 We left speaking of the papal expedition at the moment 
 of its arrival at Savona. After many delays the galleys 
 bearing the exiles from Avignon entered the port of Genoa 
 on the 13th of October. Catharine welcomed Gregory 
 joyfully, but quickly perceived by his countenance that the 
 conflict had been renewed between his better nature and 
 his fears, the latter seconded by the influence of the 
 cardinals. During the delay of ten days in Genoa, to 
 which he was compelled by the continuance of foul weather 
 and the violence of recurring storms, his courage was much 
 tried, for alarming reports continued to arrive every day 
 from Florence and the other revolted cities. Gregory had 
 believed that the news of his return would have stirred up 
 a strong reaction in his favour ; but the aggravated conduct 
 of the cardinal-legates, who feared that their power would 
 come to an end with the Pontiffs return, had further 
 estranged the suffering people of Tuscany, and the signs 
 of disloyalty and rebellion were thus increased rather 
 than diminished. The astute courtiers who accompanied 
 Gregory took advantage of these reports to unsettle the 
 mind of the Pontiff ; and but for the extraordinary deter- 
 mination and ardour of Catharine, there can be little doubt 
 that they would have succeeded in inducing him to turn 
 back. They dreaded her influence, and therefore, as soon 
 
 02
 
 196 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 as possible after landing, they prevailed upon the Pope to 
 call a consistory, and in that consistory, Gregory had 
 actually confirmed the decision almost unanimously voted 
 by the cardinals, to return to Avignon. 1 The courtiers, 
 believing their triumph secure, began to boast of it openly, 
 as of a victory as beautiful as unexpected, when "the 
 resolute Mantellata interposed and audaciously confronted 
 in her own person alone, this torrent which threatened to 
 swallow up the great design for which she had toiled." 
 Gregory, surrounded by selfish and adverse counsellors, 
 vexed by reports of rebellion, sullenly received by the 
 Italian people, and deprived of all reliable human aid, 
 again sought to fortify himself by the counsels of Catha- 
 rine. Catharine never came into his presence unasked, 
 nor did she volunteer advice ; but she knew what had 
 passed, and remained in her own chamber, where, as ever, 
 praying to her Father in secret, she was again rewarded 
 openly by that Father who seeth in secret. Knowing 
 the jealousy of her influence felt by the cardinals 
 and courtiers, and that a violent opposition would pro- 
 bably now arise to any proposed conference with her, 
 Gregory paid a visit to her house in the night. 2 When 
 all the city slept, he knocked at her door, and entered, 
 unaccompanied, and wrapped in his cloak, to ask of her 
 this time not only wise counsels, but power, through 
 her prayers, to obey those counsels. The Lady Orietta 
 Scott, a faithful friend and disciple of Catharine, was 
 present at this interview, as were Father Eaymond and 
 
 1 Capecelatro, Storia di S. Catarina da Siena, Lib. v., p. 213. 
 Tommaso Caffarini, Supplemento ad Legend.
 
 Gregory leaves Genoa for Rome. 197 
 
 others. Catharine was true to her mission. She insisted 
 that at all costs, the Papacy must be re-established in Rome, 
 and adjured Gregory to believe that the greater the perils and 
 difficulties which he might even now have to encounter, the 
 more ought he to feel himself called upon to be strong arid to 
 accept these things from the hand of God, as a discipline in- 
 tended to elevate his own soul, and purge away all taint of 
 weakness and egotism induced by the long residence amidst 
 the luxury of the Western Babylon. When the Pontiff 
 took leave of her she remained sleepless, on her knees, 
 pleading with Heaven until the morning. 
 
 Undaunted by the angry sea and howling winds, and 
 apparently now calmly indifferent to the displeasure and 
 murmurings of the courtiers, Gregory embarked at Genoa 
 on the 29th of October, and set sail for Rome. 
 
 The poet, Pierre Amely, continues : " We set sail again 
 on our perilous voyage. After a short pause at Porto- 
 Venere, where we had a most miserable dinner, we arrived 
 the same evening at Leghorn, where the people received 
 us amicably. Here we passed the night. lion of the 
 tribe of Judah ? pearl of pontiffs ! be of good courage, 
 and appear before this ferocious and indomitable Tuscan 
 people. Show them the power of the keys ! Rebuke 
 their audacity, and confound their pride. . . . 
 
 "Behold us at Porto-Pisano on the 6th of November. 
 Is there no fear that we may fall victims to these most 
 cruel Italians, who breathe only hate and fury ? The 
 ambassadors of Pisa and Lucca come down to the shore 
 with magnificent presents ; but take care, O gentle Pontiff' ! 
 suffer not thyself to be seduced by their flattering 
 words. If they had not abjured their ancient faith r
 
 198 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 would they not have come to thy aid against the rebellions 
 Florentines ? . . . 
 
 "Now we set sail from Piombino on the 16th of 
 November, before the sun has risen. The evening falls 
 upon us, calm and fair, as we reach the port of Hercules, 
 where, after an excellent dinner, we retire to pleasant 
 sleep. . . . But an unfriendly and violent wind blows on 
 the morrow. . . . We are driven upon the isle of Elba. 
 The prince of pastors seeks some rural oratory in which to 
 offer up his prayers to Heaven; and here, behold, we find our- 
 selves in a thick forest of olives. The storm prevents us 
 fixing our tents. The Archbishop of Narbonne, the chief 
 chamberlain of the Pontiff, and the Bishop of Charpentras, 
 our great referee in difficulty, are desolated because they can 
 find no shelter for the successor of St. Peter. cruel sea, 
 thou sparest none ! the holiest and the most powerful thou 
 engulfest in the same wave with the most miserable 
 Already, before we reached Genoa, hadst thou absorbed our 
 most valuable property, and drowned our companion the 
 Bishop of Luni ; l and now the Cardinal Lagery suffers most 
 cruelly through thy furious agitations, and is obliged to be 
 carried on shore on the shoulders of a country clown ! Gradu- 
 ally the tempest becomes so horrible that several of our 
 galleys are capsized, and much of our wealth is engulfed. . . . 
 On the 21st of November the Cardinal of Jugie, worn 
 out by exposure and sickness, renders his soul to God. 
 May the august Trinity reward him with the joys of 
 Paradise for the favours he lavished upon his humble 
 
 "A cagion del mare grosso, si affog6, il vescovo di Luni, e si 
 ruppero moltilegni." MUKATORI, Anncdi d'ltalia, VoL xiL, p. 593.
 
 The Voyage to Borne. 199 
 
 little servant, the poet Peter Amely, whom he admitted 
 every day to dine at his table ! 
 
 " At last the weather permits us to start for Porto-Ferraio, 
 and we steer our course back to Piombino, where the 
 people burst into acclamations of joy on seeing the gentle 
 Pontiff safe and sound ; but their congratulations are 
 sterile, for they bring us no presents. The next day we 
 arrive at Orbitello, where the furious sea pitilessly rends 
 the coast. The landing is perilous and difficult. The 
 apostolic sub-deacon, who carries the crucifix before the 
 pearl of pontiffs, is obliged to swim to shore. And what a 
 bleak shore ! There my poor companions, nurtured until 
 now in every delicacy, are obliged, alas ! to dine on pork, 
 or on fricassee of those obscene frogs which deafen our ears 
 with their croaking. We are deprived of wheaten bread, 
 of good wine, and of cream ; moreover we are devoured by 
 malaria. We are forced to leave our sick at Orbitello, and 
 hurry out of this accursed land ; otherwise we should all be 
 dead. The Pontiff humbly walks down to his galley, 
 leaning on his stick; for he also suffers. He is preceded 
 by torch bearers, to lighten the darkened atmosphere. We 
 toil on through the stormy waves, and at last the high 
 towers of the city of Corneto appear in sight. ... Its 
 streets are wide and handsome. In spite of its former 
 disloyalty, which the jewel of pontiffs freely forgives, its 
 inhabitants receive us with extraordinary enthusiasm. . . . 
 "On Tuesday, the 13th of January, 1377, we left 
 Corneto, after a sojourn of five weeks. In the evening, 
 the lily of the Papacy entered his galley, and passed the 
 night there, after making tender enquiries concerning the 
 health of each one of us. The physicians and astrologers
 
 200 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 of Avignon, who prophesied a fatal termination to our 
 voyage, had apparently misread the constellations ; for we 
 sailed all night upon a tranquil sea, by the light of a 
 brilliant moon, and wafted by a gentle breeze from the 
 north. The morning of the following day we reached the 
 mouth of the Tiber, and entered Ostia, a city with splendid 
 ramparts, but sad and deserted. In the evening several 
 venerable men, deputed by the Romans, arrived to offer 
 assurances of their fidelity. The joy of these Envoys, on 
 seeing the Pontiff', was such that the words died upon their 
 lips. The people of Ostia, lighting torches, danced and 
 clapped their hands in the streets, in a frenzy of delight. 
 The following Friday the Pontiff rose in the night to 
 celebrate Mass, and after long continuance in prayer, he 
 took a few moments of sleep, and then arose and himself 
 sounded the trumpet to awake us all. We were then rowed 
 up the Tiber by powerful oarsmen. We sang praises to God 
 as we went ; but the Pontiff, who had shown signs of failing 
 health, was suffering great pain during this transit, and 
 our hearts were saddened by the sight of his pallid counten- 
 ance." The fantastical Provencal poet concludes his account 
 with the arrival of the Pope at St. Peter's. The return of 
 Gregory to Rome has been described by several of the 
 annalists of the Church ; it forms also the subject of a fresco 
 in one of the stanze of the Vatican, painted by Vasari, and 
 sometimes attributed to Raphael. 
 
 The entrance into Rome was joyful and magnificent. 
 According to the custom of the times, some hundreds of 
 comedians (istrioni) attired in white, preceded the cortege. 
 There were companies of dancers also, who performed 
 graceful evolutions and solemn dances, to the sound of
 
 Gregory's Entrance into Home. 201 
 
 stately music. The whole population came forth to meet 
 the Pontiff ; the senators and councillors of Rome advanc- 
 ing at the head of the expectant crowd. The people, 
 dressed in holy day attire, as if for a high festival, rent the 
 air with cries of "Viva il Pontefice ! Viva Gregorio !" Joy 
 and sympathy were written on every face. The excitement 
 increased as the procession advanced towards St. Peter's. 
 The people knew not how sufficiently to express their glad- 
 ness and the glow of their affection towards the Pontiff as 
 he passed. They stretched forth their arms towards him ; 
 they kneeled and kissed the earth which he had trodden ; 
 men and women wept for joy, and little children wept 
 also through sympathy, though ignorant of the cause for 
 which they wept. The roofs of the houses were covered 
 with spectators, and every window was filled with eager 
 and joyous faces. The streets were laid with crimson 
 carpets and silken stuffs contributed by the richer citizens. 
 Winter flowers were profusely scattered on the Pontiffs 
 path, and rained down upon him from the windows and 
 housetops. The air was filled with the sounds of triumphal 
 music, of songs and anthems of praise; and the ringing 
 of the bells from all the churches and campaniles mingled 
 with the joyful acclamations of the people. 
 
 But in this triumphal procession into the imperial city 
 on this glad day, there was one figure wanting that of 
 her who had inspired the undertaking now consummated. 
 Catharine had never failed to be by Gregory's side in times 
 of trouble or wavering purpose; but at this moment of 
 triumph and congratulation she was absent. Alone, in her 
 humble little room at Siena, she was silently gathering 
 her forces for the future. She knew that a difficult task
 
 202 CatJianne of Siena. 
 
 awaited Gregory, after the first joyous moments of his 
 reception in Rome. Public triumphs are brief ; but evils 
 which have struck deep roots in a nation can only be 
 eradicated by long and patient effort. 
 
 This outburst of popular rejoicing was the expression of 
 a long-cherished hope. The Roman people had suffered 
 much during the desertion, for seventy years, of their su- 
 preme bishops. They had cherished the memory of their 
 past greatness, in the midst of their misfortunes ; and they 
 now dreamed of a return to their ancient glory. The popula- 
 tion had enormously diminished ; languor and depression 
 had entered into all the business and social life of the people. 
 There was little nobility of character or example among 
 them, and much corruption of morals. Many of the ancient 
 monuments were destro} 7 ed. The basilicas and churches 
 were in ruins, and the services of religion were neglected. 
 
 Petrarch, in one of his letters to the Popes of Avignon, 
 thus personifies Rome abandoned by the Pontiffs : " I saw 
 waiting at the gate of thy palace, O Pontiff of Avignon, a 
 venerable matron whom I seemed to recognize ; and yet I 
 did not dare to pronounce her name. Her countenance 
 was sorrowful ; her garments were poor and neglected; yet 
 there shone in her an ineffable majesty ; most noble were 
 her features and bearing, and her speech was that of one 
 long accustomed to rule imperially. The greatness of her 
 soul beamed through the thick veil of sadness which en- 
 veloped her. I asked at last her name, and she murmured 
 it forth. It reached me through the void, in the midst of 
 sobs ; it was Roma I" 1 
 
 1 Petrarch's " Epistles," Ad Bened. Pcntiif.
 
 Catharine urges the Reform of the Church, 203 
 
 Gregory looked upon the desolated city with fear and 
 anxiety, for he saw how great were the hopes which had 
 been awakened by his return, and how difficult the task 
 before him. His was not the spirit to grapple with so 
 serious an enterprise ; moreover, the mortal disease which 
 caused his death fourteen months later, already had its 
 hand upon him ; and physical suffering and languor were 
 added to his natural indolence of disposition. Catharine 
 now urged him, with all her might, to set about the 
 reforms which she saw to be the only salvation for the 
 Church. She warned him especially concerning the elec- 
 tion of new cardinals and the promotion of ecclesiastics 
 of different ranks. " I write to you, father, in the name 
 and in the power of Christ crucified. In his name I 
 adjure you to see that the ministers you appoint be 
 men of virtue and faith ; that they preach repentance in 
 that name, and that they be men who have first purified 
 themselves." It is thus that she pleaded in her letters to 
 Gregory after his return to Rome. "Alas! father," she 
 writes, "do you not see that so far from being men of 
 virtue, these priests and monks run greedily after all the 
 delights of this world ; that they seek riches and place and 
 honours, with open and indecent avidity ; that they who 
 ought to be wholesome plants planted in the garden of 
 the Lord, are but foetid weeds, full of impurity, giving 
 forth poisonous odours. Do thou, father, as an instru- 
 ment in God's hand, put away all timidity and all spirit 
 of negligence, and with solicitude do all that thou canst ; 
 thus shalt thou be the true minister of God ; thus shalt 
 thou fulfil the will of God, and the desire of his servants 
 who are dying for grief in seeing such offences against our
 
 204 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Creator, and such trampling under foot of the blood of the 
 Son of God. Forgive my presumption, holy father ; my 
 sorrow pleads my excuse. Be ready to give thy life for 
 Christ crucified. Determine to uproot vice, and to plant 
 virtue." In another letter, taking a severer tone, she tells 
 the Pontiff that it were better to give up the keys of St. 
 Peter than that the Church should be ruled by one who hesi- 
 tates to extirpate vice. " God demands that justice shall be 
 executed on those who devour and destroy the holy Church. 
 Since he hath given you authority over the Church, and 
 you have accepted that authority, you are bound to make 
 use of your power ; and if you make not use of it, it would 
 be better more for the honour of God and the health of 
 your own soul that you should abdicate the authority 
 which you have accepted." 
 
 Political troubles continued, however, to distract the 
 mind of Gregory from the moral and spiritual reforms 
 to which Catharine ceaselessly urged him, and to which 
 he might otherwise have sincerely directed such force as 
 he possessed. Rebellious Florence continued to be the 
 chief thorn in his side. Raymond's narrative continues : 
 " When the Vicar of Christ was, through Catharine's 
 influence, re-established at Rome, we all went back to 
 Italy. Catharine then sent me to Rome, to lay before 
 the holy father several projects for reforming the Church, 
 which would have been very useful had they been carried 
 out. During my sojourn in Rome, I was commanded 
 by my Order to accept the charge of prior of a Roman 
 convent ; and thus it became impossible for me to return 
 to Siena. Before leaving Tuscany, I had had an interview 
 with Nicholas Soderini, (the citizen of Florence, before
 
 Gregory sends Catliarine again to Florence. 205 
 
 mentioned, who had continued true to Catharine and her 
 principles). We had spoken of the affairs of the republic, 
 and in particular of the ill-will of the Eight of War, who 
 while pretending to desire peace, continually fomented 
 rebellion. Soderini said, ' I assure you that the people of 
 Florence and all the honest citizens desire peace ; but some 
 obstinate spirits that govern us are a hindrance.' I asked 
 if there was no remedy to be found for this, and he replied, 
 ' Yes ; if some respectable citizen, taking deeply to heart 
 the cause of God, could come to an understanding with 
 some of the leaders of the Guelph party, and obtain the 
 deposition from office of one or two of the worst of those 
 who at present govern us, I think the public good might be 
 secured.' 
 
 " I had been occupied several months in fulfilling my 
 charge as prior and in preaching the word of God, when one 
 Sunday morning an Envoy of the Pope came to inform me 
 that his Holiness desired my presence at dinner. I obeyed, 
 and after the repast the holy father said to me : ' I am told 
 that if Catharine of Siena were to go to Florence, peace 
 would be concluded.' I replied, ' Not only Catharine, but 
 we all, holy father, are ready to serve you, and to suffer 
 martyrdom if need be.' The holy father then said to me, 'I 
 do not desire that you, Eaymond, should go to Florence, 
 because they would maltreat you ; but I wish that she should 
 go, because she is a woman ; for, because she is a woman, 
 and because of the great veneration they have for her 
 character, they will take care not to harm her, and will 
 listen to her advice. Consider what powers it is suitable 
 to grant her, and present them to-morrow morning for 
 my signature, that this business be not delayed.' I
 
 206 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 obeyed, and forwarded the bull of Gregory to Catharine, 
 who promptly set out for Florence." 
 
 On this, her third visit to Florence, Catharine was des- 
 tined to witness stormy scenes and to suffer much, through 
 the difficulty of the attainment of the peace between the 
 Florentines and the Church for which she had already so 
 long laboured, and through the internal discords of the re- 
 public itself, for which she was to some extent unjustly 
 held to be accountable. She, immediately on her arrival, 
 obtained interviews with some of the leaders of the Guelph 
 party, concerning the obstructive temper of the Eight of 
 War, who had now become obnoxious to most of the good 
 citizens of Florence by their evident ambition to establish 
 themselves as permanent rulers of the State, at the expense 
 of the true interests of the republic. " They deserved not to 
 be called rulers, but destroyers of the commonwealth," says 
 Antoninus, the Archbishop of Florence, already quoted, who 
 wrote the chronicles of Florence from 1313 to 1459. The 
 same chronicler says that Catharine counselled the depriva- 
 tion of office of two or three citizens who were the main 
 hindrance to the restoration of peace and good order ; that 
 the Guelph leaders called upon the Priors of the City (in 
 whom was vested the power to elect the Council of War, 
 and consequently to depose any member of it), to admonish 
 the Eight of War. The admonition, and all arguments in 
 favour of peace, were haughtily rejected, and the Priors 
 proceeded to depose one of the Eight. They soon after 
 proceeded to deprive of office two or three other citizens. 
 " From this a double fire blazed forth ; on the one side 
 from the party of those deposed, and on the other from 
 the Guelph party, who now, abandoning the principles of
 
 Political Troubles in Florence. 207 
 
 strict justice, proceeded to degrade from office certain citi- 
 zens against whom they had some private grudge, and to 
 take vengeance on the Ghibelline party and the Eight of 
 War, who had for so long a time been in the ascendant, and 
 had formerly banished many of the Guelphs." It soon be- 
 came evident to Catharine that what had been begun with 
 an honest purpose, and for the good of the commonwealth, 
 was being turned to a base and evil end through the 
 jealousies and desire of revenge existing in the rival fac- 
 tions in the State. She mourned over this, and denounced 
 it openly. "She condemned especially," says Antoninus, 
 " the hunting out of office and banishing of so many and 
 such useful persons, and she protested against the wicked- 
 ness of turning a judicial action, undertaken in order to 
 obtain peace, into an intestine war to gratify their private 
 hatred." She warned the Florentine leaders that if they 
 continued to seek their own private interests thus, in place 
 of the good of the commonwealth, and in doing so to com- 
 mit such crimes as they now hesitated not to commit, " a 
 time of such woe for Florence would shortly arrive as 
 neither they nor their ancestors had ever yet experienced." 
 Machiavelli records the history of that prolonged and fierce 
 revolution in Florence, which caused Catharine's words to 
 be remembered as prophetic. 
 
 The conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines be- 
 came more fierce and more complicated every day. But 
 in the midst of it the peace with the Church was finally 
 concluded, and the ban removed from the city and its 
 commerce. Of this I shall speak presently. The Guelph 
 party was represented by the powerful families of the 
 Albizzi and the Strozzi ; that of the Ghibellines by the
 
 208 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Eight of War, the families of the Ricci and the Alberti, and 
 by Salvestro dei Medici, the ancestor of the great Lorenzo 
 dei Medici and of Pope Leo X. Salvestro was a man of 
 very low origin, who had, by his skill in commerce, attained 
 to great wealth and enormous credit. He was now elected 
 gonfalonier of the city, and for a time guided his party 
 successfully in its opposition to the Guelphs. The number 
 and character of the citizens deprived of office and exiled, 
 at the instigation of the Guelph nobles, were such as to 
 excite displeasure even among the most moderate citizens, 
 who refrained from taking part with either faction. The 
 Ghibellines demanded the re-election and return of these 
 deposed citizens. The demand was at first partially and 
 hesitatingly granted. This was not enough to satisfy 
 the long-cherished animosity of the Ghibellines, and the 
 Guelphs felt instinctively that further and larger demands 
 would follow, the denial of which would be the signal for 
 civil war. 
 
 Everyone knew that the feud was not at an end ; 
 that the vanquished Guelphs would not submit to their 
 defeat, nor the vanquishers be satisfied with their victory. 
 The more cautious of the citizens made preparations for 
 a revolution which they believed to be inevitable ; the)* 
 fortified their houses, and transported the more valuable 
 of their effects into the churches and monasteries ; the 
 workshops remained closed, and the whole aspect of 
 the city was one of mutual distrust and defiance. The 
 people of Florence, like those of Siena, were divided into 
 political corporations according to their arts or trades ; 
 the two great divisions being those of the Great Arts and 
 the Inferior Arts. On this occasion the division of the
 
 Revolt of the Wool-carders. 209 
 
 Great Arts favoured the Guelphs, and that of the Inferior 
 Arts the Ghibellines, thus causing a most complete and seri- 
 ous antagonism of the elements of industrial and civil life, 
 in preparation for the approaching revolutionary encounter. 
 But, besides this antagonism there existed another, namely, 
 between the lowest class of the citizens, who had no political 
 existence, and the class to which they sold their services 
 as labourers the higher artisans and merchants belonging 
 to the divisions of the Great and Inferior Arts. This 
 lowest class of workpeople was very numerous, and had 
 greatly increased during the last ten years. They worked 
 for all the trades and arts, but had no voice in the State. 
 The art or manufacture of wool, which had attained to the 
 first importance in Florence, had in its service the greatest 
 number of these workmen, i.e., the wool-carders and weavers, 
 who came to be distinguished as the fiercest and most dis- 
 contented spirits of the time. These wool-carders and 
 weavers had some just ground of complaint. Not only 
 had they no political existence, but they seldom were able 
 to obtain justice from the legal tribunal of the woollen 
 manufacturers, when any complaint was brought to that 
 tribunal either by employers or employed. Most naturally 
 was this the case, for the members of that tribunal were 
 drawn solely from the class of the employers, and those 
 who had a representation in the State. " There were at 
 Florence," says Sismondi, " men whom unceasing me- 
 chanical labour, extreme poverty, and entire dependence 
 had deprived of the capacity for harbouring liberal senti- 
 ments ; who were unable to deliberate except with a kind 
 of intoxication of mind, nor to act except with a rude fury. 
 These men received the name of the Ciompi, a corruption of 
 
 P
 
 210 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 a name which had descended from the times of the tyranni- 
 cal Duke of Athens." The Ciompi were chiefly recruited 
 from among the poor wool-carders. These men had been 
 watching their opportunity to seize upon those civil rights 
 which had not yet been granted to their pacific demand. 
 They were uneducated, and, for the most part, ignoble and 
 wretched. Led on by a wool-carder called Ronco, they 
 began deliberately to prepare for the work of pillage arid 
 robbery. Salvestro dei Medici had the boldness to invite 
 these sans-culottes to his aid, believing them to be an 
 element which would serve the purposes of his party. He 
 afterwards experienced the truth of Machiavelli's words : 
 " There is no man bold enough to stir up a revolutionary 
 movement in a city who can, at his will, either curb the 
 movement at the point at which he desires to arrest it, or 
 guide it towards the object at which he aims." 1 
 
 In a short time the whole city was under arms. The 
 Eight of War had an advantage in having the control of 
 the weapons at the service of the State. The mob armed 
 itself with every kind of rude implement which could be 
 used for the destruction of life or property. Arrests on 
 each side took place daily. Many attempts were made 
 by the Guelphs to admit through the city gates numbers 
 of armed peasants who waited outside and in the country 
 round, and who would have ranged themselves under the 
 leaders of that party. Quiet was partially restored for a 
 few days by the firm attitude of Louis Guicciardini, who 
 now held the office of Gonfalonier of Justice. He assem- 
 bled the leaders of the Ciompi, with the Signory and the 
 
 1 Machiavelli, Storia Fior.
 
 Speech of Louis Guicciardini. 211 
 
 Syndics of the Arts, in the Grand Piazza, and thus 
 addressed them : " The more we grant you, the more do 
 you increase your demands. You asked us to deprive the 
 captains of parties of their authority ; we did so. You 
 wished that we should burn their counting-houses and 
 offices ; we consented. You demanded that the exiles and 
 those deprived of office should be recalled and reinstated ; 
 we permitted it. At your entreaty we have pardoned 
 those who have pillaged houses and robbed the churches ; 
 to satisfy you we have sent several citizens into exile 
 who were obnoxious to you ; to favour your party we 
 have restrained by ordinance the powers of the nobles. 
 Will your demands have no limit ? You must see that we 
 bear much better our defeat than you your victory. Will 
 you, by your discords, bring this city, during peace, into 
 a slavery to which no external power, during war, has ever 
 been able to reduce her ? For, know, that your victories 
 over your fellow-citizens will never produce anything 
 but slavery, and that the property of which you have 
 robbed us, and will rob us, will never yield anything 
 except poverty. Wherefore we command you, and, (if 
 the honour of this republic obliges us to use the word), 
 we implore you, to calm your spirits and to be content 
 with what we have done ; or if it be needful that we grant 
 you yet something more, demand it in a manner becoming 
 to good citizens, and not by tumult and the show of armed 
 force." The syndics were much moved by this frank 
 address, and thanked the gonfalonier, promising him to 
 labour for the re-establishment of peace in the city. The 
 signory also at once prepared to make reforms and restore 
 order. But the wild spirits called up from the depths of
 
 212 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 society by Salvestro del Medici and other demagogues were 
 not to be so easily conjured into peace. 
 
 The Ciompi foresaw, or imagined, punishments being 
 prepared for them in particular, on account of all the 
 crimes of which they had been guilty during the tumult, 
 and exhorted each other to save their own lives by yet 
 more audacious acts ; " a great peril can only be escaped 
 by a perilous path," they said. The insurgents conse- 
 quently assembled the same evening in great numbers 
 before the prison of San Piero Maggiore and demanded 
 the release of the prisoners their friends and fellow- 
 workmen. They burnt to the ground the house of Guic- 
 ciardini, the Gonfalonier of Justice, and seized the gon- 
 falon, or standard of justice, which had been suspended 
 from his windows. This revered standard, regarded by 
 the Florentines with almost religious awe, was now 
 carried by the mob to every place where they vented 
 their fury. They marched from house to house, pillaging 
 and burning, and often dedicating to ruin whole fami- 
 lies on a word of accusation pronounced by a single 
 enemy. 
 
 Catharine had had a house assigned to her when 
 she came to Florence; it was near to San Giorgio, 
 and belonged to the family of Canigiani, who were her 
 friends and allies. Barduccio, who became one of her 
 secretaries, was a member of this family; and it was 
 during this visit to Florence that she first made his 
 acquaintance. Here she remained, steadfast to her pur- 
 pose, and endeavouring daily, and not without result, to 
 influence the more sober of the citizens to act in such a 
 way as to secure some good results when the present
 
 Catharine pursued by the Revolutionaries. 213 
 
 tribulations should have passed over. Stephen Maconi had 
 preceded her to Florence, and had put in practice his native 
 talent for oratory. " His facile and eloquent speeches had 
 persuaded many citizens to remain in quietness " and wait 
 their opportunity to avail themselves of a better spirit 
 among the people. 1 But the torrent of revengeful feeling 
 and popular disaffection was not yet to be driven back. 
 News was brought to Catharine that the house of her 
 friend Nicholas Soderini had been burnt to the ground 
 and his family driven outside the gates. Not an hour had 
 elapsed before the mob gathered round the house of the 
 Canigiani. The account of what followed is given alike 
 by Raymond, the Bollandists, Archbishop Antoninus, and 
 Ammirato. The Eight of War had not forgotten how 
 Catharine, by her conduct in the embassy to Avignon, and 
 by her letters, had exposed the insincerity of their pro- 
 fessions. They knew her to be the friend of Soderini, 
 and that she had approved the deposition from office of 
 one of their number. It was enough for them to give the 
 slightest hint on these matters to the ruthless bands of 
 insurgents ; the cry was quickly echoed that Catharine 
 was an enemy to the public good and to the democratic 
 party. The mob ran to the house of the Canigiani, and set 
 fire to it. Catharine and her friends escaped, and accepted 
 the offered hospitality of one kindly disposed citizen after 
 another. But one house after another of those with whom 
 she took refuge was attacked and pillaged and then set 
 on fire, so that finally no one dared to receive her and 
 her followers. The leaders of the insurgents pointed her 
 
 i Frigerio, Vita di S. Catariiia.
 
 214 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 out to the mob wherever she went, and she could not safely 
 be seen in the streets. Cries were heard of "Where is 
 that accursed woman 1 Bring her out and burn her alive ! 
 Cut her in pieces !" The citizens, who no longer dared 
 to shelter her, begged her to depart from the city. 
 " Catharine lost nothing of her ordinary tranquillity," says 
 Kaymond. " Confident of her own innocence, she rejoiced 
 to suffer for the sake of the cause she had at heart." She 
 encouraged her companions with more than her usual sweet- 
 ness and cheerfulness of manner. Chased from every re- 
 treat, she retired into a deserted garden which she found, 
 and there kneeling down, she poured out her soul in 
 prayer before God. While she was thus engaged, there 
 approached a band of the wool-carders of the quarter of 
 San Giovanni. They were armed with halberds, swords, 
 and clubs, and were crying out, "Where is the wicked 
 woman? Where is Catharine 1 ?" Catharine heard, and 
 joyfully came forward, ready for martyrdom. She went up 
 to the leader of the furies, who was in advance of the rest, 
 and was shouting the loudest, " Where is Catharine 1" He 
 was brandishing a sword in his naked arms. She kneeled 
 down before him and said, quietly and fearlessly, "I am 
 Catharine. Do whatever God permits you to do to me ; 
 but in his name I forbid you to come near or to touch 
 any one of these who are with me." At these words, the 
 man who had threatened her seemed to lose his strength 
 and dropped the point of his sword to the ground. " He 
 seemed unable to bear her gaze. He ordered her to 
 go away, to leave his presence." 1 But she, full of confi- 
 
 1 "Expellebat earn a se, dicens, recede a me." HOLLANDUS, 
 Acta Sanct.
 
 Escape from Political Martyrdom. 215 
 
 dence, replied, " I am very well here. Where would you 
 have me to go 1 I am ready to die for Jesus Christ and 
 for his people ; that, indeed, is the end of all my desires. 
 If you are charged to kill me, act fearlessly ; here I am in 
 your hands ; and be assured that no harm will come to you 
 from any of my friends." The man turned his face aside, 
 that he might no longer meet her looks, and eventually 
 slunk away, taking his followers with him. Catharine's 
 disciples and friends gathered round her to congratulate 
 her on her escape from so great a peril ; but she, remaining 
 on her knees, wept. Many feelings combined to wring from 
 her those tears. She had not been accounted worthy, she 
 thought, to suffer death for Christ's sake ; she was filled 
 also with pity for the poor creatures who had just departed, 
 so possessed with the spirit of discord and hate. She re- 
 garded them as victims of an evil power, and remembered 
 that by ignorance and suffering and the absence of all 
 spiritual light they had been drawn into committing such 
 acts of violence and revengefulness ; and she prayed, 
 " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." 
 Her friends now seriously advised her to return to Siena ; 
 but she steadfastly refused to do so, saying, " God has com- 
 manded me not to quit the territory of the republic of 
 Florence until the peace with the Church is concluded." 
 They dared not longer oppose her ; and two brave citizens, 
 a tailor and his wife, concealed her for several days in their 
 house. Some time after, however, Catharine consented to 
 retire with her disciples to the monastery of \ r allombrosa, 
 near Florence. They went there on foot, and arrived in the 
 evening at this cool and shadowy retreat among the hills, 
 whence they returned a few weeks later to Florence.
 
 216 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 It will now be necessary to go back to the month of 
 March of that year, in order to trace the events connected 
 with the Papacy. The efforts of Catharine to obtain the 
 long-desired peace between Florence and the Church had 
 begun to bear fruit in the midst of the internal troubles of 
 the republic. She prevailed upon Gregory to moderate his 
 demands, and gradually influenced a few of the leading 
 citizens of Florence in favour of holding a congress to 
 agree upon the conditions of peace. The King of France 
 also wrote to Gregory, advising a meeting for arbitration. 
 Bernabos Visconti, to the surprise of all, now also declared 
 himself in favour of such a settlement. The reason for 
 this became afterwards apparent. Bernabos had prevailed 
 upon Gregory to agree that, in return for his mediation, 
 he should receive a large portion of the eight hundred 
 thousand florins which Gregory hoped to receive from 
 the League of revolted cities, as restitution for the wrong 
 done by them to the Church. It appears from the cor- 
 respondence of Catharine that Bernabos had, on one 
 occasion during her public career, deemed it worth his 
 while to send ambassadors to treat with her. When, and 
 for what purpose, this deputation was sent to Catharine 
 it is not easy to ascertain ; but it appears probable that 
 it occurred at the time when the arbitration was pro- 
 posed, and when the Duke of Milan appeared before the 
 surprised world in his new character of a promoter of 
 peace. His real motive, as we have seen, was avarice. 
 He may very probably, however, have desired to estab- 
 lish relations with Catharine in order to be able the better 
 to act for a time this part before the world. Her letters 
 do not throw any light on his intentions. She merely
 
 A Peace Congress. 217 
 
 replied with searching appeals to his conscience, and warn- 
 ings to him to repent and live as a Christian. This was 
 not at all what Bernabos asked or wanted of her, and the 
 correspondence ceased. 
 
 The presence of the Pope in Italy tended greatly to facili- 
 tate the peace. He had already withdrawn many of the 
 legates from the positions they had held as agents in 
 governing ; he had remitted the taxes imposed by them ; 
 his return to Italy was itself a guarantee of his desire for 
 a good understanding with the republics ; and he had already 
 begun to win back in some degree the estranged affections 
 of his subjects. Sarzana, in Liguria, was the place chosen 
 for the meeting of the congress. The Pope sent there his 
 plenipotentiary, the Cardinal de la Grange, Bishop of 
 Amiens. Four ambassadors were sent from Florence and 
 two from Naples, from the court of Queen Joanna. The 
 Venetians and Genoese were also represented by chosen 
 ambassadors, while the Duke of Milan was supposed to 
 represent the interests of Lombardy. Difficulties arose 
 concerning the enormous tribute demanded by the ambassa- 
 dors of the Church. The arbitrators had almost reached a 
 settlement of the question by arranging a partition of the 
 burden among the various revolted cities, which would, 
 it was hoped, be accepted by all, when the news reached 
 the assembled congress of the death of Gregory. This 
 event deferred the ratification of the peace for four 
 months, during which period occurred the events of the 
 Florentine revolution already described. In the course 
 of the same period the great schism took place which 
 divided Christendom, and which stands on the page 
 of history as a scandal presented before the whole world
 
 218 CatJutrine of Siena. 
 
 by the Church which professed itself one and indivisible, 
 governed by an infallible chief. 
 
 Raynaldus, in his " Ecclesiastical Annals," gives the 
 character of Gregory XL : " He was of an affectionate 
 and domestic nature ; he loved his own people and 
 family ; he yielded, indeed, too much to their wishes, 
 especially in the matter of promotions. He was blame- 
 less in his private life, and pitiful and generous to the 
 poor. Immediately on his return to Italy he remitted 
 all the duties and taxes upon the carriage of corn, hay, 
 wine, &c., which the legates had imposed on the people of 
 Italy ; and by a solemn decree he forbade the imposition 
 in future of any such taxes on his subjects. He possessed 
 a cultivated mind, and was a lover of learning and learned 
 men. The anxieties and cares which he encountered on 
 his return to Rome contributed, with the progress of an 
 internal disease from which he had long suffered, to bring 
 about his death at the age of sixty- seven." 1 He died at 
 midnight on the 27th of March, 1378. 
 
 The death of Gregory, and the Schism which succeeded, 
 sounded a truce for a season to all civil wars in Italy, 
 and effected a great change in the public feeling through- 
 out the nation towards the Church. The hatred which 
 the Italians had felt towards the French who had seized 
 on all the dignities and powers of the Church, had led 
 them on to fight against the Church itself. After the 
 death of Gregory, the same hatred urged the Italians to 
 rally round his successor, an Italian. The pontiffs and 
 prelates of Avignon had conspired against the liberties 
 
 1 Raynaldus, Annulet Kcclen., V. xvi. , p. 555.
 
 Election of Urban VI. 219 
 
 of Italy ; their policy had been grasping and perfidious. 
 They had filled the peninsula with their fierce mercenary 
 bands of Bretons; they had bribed to submission the Queen 
 of Naples and had secured the protection of the King of 
 France. All this power was destroyed by the great Schism 
 of the West. The Court of Rome was deprived hence- 
 forward of the support of the Ultramontanes. Its wealth, 
 already dissipated in civil war, and now divided between 
 two rival pontiffs, was no longer sufficient for the sub- 
 sidizing of troops, nor for the keeping up of any luxurious 
 state. The Italian Pontiff was at the mercy of the republics 
 which his predecessors had endeavoured to crush. Happily 
 for him, the animosity of these republics had vanished, 
 together with the danger which they had incurred from the 
 power and avarice of the Ultramontanes. 1 
 
 On the 7th of April, the cardinals entered into conclave 
 for the election of the new Pope. Eleven of the cardinals 
 were French, one Spanish, and four Italian. A short resi- 
 dence in Italy had deepened the aversion of the French 
 cardinals towards that country, and they only awaited the 
 election of a new Pope in order, as they hoped, to re- 
 conduct the Pontifical Court to Avignon. This was well 
 known in Rome, and now produced great excitement. The 
 people flocked round the Vatican on the day on which the 
 doors were to be locked upon the cardinals in conclave. 
 They essayed by clamour to obtain some influence over 
 the deliberations. " We want a Roman," they cried, " a 
 Roman, or at least an Italian." A great part of the crowd 
 even rushed into the Vatican and clamoured at the doors 
 
 1 Sismondi, " History of the Italian Republics," Vol. vii., Chap. L
 
 220 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 of the chamber where the cardinals were assembled. "These 
 accursed Romans," says the French biographer of Gregory, 
 "were armed, and refused to go out." After some hours 
 of uproar, the Bishop of Marseilles prevailed upon the 
 greater number of them to retire ; forty or fifty, however, 
 refused to do so, and continued to run about in all the 
 corners of the building, under the pretence of seeing 
 whether there were any armed men concealed, any points 
 of egress, or means of communication with the outer 
 world. This pretended search lasted an enormous time, 
 while the multitudes outside continued to shout, "A 
 Roman! we must have a Roman!" The uneasiness of 
 the cardinals increased the more on seeing the approach 
 of a deputation from the Gonfaloniers and Municipal 
 Council of Rome. They received the deputation in the 
 little chapel of the Vatican. The chief Gonfalonier repre- 
 sented to the Sacred College how grievously the whole of 
 Christendom had suffered by the absence of the Popes 
 from Italy. The churches and buildings at Rome had 
 fallen into ruin ; there were several cardinals who had 
 never in the whole course of their lives visited the 
 churches whoso titles they bore, and who had allowed 
 them to be deserted, although they continued to be to them- 
 selves a source of income. The ecclesiastical States had 
 been left a prey to venal, insolent, and arbitrary vicarious 
 rulers ; a universal revolt had been the consequence of 
 this mode of government, so different from the just and 
 careful administration of the early Church. It was by a 
 most happy providence, they added, that the good Pope 
 Gregory had come back to die in Rome, so that the 
 Sacred College was forced to assemble in the ecclesiastical
 
 Election of Urban VI. 221 
 
 capital for the election of his successor. Hence it was 
 most desirable that the wishes of the Romans, and of the 
 Italians in general, should be considered on the momentous 
 choice about to be made. The deputation retired to allow 
 the cardinals to deliberate. They were presently again 
 introduced, and Cardinal Corsini, Bishop of Florence, 
 whose heart was nevertheless wholly with the Italians, 
 replied in the name of the Sacred College, that he was 
 astonished at the attempt made to influence a decision 
 concerning which neither fear nor favour, nor the clamours 
 of the people ought to have anything to do; and that 
 the Holy Spirit alone by his inspiration would determine 
 the choice. The deputation retired very ill-satisfied, and 
 the people renewed their noise, and the cry, "Give us a 
 Roman ! " Despite of the firmness shown by the Bishop 
 of Florence the popular clamour did influence the Sacred 
 College. The people remembered that for three centuries 
 the right of electing the Pope had belonged to them, and 
 the cardinals very well knew that it would be a risk to 
 ignore the past and to set aside entirely the wishes of the 
 Romans. The French cardinals were divided into two 
 parties concerning the election. Both parties desired a 
 French Pope, but personal rivalries prevented them from 
 agreeing as to whom they would elect. Seeing that they 
 ran a risk, by their division, of giving a dangerous advantage 
 to the Italians, the French cardinals at last agreed upon the 
 Cardinal Archbishop of Bari. This cardinal was a Nea- 
 politan by birth, and a subject of Queen Joanna, who had 
 always favoured the French supremacy in Italy and the 
 residence of the papacy at Avignon. He had also lived for 
 several years at Avignon, whence it was hoped that his
 
 222 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 sympathies might have become already more enlisted on 
 their side than on that of the Italians ; as an Italian, he 
 would satisfy the Italians ; moreover, he had the reputation 
 of being a sternly religious as well as a learned man. The 
 hour came for collecting the suffrages. The cardinals being 
 all seated, the Bishop of Florence, who was the senior 
 cardinal, pronounced with a loud voice the name of the 
 Cardinal of St. Peter's as the future Pope. The Cardinal 
 of Limoges, the next in order, then arose and said : " The 
 Cardinal of St. Peter's is unsuitable, because, being a Roman, 
 it will appear as though the Sacred College had yielded to 
 the clamours of the Romans ; besides which, he is old and 
 infirm. The Bishop of Florence is not eligible, because 
 he comes from a city in revolt against the Church ; Car- 
 dinal Orsini is a Roman, and is, besides, much too young. 
 Thus the three Italians who might be considered eligible 
 are rejected ; and, therefore, I propose the Cardinal Arch- 
 bishop of Bari." All, with the exception of the Cardinal 
 of Florence and the young Cardinal Orsini, who himself 
 hoped to have been elected, voted for the Cardinal of 
 Bari ; and he was canonically elected. The College, 
 however, feared to announce to the people the fact that 
 they had not elected a Roman ; all the more, because 
 as a curious ancient custom allowed, the people claimed 
 the right of pillaging the palace of the newly-elected 
 Pope and carrying away his goods. The tumult of the 
 impatient people continued to increase in and around 
 the Vatican, while the Cardinals sat nervously on their 
 chairs, each one afraid to propose the proclamation of 
 the result of the election. Cardinal Orsini at last ran to 
 a window, and beckoning to the people to be silent, he
 
 The Vatican Invaded by the Populace. 223 
 
 declared to them that the new Pope was elected. They 
 clamorously demanded the name, and Orsini, in the midst 
 of confusion replied, " Go to St. Peter's, and you will learn." 
 The words St. Peter's, repeated by the crowd, gave rise 
 to the belief that the Cardinal of St. Peter's was elected. 
 The people were mad with joy, and the house of the old 
 cardinal was stripped from top to bottom. Meanwhile the 
 cardinals remained in the Vatican. The people returning 
 from the sack of the house of the Cardinal of St. Peter's 
 and finding the doors of the Vatican still closed, forced 
 them and rushed in to do homage, they said, to the new 
 Pope. The fear of the cardinals increased on seeing that 
 the people were still in error as to who was the new Pope, 
 and they dreaded to enlighten them. They were seized, 
 in fact, with a panic, and endeavoured to escape, some by 
 the great doors which the people had forced, and others 
 through the chaplain's private rooms. The populace forced 
 an entrance into the small chapel where the venerable and 
 unambitious Tebaldeschi, Cardinal of St. Peter's, was 
 sitting, quietly meditating on the passing events. They 
 prostrated themselves before him as Pope, and asked his 
 benediction. It was in vain that the aged cardinal 
 replied, " I have not been elected ; I am not, and I do 
 not wish to be Pope." His feeble voice was lost amidst 
 the surrounding tumult, and those who heard the last 
 words thought he was only modestly declaring that he 
 had not desired election. The more the mistake gained 
 ground, the more troubled and anxious became the car- 
 dinals. The greater part of them left the city that even- 
 ing, and sought refuge in their country-houses, taking 
 care only to spread the news as they quitted the gates
 
 224 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 that Cardinal Bari was the elected Pope. Bari, not less 
 troubled than the rest, had concealed himself in a secret 
 room in the Vatican, while the mob feasted upon the 
 remains of the provisions which had been provided for the 
 Conclave. The agitation calmed down a little; and the next 
 morning the Bishop of Florence announced the facts concern- 
 ing the election to the Gonfaloniers of the city assembled at 
 the Capitol, and besought the Koman people to accept the 
 new Pope. The people were not slow in reconciling them- 
 selves to the decision, and Cardinal Bari was publicly elected 
 Pope, under the title of Urban VI. Urban pronounced his 
 initiatory oration ; the bells rang, and Te Deums were sung. 
 Urban was thus, manifestly, duly and legitimately 
 elected ; and although clamour had accompanied the 
 process of election, yet the result was afterwards con- 
 firmed by all the cardinals, deliberately, and in the midst 
 of calm and of popular contentment. But the character 
 of Urban was, unfortunately, in some respects, ill suited 
 for the emergencies of the times in which he was ele- 
 vated to the papacy. He was altogether unlike his pre- 
 decessor, Gregory XL He was firm, stern, and uncom- 
 promising, indifferent to the luxuries, refinements, and 
 even comforts of this life. He was determined to reform 
 the Church ; but his manner of advising and promoting 
 reforms was rude and repelling, and sometimes unjust. 
 His temper was his bane. He was proud, insolent, 
 overbearing, and passionate. His manner continually 
 offended and estranged those around him, even when his 
 actions were praiseworthy and his intentions good. His 
 dark olive complexion, quick glancing black eyes, and 
 lean, nervous hands indicated the bilious and restless
 
 Character of Urban VI. 225 
 
 temperament referred to by papal biographers. " He was 
 a man of great probity and virtue," says Muratori, " but 
 wanting in humility. Instead of winning the affection of 
 the cardinals and prelates, and thus labouring for the 
 reform of the Church, he showed openly his detestation of 
 their dissolute lives, their cupidity and luxury and simony. 
 He besieged the palaces of some of them, and rudely intro- 
 duced many novelties and reforms, very necessary in them- 
 selves, but so imposed as to show a contempt for the 
 liberty of the persons on whom he imposed them." He 
 quickly excited against himself, as well as against his re- 
 forms, the anger of the French cardinals, who "saw not only 
 their libertinism but their liberty threatened." J Doubtless 
 his proud and haughty manner was a hindrance to the 
 success of his proposed reforms ; yet it cannot be believed 
 that the utmost of courtesy and gentleness would have 
 availed to reconcile the French cardinals to a moral and 
 self-denying life, or to avert the revolt which Catharine 
 had long before foretold, when she said to Raymond, " As 
 soon as the Pope shall attempt to reform the morals of the 
 Church, you will see that the conduct of the clergy will be 
 worse than that of the laity ; they will rebel against the 
 Holy See," &c. The gluttony of the high ecclesiastics had 
 often been the object of the satirical attacks of Petrarch, 
 and the cardinals could merrily quote at their feasts the 
 classic denunciations of the poet; but Urban excited 
 something more than mirth and laughter when he ordered 
 that no more than a single dish was ever to be seen upon 
 the table of any prelate of whatever rank, and when he 
 
 1 Muratori, Vol. xii., p. 606. 
 Q
 
 226 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 himself set the example, holding to his own rule, even on 
 occasions of the greatest hospitality. He endeavoured, in 
 the same abrupt manner, to put a stop to simony ; and he 
 threatened with excommunication all prelates who should 
 accept of any presents. He announced his intention never 
 to leave Rome, and commanded the cardinals to make 
 preparations for spending both their summers and winters 
 there. The Gonfaloniers of Rome having formally peti- 
 tioned him, on his election, according to custom, to create 
 some new cardinals, he replied, in the presence of the 
 Ultramontane cardinals : "I will not only make a. few pro- 
 motions, but I will make so many that henceforward the 
 Italian cardinals shall always outnumber the foreigners in 
 the Sacred College." Cardinal Robert of Geneva (the pro- 
 moter of the massacre of Cesena) turned pale with anger 
 and left the hall. 1 In the consistories Urban was far from 
 being conciliatory. He interrupted the cardinals when 
 they were speaking. " You have said enough," he would 
 say to one. " Hold your tongue ; you do not know what 
 you are talking about," to another. He so far forgot him- 
 self as to call the high-spirited young Cardinal Orsini a 
 fool ; 2 and he accused the Cardinal de St. Marcel, in full 
 consistory, of embezzling the money of the Church. " You 
 lie like a true Calabrese," replied that fiery Frenchman, 
 ivho resented the insult to himself as a gentleman and a 
 prelate. Such amenities failed to promote harmony in the 
 carrying out of the reforms. 
 
 1 Tommaso di Acerno, " De Creatione Urbani VI." 
 
 2 " Item cardinal! de Ursinis dixit quod erat unus sotus.'' 
 TOMMASO DI ACERXO.
 
 Revolt of the French Cardinals, 227 
 
 The French cardinals, alarmed at the threatened reforms, 
 and disgusted with Urban, retired to the pleasant shades 
 of Anagni, where they had made great preparations for 
 spending the summer. It was the end of June, and the 
 great heat had already begun to shake the nerves and 
 aggravate the irritable tempers of many of the prelates. 
 Urban quickly sent to recall some of the cardinals, who 
 ought, he averred, to be by his side, to conduct the business 
 of the Church. They declined to come. The bitterness on 
 each side was increased by the refusal of Urban to pay 
 back to Gaetano, Count of Fondi, a debt of 20,000 florins 
 which he had lent to Gregory XL, and which Urban pro- 
 tested had been borrowed by Gregory for his private ex- 
 penses, and not for the Church. Gaetano repaired to Anagni, 
 to nurse his wrath by conferring with the cardinals, whom 
 he further stirred up against Urban. The governor of the 
 Castle of St. Angelo, in Rome, now refused any longer to 
 obey the orders of Urban. It was evident that a revolt 
 was imminent. Cardinal Robert of Geneva, who continued 
 to retain some fierce Breton troops in his pay, marched 
 them to Anagni, to be at the service of the cardinals. The 
 Romans essayed to stop their crossing of the bridge of 
 Salario, and were defeated by them with the loss of five 
 hundred men. The cardinals, inflated by this triumph, 
 hilariously informed Urban that they would never return 
 to him, either in Rome or anywhere else, and patroniz- 
 ingly advised him to take to himself a coadjutor in the 
 government who might instruct him in better modes of 
 carrying out impossible reforms. When Urban angrily 
 reproached them with their profligacy and with the misery 
 they caused to the poor, (for he appears to have had a real 
 
 Q2
 
 228 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 sympathy with the humbler classes of the people), they re- 
 plied, with the usual hypocritical cant, that " vices of the 
 kind alluded to with such painful and unseemly plainness 
 of speech by the Pontiff, had existed from the beginning of 
 the world, and must always exist ;" that Moses, the great 
 lawgiver, had wisely provided for and legislated for these 
 evils, thus recognizing them as a perpetual necessity of 
 human society ; that all men, and still more all women, 
 were frail ; that it was Utopian to pretend that immorality 
 could be rooted out; that Christianity itself had never done 
 anything towards purifying society of the evil indicated by 
 the Pontiff; and that "those men and women who were 
 generally considered to be saints would be seen to be, in 
 fact, no better than others, could the secrets of their lives be 
 known." 
 
 Catharine had made the acquaintance of Urban at Avig- 
 non, and had had several conversations with him during the 
 journey to Marseilles. She understood already sufficiently 
 the character of the man, and that his domineering will and 
 the harshness of his manner might prove injurious to his in- 
 fluence, while his honesty, uprightness, and zeal would be 
 powerful .agencies in the carrying out of the reforms of 
 the Church. Her letters to him, consequently, abound in 
 gentle warnings, and earnest advice to "temper zeal with 
 charity," to accept all contradiction and opposition with 
 " tranquillity of heart," and to gather around him, above all, 
 wise and Christian counsellors to aid him in his great work. 
 At the same time she continued to denounce incessantly 
 and with ever-increasing indignation the horrible im- 
 morality existing among the clergy, and to point out, as 
 the only hope for humanity, a searching and a " scorch-
 
 She Urges the Reformation of the Church. 229 
 
 ing " repentance, a thorough reformation, and a return to 
 the pure and simple preaching of Christ crucified, and to 
 primitive simplicity of life and manners. Her letters, indeed, 
 voluminous and lengthy as they are, presented to us in their 
 collected form, give the impression not unfrequently of 
 wearisome repetition, so constantly are the same thoughts 
 and counsels reiterated, so consistently does the writer 
 " know nothing among her fellow-men save Jesus Christ 
 and him crucified," and so great is her fidelity and fearless 
 persistency in reproving the wickedness of her times. In 
 one of her letters she describes with a touch of scornful 
 irony the appearance, in those days, of the " ministers of 
 Christ," or those who ought to have been so. They pre- 
 sented the appearance of gay knights, with their plumed 
 bonnets, their military boots and spurs, their jewelled 
 swords, their silken sashes embroidered with gold, and 
 their carefully curled hair, looking like worldly " gallants " 
 rather than pastors of Christ's poor and forsaken flock. 
 She declares that the knowledge of their impurities causes 
 her soul to faint within her, and she longs for Christ to 
 appear again and drive out with his inexorable scourge the 
 profaners of his sanctuary. 
 
 Precisely at this time there lived in far-off England 
 a stern monk who, in order to rebuke the luxury of 
 the clergy in his own land, had adopted a life of extreme 
 poverty, and who, lean and fasting, and dressed in a 
 coarse garment, was going barefooted on his missions, 
 preaching repentance, and carrying terror to the con- 
 sciences of wicked professors and false teachers. He laid 
 the wooden cross he carried over, the backs of the vicious 
 priests, fulminating terrible curses upon their cupidity,
 
 230 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 impurity, and pride, and beating them till they cried out 
 for mercy. This monk was John Wycliffe, Catharine's 
 contemporary. In their opposition to practical ungodliness, 
 the spirit of the fiery reformer animated both. 
 
 The French cardinals, during their residence at Anagni, 
 laboured to detach the four Italian cardinals from their alle- 
 giance to Urban. They entirely failed with Tebaldeschi, 
 the old cardinal of St. Peter's ; but with the three others 
 they so far succeeded as to obtain from them a declaration 
 of neutrality. Tebaldeschi, alone remaining in Rome with 
 Urban, died in the first week of August, declaring with his 
 last breath that Urban had been duly elected. Urban was 
 thus deprived of his last support in the Sacred College. 
 The French cardinals, assured of the alliance of the King of 
 France and the Queen of Naples, proclaimed unanimously, 
 on the 9th of August, 1378, that the Holy See was vacant. 
 They declared that Urban had been illegally elected under 
 the intimidation of a mutinous populace, and they pro- 
 nounced his election null. When this intelligence reached 
 Urban, he at once elected twenty-nine new cardinals. 
 The Frenchmen, hearing this, in the bitterness of their 
 wrath and jealousy, called a consistory at Fondi, re- 
 tired in conclave, and proceeded to the election of a 
 new Pope. Their choice fell on Robert of Geneva, the 
 instigator of the massacre of Cesena, whom they elevated 
 to the papal throne on the 20th of September, with the 
 title of Clement VII. Two days previously, i.e., on the 
 18th of September, Catharine addressed a long letter to 
 Urban, in which she urged him to accept with humility 
 " all fatigues, calumnies, contempt, injuries, insults, in- 
 justices, and the loss of temporal good, and to seek
 
 Letter to Urban. 231 
 
 the honour of God alone in the salvation of souls." Thus 
 alone, and by the practice of Christ's precepts, she tells 
 him, can the victory be gained by the true over the false 
 leaders of the Church. " You know, father, that without 
 enormous suffering and labour it will be impossible to attain 
 to that for which we long, the reform of the Church by 
 good, honest, and holy men. In bearing magnanimously 
 the blows which will be brought to bear on you by those 
 who wield the sword of schism, you will receive light, the 
 light of truth ; and the truth will save us, in the midst of 
 the clouds and darkness of falsehood and schism. my 
 father ! gird upon you the armour of God. Take the sword 
 of truth ; now is the time to draw it from its sheath, and 
 to use it first against yourself, in banishing evil from your 
 own soul, and then against the ministers of the Church. 
 I say against yourself, father, because no one in this life is 
 without sin, and reform must begin first in ourselves. 
 Love of virtue must first flourish in ourselves before we 
 can plant it in our neighbour. Make war against vice ; 
 and if you find you cannot change the hearts of men, 
 (which God alone, making use of human agents, can do), 
 at least, holy father, reject and drive far from you those 
 whose lives are guilty and impure. Do not, at least, 
 tolerate any longer acts of debauchery ; I do not say im- 
 moral dispositions, because you cannot command men's 
 wills, but you can forbid their acts. No more simony, no 
 more excess of pleasures and luxury, no more gambling, 
 no more buying and selling of that which belongs to the 
 poor, no more merchandise of the holy things, and of the 
 blood of Christ, no more priests and canons who, while 
 they ought to be mirrors of virtue, are barterers and cheats,
 
 232 CatJuirine of Siena. 
 
 spreading all around them the contagion of their own 
 lechery und impurity." She mourns for the Church and 
 for the souls which are lost : " I am as one who has not 
 where to lay her head ; for wherever I turn I see the 
 inferno of many iniquities, and the poison of egotism ; and 
 above all in our city of Rome, which ought to be a holy 
 place, we see a den of thieves ; and all through the fault of 
 these wicked pastors, who have never reproved sin, either 
 in words or by their own lives. . . . Self-love will 
 make men rise up against you, father; they will not 
 endure your reproofs. Kindle in your breast, nevertheless, 
 the fire of holy justice, and be fearless, for you have need 
 of courage and a manly heart. ' If God be with us, who 
 can be against us ? ' Rejoice, then, and be glad, for one 
 day your joy will be full. After all these toils the true 
 repose will come the reformation of the Church. Though 
 you should see yourself deserted by all, do not slacken 
 your pace in this rugged path, but run all the more per- 
 severingly, fortified by faith, guided by the light of truth, 
 and upheld by constant prayer, and the companionship of 
 the servants of God. . . . Seek out good men. Besides 
 the Divine aid you need the aid of God's servants, who 
 will counsel you with faith and sincerity, and without 
 passion or self-seeking. It seems to me you are greatly in 
 need, father, of such counsellors. I would fain no longer 
 write, but speak with you ; I would be on the field of battle 
 by your side, bearing every trial, and combating till death for 
 the truth, for the honour of the Lord, and for the reform 
 of the Church. Pardon me if I have spoken too boldly. 
 I crave your blessing." 
 
 It will be necessary to return for a moment to the
 
 Peace between Florence and the Church. 233 
 
 events of three months previously. Catharine had retired 
 for a short time to Vallombrosa, near Florence. Towards 
 the end of June she sent Friars Bartolommeo and John 
 Tantucci to Home with a letter to Urban, beseeching him to 
 sign the treaty of peace with Florence which had been 
 agreed upon at Sarzana. She entreated him not to give 
 too much heed to the reports which might have reached 
 him of the revolution in Florence, for which the mass of the 
 people, she said, were not so much to blame as some furious 
 and selfish spirits who had incited them to violence. Urban 
 responded at once to her appeal, and that of the chief 
 magistrates of Florence. He sent two legates from Rome, 
 who pronounced solemnly the removal of the ban of ex- 
 communication from the republic ; the churches were opened 
 again, and new life and hope seemed at once to be com- 
 municated to the people of Florence, despite the still dark 
 and troubled state of internal politics. Some weeks later 
 the ratification of the treaty of peace, with a letter from the 
 Pope, was received and read publicly before the assembled 
 people in the great Piazza. Catharine's joy was un- 
 bounded. She wrote a letter to the magistrates of Siena, 
 to be read to all her friends in that city, in which she called 
 upon them to praise God, who had heard the prayers of 
 his people. She had returned to Florence from Vallom- 
 brosa, and had strengthened by her presence and coun- 
 sels her friends the Soderini family, the Canigiani, and 
 others. The head of the family of the Canigiani had 
 been deprived in the revolution of all the offices he had 
 held; his house had been burned and his property con- 
 fiscated. Young Barduccio Canigiani, who had fled from 
 the burning house with his father and mother, became
 
 234 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 from this time the constant companion and the secretary of 
 Catharine till her death. He returned with her to Siena 
 towards the end of July. She spent a part of the autumn 
 of 1378 in composing her book, the "Dialogue," much of 
 which Barduccio transcribed for her. 
 
 The revolution of the Ciompi was not finally subdued 
 until the end of August. The demands of the revolution- 
 aries had continued to become more and more immoderate 
 and their conduct more tyrannical. Great numbers of the 
 citizens, of both the Guelph and the Ghibelline party, 
 retired from the scene of strife to the country, or to other 
 cities ; the priors of the Great and Inferior Arts followed this 
 example and went into voluntary exile, with the exception 
 of Acciamoli and Nero, two of the most courageous of those 
 who had laboured to restrain the popular frenzy. These 
 two met one day alone, in the Palazzo Pubblico, and realized 
 that they were the only remaining magistrates in the city. 
 They listened for a moment to the roar and tramp of the 
 multitude without, glanced round at the vacant offices 
 and deserted corridors, and then decided to place the keys 
 of the palace in the hands of the people, and take their 
 departure. The doors of the palace were now thrown 
 wide open, and the mob rushed in, the triumphant mob 
 which had now got rid of all government and all laws, 
 and had seen the last of its magistrates depart. The even- 
 ing before, this mob had elevated one of their own num- 
 ber, a wool-carder, to the office of Gonfalonier of Justice. 
 His name was Michael Lando. At this moment Michael 
 Lando appeared, uncombed and unwashed, his clothes 
 hanging in rags, and his feet and legs bare from the 
 knees. He rushed up the great stairs of the palace,
 
 Michael Lando. 235 
 
 followed by the people; when he reached the audience 
 chamber he turned and faced the multitude, and shouted, 
 " This palace is yours, sovereign people ; this city is 
 yours ! what is now your sovereign will 1 " The people 
 with one voice replied that Lando must continue to be 
 Gonfalonier of Justice, and establish a reformed govern- 
 ment. Michael Lando was master of the people ; he might 
 at this moment have instituted an absolute government and 
 made himself tyrant of Florence. His rule would have been 
 as absolute as that of the Duke of Athens. But happily for 
 the republic, Michael was a patriot : he sincerely loved 
 liberty and his country. He set himself at once to re- 
 establish order, and took stern means to make the laws 
 respected and obeyed. He recalled and re-assembled the 
 Syndics of the Arts, and proceeded to make new elections 
 from the middle classes of the people. The new govern- 
 ment was formed on the same principles as the former ; but 
 the men who composed it were for the most part new, and 
 on the whole well chosen. The malcontents and disorderly 
 mob were astonished ; and, disappointed of their hoped- 
 for plunder and license, they came in a threatening manner 
 to the palace to complain. Michael told them plainly that 
 their manner proved in itself that their demands were 
 contrary to the laws ; he commanded them at once to lay 
 down their arms ; for he would yield nothing to force. 
 By his firmness during several weeks of conflict, he 
 quelled the revolutionaries, and quietness was to some 
 degree restored. Nicolas Soderini and other citizens 
 were permitted to return. The Eight of War were 
 the only members of the former government who had 
 remained during this time in Florence. They had made
 
 236 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 use of the people for their own ends, and were now deter- 
 mined to share with them the fruits of victory. They 
 opposed Lando in his schemes for reform, and proclaimed 
 one of their own number head of the government. But 
 Lando sent for them and informed them that the people 
 had won the right to govern themselves, and that the 
 counsels of the Eight were now no longer needed. He then 
 ordered them to leave the palace. " Thus those who had 
 let loose the passions of the populace in the hope of using 
 them in their own interests, were the first to be duped and 
 destroyed by their own guilty policy." l 
 
 1 Machiavelli, Lib. iiL, p. 240.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CATHARINE was now thirty-one years of age. The drama 
 of her life began to draw to its close. The evening of 
 her days if the term can be justly made use of in her 
 case was not peaceful. It passed in the midst of 
 tumult : of storms overhead, and conflict within. She 
 was not permitted to see her cherished hopes for the 
 reformation of the Church in any but the feeblest manner 
 fulfilled. Yet her faith did not fail. Like many others 
 who have given themselves to God, with desire to be 
 made his instruments in the working out of his merciful 
 designs, she was led, step by step, into a larger sphere of 
 aim and hope and action, than in the beginning of her 
 career she had dreamed of. Like many other reformers, 
 she at first hoped for a more quick return for her labours ; 
 but as the years went on, she learned, as they have 
 learned, that God had greater designs in view than any 
 which came within their human calculations ; that her 
 place in the great work was that of a pioneer ; that after 
 she had laboured, others would enter into the reward of 
 her labours ; and that, although the fields were already 
 white to the harvest, the time of reaping was not yet. 
 She learned to look, without loss of faith, even upon the 
 deepening of the surrounding darkness, the prelude to 
 the coming dawn. She acknowledged the necessity and
 
 238 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 the justice of great tribulations to be endured before peace 
 could rest upon Zion. She foresaw a further letting loose 
 of the powers of hell before the arm of the Lord should be 
 fully revealed for their destruction. For " to the Lord one 
 day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one 
 day. Therefore impatience was subdued, while hope re- 
 mained in greater strength than before. Though the 
 shadows darkened on her earthly path, and the clouds 
 gathered over her head as she advanced to her eternal rest, 
 she continued firm in the faith that the time would come 
 when the knowledge of the Lord should fill the whole earth. 
 Her spiritual vision was fortified, and the horizon of her 
 hopes extended. Her writings, towards the close of her 
 life, reveal the increasing yearning of her soul over her 
 fellow men. She dwelt upon the Lord's command to his 
 disciples to " Go into all the world, and teach all nations," 
 and to "preach the Gospel to every creature." Hers was 
 not a soul which could contentedly contemplate a " world 
 lying in wickedness," a desert land unreclaimed for God, 
 outside the boundaries of a privileged church or nation. 
 No amount of wickedness appalled her into the belief 
 that any sinners must be left to perish as outcasts from 
 God and hope. In her last exhortations to her friends 
 she bade them hope for all ; " for there is no man on 
 earth," she said, "however wicked, who may not repent 
 and live." But in order to win the dark and erring mul- 
 titudes to the fold, the Church, which possessed the 
 saving knowledge, the Church, which had been com- 
 missioned to evangelize the world, must first be purged, 
 reformed, and revived ; and she held fast the belief that 
 the day of purification would come for the Church, the
 
 Her Character as a Reformer. 239 
 
 spouse of Christ, "the antechamber of the kingdom of glory, 
 the image of the celestial," as says St. Ambrose. She did 
 not shrink from the scourging and mutilation which she 
 foresaw to be in store for it. " God will absolutely purge 
 his Church," she wrote to Urban, " whether you do your 
 utmost or not to accomplish that reform for the promotion 
 of which you are elevated to a position of so great dignity. 
 He will not spare. He will cut away without fail all the 
 rotten wood of this tree, and will plant it again in a manner 
 of his own." There can be little doubt that, had she lived 
 two centuries later, in the midst of the convulsion which rent 
 Christendom, she would have stood firm on the side of evan- 
 gelic truth, and joined her protest to that of the Reformers. 
 We cannot doubt that she, who so feared and abhorred 
 the temporal domination and worldly magnificence of the 
 Church, would have hailed the time when the pride of 
 ecclesiastical Rome should be laid low ; and above all, that 
 she would have rejoiced to see the word of God, unchained 
 and free, taking wings, and flying to the ends of the earth, 
 the priceless possession of the nations, bringing to each in 
 their own tongue the glad tidings of salvation. 
 
 But Catharine never raised a protest, it may be said, 
 against false doctrine. Her efforts were directed solely 
 to moral reformation, her attacks being mainly aimed at 
 the vices, worldliness, and ungodliness of the clergy. 
 The same may be asserted concerning the earlier part of 
 the career of almost all the great reformers of the suc- 
 ceeding centuries. Savonarola, Wycliffe, Huss, and 
 Luther, each and all attacked in the first instance the 
 immoral and iiTeligious life of the clergy, and denounced 
 the practical abuses and corruptions of the Church.
 
 240 CatJuirine of Siena. 
 
 Like St. John the Baptist, they at first preached, " prepare 
 ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight ; " like him, 
 they called upon all men to repent and put away their sins, 
 in expectation of the salvation of the Lord which was at 
 hand. Thus did Catharine. She, like her countryman 
 Savonarola, clung firmly to the life which still remained 
 buried amidst corruption, in the heart of the ancient tree, 
 while she feared not to see the whole mass of the " rotten 
 wood " cut away. It was only by degrees that the later 
 reformers were each led on to a wider view and a deeper in- 
 sight, and were taught to perceive wherein the doctrine as 
 well as practice of the Church of Rome was based on error. 
 But Catharine's life was short ; her brief career was crowded 
 with active ministrations. There was not room in it for 
 much that she might have achieved, spoken, and written, had 
 her life been prolonged ; nor perhaps was there pause 
 enough in her life to have made it possible for her to enter 
 upon the grave and laborious task of doctrinal controversy 
 and reform. Her own example and teaching indicated, 
 however, a great simplicity of belief in her own case. It 
 would be difficult to give a distinct answer to the question 
 as to what were her views or opinions on points of doc- 
 trine rejected by the reformed churches ; for in her works 
 there is found little or no allusion to many of these 
 points. Probably if herself questioned as to her belief, 
 she would have replied, as a daughter of the Church, that 
 she held all that was taught by the Church. Yet many 
 of these doctrines taught by the Roman Church appear 
 to have dropped out of her soul and life, so to speak ; or 
 rather, it may be said, the one pre-eminent truth which 
 she loved, above all other, so filled her soul that it over-
 
 The Simplicity of her Belief. 241 
 
 shadowed and eclipsed all other teachings. Her writings 
 and discourses are permeated from first to last with that 
 simple evangelic truth, that Jesus Christ the Son of God 
 took upon himself our nature, and died and rose again 
 for our redemption ; that by apprehending and loving this 
 truth, by believing in and by loving him who thus loved 
 us, we are saved, and by love are made conformable to him. 
 "This," as she said to the Pisan, Albizi, "this is enough for 
 you and me. This is the true science." In the matter of 
 the dogmas concerning prayers for the dead, the invocation 
 of saints, the "real presence," &c., it is difficult, nay, indeed, 
 impossible, exactly to formulate her views, seeing that she 
 rarely expressed herself in a positive manner on these 
 subjects. Her written prayers are all, with one exception, 
 addressed to the Father in Heaven, to Jesus Christ, and to 
 the Eternal Spirit who helpeth our infirmities. The one 
 exception is the prayer written on the feast of the Annun- 
 ciation. In the first sentences of this she apostrophizes the 
 Virgin Mary, enumerating her virtues, and setting these 
 forth before her own soul as worthy of imitation. This 
 apostrophe breaks off, however, suddenly into an address to 
 God. " I contemplate, O Eternal ! this supreme act of 
 thine (the Incarnation), and perceive how thou hast re- 
 garded the dignity and glory of human nature. Love urged 
 thee to create man. Love urged thee to redeem him. . . . 
 Thy power and thy love have done all." . . . 
 
 Catharine, then, was not a reformer in the sense of 
 being an opponent of erroneous doctrine, or a promulgator 
 of a purer creed. The lessons to be derived from the 
 study of her life do not lie in the direction thus indicated. 
 It is something else which we learn from her. It is, more- 
 
 R
 
 242 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 over, a useful and a holy lesson. She may have seen 
 more or less dimly the truth concerning the dogmas 
 above mentioned ; but one truth she certainly saw- 
 clearly ; and she held with all her heart and soul and 
 strength to that truth. She shrank from no toil nor pain 
 nor sacrifice in order that she might find and win Christ, 
 and be found in him, and that thus she might bring 
 blessing to man. Her philosophy was based upon a deep 
 humility, and a conviction of the weakness and sinfulness 
 of man. Yet she perceived and realized withal, that 
 which many who talk loudly of progress and the perfecti- 
 bility of the human race do not see, the beauty and worth 
 of every human soul, even in the midst of its utmost 
 ignorance or bondage to sin. She loved, she prayed, she 
 endured. She fought a good fight; and she fell, in the 
 heat of the battle, vanquished, and yet a conqueror. 
 
 During the few months of comparative repose which 
 Catharine had enjoyed at Siena, after her return from 
 Florence, she completed her work, "The Dialogue," and 
 wrote many letters to Italian politicians and ecclesiastics, 
 in order to fortify them in their attachment to the cause of 
 Urban VI. She corresponded also unremittingly with 
 Urban concerning the reform of the Church. 
 
 Raymond's narrative continues : " The Sovereign Pontiff 
 Urban VI., who had become personally acquainted with 
 Catharine at Avignon, commanded me (in October, 1378) 
 to write to her, and beseech her to come to Rome, for he 
 desired her presence and support in the midst of the 
 troubles which surrounded him. I wrote to Catharine, who 
 replied to me thus : ' Father, several persons of Siena, and 
 many sisters of my order, think that I travel too much.
 
 Called to Rome. 243 
 
 They are greatly scandalized by it, and say that a religious 
 ought not to be ever on the wing. I do not think that 
 these reproaches ought to trouble me, for I have never 
 travelled except by the will of God, or that of the Sovereign 
 Pontiff, and for the salvation of souls ; but in order to 
 avoid giving any cause of offence to my neighbours, I had 
 resolved not to leave my home again. Nevertheless, if the 
 holy father desires that I should go to Rome, his will, and 
 not mine, must be done. In this case, will you be so good 
 as to intimate to me his will in a written document, signed 
 by himself, so that those who are offended at my travelling 
 about, may know that I do not undertake this journey of 
 my own initiative.' I communicated this reply to the 
 Sovereign Pontiff, who gave me an order for Catharine to 
 repair to Rome." 
 
 Catharine prepared for her departure without delay. 
 More than forty persons accompanied her. The number 
 would have been much greater had she not opposed the 
 wishes of many in this respect. Great nobles of Siena 
 besought her to suffer them to go with her on this, 
 which seemed to them destined to be a momentous 
 journey, to the capital of Christendom. Some few of 
 these nobles did accompany her, on foot, and in the garb 
 of poverty. Her mother, Alessia, Lysa, and Giovanna 
 di Capo, were among the women of the group. Catha- 
 rine invited these pilgrims to form an agreement to live 
 in great simplicity and poverty while in Rome, putting 
 their trust in divine providence. This she did, in order 
 the more effectually to rebuke the luxury of the times. 
 Catharine turned as she left her native city, and gazed 
 
 R2
 
 244 Catharine of Si&na. 
 
 long upon its loved walls and towers, the grassy slopes 
 falling from its ramparts, and the winding roads and paths 
 so familiar to her from childhood. Offering up a prayer for 
 the peace of her fellow-citizens, she turned her face towards 
 Rome. She never saw Siena again, for she died in Kome 
 one year and four months from that time. Perhaps she had 
 some dim presentiment of the moral and spiritual martyrdom 
 through which she was shortly to pass ; but her road was still 
 upward and onward. Like St. Paul, who thirteen centuries 
 before had entered Rome, also to suffer and to die there, she 
 " pressed forward toward the mark of the prize of her high 
 calling in Christ Jesus." Her thoughts seemed to dwell 
 much at that time on the career and martyrdom of the 
 great Apostle of the Gentiles. In a prayer written soon 
 after reaching Rome these words occur : " Eternal Father, 
 thou didst send thy apostles as lights into the world. 
 We are in greater need than ever before of such light; 
 raise up among us, we beseech thee, another Paul, to re- 
 buke and revive us, and bring us light." She constantly 
 spoke of the martyrs. In writing from Rome to Stephen, 
 who had not accompanied her, she says : " The blood of 
 the holy martyrs who so willingly gave their lives for him 
 who is the Life, witnesses against our coldness, and cries 
 to you and others to arise to the help of the holy 
 Church 5 " and again, " I walk in paths bedewed with 
 the blood of the martyrs." She and her companions 
 reached Rome on the 28th October, 1378, shortly after 
 the election of the anti-Pope Clement VII. They took 
 up their abode in a house in the street of Santa Chiara. 
 Here Catharine established a simple rule of life for her
 
 Address to the Consistory in Rome. 245 
 
 numerous family, in order that the residence in Rome 
 might prove useful to themselves and others. They had 
 neither gold nor silver ; but God provided for their few and 
 simple wants. They had all things in common, following 
 the example of the primitive Christians. She arranged 
 that the women should each in turn charge themselves 
 for one week with the task of providing for the necessities 
 of the household, while the rest devoted themselves to work 
 and to prayer. Alessia was placed in charge over all. 
 
 A few days after her arrival in Eome, Catharine re- 
 ceived a message from Pope Urban, desiring that she 
 would come to the Consistory, and speak before the as- 
 sembled cardinals on the subject of the Church, and in 
 particular on the Schism and the present troubles. She 
 obeyed. " She spoke learnedly and at some length, ex- 
 horting all to constancy and firmness." She thus con- 
 cluded : " God, most reverend father, is eternal wisdom 
 and strength, and we, if we desire to be invincible, must 
 put our confidence in him. What harm can come to him 
 who, in Christ, is clothed with the vesture of divine for- 
 titude 1 Whom do the blows of your enemies injure 1 
 Themselves only. Their arrows return upon their own 
 breasts. Arise, then ; be of good courage, father. Arise, 
 and be of good courage, ye also, pastors, who surround 
 the chief pastor. Enter into this conflict without fear. If 
 God is with you, who can be against you 1 Unite your- 
 selves with Christ, and fight, like men, for him 
 
 Yes, fight ; but let your only weapons be repentance and 
 prayer, virtue and love." When she had ceased speaking, 
 Urban appeared full of wonder. He gave a brief resumt 
 of her address, and then turned to the cardinals and said :
 
 246 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 "How deeply blamable are we, brethren, when we give 
 way to hesitation and fear. This poor humble woman 
 confounds us. I call her poor and humble, not in con- 
 tempt, but in allusion to the weakness of her sex. 1 It 
 would be natural that she should be timid, even though 
 we were of good heart ; and see, whereas we are fearful, 
 she is tranquil and fearless, and encourages us with her 
 noble words. Does she not put us all to shame ? " Then 
 after a pause he added, with ardour and a radiant coun- 
 tenance, "What should Christ's Vicar fear, though the 
 whole world were against him 1 Christ the Omnipotent 
 is stronger than the world. He can never forsake his 
 Church." 
 
 The Schismatics did wisely to choose Robert of Geneva 
 as their leader. He was " the man of the Schism." He 
 was related to several of the most powerful princely 
 families in Europe. He was young, enterprising, and 
 ambitious. He had not completed his thirty-sixth year 
 when he was elected as Clement VII. He was, never- 
 theless, an experienced soldier, and well versed in all the 
 intrigues of courts and factions. The wholesale massacre 
 of the inhabitants of Cesena illustrated his indomitable 
 will in the performance of whatever he had resolved upon. 
 He feared not God, neither regarded man. He said 
 openly, " Assuredly, I would not serve God if I did not 
 find it profitable." 2 He was tall of stature, powerfully 
 built, and very handsome ; his manners were graceful 
 
 1 " Questa donniccinola ci confonde ; donnicciuola dico, non per 
 dispregio, ma per espressione della natural*; fragilita muliebre. 
 RAYMOND, Vita di S. Catarina, Italian Version. 
 
 2 " Certe non servireiu Deo, si non faceret milii bonum." 
 RINALDI, ii , 30.
 
 The Great Schism. 247 
 
 and courtly, his appearance in public was commanding, and 
 his dress always magnificent. He was lavish in expenditure, 
 and by the prof useness of his gifts and bribes, he won many 
 to his side. He was eloquent and self-possessed, and 
 unscrupulous in the use of every art by which men win 
 popularity. 
 
 Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, England, and almost the 
 whole of Italy held to Urban ; France, Spain, and Savoy 
 were on the side of Clement. The English clergy gave as 
 their reason for adhering to Urban that "a report had 
 reached England that Clement was a man of blood." Queen 
 Joanna of Naples had at first sent ambassadors to Urban 
 to congratulate him on his election. She had replied to the 
 earnest letters which Catharine had written to her from 
 Siena, " the words of a saint will certainly not be lost upon 
 me." But, under the influence of personal and political 
 motives, she soon after declared herself openly on the side 
 of Clement. The Clementines also had a footing in Rome 
 itself. The strong castle of St. Angelo, which dominated 
 the approaches to the Vatican, was commanded by a French 
 ally of Clement, the Captain Rostagno. "There now began 
 to be witnessed," says Muratori, "a series of monstrous 
 scandals in the Church. Urban excommunicated Clement 
 and his cardinals, while Clement, on his part, excommunicated 
 Urban and his followers. The same benefices were bestowed 
 on different persons by the rival popes, and each appointed 
 his own bishop to every see which became vacant. Hence 
 arose numberless private and public conflicts, strifes, and 
 murders. The nobles espoused the side of one or the 
 other as it best served their own interests. . . . Many of 
 the adherents of Urban were arrested, executed, or
 
 248 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 banished by the Clementines, and similar injustices and 
 outrages were perpetrated on the other side." Clement, 
 however, possessed great resources, and was able to buy 
 many adherents to his side, and to collect a large army of 
 Bretons and Gascons; while Urban, among the ruins of 
 Rome, found himself impoverished on all sides. He was 
 obliged to make great sacrifices to procure the necessary 
 resources for defence. He himself lived almost in poverty. 
 He could not inhabit the Vatican, owing to its proximity to 
 the castle of St. Angelo. He counselled the cardinals to 
 give up every superfluity, in order to be able to contribute 
 to the defence of the Church. On the advice of Catharine, 
 he appointed a commission to negotiate the sale of a part of 
 the domains of the Church ; and the gold and silver 
 chalices, crosses, and candelabra of the churches were changed 
 into money. 1 "The Church," said Catharine, "has no need 
 of perfumes, of incense, or of precious stones and gold. 
 She needs courage and faith." In the same spirit she 
 wrote to Urban concerning the reform of the Church (for 
 she addressed several letters to him while in Rome, where 
 he also was) : "I desire not that you should pause to direct 
 your attention to the subject of vestments, and considera- 
 tions of more or less importance of this nature ; but that 
 you should at once seek men who will act uprightly, and 
 not with falseness or reserves ; men who are above being 
 seduced by flatteries or gold, and who will oppose vice 
 and encourage virtue." 
 
 Catharine judged that the most necessary thing to be 
 done for the healing of this hateful division was to win 
 
 l Rinaldi, Anno 1380, N, 17.
 
 Joanna, Queen of Naples. 249 
 
 France and Naples to the cause of Urban ; for without the 
 support of these kingdoms the Schism could not continue. 
 She constantly expressed her conviction to Urban that it 
 was not Clement and his cardinals to whom attention should 
 be directed, but rather to France and Naples. The vicinity 
 of the kingdom of Naples to Eome would constantly en- 
 danger the peace and security of the Church, through the 
 infection of the spirit of rebellion ; whereas the alliance of 
 that kingdom would be the greatest support to the Pope. 
 Catharine, therefore, applied all her energies to convince the 
 conscience and win the heart of Joanna of Naples, and of 
 Charles V. of France. Her correspondence with the former 
 had created in her heart a strong desire to see that unhappy 
 woman face to face. Not only did she desire to gain her 
 as an adherent to Urban, but far more, it seems, did she 
 wish to win that poor soul to Christ. Her letters to 
 Joanna are numerous and long, and full of the most passion- 
 ate and tender pleadings and warnings which one woman 
 could address to another on matters vital to her present 
 and eternal interests. Joanna was then more than fifty 
 years of age; she still possessed great beauty and personal 
 ascendency. 1 Her life had been an unhappy one. She had 
 been crowned queen at the age of nineteen ; she had had 
 four husbands ; but she had no child to succeed her. Her 
 first husband was the young Andrea, brother of Ludwig, 
 King of Hungary. The horrible tragedy of his death, 
 occurring a short time after the marriage, created a great 
 
 i An old chronicle of Bologna says that Queen Joanna was a 
 woman of great spirit and adventure, and that she could leap upon 
 the back of a horse when it was in full gallop, and command it per- 
 fectly.
 
 250 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 sensation in Europe. The Court had gone for the summer 
 to Aversa. At midnight, September 18th, 1345, two mes- 
 sengers entered in haste the bedchamber of the queen and 
 the prince, on the pretext that a revolution had broken 
 out in Naples, which required the immediate return of 
 Andrea. The young prince arose in haste and followed 
 the messengers, who strangled him in a gallery of the castle, 
 and then threw his body from a window into the garden. 
 It was supposed at first by those who found the corpse that 
 he had accidentally fallen from the window, while wander- 
 ing through the castle in the dark. But the indifference of 
 the queen, who remained alone in her chamber till the 
 morning, and the known fact of an intrigue and suspicion 
 of a secret alliance she had already formed with Prince 
 Louis of Taranto, whom she afterwards married, were suffi- 
 cient to convince most persons that she had connived at, if 
 not instigated, the horrible deed. The Neapolitans received 
 her coldly ; Ludwig, King of Hungary, denounced her 
 openly ; and her whole future life was a continual but un- 
 availing attempt at flight from the pursuit of this haunting- 
 shadow, the dark deed of her youth. Like our Mary Queen 
 of Scots, she had, among historians, on one side ardent de- 
 fenders and admirers, and on she other, severe judges and 
 bitter enemies. Her third husband was the Infanta of Spain, 
 who separated himself from her, and her fourth was Otho, 
 Duke of Brunswick, who survived her. It was during 
 her unpopularity in consequence of the suspicions at 
 taching to her in connection with Andrea's death, that 
 she fled to Provence, where, finding herself in great need 
 of resources, she sold her large domains in that country 
 to the Popes of Avignon. Joanna appears not to have
 
 Joanna, Queen of Naples. 251 
 
 been unmoved by the ardent appeals of Catharine. Her 
 heart was ill at ease, and there had been no peace for her in 
 life since the tragedy cf her youth. Catharine wrote to her 
 again and again, dictating her letters on her knees, with 
 strong crying and supplication to God for her unhappy 
 sister. These letters spoke of pardon and perfect cleansing, 
 of infinite love and holy peace. They were found, at the 
 time of the collection of Catharine's letters, carefully sealed, 
 and with evidence of having been much read. We are, 
 however, left in the dark as to whether Queen Joanna ever 
 opened her heart ta the truths of which Catharine wrote, 
 or whether she retained any memory of her words of love 
 and hope, to console her in her own last dark hours. She 
 died two years after Catharine's death. Charles Durazzo, 
 cousin of the murdered Andrea, and nephew of Ludwig, 
 King of Hungary, was the next heir to the kingdom of 
 Naples ; but Joanna, afraid and jealous of the influence of 
 that family, nominated as her successor, Louis, Duke of 
 Anjou, of the royal family of France. Charles Durazzo, 
 on receiving intelligence of this, set out from Hungary 
 with a numerous army, and marched to Naples to defend 
 his right of succession. After many manoeuvres on both 
 sides, a collision took place, in which Charles defeated 
 the troops of the queen, and took her prisoner. She 
 was imprisoned in the castle of San Felice, where she 
 lingered many months. A few weeks before her death 
 she sent to her friends and defenders the message, " think 
 no more of me, except to make preparation for my 
 funeral, and to pray for my soul." Charles Durazzo, hear- 
 ing of the approach by sea of the Duke of Anjou with an 
 army to release the queen, deemed it expedient to place
 
 252 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 that unhappy lady beyond all possibility of recovering her 
 crown, and sent an assassin to the castle, who strangled 
 Queen Joanna with a silken sash, thus causing her to die 
 the death of Andrea. 
 
 But to return : Catharine had directed all her energies to 
 win and confirm, in the first place, all the Italian powers 
 who were wavering in their allegiance to Urban. Her 
 reputation for saintliness and for singleness of purpose, and 
 the love which the Italians generally bore for her, gave her 
 great power in persuasion with her own countrymen. By 
 her efforts mainly, the fidelity of Siena, Florence, Perugia, 
 Bologna, and Venice was assured. The ambassadors, sent 
 from these and other cities to congratulate Urban on his 
 election, had not, for the most part, taken home a good 
 report of their reception, or of the courtesy of the Pontiff. 
 "How is it that the Pope makes so many enemies 1" it was 
 asked. " It is not what he does," one ambassador replied, 
 "but his manner of doing it, which gives offence." Mala- 
 volti, the father of the chronicler of Siena, was one of the 
 ambassadors appointed by that city to congratulate Urban. 
 The chronicler says that the stiffness and asperity which 
 the Pontiff showed to his father and the other Sienese am- 
 bassadors " were intolerable, the more so because Urban 
 was not of high birth, and had been elevated to the 
 Papacy beyond his utmost hopes, and in spite of his 
 sour and difficult temper." All the gracious kindness 
 and unconquerable energy of Catharine, consequently 
 only availed to ward off during the brief period of her 
 own life the consequences of Urban's unchristian and 
 unchastened temper. After her death he was continually 
 at cross-purposes with those around him, and by his
 
 The Princess of Sweden. 253 
 
 rude disposition contrived to estrange even his sincerest par- 
 tisans. Yet his judgment of the state of the Church and the 
 world in his day, was courageous and truthful. He was also 
 stern with himself, if he was so with others ; and his desire 
 for the reformation of morals was strong and sincere. 
 
 Catharine, Princess of Sweden, daughter of the St. 
 Bridget, the widowed Queen of Sweden, already men- 
 tioned, happened to be residing in Rome at this time. 
 She bore a high reputation for wisdom and piety, and 
 was beatified in the year 1398 by Boniface IX. Urban 
 had perceived the strong yearning of heart which Catha- 
 rine of Siena had to bring Queen Joanna to repen- 
 tance and faith in Christ, as well as to win the support 
 of the kingdom of Naples for himself. He conceived 
 therefore the design of sending her, together with 
 Catharine of Sweden, to the Court of Naples, on a mis- 
 sion both public and personal. Raymond says : " Out- 
 Catharine did not shrink from the charge it was intended 
 to impose on her, and offered to go without delay ; but 
 the Princess of Sweden did not like to undertake the 
 voyage, and refused in my very presence the mission 
 that was proposed to her." "Our Catharine" paid a 
 visit to the Swedish princess, in her humble retreat in 
 the little monastery of the Clarissas in Rome. The 
 first part of their interview was of a diplomatic nature. 
 Catharine of Siena, full of zeal and courage, did not 
 imagine that a woman of the race of the stern North 
 could hesitate to obey the wish of the Pontiff, and be- 
 come an ambassador to a Court with which she was 
 already acquainted. But the Swedish princess hesitated, 
 and after a short discussion of the proposed embassy, she
 
 254 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 began to speak of the experience which her longer life had 
 given her (she was fifteen years older than Catharine), and 
 of her knowledge of men. She recounted how she had 
 been twice to Naples, to gather up there remembrances of 
 hier sainted mother ; she spoke of the worldliness of the 
 Neapolitan Court, and endeavoured to impress upon Catha- 
 rine how fruitless such an embassy as that proposed by Urban 
 was likely to be. The Swedish princess had had the repu- 
 tation of extraordinary beauty, and she still retained much 
 of the freshness of youth, with a most attractive grace of 
 person and manner. She entertained Catharine with the 
 .story of her life, to which the Sienese, always ready and 
 hoping for instruction from the lips of a fellow-Christian, 
 listened attentively. " My royal mother, St. Bridget," the 
 princess began, " was, as you know, left a widow, and went 
 on a pilgrimage to Rome. I felt, from my earliest years, a 
 great desire springing up in me to follow her manner of 
 life, and to rejoin her at the tombs of the Apostles. Many 
 obstacles, however, presented themselves. The greatest 
 of all was the ardent love of Prince Edgar, to whom I 
 had been affianced. For his sake I remained at home 
 for some time ; but seeing my heart set upon another 
 kind of life, Prince Edgar at last consented to give me 
 up, and to let me go to Rome. In March, 1350, he him- 
 self accompanied me to the vessel, and confided me to 
 the care of the venerable Mare"chal Gustave Thunasson. 
 In August we arrived in Rome. For eight days I 
 sought my mother in vain. Every day I went to St. 
 Peter's, hoping to find her among the crowd of pilgrims. 
 How great was my joy at last, when I felt her tender 
 arms around me, and her kiss on my cheek ! She had
 
 The Princess of Sweden. 255 
 
 returned from Bologna, where she had been engaged in the 
 reform of monasteries. . . . You can form no idea," 
 continued the princess, " of the terrible state of Rome at 
 that time. The licentiousness and brutality of manners 
 were so great that my mother was obliged to hide me ; and 
 we could not even visit the sanctuary and temples without 
 being attended by an imposing escort. I was then twenty 
 years of age. All the great lords of Rome desired my hand 
 in marriage. I did not know how to escape them. In vain 
 I assured them that I had vowed to live a virgin ; this did 
 not satisfy them. Some, blinded by passion, even en- 
 deavoured to carry me off by violence, having failed to win 
 me by promises and flatteries. 1 One day I accompanied 
 some pious women to the tomb of St. Sebastian in the 
 Catacombs. A young noble who had aspired to my hand, 
 had concealed himself with his followers among the vines 
 near the entrance, with the intention of carrying me off 
 when we reappeared. But just at the moment when we 
 were about to appear, a stag darted out of the thicket near 
 them ; they followed it a little way, and meanwhile we had 
 passed, and were safely entering the city. 2 My mother had 
 had a presentiment of the danger and the deliverance I had 
 met with, and when I returned to the house she met me 
 with the words, ' Blessed be the stag which has saved my 
 
 1 " Uncle inulti magnates cupiebant earn matrimonialiter sibi 
 copulari. Ipsi vero cteco amore capti, quod promissionibus et 
 blanditiis nonpoterant, minis et violentiis extorquere moliuntur." 
 Life, of Catharine, of Sweden, at the end of the lievelatiom of St. 
 Bridget, printed in Rome, 1556, cap. viii. 
 
 2 Catholic art always represents St. Catharine of Sweden with a 
 stag by her side.
 
 256 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 child from the beast of prey ! ' ' The princess then pro- 
 ceeded to tell Catharine of adventures she had gone 
 through on a journey to Assisi to visit the Portiuncula 
 of St. Francis ; there they fell among brigands, and she 
 recounted the means taken by her mother to save her, her 
 beautiful daughter, from the brutality of these licentious 
 men ; again, how, on returning to Rome, and being of a 
 more mature age, she was permitted to nurse the sick in 
 the hospitals ; and how she founded, near her mother's 
 house, a hospital especially devoted to pilgrims from Swe- 
 den and the north of Europe ; how, when her mother died, 
 she bore her corpse to the sepulchre of her ancestors at 
 Wastena ; and how she afterwards visited Naples, there to 
 gather up all the recollections of her mother's missions and 
 teaching which the Neapolitans had cherished. Finally, 
 after enlarging on the disorders and dangers she had found 
 in Naples, and on its present unhappy condition, she con- 
 cluded by declaring, " Ah no ! I can never return to Naples. 
 God ever protected me while there ; but, though I do not 
 doubt his power, I dare not tempt his merciful providence. 
 Our journey there would be useless for them, and danger- 
 ous, perhaps even fatal, for us." 
 
 The Swedish princess ceased, and Catharine of Siena, 
 who had all along been silent, continued to be so. She was 
 sitting on the ground, and two large tears rolled down her 
 face and fell upon her hands. What were the thoughts of 
 our Catharine at that moment ? The story does not tell 
 us. But as we contemplate these two, the stern and 
 simple Sienese full of thoughts of noble and useful enter- 
 prise, and the beautiful high-born lady pleasantly prat- 
 tling of the romance of her own past life, the wondrous
 
 The Princess of Sweden. 257 
 
 beauty of her youth, and her many suitors, we are con- 
 strained to acknowledge that there are in the Roman 
 Calendars saints of widely different degrees of self-for- 
 getfulness and magnanimity. 
 
 After some minutes of silence, Father Raymond, who was 
 present, said to the Swedish princess: "Venerable sister, we 
 have all confidence in your experience, and I will take care 
 to report to the Sovereign Pontiff what I have now heard." 
 And they separated. Raymond continues the narrative : 
 " I acknowledge that, through imperfection of judgment 
 and want of faith, I myself did not approve the project of 
 the Sovereign Pontiff. I thought that the reputation of 
 women consecrated to God is so precious, that we ought to 
 beware of tarnishing it by the least appearance of evil, or 
 breath of suspicion. The Queen of Naples might, I thought, 
 follow the counsels of certain agents of Satan by whom 
 she was surrounded, and cause these two good women to 
 be insulted, or forbid them an entrance into Naples. I 
 went therefore the same afternoon to Pope Urban, in one 
 of the halls of the Palace of the Lateran, and laid before 
 him my views on the subject. The Sovereign Pontiff 
 looked disconcerted ; he remained a long time in reflection, 
 with his head leaning upon his hands. At last he looked 
 up, and said : ' Your opinion deserves weight. It is more 
 prudent for them not to go.' Although the evening was 
 far advanced I went to Catharine to communicate to her 
 the decision of the Pontiff." Catharine was at that time 
 suffering from great exhaustion, and had cast herself on 
 her face across her couch, when Raymond entered to report 
 his interview with Urban. He detailed to her the con- 
 versation, anticipating a sense of relief for her in being 
 
 s
 
 258 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 acquitted from so serious an obligation. But he had not yet 
 fully comprehended the character of his friend. She rose 
 from her bed and stood up. Tears were in her eyes, and 
 she said to him, with resolution, almost with fierceness of 
 voice and manner : " If Agnes, Margaret, and a multitude 
 of other holy women had indulged in such fancies, and 
 reasoned in this fashion, they never would have won the 
 crown of martyrdom ! Think you not that we have a Spouse 
 who is stronger than men, who can save us from the hands of 
 the wicked, and preserve our honour in the midst of a whole 
 throng of debauches 1 All these objections of which you 
 have spoken are foolish and vain. They spring from a miser- 
 able want of faith, and not from genuine prudence." Kay- 
 mond found no words with which to reply, and remained 
 humbly silent and rebuked. He says, "I blushed inwardly 
 because I was still so far from her lofty standard ; and in 
 my heart I admired and wondered at her constancy and 
 faith. But as the Sovereign Pontiff had decided that she 
 should not go, I did not dare to re-open the subject." 
 
 Being thus thwarted in her earnest desire to speak face 
 to face with Queen Joanna, who was at this moment, in the 
 opinion of all, the greatest supporter of the Schism and 
 hindrance to the peace of the Church in Italy, Catharine 
 determined to send to her an ambassador chosen by her- 
 self, with further despatches, which this ambassador should 
 beg to be allowed to read to Joanna. She selected Neri 
 di Landoccio, a man of engaging presence and accustomed 
 to deal with men, who was now experienced in working 
 for his beloved leader, and had entered deeply into all 
 her feelings and wishes on this subject. Neri proceeded 
 upon his mission. Though the earnest messages he carried
 
 Raymond is appointed to go to France. 259 
 
 from Catharine, and his own persuasions failed to alter the 
 course which Joanna had entered upon, his presence in 
 Naples contributed to retain the majority of the people 
 in their allegiance to Urban. Of this, more hereafter. 
 Catharine wrote at the same time to several honourable 
 ladies of the Court of Naples whom she hoped might 
 have some influence with Joanna. All these despatches 
 are found in the collection of her letters. 
 
 Urban now conferred with Catharine concerning the 
 best means to be taken to avert the calamity of a public 
 declaration on the part of the King of France in favour 
 of Clement, and shortly decided to send Father Raymond 
 as his nuncio to the French Court. " It appeared advan- 
 tageous to the Sovereign Pontiff," continues Raymond, 
 "to send me into France, because he had been informed 
 that it would be possible to detach the King of France, 
 Charles V., from the Schism. The moment I became 
 aware of this project, I went to take counsel with 
 Catharine. Notwithstanding the regret that my absence 
 would occasion her, she advised me to obey the wishes of 
 the Pontiff without delay. 'Hold it for certain, father,' 
 she said, ' that he is the truly-elected Vicar of Christ ; I 
 desire that you should endure every risk and fatigue to 
 sustain him, as you would for the Catholic faith itself.' 
 I had never entertained any doubt on this subject myself, 
 but this saying of Catharine so encouraged me to com- 
 bat the Schism, that I consecrated myself from that 
 moment to the work ; and I continually recalled it to 
 my mind, in order to fortify myself in the midst of my 
 difficulties and trials. Some days previous to my de- 
 parture she called me to her, to converse with me con- 
 
 8 2
 
 260 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 cerning the consolations and revelations she had received 
 from God ; she allowed no other persons to be present or 
 to join at that time in our conversation. After an hour of 
 converse, she then said to me, ' Now go whither God calls 
 you. I think that in this life we shall never again dis- 
 course together as we have just now done.' Her prediction 
 was accomplished. I departed, and she remained. Before 
 my return she had gone to her heavenly home, and I had 
 no more the blessing of listening to her lessons of holiness." 
 Catharine accompanied her friend to Ostia, where he was 
 to embark ; and there, where St. Augustine received the 
 parting words of his mother, Monica, Raymond spoke his 
 last adieu to her to whom he owed, under God, his own 
 spiritual life. " It was for this reason, probably," continues 
 Raymond, " that thinking she should see me no more on 
 earth, she accompanied me to the place where I was to 
 embark, wishing to bid me a last farewell. When we were 
 about to set sail, she kneeled down on the shore, and after 
 praying, made over us the sacred sign of the cross. Tears 
 filled her eyes, and she gazed after us in silence ; but her 
 countenance seemed to say : ' Go, my son, in safety, and 
 in the name and under the protection of that blessed sign ; 
 but in this life thou shalt never again see her who blesses 
 thee.' " Catharine remained long kneeling on the shore, 
 her eyes fixed on the vessel till it became a mere speck 
 on the horizon, the vessel which contained, she said, that 
 " rarest treasure with which God has gifted our earth, the 
 heart of an apostle." 
 
 Catharine, as we have seen, had continually urged 
 Urban to seek out and to surround himself with good 
 men, and wise and honest counsellors. He appears to
 
 Invitations to tJie Servants of God. 261 
 
 have fully recognized the need he had of such men, in order 
 to give effect to his designs for the reform of the Church. 
 Catharine seems to have had great faith in what might be 
 accomplished by the united action of true men of God, and 
 spoke to Urban of the advantage it would be to call to 
 Rome without delay all the best men of the Church 
 throughout Italy. This idea appears to have existed in 
 her mind apart from her partisanship for Urban. She had 
 hoped to find in him the fearless reformer which the times 
 called for. He had very imperfectly answered to these 
 hopes; but he was a sincere lover of good and virtuous men, 
 and in nothing did he more readily respond to Catharine's 
 counsels than in respect to this matter. He joyfully 
 assented to her proposition to form an association or com- 
 munity of men pre-eminent for purity of life, strength of 
 faith, and tried virtue. This community would, it was 
 hoped, act as a leaven, permeating gradually the whole of 
 the Church, while by its united force in active effort it 
 would stem and turn back the tide of immorality till now 
 unchecked. On the 13th December Urban granted to 
 Catharine a Brief empowering her to invite to Rome, in his 
 name, whomsoever she desired or considered it useful to ask. 
 She wrote without delay to the friends she had won in the 
 course of her labours throughout Italy, whom she believed 
 would be most able and willing to come to the rescue of 
 the divided Church in its time of need. She met, it would 
 appear, with an unexpected amount of difficulty in the case 
 of some whose help and presence she most desired those 
 recluses whose saintly character, learning, and maturity of 
 judgment would, she believed, have rendered them a strong 
 support to the Pontiff in his efforts for reform. Some of
 
 262 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 these replied that they did not feel it right to leave the 
 solitude in which God had placed them, that they feared 
 the influence of the moral atmosphere of Rome on their 
 own souls, and that they believed they could best serve the 
 Church by their prayers offered up in silence and solitude. 
 Friar William of England and Friar Anthony of Nice were 
 among the recalcitrants. It will be remembered that these 
 two Friars inhabited the pleasant convent of Lecceto, a few 
 miles from Siena. Catharine had often had pleasant and 
 useful intercourse with them, while sitting in the shade of 
 the woods which surrounded the convent, and Friar William 
 more especially had there testified to her his sorrow for the 
 troubles of Italy, and formed with her many projects for 
 the purification of the Church and the reformation of 
 morals. Two days after receiving the pontifical Brief, she 
 addressed to Friars William and Anthony the following 
 letter: "My dear sons in Jesus Christ, I, Catharine, the 
 servant of his servants, write to you with the desire of see- 
 ing you forgetting yourselves, seeking your only rest and 
 peace in Jesus crucified, and hungering for the honour of 
 God, for the salvation of souls, and the reformation of the 
 holy Church. We see the Church at this day in such neces- 
 sity, that, to succour her, it is necessary to quit our solitudes 
 and give ourselves up to her service. For if we wish sin- 
 cerely to do any good, we must not pause and say, 'I shall 
 not find peace in doing this or that.' God has given us a 
 good Pastor (Urban VI.), who loves the servants of God, 
 and gathers them around him. He is applying himself to 
 combat vice and encourage virtue. He is riot influenced 
 by the fear of human judgment, and is acting as a just 
 and courageous man. We ought to hasten to his aid, and
 
 She admonishes the Recluses. 263 
 
 thus prove that we have really at. heart the reformation 
 of the Church. If you have this desire, brothers, you 
 will obey the will of God and of his Vicar ; you will bid 
 farewell to your solitude, and hasten to the field of 
 battle. I entreat you, then, for the love of Jesus, to 
 respond promptly and without hesitation to the request 
 of the holy father. Do not be afraid of leaving your 
 retreat. If you want woods, there are woods and retreats 
 here also. Courage, then, dearly-loved sons ; do not 
 sleep. It is time that we should awake out of sleep. I 
 will say no more. I commend you to the holy benediction 
 of God. Rome, December 15, 1378." 
 
 Friars William and Anthony appear to have had some 
 little difference between themselves, arising out of the con- 
 templation of the proposed journey to Rome. Catharine 
 writes to William : " We ought not if we do indeed love 
 our neighbour, and care for men's souls to think too much 
 of our own spiritual consolations. We should give ear to 
 the complaints and wishes of our neighbour, and especially 
 be compassionate towards those who are bound with us in 
 the same bonds of charity. If you fail to do this, you are 
 greatly in fault. Yes, I wish that you should pity the 
 troubles, and have regard to the wishes of our brother 
 Anthony. I desire that you should not refuse to hear him, 
 and I wish also and demand that he should listen to you. I 
 conjure you, for Christ's sake and for mine, act thus, for 
 thus you will maintain true charity. If you fail to do so, 
 you will sow seeds of discord. I conclude, beseeching you 
 to be as branches closely united with the true Vine, and 
 transformed into the image of Christ crucified." 
 
 She wrote to three friars of Spoleto Friars Andrea,
 
 264 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 Paolo, and Lando, who willingly and with ardour obeyed 
 the injunction of the Pontiff, and came to Rome. Another 
 of her letters, conveying the samo invitation, was ad- 
 dressed to Dom Bartolommeo dei Serafini, the prior of 
 the monastery of Gorgon Island, to whose monks she had 
 preached. He, and Father Matthew of the Misericordia 
 of Siena, whom she had cured of his sickness, and many 
 other good men, also responded to the invitation. She 
 wrote to John of the Cell, who lost no time in leaving the 
 delightful shades of Vallombrosa to hasten to Rome. The 
 following is a portion of the letter she addressed to him : 
 "Shall we be found asleep at the moment when our enemies 
 are at the gate ? No ! A great need is calling us, a great 
 want is urging us, and love ought to wake us up. Have 
 greater misfortunes ever befallen the Church than those 
 which we see to-day ? We ought to hasten to the support 
 of the holy father, who is surrounded with so many trou- 
 bles ; the more so as he invites with humility and kindness 
 the help of the servants of God. He wishes to have such 
 always about him. Reply, then, promptly to the Sovereign 
 Pontiff, Urban VI. I conjure you by the love of Jesus to 
 fulfil without hesitation the will of God in this matter. 
 You will now prove by the course you elect whether you 
 truly love God and desire the reformation of the Church, or 
 whether you are chiefly devoted to your own consolations. 
 1 am convinced that if your self-love has been thoroughly 
 consumed in the furnace of charity, you will not hesitate 
 to abandon your cell ; you will be content to inhabit the 
 cell of self-knowledge, and be ready to give your life, if 
 need be, for the truth. This is the moment for the servants 
 of God to proclaim boldly the truth, and to suffer for it."
 
 The Hermit Saint. 265 
 
 She also wrote to her old friend, who, at the time of her 
 first acquaintance with him, was inhabiting a cave in a rock 
 near Siena, and living the life of a hermit. He was never 
 called by any other name than that of " the Saint." " He 
 had led," says Raymond, " during more than thirty years a 
 solitary life. He found, in his old age, the precious pearl 
 of the gospel, in becoming acquainted with Catharine. For 
 her, he quitted his peaceful cell and his accustomed manner 
 of living, in order to labour, not for his own soul only, but 
 for the good of others. He affirmed that he thus found greater 
 peace of mind and more profit to his soul than he had ever 
 enjoyed in his solitude. Above all, he made great progress 
 in patience. He suffered much from a disease of the heart, 
 and Catharine taught him to support his continual anguish, 
 not only with resignation, but with joy. He related to me 
 several circumstances which transpired during my absence 
 from Rome, and a short time after her death he went also to 
 join her in the celestial mansions." 
 
 The two friars of Lecceto having continued to express 
 a great unwillingness to leave their retreat, she wrote to 
 Anthony as follows : " My very dear son in Jesus Christ, 
 I, Catharine, the servant of his servants, write to you in 
 the strong desire to see you fully established upon that 
 living rock, the holy Jesus, in such wise that the building 
 which you raise may not be shaken by winds and storms. 
 . . . This is a sifting time, one which shows us who are the 
 true servants of God, and who are the self-seekers who love 
 God only because of the consolation brought to their own 
 souls. Such persons look around them and pronounce 
 where spiritual comfort and consolation are to be found, 
 and where they are not to be found ; they seem to imagine
 
 266 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 that God is in this place, and not in that. It is not as they 
 imagine ; for I perceive that, to the true servant of God, all 
 places and all times are acceptable. When the time comes 
 for him to leave his spiritual enjoyments, and undertake 
 labour and fatigues for God, the true servant does not 
 hesitate ; when the time comes for him to bid farewell to 
 his solitude, he does it, like the glorious St. Anthony, who 
 of a truth dearly loved solitude, but who left it in order to 
 fortify his fellow Christians. Many other saints have done 
 the same. The rule of the true saints has always been to 
 come forward in times of necessity and misfortune ; but not 
 in times of prosperity, for they fly such times. There is 
 certainly no occasion to fly now, in the fear that too much 
 prosperity would cause our hearts to be carried away with 
 vain-glory and pride ; no one can find anything wherein to 
 glory just-now except sufferings. It seems to me that we are 
 wanting in light when we allow ourselves to be blinded to 
 duty by the love of spiritual consolations : our motives may 
 be good, but the eternal God alone can give us true and per- 
 fect light. It seems, by the letter which Friar William has 
 sent me, that neither he nor you are minded to come to 
 Rome. I do not wish to reply to his letter, but I mourn 
 from my heart over his simplicity, for he seeks little either 
 the honour of God or the good of his neighbour. If through 
 humility and the fear of losing peace of soul, he really fears 
 to come, he ought to testify that humility by asking the 
 Sovereign Pontiff to excuse him, and to allow him to re- 
 main in his solitude .... It appears, according to what he 
 writes to me, that two servants of God among } r ou have 
 had a revelation made to them, by which they are taught 
 that the Vicar of Christ and the person who counselled
 
 Letter to Friar Anthony of Nice. 267 
 
 him on this matter, (she alludes here to herself) have followed 
 a human and not a divine impulse, and that it is the devil 
 and not God who is trying to draw these servants of Christ 
 away from their settled peace and consolation. It is 
 asserted that if you come here you will lose the habit of 
 devotion, and that you could no longer give yourselves up 
 to prayer. You must be very slightly established in 
 devotion if a change of residence would cause you to lose 
 the habit of prayer. It seems that God takes account of 
 places then, and he is only to be found in woods and 
 solitudes, even in times of public necessity ! Go to ! we 
 began by declaring that we desired the reformation of the 
 Church, and that foul weeds should be rooted out, and 
 sweet flowers (which are the servants of God) should be 
 planted in her : and now we pretend that to call these 
 servants out of their peaceful solitudes in order that they 
 may save the bark of St. Peter from shipwreck, is an error 
 inspired by the devil. It would be well that each man should 
 speak for himself alone, and not for other servants of God. 
 Friar Andrea of Lucca and Friar Paolo have not acted in 
 this fashion. These great servants of God are aged and in 
 weak health ; yet they have not made that an excuse for 
 seeking repose, but started at once for Rome, in spite of the 
 fatigue and difficulties of the journey. They obeyed, and 
 have arrived, and although they would wish exceedingly to 
 return to their cells, they do not attempt to shake off this 
 obligation, but have willingly given up all the consolations 
 of solitude. They have come, not to command, but to be 
 made perfect through suffering, in the midst of troubles, 
 tears, watchings, and continual prayers. This is the right 
 course. Let us say no more about it ! May God in his
 
 268 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 mercy purify us, and give us light, that we may not walk 
 among shadows. I conjure you, the Bachelor, and the 
 others to pray for me, that I may be guided in the path of 
 humility. Dwell ever in the remembrance of God." 
 
 I have given these letters at length because of the in- 
 terest which attaches to the views expressed in them by 
 Catharine of the monastic life, a life held by her, in common 
 with all mediaeval Christians, to be a holy life, if subor- 
 dinated to the highest uses, but, as it appeared to her, a life 
 to be abandoned, at the call of God, for an active and still 
 holier life. 
 
 The writer of the above letter we see to be the same who 
 in her childhood made a brief trial of the life of the Fathers 
 of the Desert, and was drawn away from it by the strong 
 voice of affection within her, and the consciousness that there 
 were those outside who thought of her, and needed her, and 
 who would mourn her absence. She was grieved when she 
 found that some of her friends did not fly to meet the call 
 of duty and affection as quickly as she had done, when, after 
 the day spent in the cave, she sped over the hills and 
 through the city gates of Siena, to rejoin her parents, and 
 brothers, and sisters. The following passage from the 
 " Dialogue," l on the subject of prayer is dictated in the 
 same spirit as the rebuke to the friars of Lecceto : " Perfect 
 prayer, then, consists not in the multitude of words, but in 
 the strength of the desire which raises the soul towards 
 God. . . . Every Christian ought to contribute towards the 
 salvation of souls, according as he is inspired by a holy desire. 
 Everything which is said and done for the salvation of men 
 
 i Dialogue, IxvL, p. 168.
 
 Selfish Christians. 269 
 
 is a continual prayer, but a prayer which does not exempt 
 us from the use of mental and vocal prayer at certain times. 
 All that is done for the love of God and of our neighbour, 
 all, it may be added, which is done for ourselves also, with 
 a just and right aim, may be called prayer, for those never 
 cease to pray who never cease to do good. Love for our 
 fellow-creatures is a constant prayer; but this very love will 
 always incite us to actual prayer at stated seasons, and for 
 prescribed times, and even far beyond those prescribed 
 times, if the salvation of a soul, or any emergency in which 
 we find ourselves demands it." 
 
 . There are Christians enough assuredly, in our own days, 
 to whom such arguments as Catharine used to the friars 
 might be very suitably addressed ; Christians in whose 
 hearts lies a deep, though it may be an unconscious and un- 
 confessed selfishness. Their ears are dull to the daily cry 
 of the needy and the oppressed, they do not hear the earnest 
 call to join with God's advanced guard in the battle against 
 vice and oppression and diabolic cruelty. The sacred seclu- 
 sion of their homes is so sweet. They love so much their 
 own secure and safe " retreat." And well it is they do so. 
 Our secure and virtuous homes are the strength of the 
 nation. It is well too that they should cherish their religi- 
 ous privileges, and seek to maintain spiritual peace and con- 
 solation in the uninterrupted enjoyment of those privileges. 
 Yet a time will come when the possessors of these priceless 
 treasures will have to give an account of their stewardship 
 of such wealth. For an exceeding bitter cry is arising from 
 creatures standing outside our doors, God's redeemed ones 
 also, who have neither home nor hope on earth. Their cry 
 rebukes our ease and our enjoyment, and our greediness of
 
 270 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 our religious privileges. It seems at times prophetic of woe 
 to those who dare to answer it with pious sophistries. 
 
 Friar Anthony was not long in arriving in Rome. It is 
 not clear whether Friar William ever did so. He died in the 
 same year as Catharine, about fifteen months after this time. 
 He was not idle, however, in the service of the Church. 
 Baluze says that at Catharine's suggestion he wrote several 
 letters to his countrymen the King of England and the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury to secure their allegiance to 
 Urban VI., and in this he was not unsuccessful. 1 
 
 Among the most eloquent of Catharine's letters is one 
 which she wrote at this time to Ludwig, King of Hungary. 
 He was a faithful adherent of the Roman Pontiff, and had 
 been invested with the title of " Gonfalonier of the Church." 
 Her letter to him is full of powerful pleading, her aim 
 being to prove the validity of Urban's election, and to urge 
 the King of Hungary to recognize the need of a reformation 
 in the Church, and to give his support to those who were 
 promoting that reformation. She wrote also to Charles 
 Durazzo and other princes, in the same manner and with 
 the same ends in view. 
 
 We must follow Father Raymond a little way in his 
 northern mission. He had scarcely left Rome before the 
 Clementines made preparations to embarrass his move- 
 ments and prevent the success of his embassy. They 
 could not afford to allow the words of so ardent a disciple 
 of Catharine and upholder of Urban to reach the ears of the 
 King of France. Charles V. was now wavering as to the 
 side he should espouse, and the arguments of Raymond 
 
 1 Baluze, ' Vitas Pap. Aveuiou," T. i., Col. 1085.
 
 Raymond fails to reach France. ' 271 
 
 might deprive the schismatics of the support of France, 
 without which they could not have continued to assert their 
 existence. They promptly took steps, therefore, to prevent 
 the nuncio from landing at Marseilles. Raymond continues 
 the narrative of what took place after his parting from 
 Catharine. " Although the sea was infested by pirates, we 
 arrived happily at Pisa, and had an equally prosperous 
 voyage to Genoa, notwithstanding the numerous galleys of 
 schismatics pursuing their way to Avignon. We journeyed 
 by land from Genoa, and got as far as Ventimiglia. Here 
 a monk of my Order, who was a native of that place, sent 
 me a letter, in which he said, 'Beware of passing Venti- 
 miglia, for treachery is prepared for you, from which, if you 
 fall into the snare, no human aid can save you.' On this 
 warning, having taken counsel with the companion whom 
 the Sovereign Pontiff had appointed me, I returned to 
 Genoa. Here I remained, by the order of the Pope, preach- 
 ing a crusade against the schismatics." A second time, 
 however, Raymond essayed to cross the frontier into France, 
 and appears to have been this time forcibly prevented. 
 On hearing of his having turned back the first time 
 from Ventimiglia, Catharine wrote to him with some 
 severity. She tells him that she could not have believed 
 a full-grown man in Christ could act so. "Bad, dear 
 father," she writes: "I thought you had cut your teeth, 
 so that you could eat strong meat; but I see you are 
 still a babe, only able to drink milk." She tells him 
 he ought to have gone on, trusting in God, who was 
 able to have delivered him out of the hands of assassins ; 
 that, if he could not travel openly as a papal nuncio, 
 he ought to have walked barefoot over the mountains,
 
 272 CatJuirine of Siena. 
 
 disguised as a pilgrim, and begging his way, until he arrived 
 in the presence of the King of France. She ardently 
 desired now to go herself to Paris, but her failing health, 
 and the importance of the events which were rapidly 
 succeeding each other in Rome, made it impossible for her 
 to realize this wish. She wrote, however, a long and 
 powerful letter to Charles V., which was conveyed to him 
 by the hand of a private messenger. She counsels him to 
 consult the University of Paris on the subject of the schism. 1 
 " You have at hand the fount of science," she reminds him, 
 and expresses confidence in the justice of the verdict of the 
 Sorbonne on the validity of Urban's election. The Uni- 
 versity of Paris, (founded by Charlemagne in 791), was 
 reputed at this time as " the mother and mistress of arts 
 and learning." It included sixty-three colleges, the principal 
 of these being the Sorbonne, which ultimately gave its 
 name to the whole. It had acquired a great authority in 
 the Church, its members having proved themselves above 
 all considerations of party or of temporary interests, and 
 able to give a wise and just judgment on controverted 
 questions. This University had given its verdict at first 
 strongly in favour of Urban. Charles V., however, leaned 
 personally towards the Cardinal of Geneva, and the re- 
 establishment of the Papacy at Avignon. He addressed an 
 urgent letter to the University, which was read before the 
 full assembly of learned doctors, urging them to consider 
 how great a misfortune it would be if France were 
 divided on this question. The sovereign, princes, and 
 nobles, as well as the prelates of France, had unanimously 
 
 1 Letter 187.
 
 The Company of St. George. 273 
 
 declared themselves for Clement, and these all now waited 
 for the University of Paris to sanction and endorse their 
 decision. Charles's letter was regarded almost as a com- 
 mand. The University deliberated for several weeks, and 
 in a general assembly at the end of that time, voted, by a 
 considerable majority, in favour of Clement. The weightiest 
 members of the Sorbonne, however, adhered to Urban, and 
 a letter was addressed by the University to both the elected 
 Popes, admonishing them to come to an agreement at once 
 for the abdication of one or the other, in order to restore 
 the Church to unity, under one head. 
 
 The strong castle of St. Angelo at Rome still remained 
 in the hands of the Clementines. Constant collisions 
 took place between the Romans and the Breton and 
 Gascon soldiers of the anti-Pope, who defended the 
 castle. A brave knight of Romagna, Alberico di Bar- 
 biano, attached to the cause of Urban, had formed at this 
 time an army of Italians, whom he subjected to strict 
 moral discipline, and inspired with a patriotic devotion. 
 They invoked St. George as their patron saint. " This 
 company of St. George," says Sismondi, " became the great 
 school of the Italian militia ; it produced the distinguished 
 generals of the succeeding century, and redeemed the mili- 
 tary honour of Italy." "These brave troops," writes Cape- 
 celatro, " were successful in driving out from our beautiful 
 land the accursed Ultramontane invaders. Germans, 
 Bretons, Gascons, and English, all fled before Alberico 
 and his stern warriors." The soldiers of Clement had 
 encamped at Marino, in the neighbourhood of Rome 
 and their presence was a continual menace to the city. 
 Clement daily sent messengers to the French army in 
 
 T
 
 274 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 the castle of St. Angelo, and it became evident to the 
 Romans that a concerted attack was meditated by the foe 
 within and without the city. On the 29th of April the 
 Romans, under Barbiario, made a furious attack upon the 
 army of Clement, which yielded and finally took to flight. 
 The castle of St. Angelo surrendered, after a day of despe- 
 rate fighting, and the Romans were again masters of their 
 own city. It was popularly believed that this great victory 
 was due to the prayers of Catharine. " She lamented," says 
 her biographers, " to see the Church reduced to such sore 
 straits as to be obliged to resort to arms ; and she never 
 ceased to supplicate God that these tribulations might cease." 
 She wrote an address to Barbiano and his captains on the 
 occasion of this victory, which Cartier justly calls a "noble 
 and chivalrous harangue." She congratulates them on 
 their victory, counsels humility, and beseeches them to 
 direct their soldiers in the way of virtue, that they might 
 never combat for anything but the truth, and might learn 
 to become valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ. " Take for the 
 base and principle of all your actions the honour of God. 
 . . . In your character as chiefs give to your followers 
 first the example of a true and holy fear of God. . . . 
 I pray you also to take great care to surround yourselves 
 with good and wise counsels, and to choose as officers, 
 courageous, faithful, and conscientious men ; for good 
 chiefs make good soldiers. . . . Acknowledge with 
 gratitude, you and yours, the benefits you have received 
 from God, and from the glorious knight of St. George, 
 whose name you bear. May he defend you ! Pardon me if I 
 have importuned you with words. Love for the Church 
 and desire for your salvation urge me thus to write. As
 
 Surrender of tlie Castle of St. Angelo. 275 
 
 for us, we do as Moses did ; when the people of Israel com- 
 bated, Moses prayed, and so long as he prayed Israel 
 prevailed. We do the same. Read this letter, if it please 
 you, to all the captains." 
 
 Catharine had spent the day of the battle in prayer, sus- 
 tained by her companions of the communitj^ of Santa Chiara. 
 She now added action to prayer. The French were still 
 defending St. Angelo when the sun was about to set. 
 Catharine went to the castle, and presented herself to 
 Rostagno, 1 who commanded it, and by her earnestness 
 succeeded in inducing him to avoid further bloodshed, by 
 surrendering, on the conditions proposed by the venerable 
 Roman senator Giovanni Cenci, with whom she had pre- 
 viously been in consultation. In a patriotic letter which she 
 subsequently addressed to the gonfaloniers of the republic of 
 Rome, she gently reproaches them for having left unacknow- 
 ledged the solid and peaceful service rendered by Cenci : "I 
 pray you show consideration towards those who have won 
 for us this victory. Help them in their need ; above all, the 
 poor wounded. Be kindly and pacific, so that you may 
 retain their confidence. This is necessary, my dear brothers, 
 in order that we be not guilty of ingratitude ; and also it is 
 politic. It seems to me that you have acted a little ungrate- 
 fully in respect to Giovanni Cenci. I know with what zeal 
 and with what generosity of heart he laid aside every 
 consideration except that of serving God and the republic, 
 by saving us from the danger which continually threatened 
 us from St. Angelo. He acted with great wisdom ; and 
 
 i Some of the chroniclers give the name of the governor of the 
 castle as Guy de Provence. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 now not only has no acknowledgment been made of his 
 services, but the vice of envy has arisen and stirred up 
 various calumnies against him. It is an evil thing that you 
 should act thus towards those who serve you. It is offen- 
 sive to God and hurtful to yourselves ; for the city has need 
 of wise, prudent, and conscientious men. For the love of 
 Christ crucified, act no more in this fashion. . . I speak 
 thus in your own interests, and not from any private feel- 
 ing. You know very well that I am a stranger here. I 
 speak for your own happiness, which with all my heart I 
 desire. I trust that, as discreet and honourable men, you 
 will accept the purity of the motives which urge me to- 
 address you, and will pardon my boldness." 
 
 The victory of Marino was gained on the 29th of April, 
 1379. The Roman soldiers coupled the names of "St. 
 George and Catharine " in their songs of triumph, and in 
 their mutual congratulations over the victory. Catharine 
 was constantly seen in the city, and her presence increased 
 for the moment the enthusiastic love and veneration felt 
 for her by the people and by the army of St. George. 
 Every morning she had, by their own desire, an audience 
 with the magistrates of the city. She visited the wounded 
 in the hospitals, and charged the sisters of her household to 
 take care of their souls and bodies. 
 
 The usual results of victory began to be manifested 
 a tendency to vainglory, self-gratulation, and insolence. 
 " It was laid upon her heart to labour that the occasion of 
 this victory should be so made use of as to confirm the 
 Roman people in their allegiance to the true Pontiff, and 
 still more to raise their thoughts towards God in ac- 
 knowledgment that it is he who governs the universe
 
 Public Procession and Thanksgiving. 277 
 
 and disposes events." 1 She found Pope Urban very willing 
 to listen to the proposal which she brought before him, for a 
 public thanksgiving. It does not seem clear, indeed, whether 
 Urban did not himself first propose it. Since his election 
 to the papacy, he had been obliged to live in a house near 
 the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, it being impossible 
 to pass along the road to the Vatican without insult and 
 menace from the Clementine soldiers in possession of the 
 Mole of Hadrian. It was now agreed that the Pontiff of 
 Trastevere should go in solemn procession from Santa Maria 
 in Trastevere to St. Peter's, taking up his abode hence- 
 forward in the Vatican. But by the counsels and efforts of 
 Catharine, the matter was so ordered that this event should 
 not be a mere vain show, calculated to increase the pride of 
 victory, but rather a humbling of themselves, on the part 
 of the leaders and people, before God, in the confession of 
 sin and in the invocation of his presence and blessing. The 
 ceremony was as follows. All the clergy of Rome, walking 
 humbly and barefooted, preceded the Pontiff; then fol- 
 lowed Urban, also barefooted, and with no outward show, or 
 insignia of earthly rank. The whole of the people of 
 Rome followed the Pontiff, " silently, in recollection and 
 in prayer." The procession thus advanced towards St. 
 Peter's, where, without the usual ecclesiastical pomp, it 
 appears, the Pontiff offered up to God prayers and thanks- 
 giving, with confession of sin ; and the crowd who followed 
 him responded. The people were awed and impressed. 
 The adherents of Clement had been at work for many 
 weeks circulating calumnies against Urban, of a nature 
 
 1 Capecelatro, Lib. ix.
 
 278 Catliarine of Siena. 
 
 to deprive him of the confidence of the Roman people ; 
 hence it was esteemed a prudent measure on the part of 
 the Pontiff to make himself thus one of the people, so to 
 speak, in an unostentatious ceremonial, and to renew an act 
 of humility which had been unheard of since Pope Stephen 
 IV., in 769, went in solemn procession in like manner from 
 the Church of St. John Lateran to St. Peter's. Catharine 
 wrote, some days later, to Urban : " I rejoice from the 
 depths of my heart, father, to have witnessed the good 
 pleasure of God fulfilled in you by that act of humility, 
 such as has not been seen for a very long time. The spirits 
 of evil put forth all their efforts to mar it by some abuse 
 from within or from without, but the holy angels restrained 
 their malice." Fearing that the temper of the Pontiff 
 would lead him into the habit of appealing to arms, and 
 trusting in such defences, she adds : " God will act for you, 
 and will give to you the needful wisdom and force to act in 
 such a manner as to guide his bark with prudence. . . . 
 Now it is his will that you should call around you the 
 servants of God. . . . These, father, are the soldiers 
 who will give you the true victory." 
 
 The army of Clement had been completely routed at 
 Marino. " The anti-Pope, almost demented with fear," 1 
 saved himself by flight, and took refuge in the castle of 
 Spelonica, whence he sent messengers to Queen Joanna 
 to beg of her an armed escort to conduct him to Naples. 
 The Queen not only sent him immediate succour, but 
 prepared to receive him with great honours. When the 
 galley of Clement reached the rock on which stood the 
 
 1 "Pene demons factus Antipapa." WALSINGHAM, in "Hist. Ang."
 
 The Enchanted Castle. 279 
 
 romantic Castle dell' Uovo, the Queen and her Court, who 
 were waiting for him, came forth to meet him. Joanna 
 had commanded that a beautiful bridge should be con- 
 structed, and thrown across from the rock to the galley, that 
 Clement might land the more easily. She herself conducted 
 him into the castle, which was festively adorned with ban- 
 ners ; and having seated him on a throne prepared for him, 
 she and her husband, the Duke of Brunswick, prostrated 
 themselves at his feet and craved his pontifical benediction. 
 A crowd of courtiers, ladies and young damsels, gorgeously 
 and gaily attired, waited upon and did honour to him. 
 Clement and his cardinals remained for several days in the 
 enchanted castle, 1 in the midst of feasting and convivialities 
 alternated with luxurious repose. But at the very moment 
 when these revelries were at their height, the predictions 
 and warnings conveyed in Catharine's letters to the Queen 
 began to be verified. The Neapolitans regarded with a 
 sullen displeasure the favour shown by their sovereign to 
 the pretender to the papacy, as they judged him, a man 
 of foreign blood, and the opponent of a Pope who was a 
 Neapolitan. They saw that the Schism was thus danger- 
 ously encouraged, to the scandal of Christendom, and to 
 the risk of the peace of Naples. The secret festivities of 
 the castle, and the adoring prostrations in public, dis- 
 gusted the people, who continued to nurse their ill- 
 humour in silence, until an incident occurred which called 
 forth its expression in full southern Italian fury. An 
 artisan had uttered some too free and light words one 
 
 1 Froissart records that the Castle dell' Uovo was believed to have 
 sprang up in a single night, by magic.
 
 280 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 day, concerning Queen Joanna and her guest, Clement VII. 
 He was reproved by a noble called Andrea Ravignano : but 
 the artisan persisting in his remarks, Andrea rode his horse 
 over him and pierced one of his eyes with his spear. This 
 insult was sufficient to excite the Neapolitans, in heart 
 strongly attached to Urban, to tumult and rebellion. A 
 tailor called Brigante, nephew of the artisan whose eye 
 had been put out, assembled a crowd of the lowest of the 
 population, who armed themselves and raised the cry, 
 " Viva Papa Urbano ! " In a few hours Naples was in revo- 
 lution. The Archbishop of Naples, Bossuti, an Urbanite, 
 who had lived in concealment since the Queen had declared 
 herself the partisan of Clement, was conducted forth by the 
 people and reinstated in his own palace, while the schisma- 
 tic Bernardo, who had been elected in his place by Clement, 
 was ignominiously driven forth from the city. Clement 
 felt himself scarcely secure within the walls of the 
 enchanted castle while such a tempest raged without. 
 He once more fled and took refuge at Gaeta. Not many 
 days later he re-entered his galley and set sail, with his 
 cardinals, for the coast of France. A few weeks later he 
 had re-established himself, with his Court, at Avignon. 
 Thus the ill-advised Queen became indirectly the cause 
 of the expulsion from Italy of the infamous Cardinal 
 Robert of Geneva, whom she had adored as Pope, and at 
 the same time brought on a civil war in her own king- 
 dom, which continued to be renewed at intervals until her 
 own tragic death, already recorded. 
 
 Catharine had gathered around her in Rome many of 
 her friends, men and women, strong in the faith, and 
 ready to do and to suffer all things for the cause of God.
 
 Revolt in Rome. 281 
 
 She had joined with them in the solemn public thanks- 
 giving to God for recent benefits. " The holy Church and 
 her Pontiff began to breathe a little, and Catharine of Siena 
 enjoyed at last some consolation in their peace." But this 
 peace was of brief duration ; fresh and even graver causes 
 of anxiety arose. Despite her unceasing efforts as a 
 mediator and pacificator, Catharine observed, from day to 
 <lay, that the people of Rome were increasingly disposed 
 to find a cause of quarrel with Urban. The Pontiff's harsh- 
 ness of manner and unbending character constantly tended 
 to widen the breach. The Clementines, even after their 
 defeat, had continued secretly to spread reports injurious 
 to Urban, and to undermine the loyalty of his subjects 
 towards him. Several conspiracies against his life were 
 discovered and thwarted. Catharine wrote to him, " I 
 beseech you as much as possible to guard your person, in- 
 asmuch as we must not tempt God by neglecting the pre- 
 cautions suggested by prudence. I say this because I 
 know that there are wicked men who are not asleep, and 
 who are watching to lay traps for your life." 1 Disaffection 
 and threatened rebellion forced the Pontiff to remain almost 
 a prisoner in the Vatican. Disorders prevailed in the city, 
 and crimes of violence were daily perpetrated. Catharine 
 gave herself continually to prayer. She wrote some ac- 
 count to Raymond of the bitterness of that experience, 
 and the travail of her soul over the misguided people, 
 whom she loved and pitied too. She wrestled in prayer 
 all night long for the Church and for the world, and for 
 "this poor people of Rome." She cried, in her anguish, 
 
 1 Urban died by poison ten years after this time.
 
 282 CatJuirine of Siena. 
 
 " Oh, Eternal God, take my life ! Receive this only sacri- 
 fice which I can make. Take it, and let it be an offering 
 for thy Church's sake. I have nothing else to give except 
 that which thou didst give for me life. suffer me to 
 pour out my life for the reformation of thy Church ! " 
 She pleaded, " Spare this people, Lord ! Let thy judg- 
 ments fall on me, but have mercy on them." And her 
 request was heard, for she did indeed offer up her life, in 
 anguish and prayers, and tears and vigils, for the attain- 
 ment of that which was the all-engrossing desire of her soul. 
 While she prayed, her feeble frame was shaken as by a 
 whirlwind. She said that "if the divine power had not 
 encircled her members," she could not have continued to 
 live and to pray; she would have "fallen under her own 
 weight." Night after night she maintained this conflict 
 with the mighty Angel of the Covenant who wrestled with 
 Jacob of old. "Yield to me now, for I am faint." "I will 
 not let thee go except thou bless me." Thus she cried ; 
 and when she ceased, and the morning dawned upon her 
 soul, there sounded in her heart the marvellous words, 
 " As a prince hast thou had power with God, and hast pre- 
 vailed." Whilst she was even thus praying, the noise of 
 many feet was heard in the streets of the city. Secret 
 conspiracy had failed ; now open rebellion was proclaimed. 
 Urban could not, among his many faults, plead guilty to 
 that of faint-hearted ness. He remained in the Vatican, 
 making no preparations for defence. A tumultuous armed 
 mob marched to St. Peter's. The cry was heard, " To the- 
 Vatican ! " and, storming the doors, the crowd rushed in 
 with vociferations and violent gestures. The foremost 
 amons them were well-known assassins. The multitude
 
 The Rebels Overawed. 283 
 
 outside pressed forward, so that in a moment the building 
 was filled with the revolutionaries. Urban entered from 
 the opposite side, holding aloft the cross. Attired in his 
 pontifical robes, and with the triple mitre on his head, he 
 ascended the papal throne, and sat silently facing the 
 multitude, with a fearless, immovable countenance. The 
 grandeur and composure of his mien, and the "sternness 
 and solemn majesty of his countenance at this terrible 
 moment," filled the rude multitude with amazement not 
 unmixed with admiration. They were awestruck ; they 
 stood still and gazed at the Pontiff. He was alone and 
 unarmed ; they counted their numbers by hundreds, and 
 were armed with swords, clubs, and firebrands. " Urban 
 smote them with the terrible majesty of his frown ;" while, 
 in the words of Pope Boniface VIII. when similarly assailed, 
 he asked, " Whom seek ye V At these words the assassins 
 dropped their arms, and the people, smitten with a sudden 
 sense of shame and fear, fled from the Vatican, and Urban 
 was left alone. Catharine was outside in the midst of the 
 crowd. For three days she laboured among the malcontents, 
 showing herself an able mediator between the people and the 
 Pontiff. " Her prayers, her presence, and her sweet and 
 ardent eloquence did what could not have been done by 
 armed force." In a few days peace and quietness were 
 restored to the city ; the people returned to their homes, 
 and many testified a sincere sorrow for the violence of which 
 they had been guilty. 
 
 The bad news of the final verdict of the University of 
 Paris had reached Eome. Catharine, disappointed at the 
 failure of Raymond's attempted embassy to Charles V., 
 presented a petition to Urban to bo permitted, even now
 
 284 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 herself to go to Paris. Urban replied that her presence 
 was essential in Rome, and that he was unwilling that she 
 should go. Indeed, it may be truly said that Catharine 
 ruled in Rome at this time. Her labours were almost super- 
 human. Every morning she repaired to the Capitol, where 
 the gonfaloniers of the republic awaited her. No measure 
 of importance was adopted without her counsels. The 
 interests of the Commonwealth seemed to depend upon her 
 presence and activity. Urban bestowed upon her the fullest 
 powers and authority to act for the good of the Church. 
 Prominent citizens waited at her door every day for a brief 
 interview, arid for words of advice on matters of difficulty, 
 private and public. The chiefs of the army sought her 
 counsels, and the sick and the prisoners sighed for the re- 
 turn of the day and hour which brought her to their bedside, 
 or to their cell. Every day she went to St. Peter's to offer 
 up her prayers for the people ; every evening she retired to 
 her own room to pray and to intercede, through the long 
 night. Her frame became daily more and more attenuated. 
 The lamp of life was fast burning out. Her biographers tell 
 us that " she walked the streets of Rome like one who had 
 issued from the tomb," so emaciated was she. Her suffer- 
 ings showed themselves outwardly to all eyes, but nothing 
 that medical art could suggest gave her any relief. Day 
 by day, that pale, slight, ghost-like figure was seen pas- 
 sing through the streets, to the Capitol, to the Vatican, 
 to St. Peter's and to the humbler people's quarters in 
 Trastevere, intent on the Master's work, and unwearying 
 in ministrations. She ruled in Rome. She ruled by the 
 force of her prayers, and the power of Christian love. 
 Those who passed her in the streets of the city, paused,
 
 Faithful unto Death. 285 
 
 and crossed themselves. Love, and awe, and pity filled the 
 heart of the beholder at the sight of her ever-ready smile 
 of greeting, bright and cheerful and sweet as ever, while 
 her wasted frame seemed only to be held together and 
 borne up as by a miracle. " Her cruel sufferings increased 
 daily, her skin adhered to her bones, and she was tor- 
 mented with a continual thirst ; she walked, prayed, and 
 worked without intermission ; but those who saw her would 
 have believed her to be a phantom rather than a living 
 being ; her body was visibly consumed, but her soul rose 
 joyfully and courageously above all."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CIVIL discord had ceased, for a time, in Rome, and quiet 
 reigned in the city. Catharine, feeling that her bodily 
 strength was failing fast, addressed her last counsels to 
 Urban, in the following letter, in which she urges upon 
 him, besides the reformation of the Church, the exercise of 
 self-control in his words and acts, and the faithful fulfil- 
 ment of his promises (for Urban was held to be rash in 
 promising, and sometimes inexact in the performance of 
 his promise) : " Most holy and beloved father in Christ, 
 your unworthy daughter Catharine writes to you in the 
 ardent desire to see you following in the steps of the 
 great St. Gregory, acting with prudence, guided by the 
 sweet light of truth, and governing the Church and your 
 people with such wisdom that nothing which you ordain 
 may be called in question. I am aware, holy father, of 
 the insolent and violent reply given by the prefect to the 
 Roman ambassadors. 1 A general meeting of the Council 
 ought to be held concerning this matter, at which the 
 chiefs of the quarters, and other distinguished citizens 
 should be present. I pray you, father, to see these per- 
 
 ] This prefect was Francesco di Vico, Signer of Viterbo, an 
 enemy of Urban, who ou some occasion had insulted the Roman 
 ambassadors sent to him in a conciliatory spirit.
 
 Her last Letters to Urban. 287 
 
 sons frequently, and to bind them to you with prudence, 
 in bonds of affection and fidelity. I entreat also, that 
 when the report is brought to you of the decision of the 
 assembly, you will receive the messengers with all possible 
 gentleness, explaining to them what to your Holiness 
 seems most needful to be done. Pardon me if I say what 
 I ought not to say ; but I desire that you should under- 
 stand and consider well the character of your Roman 
 subjects, who are far more easily won and held in alle- 
 giance by gentleness than by harsh words, and force. . . . 
 I humbly beseech you also to be very prudent in never 
 promising anj'thing except what it is distinctly possible 
 for you to fulfil, in order to avoid the shame, confusion, 
 and evil which may result from the opposite course. 
 Bear with me, kind father, when I say such things to you. 
 I trust that your humility and your goodness will make 
 you accept them without indignation or scorn, although 
 they are spoken by so unworthy a woman. He who is 
 really humble does not criticize the person who counsels, 
 but thinks only of the truth and of the honour of God. 
 Take courage, and do not be troubled about the effects of 
 an insolent reply from this rebel (Francesco di Vico) ; God 
 will overrule all, for he is the ruler and protector of the 
 Church and of your Holiness. Be always calm, in a holy 
 fear of God, always blameless in your words and in your 
 conduct ... I pray you, moreover, to provide for the ad- 
 justment of the affair of which Leon has spoken to you, 1 
 for the scandal is continually augmenting, on account of 
 
 1 Leon is supposed to have been a disciple of Catharine. There had 
 been some difference between the Pope and the ambassadors of Siena 
 concerning the restitution to the Sienese of the fortress of Talamone, 
 and other matters,induced in part by the roughness of Urban's temper.
 
 288 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 the treatment which the ambassador of Siena met with, 
 and other things which daily keep alive anger and irrita- 
 tion in the feeble hearts of men. You have no need of 
 such a spirit now; you need men who will be peaceable 
 and not combative. Even admitting that all was done 
 from a praiseworthy zeal, and that it can be justified, yet 
 there are people who act with such haste and anger that 
 their manner at least cannot be justified. I pray your 
 Holiness, then, to make allowance for human infirmity ; for 
 I warn you that if some remedy be not applied, the sore 
 will deepen. Recall to your mind the ruin caused through- 
 out the whole of Italy, through the delay in deposing 
 wicked governors who destroy the Church of God. I 
 know that you are not ignorant of this. Let your Holi- 
 ness see then what is right to be done. I humbly ask your 
 benediction." This is the last letter which she addressed 
 to the Pontiff. In a previous one she had pleaded again 
 and again, and at greater length, for the reformation for 
 which she continually laboured. " When we live for the 
 honour of God," she wrote, " without thinking of self, we 
 receive light, power, constancy, and a supernatural per- 
 severance, through which we never fail, but continue with 
 courage to do our duty. I have prayed, and I pray con- 
 tinually to the Eternal Father, to bestow this constancy 
 upon you, father, and upon all faithful Christians, for in our 
 present circumstances we have an extreme need for it. For 
 myself, I will never cease to work, so long as God gives 
 me the grace. I wish to give my life for you and the 
 Church, in tears and watchings, and in humble, persever- 
 ing prayer. God will enable me to do it, for of myself I 
 can do nothing; and I know that humble, persevering,
 
 Last Letters to Friends. 289 
 
 and believing prayer, provided its demands are just, is 
 never refused." 
 
 The following extracts from the last letters which 
 Catharine wrote to Father Raymond, as well as the last to 
 Stephen Maconi, who, on account of personal and family 
 affairs had remained in Siena, are more especially interest- 
 ing, because, in addition to the Christian fervour which 
 pervades them, and the useful counsels which they contain 
 in common with her other letters, they manifest the yearn- 
 ing tenderness of the mother about to leave her beloved 
 family, and the solicitude of the faithful friend, mindful 
 not only of the spiritual needs, but of all the smaller and 
 temporal concerns of those with whom she has walked, 
 life's pilgrimage, and to whom she believes she is shortly to 
 speak her last adieu. For the nearer the soul approaches, 
 to the divine and eternal source of love, the more fully do 
 the obligations of sacred human love reveal themselves, 
 and the more keen is the self-reproach for the neglect even 
 of the smallest of these. Those who have loved the most, 
 and with the greatest fidelity, have ever been the first to 
 confess in the moment of death, " I have not loved enough I 
 in many things I have been unfaithful to love." 
 
 "My dear Father in Jesus Christ, Catharine, the 
 servant of his servants, writes to you in the desire of 
 seeing you a pillar of the Church, and ever led forward 
 on the right path, by the light which reveals to us the 
 truth. It seems to me, according to what I understand 
 from your letter, that you have been subject to many in- 
 ternal conflicts by the snares of the evil one and through your 
 own weakness. It has seemed to you that the burden laid 
 upon you was beyond your strength, and you have thought 
 
 U
 
 290 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 that I have judged you by too high a standard of my own. 
 You have thought also that my affection for you had 
 diminished ; but you are mistaken ; and by what you 
 have written you have proved rather that charity in me 
 is augmented, and in yourself has diminished. I love you 
 as I love myself ; and I have hoped that the goodness of 
 God would also make your affection perfect ; but it has 
 not been so, for you have been looking about to see 
 whether you could cast off from you the burden which op- 
 pressed you, and have fallen back into weakness and unfaith- 
 fulness. I have seen this very clearly ; and 1 wish that I 
 had been the only one who remarked it. In pointing it 
 out to you, have I not proved to you that my affection 
 has increased instead of diminishing ? But how is it that 
 you have entertained the very least of these fears 1 
 How is it that you can ever have believed that I desire 
 any other thing than the life of your soul ? Where is the 
 faith and the confidence which you ought always to 
 possess ? What has become of that assurance which you 
 once had that all which happens to us is allowed and decided 
 by God, not only in great events, but in the smallest cir- 
 cumstances ? If you had remained faithful, father, you 
 would not now have been vacillating and fearful before 
 God and towards me, but, as an obedient and zealous 
 son, you would have gone forward ! If you had not 
 been able to walk upright, 3^011 would have crept upon 
 your hands and knees ! If you had not been able to travel 
 as a papal messenger, you would have travelled as a 
 pilgrim ! If you had had no money, you would have begged ! 
 Such boldness and obedience would have advanced our 
 cause before God and in the hearts of man more than all
 
 Last Letters to Friends. 291 
 
 worldly prudence and all human precaution. It is through 
 my own shortcomings that I now fail to see this perfec- 
 tion in you. I know very well, however, that, although 
 you have shown weakness, you are always possessed with 
 a direct and holy desire to fulfil the will of God. I had, 
 however, greatly wished that you had not stopped on your 
 way, but that you had pursued your enemy to the death. 
 For myself, I was at that time occupied night and day 
 with the things of God, and with many affairs which have 
 not succeeded on account of the want of zeal in those who 
 undertook them, and, above all, through my own sins and 
 imperfections. Alas ! we see around us offences increasing 
 and inundating us ! In the kingdom of Naples we see the 
 last state of things to be worse than the first ! I shall 
 have much to tell you on all these matters, unless, indeed, 
 before I see you again I shall have received the favour of 
 leaving this life. Yes, yes ! I do assure you that I would 
 have given all the world for you to have continued on your 
 route ! I will not, however, vex myself about it, because 
 I am persuaded that nothing happens without some secret 
 purpose of God. My conscience is at rest, for I have 
 done all I could to further this embassy to the King 
 of France. May the Holy Spirit accomplish that which 
 we bad workers have failed to accomplish. 
 
 " As for the embassy to the King of Hungary, it ap- 
 peared to be very acceptable to the Sovereign Pontiff, 
 and he had decided that you and your companions should 
 be charged to undertake it. I do not know what has 
 caused him to change his mind. He now wishes that you 
 should remain where you are, and do all the good you 
 possibly can. I beseech you, put away all uneasiness. 
 
 u2
 
 292 CatJiarine of Siena. 
 
 "Devote yourself wholly to God, my father. Do not 
 reckon too much on spiritual consolations. Hope and pray 
 continually for these dead and dying, that the hand of 
 Eternal Justice may be held back by our continual prayer. 
 If you thus act, nothing will ever seem to you impossible, 
 nor will you calculate concerning the difficulties or the 
 results of what you undertake ; but you will see, by the 
 light of faith, that in Christ Jesus, and in him crucified, all 
 things are possible, and that God never lays upon us any 
 burden which is beyond our strength. I tell you, dearest 
 father, that, whether we will it or not, the times in which 
 we live invite us to die for the world. Let us willingly 
 give ourselves as a sacrifice. . . . You ask me to entreat of 
 the Divine Goodness that you may be filled with the ardour 
 of St. Vincent, of St. Lawrence, of the great St. Paul, and 
 of the beloved Disciple, and you tell me that you will then 
 do great things, which will cause me to rejoice. I thank 
 God for this ; for without this ardour you will do nothing, 
 either great things or little, and you will not be my joy and 
 crown. It is in thinking so much of these things that I 
 could wish that you were near me, in order that I could 
 have shown you better all I desire to say. In being faithful 
 you will do great things for God, and will bring to a happy 
 conclusion the business which he confides to your care ; or, 
 if it does not succeed perfectly, it will not be your fault. 
 
 " You write to me that the Schismatics are seeking 
 daily to arrest you : but you cannot doubt that God is 
 strong enough to remove from them the power of ac- 
 complishing this desire. You ought also to consider, 
 father, that you are not yet worthy of the great happi- 
 ness of martyrdom, and you should consequently be
 
 Letters to Raymond. 293 
 
 without fear. Take care that that does not happen to you 
 which happened to the Abbot of St. Antimius. Through 
 fear, and under the excuse of not tempting providence, he 
 fled from Siena to Rome, believing he should thus escape 
 imprisonment and be safe ; but he was put in prison here, 
 and he has suffered that which you know. Thus are 
 pusillanimous hearts deceived. Be courageous, then, and 
 face death. I ask your blessing." 
 
 " My dear father in Christ, I write to you again, in the 
 desire that no adversity and no persecution may turn you 
 aside. Think of those glorious workers who have sacri- 
 ficed their lives, and have watered the soil of the Church 
 with their blood. Take example from them, that I may 
 no more see you timid, and fearing your own shadow, but 
 a valiant soldier of the Lord. Oh, my father, I wish that 
 I could reveal to you the great mysteries of God which 
 I have seen ! I will speak of them as briefly as I can, 
 and in so far as human language will permit. I also will 
 tell you what I wish you to do after my death. But do 
 not be sorrowful on account of what I say, for I know 
 not whether the Divine Goodness will recall me now, or 
 leave me longer on earth. My father, God has shown 
 me great things, which it is impossible for me to describe." 
 [She then speaks of the Sunday of Sexagesima, on which 
 she met with an accident which occasioned much suffering 
 to the last hour of her life.] " I do not understand how I 
 could ever get over such an accident. The pain in my 
 heart was so great that my garment was torn by it. I fell, 
 and remained in the chapel in great agony. On Monday 
 evening I felt pressed in spirit to write to the Sovereign 
 Pontiff and to three cardinals. My friends supported me,
 
 294 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 and I went to my cell ; but when I had finished the letter 
 to the Pontiff it became impossible for me to write another 
 word, so great was the agony which I suffered. A little 
 while afterwards a terrible spiritual conflict was permitted 
 an attack of the enemy of souls which almost overcame 
 me. It seemed as if he were furious against me, as if he 
 conceived that it had been I, who am but a frail vessel of 
 clay, who had torn from his grasp that of which he has 
 for &o long a time retained possession in the holy Church. 
 The terror of soul which was then added to my bodily 
 sufferings was such that I felt impelled to fly from my cell, 
 which I did, and went to the chapel, as if my cell had been 
 the cause of my sufferings." [She then tells Raymond 
 how she fell again and again, fainting, and at last, unable 
 to speak or to move, she lay as if dead, but with her spiri- 
 tual vision clear, and her powers of mind in full activity.] 
 "My memory recalled all the circumstances and needs of 
 the Church and of all Christian people. I was admitted 
 to the presence of God. I cried to him in his presence, 
 and with great confidence, taking the kingdom of heaven 
 by violence, and offering up to him as my plea the blood 
 of the Lamb and all the sufferings which he endured. It 
 was permitted to me to plead with such urgency that I 
 could no longer doubt that he granted my request. I 
 then prayed for you all, beseeching him to accomplish in 
 you his will and my own ardent desires. Last, I prayed 
 for myself, that he would save me from eternal death. 
 Thus I remained so long a time that our community 
 wept for me as if I were dead. The spiritual terror was 
 gone, and the Lord Jesus drew near to me, promising to 
 receive my prayers and grant me my desires, and accept-
 
 She contends against weakness. 295 
 
 ing the offering which I had made of my poor life as a 
 sacrifice to his Church. Then he who is the Truth showed 
 me things which it is not possible to express in words. I 
 began to recover." [But again and again the spiritual 
 terror and conflict returned, such as it passes the imagina- 
 tion to conceive of, and she vainly attempts to speak of it.] 
 " Two days and two nights passed in these fierce tempests, 
 but the aim and desire of my soul changed not ; it re- 
 mained united 1 to the object of its affection, while my body 
 seemed reduced to nothing I can take no nourish- 
 ment, not even a drop of water ; my life holds by a thread ; 
 and now I know not what the Divine Goodness wills to do 
 with me. He will fix a term to my miseries and anguish, 
 and cause them to cease, or he will, through ordinary means, 
 restore health to my body. I pray him only to accomplish 
 his will in me, and not to leave you orphans you and the 
 others but to direct you ever in the way of the truth. I 
 am persuaded he will do so. 
 
 " I was able to set myself again to toil for the tempest- 
 tossed vessel of the Church. I went to St. Peter's. I did 
 not wish to leave the place, night or day, until I saw 
 the people who were in revolt, again at peace with the 
 Sovereign Pontiff." l After some general counsels, she 
 adds : " I would ask of you also to gather together the 
 books and the other writings of mine which you will find 
 you and Friar Bartholomew, Friar Thomas Caffarini and 
 the Master, (Giovanni Tantucci) and to do with them 
 
 1 This refers to the occasion when the populace, who had entered 
 the Vatican, retired in awe before Urban. The sudden calm, and 
 suppression of the revolt were attributed by all to the efforts and 
 prayers of Catharine.
 
 296 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 whatever seems to you most useful and for the honour of 
 God. I confide to you also this my poor family, that you 
 may be to them, as much as you can, a pastor and father. 
 Hold them together in the bonds of mutual charity, that 
 
 they be not scattered as sheep having no shepherd 
 
 Pardon me if I have ever written anything to give you pain. 
 I never wish to give you pain, but I wish to have fulfilled 
 my duty, for I know not what God wills to do with me. 
 Do not be grieved because we are separated ; your presence 
 would certainly have been a great consolation to me, but I 
 have a still greater consolation, a still higher joy that of 
 seeing the good you are doing in the Church ; and I pray 
 you to work ever with a yet greater zeal, and never to yield 
 before any persecutions. May you ever rest in the blessing 
 of Christ Jesus. CATHARINE. Rome, March, 1380." 
 
 " To Stephen di Corrado Maconi. Rome, January, 1380, 
 My very dear son in Christ Jesus, I, Catharine, write 
 to thee in the desire of seeing thee a mirror of all virtue, 
 by the example of thy life, the teaching of thy words, and 
 thy humble and continual prayers ; that so thou mayest 
 become an instrument in the hands of God to bring souls 
 to Christ. Oh, how great is the strength we derive from 
 prayer offered up in solitude and in self-knowledge ! . . . . 
 Yesterday I received one of your letters, to which I reply 
 in a few words. As for the favours I had promised you, I 
 reply that you must never expect any more services from 
 me unless you come yourself to claim them. I do not say 
 that I shall ever refuse to help you in all your spiritual 
 wants ; for never have I more earnestly wished than now 
 to instruct you in the things which God puts into my 
 heart; and perhaps you never needed them more than
 
 Last Letter io Stephen. 297 
 
 now. You say that you are dissatisfied with your state of 
 mind. When you are thoroughly so, I perceive that you 
 will leave it for a better state. I hope that, as you have 
 begun to remove the veil from your eyes, you will soon be 
 able to take it away entirely. In reply to what you tell 
 me of Master Matthew, I am exceedingly grieved for the 
 trouble and annoyance which he has had on account of 
 my negligence and ignorance. (Ask him to send me again 
 a note of what it is which he requires, for I had indeed 
 forgotten it.) I will do all I possibly can to remove the 
 effect of m} r carelessness. Tell him that his trouble is still 
 more my own. If this letter, &c. Have patience with me, 
 &c. . . . l I have received a letter from the Abbot, who 
 speaks of some new members of his community, among 
 whom he hopes to reckon you. It is a great joy to me 
 to see that you wish to advance in the religious life, but 
 I am surprised that you should have made any engage- 
 ment of this kind without letting us know. There is 
 some mystery about it. I pray God that he will do with 
 you what is most for his honour and for the good of your 
 soul. I have much to say to you, but I cannot and will 
 not write more. Neri is at Naples, where he has been 
 well received by the Abbot Lisolo. He would have 
 written to you, but he has been sick and nigh to death. 
 Encourage all my children, and, above all, Peter. Recall 
 me to him ; and, in doing so, tell him from me that God 
 loves few words and many good deeds. I do not, however, 
 
 i It is evident that this letter was written in great suffering. 
 There are breaks and unfinished sentences. The writer begs 
 Stephen to have patience with her, and apologizes for having lost 
 or forgotten, in her extreme failure of health, some letter written 
 to her.
 
 298 CatJiarine of Siena. 
 
 impose silence upon him, and I do not forbid him to speak 
 or to write to me, if it will be a consolation to him to do so. 
 Indeed, I have sometimes been surprised that he has not 
 written. Lisa and all our family commend themselves to 
 you. There are here enclosed other letters, sealed. Give 
 them in this state to Mistress Catharine di Giovanni ; she 
 will distribute them. Dwell ever in the remembrance of 
 the Holy Jesus." 
 
 Most of Catharine's published prayers bear the date of 
 the years 1379-80, and were written at Rome. They are 
 full of affection and of longings for the salvation of all. In 
 general she begins with the larger requests, for blessing on 
 all mankind ; next she prays for the Church ; and finally 
 concludes with a petition for her dear and intimate friends : 
 " Eternal Love, I commend to thee, with all the strength 
 of my desires, those whom thou hast given me to love. 
 Thou didst confide them to me in order that I might con- 
 tinually awaken and revive them ; and yet I have slept. 
 Do thou thj'self revive them, gracious Father and God, so 
 that their eyes may be ever fixed on thee. I have sinned, 
 Saviour, I have sinned. Have pity on me. Lord, make 
 haste to help me. Amen." 
 
 " Ineffable Love, how royally do those advance who 
 have no will except thy will. Those also learn with ease 
 thy doctrine. 0, Eternal Saviour, what is thy doctrine, 
 and by what way shall we approach the Father ? I know 
 of no other way save that which thou hast traced with thy 
 precious blood, and which thou revealest by the light of 
 thy ardent love. This day, then, I implore thy mercy, 
 that I may have the grace to follow thy teaching with sim- 
 plicity of heart. . . . (She speaks, in her prayer, of the
 
 Prayers at Rome. 299 
 
 many and varied means by which the Father draws 
 erring souls to himself.) " Thy mercy, Lord, has shown 
 to me me most unworthy and sinful that we must 
 not judge our reasonable fellow-creatures, whom thou 
 leadest by ways so many and so different. Jesus crucified 
 is the one way ; yet hast thou many means by which 
 thou guidest sinners into this way. I give thanks to thee 
 for this." 
 
 " Lord God, I offer my life to thee, now and for ever. 
 Use it for thy glory. I supplicate thee, Christ, by the 
 merits of thy Passion, to purify thy Church from all its vile- 
 ness, and to cut away the dead branches from the living 
 vine. Delay not, my Lord, I beseech thee. I know that 
 thou canst, by thy power, slowly and gradually correct the 
 deformed branches and re-plant thy vine ; yet make haste, 
 Lord ; make no long tarrying, my God. Since thou 
 hast power to create all things out of nothing, it is easy for 
 thee to make use of that which already exists, in extirpat- 
 ing evil. I commend to thee my children, those whom 
 thou hast committed to my affection and particular care. 
 that they may be enlightened by thy bright rays, that they 
 may be purified from their sins and become active labourers 
 in the field which thou hast assigned to them. Rebuke and 
 visit upon me, Lord, their errors and their weakness, for 
 it is I who am answerable for them. I have sinned, Lord ; 
 have mercy on me." 
 
 The following is the last prayer which she recorded in 
 writing. Rome, February, 1380: 
 
 " Eternal God and Master, who didst form the vessel of 
 the body out of the dust of the earth ; who didst create the 
 body so humble a thing, and then fill it with so great a
 
 300 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 treasure the soul, made in thine own image, Eternal. 
 Thou, Lord, art the Great Master who canst create and re- 
 create, who canst break and bring to nought this fragile vase 
 as thou wilt. Father, I offer again to thee myself my 
 
 life for thy Church I commend to thee thy Church. 
 
 Eternal God, I commend to thee also my beloved children, 
 and if it be thy merciful will to take me away from earth, I 
 pray thee leave them not orphaned and comfortless ; but 
 visit them by thy grace, and make them to live in the per- 
 fect light. Unite them to each other in the bonds of love. 
 I beseech thee, Lord, that none of them may be lost ; that I 
 may not be robbed of any one of them. Forgive my sins, 
 my ignorance, and my negligence towards them, inasmuch 
 as I have not done all that I could and ought to have done 
 for them. I have sinned, Saviour ; have pity on me. I 
 offer to thee, and cast upon thee my loved ones, for they are 
 my own soul. If it be thy will, for their sakes, to let me re- 
 main in the body, Physician Supreme, then heal this body ; 
 repair it ; for it is all broken to pieces. Grant us, Eternal 
 Father, O grant us thy heavenly benediction. Amen." 
 
 It is from the young Secretary, Barduccio, that we have 
 the account of Catharine's last days. The following letter 
 to his sister, containing that account, is given in a con- 
 densed form as to certain portions of it, and in the precise 
 words used by him in those parts of the narrative with 
 which we are most concerned. 
 
 Letter of Sgr. Barduccio di Canigiani to his sister, Maria 
 Petriboni, at the Convent of San Pietro di Monticelli, near 
 
 Florence: In the name of Jesus Christ I received 
 
 your letter, and communicated its contents to my afflicted 
 friends. They thank you from the depths of their hearts.
 
 Barduccio's record of her last Days. 301 
 
 You desire to become acquainted with the details of the last 
 days of blessed Catharine. I can but very inadequately 
 perform the duty you require of me. I will, however, 
 relate what my eyes witnessed, and what my poor soul was 
 able to comprehend. From the first days of January, 1 380, 
 a great change was perceived in her. She conceived a 
 kind of horror of all nourishment ; she could not even drink 
 a single drop of water to quench her burning thirst, though 
 her throat was continually so parched that she felt as if she 
 was breathing fire. Her life appeared to hang by a thread. 
 Nevertheless she seemed to be sustained by a secret, 
 ineffable joy, and continued to be as active and gay as 
 usual until about the 6th of March. On Sexagesima 
 Sunday, at the hour of vespers, she met with an accident 
 so grave that from that moment she never recovered her 
 wonted health, nor was ever free from pain." [The nature 
 of the accident referred to here, and in Catharine's letter 
 to Raymond, can only be guessed. There are allusions to 
 her having fallen upon the steps of St. Peter's, when enter- 
 ing the church to pray. It is not improbable that, after a 
 day of unusual fatigue, she may have fainted at the portal, 
 or, striking her foot on some obstacle, her weakness may 
 have caused her to fall upon the hard pavement, thus 
 giving some wrench to the muscles and nerves, which 
 would account in part for the terrible sufferings of the 
 weeks which followed.] "She was carried home," con- 
 tinues Barduccio. "She suffered much that night and 
 the following Monday, when towards evening she revived 
 a little. That night, while dictating a letter to me, she 
 had so violent a crisis that we mourned her as dead. She 
 fainted, and remained a long time without any signs of
 
 302 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 life. Yet afterwards she arose, and appeared unchanged 
 and cheerful as ever. From that Sunday, however, new and 
 extraordinary bodily sufferings afflicted her. During Lent, 
 every morning after communion, her companions were 
 obliged to raise her from the floor, and carry her to bed as 
 if she were dead. Yet in the evening of each day she would 
 revive, and arise and walk to St. Peter's, a mile distant ; 
 and having remained for vespers, she would return quite 
 exhausted. Thus she continued until the third Sunday in 
 Lent. She then bowed beneath the weight of sufferings 
 which overwhelmed her, and the anguish which rent her 
 soul in view of the sins which were daily committed against 
 God, and of the perils and evils of the Church. She was 
 consumed by pain, physical and mental. In the midst of 
 this martyrdom, she said, ' These pains are physical, but they 
 are not natural. God allows the evil one to torment me thus.' 
 We believed that what she thus said was indeed the fact, 
 for her sufferings were inconceivable. It is not possible to 
 give you any idea of her patience. I will merely say that 
 at each renewal of the torture she joyfully raised her eyes 
 and hands to God, saying, ' Thanks be to thee, ever- 
 living Spoiise of my soul, who dost continually crown 
 thy poor handmaid with these new proofs of thy favour.' " 
 Here a portion of the deposition already cited of Friar 
 Bartholomew of Siena may with advantage be inserted. 
 This Bartholomew was the friend of her youth, who said, 
 " When I first made her acquaintance she was young, and 
 always wore a smiling countenance; I was also young, 
 but I never experienced any trouble in her society." 
 "When she was attacked by her last illness," he writes, 
 "I was prior of a convent of Siena. The Provincial of
 
 Last Days. 303 
 
 my Order sent me on business to Kome. On my arrival 
 there I hastened to her residence, being utterly ignorant of 
 her state. I found her extended on planks, surrounded on 
 every side by other planks, so that she seemed to be in a 
 coffin. She was so emaciated that her bones could be easily 
 counted. She appeared withered, and her face worn and 
 sunk, and it no longer presented the same beauty as for- 
 merly. The sight broke my heart, and I asked her, amidst 
 rny tears, ' Mother, how is it with you 1 ' When she recog- 
 nized me, she was anxious to testify her joy, but she could 
 not speak. I placed my ear close to her mouth, to be able 
 to hear her reply ; she said, ' All is well, thanks to our 
 beloved Saviour.' I then told her of the motive of my 
 journey, and said to her, ' To-morrow will be the Passover 
 of our Lord, and I should like to celebrate it here, so as to 
 give the Eucharist to you and your spiritual children.' She 
 replied, 'Oh, would that our dear Saviour would permit me 
 to partake of it ! ' I left her, and on the following day I 
 returned to fulfil my promise. No one hoped to see her 
 able to go to Communion, for she had been for some days 
 incapable of making any movement. As we were preparingj 
 however, she arose suddenly, to the great joy of all, and 
 advanced towards the altar, where she remained till the con- 
 clusion. She was then carried back by the sisters to her 
 bed, where she lay motionless as before. I was, however, 
 permitted daily to converse with her during the few days I 
 remained in Rome. She prayed with unabated ardour for 
 the reformation and peace of the Church. 'Be assured,' 
 she said, 'if I die' (and this she repeated to many others 
 around her), ' the cause of my death is the zeal which 
 burns and consumes me for the Church. I suffer gladly,
 
 304 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 and am ready to die for her, if need be.' The business 
 which brought me to Rome was concluded, but I con- 
 stantly resisted when pressed to return to Siena. I told 
 this to Catharine, and she said I must go back. ' How 
 can I go, and leave you in this extremity ? ' I asked ; ' if 
 I were far away, and were told of your condition, I would 
 leave all and make haste to come to you. No, I cannot 
 go without seeing you somewhat recovered, or at least 
 without having some better hope of your recovery.' 
 Catharine said, ' My son, you know very well what a con- 
 solation it is to me to see the faces of those whom God 
 has given me, and whom I love in the truth. It would 
 be a great happiness to me if God would grant me Father 
 Raymond's presence as well as yours ; but it is not his 
 intention to grant me this ; and I desire not my will, but 
 his. You must go. You know that at Cologne there 
 will soon be a Chapter of your Order for the election of 
 a General Master. Father Raymond will be nominated ; 
 I wish you to be there with him, and to be obedient and 
 useful to him. I command you this, as far as I have 
 power.' I assured her that I would do whatever she com- 
 manded, but added, 'If it is God's will that I go, ask him to 
 give you better health before my departure.' She promised 
 me to do so, and when I returned on the following day,, I 
 found her so calm and cheerful, that I drew near to her, full 
 of hope. She, who had hitherto- remained so immovable, 
 now stretched her arms towards me and embraced me so 
 affectionately that I could not help shedding tears of joy. 
 She then exhorted me to depart in peace. I left Rome. 
 A short time after I had returned to Siena, a letter in- 
 formed me that Catharine had quitted this life."
 
 Last Days. 305 
 
 Barduccio thus proceeds : " She continued to be thus con- 
 sumed by suffering until the Sunday before Ascension Day. 
 Her body was then reduced to the state in which painters 
 represent death ; her limbs seemed to be those of a mere 
 skeleton covered with a transparent skin. Her strength was 
 so annihilated that she could not turn herself from one side 
 to the other. Her countenance however was beaming with 
 joy and angelic devotion. On Saturday night, about two 
 hours before dawn, she became so much worse that we 
 believed she was on the verge of her last moments. She 
 then called all her family and friends around her. . . She 
 was reclining on the shoulder of Alessia ; she tried to rise, 
 and with a little help remained in a sitting posture, though 
 still supported by Alessia. Someone had placed before her 
 a little table on which were some relics of saints, but she 
 did not look at them. Her gaze was fixed upon the Cross. 
 Then she accused herself, before him who died there, of all 
 her sins. ' Yes, I have sinned, Eternal, I have miserably 
 offended thee by my negligence and ignorance and ingrati- 
 tude. Thou didst command me to seek thee in all things, 
 and to labour continually for thy honour and the good of 
 man ; but I have avoided fatigue and labour. . . I have 
 sought my own consolation . . . Alas ! thou didst charge 
 me with the care of souls, thou didst give me children whom 
 I was bound to love in a special manner, and lead them 
 to thee in the way of life. I have been weak towards 
 them. I have failed in solicitude for their interests ; I have 
 not succoured them as I ought by continual prayer or by 
 giving them a holy example and wise counsels. Ah me ! 
 with how little respect have I received all thy benefits, 
 and the charge thou didst commit to me ; I did not gather 
 
 x
 
 306 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 them with that desire and love which them didst feel in 
 sending them to me. Thou, Lord, didst, in thine infinite 
 goodness, choose me in my tender infancy for thy spouse ; 
 but I have not been faithful enough to thee ; my memory 
 has not always been filled with thee, and with thy countless 
 benefits ; my understanding has not been solely directed to 
 comprehend thee, and my will has not been bent towards 
 loving thee with all my soul and strength.' 
 
 "After this, she asked pardon of us all. 'My beloved,' 
 she said, 'I have indeed hungered and thirsted for your 
 salvation. I dare not say the contrary. Nevertheless, I 
 may have been wanting to you in many things ; not only 
 have I not set before you the highest example, but in regard 
 to all your temporal wants, I have not been so faithful and 
 attentive as I ought to have been. I therefore implore of 
 you all, in general, pardon and indulgence, and I ask this 
 also of each one of you in particular. I entreat you most 
 humbly and earnestly to pursue to the end the path of virtue, 
 that you may be, as I have told you before, my joy and my 
 crown.' The grief which inundated my soul, (continues 
 Barduccio), as she spoke these words, hindered me from 
 hearing all she said ; her voice, moreover, was feeble, and 
 her sufferings so keen that she pronounced her words with 
 great pain and difficulty. She then addressed a few words 
 to Lucio, then to another, and to myself." 
 
 St. Antoninus adds to this : " Catharine, finding her end 
 approaching, pronounced a discourse to her spiritual sons 
 and daughters, exhorting them to brotherly love, and 
 giving them also certain rules for advancing in the way 
 of the Lord. And, first (she told them), that anyone who 
 desired to be truly the servant of God, and wished really
 
 Last Days. 307 
 
 to possess him, must strip his heart of all selfish love of 
 human creatures, and with a simple and entire heart must 
 approach God. Secondly, that no soul can arrive at such a 
 state without the medium of prayer, founded on humility ; 
 that no one should have any confidence in his own works, 
 but acknowledging himself to be nothing, should commit 
 himself entirely to the keeping and leading of God. She 
 asserted that through prayer all virtues progress and are 
 invigorated, whilst without it they are weakened. Thirdly, 
 that in order to attain to purity of conscience, it is necessary 
 to abstain from all rash judgments and evil speaking against 
 our neighbours ; that we must neither condemn nor despise 
 any creature, even if it be the case of one whom we know 
 to be guilty and vile, but to bear with him, and pray for 
 him, because there is no one, however sinful, who may not 
 amend his life. Fourthly, that we must exercise a perfect 
 trust in the providence of God, knowing that all things that 
 happen to us, through his divine providence, spring, not 
 from his ill will to his creatures, but from his infinite love 
 for them." 
 
 Catharine had just ceased speaking, when Stephen 
 entered the room. He had been detained at Siena. One 
 evening, he narrates, as he was praying in the Oratory of 
 the Hospice della Scala, he heard a voice which said, 
 "Make haste, and go to Eome. She, to whom you owe 
 your soul, is dying." He dared not resist the impression 
 thus made on him, and in all haste set out for Rome. 
 When Catharine saw him, she said, " My Stephen, I thank 
 God that you have come. His mercy will guide you also 
 in the way of salvation." She then indicated to him her 
 wish that he should, after her death, enter the Order of 
 
 x2
 
 308 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 the Carthusians. She gave several other particular instruc- 
 tions to those around her. The friars who were present she 
 recommended to place themselves under the direction of 
 Father Raymond, as being a prudent and single-hearted man. 
 " Apply to him," she said, " in your difficulties, and tell him, 
 from me, never to be remiss, and never to fear, whatever 
 may befall him." She appointed Alessia to be her successor 
 over the household of the Mantellatas, who were so endeared 
 to her by companionship in all her past labours. Lastly 
 she turned to her beloved mother, who, bent with age and 
 grief, stood motionless on one side by the pillow of her 
 child, while Alessia on the other side supported her droop- 
 ing head. Catharine asked Lapa to stoop down and kiss 
 her, entreating her to give her her blessing. " Pardon my 
 faults towards yourself, my best beloved," she said, "and 
 give me your blessing." Barduccio continues, " I would 
 that you had seen with what respect and humility she 
 repeatedly asked the benediction of her aged mother, while 
 that mother in return commended herself to the prayers of 
 her daughter, and besought her to obtain for her the grace 
 not to offend God by the bitterness of her grief. Catharine 
 again prayed aloud for us all, and so tender and humble were 
 her words, that we thought our hearts would cleave asunder." 
 But this was not yet the end. The extraordinary 
 vitality she possessed was manifested by the sudden and 
 almost incredible exertions she made from time to time, 
 and almost to the last ; and it now seemed to resist all 
 the torture, and natural exhaustion of her worn-out frame. 
 She lingered yet a few days. Again, in the early morn- 
 ing of a day in the last week of April, her little remain- 
 ing strength seemed suddenly and altogether to forsake
 
 Last Conflict. 309 
 
 her. She lay perfectly motionless, giving no perceptible 
 sign of life, and it was believed for a time that her spirit 
 had fled at last. " It was, therefore, deemed expedient," 
 says Barduccio, " to give her extreme unction, and the 
 Abbot of St. Antimius hastened to administer it, as she 
 seemed already bereft of all consciousness. After the ap- 
 plication of this sacrament, a change came over her, and it 
 now seemed, by the expression of her countenance and the 
 movements of her arms, that she was sustaining a terrible 
 assault from Satan."- Several witnesses record this last sore 
 conflict. When Catharine woke up from this temporary 
 trance, a fever flush was on her face, and her mind was 
 wandering. The poor brain was haunted with dark images, 
 and the humble soul was plunged in deep darkness. She 
 was to drink of that mysterious cup of anguish which is 
 sometimes held to the lips of God's most faithful servants 
 at the very moment when they are about to enter the 
 valley of the shadow of death ; a cup so bitter that many a 
 trembling heart, looking forward to that hour, and know- 
 ing the cruelty of the enemy of souls, has cried out : " If it 
 be possible, let it pass from me." Those around her looked 
 on in silent awe, wholly unable to bring her any help or 
 comfort ; for she heard nothing that was spoken by 
 human lips. She seemed to be listening with terror to 
 some dark and horrible accusation. The nature and 
 agony of that conflict, which lasted several hours, could 
 only be guessed by her words and gestures. Sometimes 
 she maintained silence, as if intently listening ; some- 
 times she replied, but with a wild and wandering and 
 troubled utterance. Sometimes, by a great effort, she 
 raised herself a little, and seemed to answer back with
 
 310 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 scorn what she had heard. She gesticulated, as if pleading 
 in agony her own cause ; sometimes her look became de- 
 fiant ; then again she would smile, and again seemed to be 
 filled with indignation. That countenance which her com- 
 panions had been used to see lit up with loving smiles, and 
 full of serenity and holy joy, was now disfigured with the 
 terror and anguish of that conflict which tests to the utmost 
 the spiritual fibre of the human being even of the holiest 
 when summoned to wrestle in the final death-grip with 
 the spirit of evil, " the accuser of the brethren." Then, 
 after maintaining a longer silence, she smiled and said dis- 
 tinctly, " No, never ! never for vain-glory, but for the 
 honour and glory of God." One of the accusations heard 
 by her soul in that conflict seems to have been that she 
 had sought her own glory and had loved the praise of men. 
 " t Many persons," wrote Eaymond, on receiving this ac- 
 count, "believed that she had courted praise, or at least 
 enjoyed it, and for this reason took a pleasure in appearing 
 in public. Some said, ' She ought to remain in her house, 
 if she desires to serve God.' And this was her response, 
 when she was dying, to those reproaches, the echoes of which 
 tormented her fevered brain when thus laid low : ' No, 
 never for vain-glory, but for the honour and glory of God.' " 
 Barduccio continues : " Catharine then began to repeat 
 the words, ' Peccavi, Domine, miserere mei ' (Lord, I 
 have sinned ; have mercy on me). She repeated them 
 fifty or sixty times, raising her wasted right hand, which 
 each time dropped suddenly again through weakness. 
 Looking around her, she would say also, ' Saints of God, 
 have pity on me ! ' After a time, as we were watching 
 her, the expression of her countenance suddenly changed
 
 Cansummatum est. 311 
 
 and became radiant like that of a seraph. Her eyes, which 
 had been obscured with tears, were now lighted up with 
 an inexpressible joy. She seemed to come forth, trans- 
 figured, from a profound abyss of darkness ; and that sight 
 lightened the heavy burden of grief which had weighed 
 upon us. She then again offered up prayer for those 
 whom God had given her to love in a special manner, 
 making use of the words of our Lord, when he commended 
 his disciples to his Father : ' I pray for them whom thou 
 hast given me ; for they are thine. And now I am no 
 more in the world ; but these are in the world, and I come 
 to thee. Holy, father, keep through thine own name those 
 whom thou hast given me, that they may be one. I pray 
 not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but 
 that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. Sanctify 
 them through thy truth ; thy word is truth.' Finally, she 
 blessed us all, and hailed that supreme moment of life which 
 she had so much desired, pronouncing these words : " Yes, 
 Lord, thou callest me, and I go to thee ; I go not on account 
 of my merits, but solely on account of thy mercies, and that 
 mercy I implore in the name, Jesus, of thy precious 
 blood.' She breathed forth several times the words, ' 
 precious Saviour, O precious blood ! ' She then said, 
 ' Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,' and with a 
 countenance radiant as an angel's, she bowed her head and 
 died." 
 
 Catharine died at six o'clock on the evening of Sunday, 
 the 29th of April, 1380, at the age of thirty-three years. 
 It was the festival of St. Peter Martyr, the courageous 
 Dominican, who, after a long apostolic career, fell under 
 the blows of assassins, and when dying wrote upon the
 
 312 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 ground with the blood that flowed from his wounds, the 
 first words of the Credo, " I believe in God." 
 
 A Roman lady of high rank, called Semia, had a vision, 
 it was said, on the night after Catharine's death. She 
 saw her ascending a golden staircase into heaven, and the 
 Son of Man approaching to greet her by name. She did 
 not know that Catharine was dead ; but, full of this vision, 
 she ran early the next morning to the house in the street 
 of Santa Chiara, and knocked at the door ; but no one 
 answered. " The neighbours informed her that Catharine 
 had been visiting the churches, and that there was no one 
 there ; for those within, who were mourning her, concealed 
 her death, being desirous that the rumour should not get 
 abroad too soon, as they would not be able tranquilly 
 to discuss what was best to be done. It was decided 
 that on the morrow the body of Catharine should be 
 carried to the church of the Preaching Friars, called the 
 church of the Minerva." Stephen says, evidently with 
 an affectionate pride mingling with his reverence for his 
 beloved mistress, " I carried her body with my own hands 
 to the church of the Minerva, where it was deposited in a 
 coffin or chest of cypress wood." As soon as the corpse of 
 Catherine had been borne to the church, the whole city of 
 Rome became aware of her death, and a multitude collected 
 from every side. " The popxilace moved forward like 
 turbulent waves, hoping to be allowed to touch her gar- 
 ments." Her disciples, fearing for the safety of the be- 
 loved body, placed it behind the grate of the chapel of 
 St. Dominic. She lay with her hands crossed on her 
 breast, and a smile of infinite peace on her face. She 
 was clothed in a new white robe and veil, and the dear
 
 Incidents after her Death. 313 
 
 old, worn Dominican cloak was wrapped around her. Her 
 followers by turns kept vigil night and day around her. 
 Semia,the Roman lady just mentioned, seeing the vast crowd, 
 asked its cause, and when she knew that Catharine was dead, 
 she forced her way, sobbing, to the place. She said to the 
 friends around, " How cniel of you to conceal from me the 
 death of my spiritual mother whom I loved so much ! Why 
 did you not summon me 1 " While they were making their 
 excuses she inquired at what time Catharine died. " About 
 the sixth hour," they replied, " she gave up her soul to her 
 Creator." " I saw her, I saw her!" cried Semia; and she 
 recounted the vision to the Mantellatas, who were shielding 
 the corpse by their presence. 
 
 So great a crowd pressed daily into the church during 
 the three days that the body remained there, that it was 
 necessary to place guards and sentinels around and in- 
 side the building. On the third day a celebrated Doctor 
 of Theology ascended the pulpit, intending to preach her 
 funeral sermon ; but it was impossible to obtain suffi- 
 cient calm to allow him to proceed. At last he pro- 
 nounced, as audibly as he could, the words, "This holy 
 one has no need of our preaching and eulogy ; she her- 
 self speaks, and her life is her eulogy;" and he came 
 down from the pulpit, not even having begun his dis- 
 course. Friar William of England left his retreat at Lec- 
 ceto to go to Siena when the news of Catharine's death 
 had reached that city, and preached a sermon to a great 
 multitude who held her name in honour. "It is with 
 hymns of joy," he said, " and not with tears, that we 
 should celebrate the death of Catharine." " Some days 
 after her death," says Bartholomew of Siena, in his
 
 314 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 deposition, " a man of exalted piety, named John of Pisa, 
 came very early in the morning and knocked at my door. 
 I opened it, and he said to me, ' Catharine of Siena is 
 coming.' ' How can she come ? ' I asked, ' for she is dead.' 
 1 You will see her,' he replied, and vanished so quickly that 
 I could not call him back. One Sunday after this, after 
 having recited the midnight office, I lay down to take a 
 little repose, when, towards daylight, I saw, in a cloudless 
 sky, a multitude of blessed spirits advancing in procession. 
 They were clothed in white, and they sang sacred hymns, 
 the Kyrie Eleison and Gloria, in Excelsis. In the centre of the 
 procession was Catharine. She was clad like the angels, 
 and she resembled the Saviour. In her hand she bore a 
 palm-branch, her head was inclined, and her eyes cast 
 down. I prayed that God would send me the comfort of 
 beholding her countenance. I was heard ; she raised her 
 head and looked at me with the ineffable smile which 
 always expressed the joy of her soul. The procession 
 then resumed its onward march, continuing the heavenly 
 chants." 
 
 The republic of Siena having expressed, by a deputa- 
 tion of its citizens to the Roman Pontiff, its jealousy of 
 the honour of the possession of the body of the saint, 
 and its desire to establish a monument to her in her 
 native city, the Pope ordained the " pious mutilation," 
 which cannot be contemplated without a feeling of pain. 
 The head of the poor saint was severed from the body, 
 and with great ceremony was presented in a coffer to the 
 ambassadors of the city of Siena. It was a year after 
 her death that the coveted relic was conveyed to her 
 native city.
 
 Honours paid to her Memory. 315 
 
 Two monks of the church of the Minerva carried the 
 treasure. The entrance into Siena resembled a popular 
 triumph. The Bishop had ordained that a solemn pro- 
 cession should leave the city and go forward a mile on the 
 road towards Rome, in order to meet those who bore the 
 relic. The streets of Catharine's native city, so far from 
 having the appearance of mourning, were decked as if for a 
 festival. It was the month of May, and the city gates were 
 adorned with arches of flowers ; flowers also were strewn 
 in the streets ; the whole population, joyous and in holiday 
 attire, stood waiting on the ramparts and the slopes leading 
 down from the city ; the houses were hung with scarves and 
 banners, and leafy garlands ; the bells of the churches rang 
 out as if for a holiday. The procession was headed by the 
 different guilds and associations of workmen. Then fol- 
 lowed the representatives of the different monastic orders, 
 singing psalms of praise ; after this came the clergy, carry- 
 ing tapers. The head of the procession, having encountered 
 the messengers bearing the relic on the road from Rome, 
 turned with them, and the long procession re-entered 
 the city. Close around the sacred remains walked the 
 relations and disciples of Catharine. First among the 
 former was seen the venerable Lapa, now in her eightieth 
 year. (Lapa died at the age of ninety.) She leaned upon 
 the arm of Alessia. As she passed, the people saluted 
 her sometimes with tears, sometimes with joyful words 
 of congratulation. " How happy art thou !" they said, "to 
 witness thus the recognition by the Republic of thy sainted 
 daughter." But Lapa wept. It was then that she repeated 
 her regret at having survived so many of her loved ones. 
 " It is only I," she said, " who cannot die. It seems as if
 
 316 Catliarine of Siena. 
 
 God had riveted my soul to my body." The magistrates 
 and gonfaloniers of the city followed the clergy in the pro- 
 cession, and, finally, the flower of the nobility of Tuscany 
 closed the rear of this cortege of honour. The procession 
 having reached the gates of the old church of St. Dominic, 
 so endeared to Catharine in her childhood and youth, 
 Stephen, Father Raymond, and the brothers and sisters of 
 St. Dominic who were waiting there, received the precious 
 relic and placed it in the church. The people continued 
 during the day to commemorate her by religious services 
 and social assemblies. 
 
 The custom has been maintained to the present day of 
 having an annual festival in the month of May on the 
 feast of St. Catharine, at which a banquet is prepared for 
 the poor and needy of the city and its neighbourhood. 
 It was at first a commemoration of a religious character, 
 concluded by an address given by an appointed speaker 
 upon the life and virtues of the saint ; but the custom 
 has degenerated into a mere feast, at which very little 
 real appreciation of the character of Catharine is observ- 
 able. Efforts have been made, however, within the last 
 twenty years in Italy to revive the memory of her in a 
 rational and useful manner, so that the facts of her life 
 and the excellence of her character may be made promi- 
 nent, in place of those childish traditions and superstitions 
 connected with her name which are now current. 
 
 We may follow briefly the history of a few of the friends 
 of Catharine of whom we know anything after her death. 
 
 Barduccio, whom she specially loved on account of the 
 singular purity of his character, was attacked a few weeks 
 after her death with disease of the lungs. It was evident
 
 Stephen in Old Age. 317 
 
 that he would never recover ; and Alessia and others coun- 
 selled him to leave Rome, as the climate was hurtful to 
 him. He went to Siena, where he died in a few months, 
 at the age of twenty-three. 
 
 Stephen entered the Order of the Carthusians, and be- 
 came prior of a large convent at Milan, and the active 
 visitor of other convents of his order. In his old age he 
 retired to Pontignano, at the foot of his beloved hills of 
 Siena. He transcribed the life of Catharine in Latin and 
 Italian. Several copies of these biographies were made. 
 One was sent by request to the King of Hungary, another 
 to the King of England ; others to various potentates. 
 
 One of his last acts was to write the appendix, already 
 quoted, to the record of Father Raymond, at the time when 
 the question arose of Catharine's canonization. He thus con- 
 cludes his testimony : "Here, then, is my testimony to the 
 life of Catharine of Siena. I have written it without re- 
 search, and in the simplicity of my heart, though oppressed 
 with physical sufferings and numerous occupations. You re- 
 quired of me to be truthful in all that I should advance, and 
 I affirm in sincerity and quietness of conscience that I have 
 added nothing to the truth. I know that a false tongue slays 
 the soul, and that God has no need of our exaggerations. I 
 know also that it is not permitted to do evil that good may 
 come. Be persuaded, therefore, that I have told the truth. 
 I attest it in the presence of the Omniscient, to whom be all 
 praise and glory for ever and ever. This declaration has 
 been written by two notaries in the presence of numerous 
 witnesses. We have appended to it the great seal of our 
 convent in order to satisfy your request." Stephen died in 
 1424. It is said of him, that when he was an aged man it
 
 318 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 was his constant delight, in his walks with his friars, to 
 speak of Catharine. " He recalled the smallest details of 
 her life ; and on one occasion, at the sudden remembrance 
 of some little thing illustrative of her loving kindness and 
 her sufferings, he burst into tears. It seemed as if his heart 
 would break; the brothers were obliged to support the old 
 man to a seat, in an open meadow, where a soft wind was 
 blowing. He here recovered his equanimity after a time." 1 
 
 The young nobleman, Neri di Landoccio, Catharine's 
 ambassador to Naples, did not return to Rome before her 
 death. He afterwards wrote out Catharine's book, and 
 collected her letters. He gave up all his wealth and pos- 
 sessions, and retired to a life of seclusion and study. 
 
 Alessia only survived her beloved friend and mistress a 
 year or two, leaving the guardianship of the mystic family 
 to Lisa, the sister of Catharine. 
 
 Certain French writers have attributed the scandalous 
 division in the Church to Catharine's influence. It was 
 she who persuaded Gregory XL to return to Rome, and 
 the Schism, they assert, was a consequence of that return. 
 It is easy, however, to see that the Schism was the 
 natural consequence of the long voluntary expatriation of 
 the Popes, and their residence at Avignon. These were, 
 as we have already seen, the causes to a great extent of 
 the political and social miseries of Italy in the fourteenth 
 century. The cardinals, almost all French, never ceased 
 after the election of Urban VI. to long for the return to 
 their native land, and resented the efforts of the newly 
 elected Italian Pope to reform the morals of the clergy. 
 
 1 Bollandus, p. 971.
 
 The End of the Schism. 319 
 
 Their last resource, as we have also seen, was the election 
 of a rival Pope, a Frenchman, and one who would restore 
 to them the delights of Avignon. The Schism lasted until 
 the Council of Constance in 1417. The restoration of the 
 unity of the Church was at that time achieved in a great 
 measure through the magnanimity of Gregoiy XII. and 
 the efforts of the Cardinal of Ragusa. Angelo Corrario 
 who was afterwards elected by the Roman Church as 
 Gregory XII., was Archbishop of Venice and Patriarch of 
 Constantinople at the time of the election of Urban VI. 
 He was an intimate friend and ally of Catharine. 1 She 
 wrote to him urgently on the great subject she had at 
 heart the reformation of the Church beseeching him to 
 elect as pastors only men of pure and honourable lives, 
 and to be fearless in rebuking vice. He held her in such 
 veneration that, on receiving the news of her death, he 
 sent a messenger to Rome to beg to be allowed the posses- 
 sion of some relic of her. This was granted to him, and 
 the relic was found after his death suspended round his 
 neck. It is not unnatural to suppose that her ardent 
 counsels to him concerning contempt for this world and 
 its honours, dwelt in his mind, and that his magnanimous 
 action at the time of the Council of Constance may to 
 some extent have been due to her living influence and the 
 memory of her advice. The Cardinal of Ragusa had also 
 been a friend of Catharine. He frequently sought her 
 counsels. He and others of her disciples never ceased to 
 labour for the destruction of the Schism. 
 
 Gregory XII., according to all historians a learned and 
 
 1 See Letter No. 341, edition Gigli.
 
 320 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 pious man, voluntarily resigned the Papacy in 1415, so that 
 there might again be only one Pope. An Italian Pope was 
 elected, and it was agreed by the French supporters of 
 the Papacy of Avignon, that that city should henceforth be 
 abandoned by the Papal Court, which should be perma- 
 nently re-established at Rome. Thus discord ceased, and 
 unity was restored to the Church. But a mere outward 
 unity, such as this, would have failed to satisfy Catharine, 
 had she lived to see it realized. The true " unity of the 
 spirit, in the bond of peace and righteousness of life," a 
 unity based upon a living and fruitful faith in Christ 
 crucified, is what she would have desired and laboured for 
 with the unceasing activity and fervour which characterized 
 her through life ; and more eagerly than ever, in the midst 
 of increasing corruptions in faith and practice, would she 
 have looked onward to that reformation of which she spoke 
 to her friends at Pisa, when she foretold : " After these 
 tribulations God will purify his Church by means unknown 
 to man ; he will revive the souls of his elect, and the refor- 
 mation of the Church will be so beautiful that the prospect 
 of it fills my soul with joy." 
 
 One word concerning some of the contemporaries of 
 Catharine who were not distinguished as those just men- 
 tioned for virtue or piety. John Hawkwood, the warlike 
 chieftain, whose fame as a soldier lives to this day, died 
 in Tuscany in 1394 of malaria fever, worn out by cam- 
 paigning and exposure. The Florentine republic, which 
 he had continued to serve, caused him to be buried with 
 honours in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, and 
 an equestrian statue, which they elevated to his honour, 
 may there be seen to this day.
 
 Treachery of Galeazzo Visconti. 321 
 
 Bernabos Visconti, the cruel and detested Duke of Milan, 
 and tyrant of Lombardy, continued successfully in his 
 course of rapacity and self-aggrandizement until the year 
 1385. He had thirty-three children, of whom all but five 
 were bastards. He continued to enrich himself by extor- 
 tions and intolerable taxes imposed on his subjects. " His 
 brutal pride, his transports of anger, his cruelties and his 
 profligacy, had brought upon him the universal contempt 
 and hatred of the Italian people." He found himself more 
 secure in his dominions, and more at peace outwardly 
 with neighbouring states in this year than he had ever 
 been in the course of his life. But he was shortly to 
 be called to judgment. John Galeazzo Visconti, his 
 nephew, was as ambitious and unscrupulous as himself. 
 He had determined to possess himself of his uncle's vast 
 estates and wealth. In order to carry out his plan, arti- 
 fice was necessary. Galeazzo suddenly appeared before 
 the world in a new character. Having been till now a 
 soldier and a worldling, he seemed to become a penitent 
 and a fanatic ; he frequented the shrines and churches all 
 day long; he wore a coarse penitential garment, and 
 walked with his eyes cast down. He was surrounded 
 with a numerous guard, all wearing the aspect of peni- 
 tents, his pretext for this being that he was afflicted with a 
 nervous fear of assassination. He affected great timidity 
 and a superstitious dread of death, and would start at 
 every sound. His uncle regarded all this with scorn, and 
 spoke of his nephew as a lunatic whose worldly career must 
 now be regarded as closed. Galeazzo then had it pro- 
 claimed that he intended to visit a miraculous image of 
 the Virgin at Varese on Lago Maggiore. He set out from 
 
 Y
 
 322 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 his ducal palace at Pavia, with a numerous escort, on 
 this pious pilgrimage. On the evening of the 6th of May 
 the troop approached Milan. Bernabos came forth to 
 greet his nephew; he rode out from the Vercellina gate, 
 on a mule, unaccompanied. He had been warned by a 
 physician of Milan that treachery awaited him; but he 
 replied to the warning with the scorn of one who has 
 passed a long life of unchecked and successful villany. 
 " But the time had come when God was about to call to 
 account this detestable man, laden with so many crimes." l 
 His nephew approached and embraced him tenderly, and 
 then turning to his followers, he suddenly threw off the 
 mask of the meek pilgrim, and pronounced, in the rude 
 German which was at that time the military language of all 
 Europe, the one word, "Arrest!" In a moment Bernabos 
 was surrounded by armed men ; one seized the bridle of 
 his mule, another cut the belt of his sword, and another 
 bound his hands behind his back. In vain the betrayed 
 man cried out against the treachery of Galeazzo to his own 
 kinsman, his own flesh and blood. Galeazzo marched into 
 Milan and took possession. Not a voice was raised on 
 behalf of Bernabos, who was conducted, bound and blind- 
 folded, to the dungeon of the castle of Trezzo, which he 
 himself had built, and in which many victims of his cruelty 
 had died a violent or a lingering death. The sons of Ber- 
 nabos failed to bring him any aid. No one arose for his 
 defence. The world was glad to forget him ; his own 
 relations even ceased to mention his name. " He had 
 leisure," says Muratori, " for meditation, in the prison of 
 
 1 Muratori, Lib. xii., p. 667.
 
 Death of Bernabos Fisconti. 323 
 
 Trezzo, on the instability of human greatness." Three 
 times, at intervals, poison was administered to him ; but 
 his robust frame resisted its effects to such a degree that it 
 did not prove fatal, but only produced the most insupport- 
 able bodily anguish. Thus, for seven months, he lived, 
 or rather died, a long, lingering, and horrible death, alone, 
 with no one to minister to the wants of his tortured body, 
 or to speak to him a word of hope in God. Catharine had 
 written to him, a few years before, faithful and earnest 
 letters, full of love and pity for the sinner whom she 
 addressed, and whose evil doing she rebuked with horror. 
 "Do not suppose," she wrote, "that because we see no 
 sign in this life that God's eye is upon us, he will not one 
 day visit our offences. When the soul is leaving the body, 
 it will then be fully proved that God has seen all. . . . 
 The Sovereign Judge never leaves unpunished the in- 
 justices of man, which are visited in the place and at the 
 time appointed by him ; above all at the moment of death, 
 when the veil which shrouds our vision is torn asunder 
 then all is clearly seen." She concluded her stern rebukes 
 and warnings with words of pleading and charity : " ! 
 resist not the Spirit of God which is calling you. Think, 
 0, think that the blood and tears of the Divine Son are able 
 to cleanse you from head to foot. Despise not this offer of 
 grace. Behold how God loves you ! No tongue can tell, 
 no heart can conceive, the mercy and grace which will be 
 granted to you, if you will but dispose yourself to rid your 
 soul of mortal sin. Humble yourself under the mighty 
 hand of God, and believe in Jesus crucified for you." It 
 was believed that the miserable man retained in his heart 
 some echo of these words, written by one whose hope and 
 
 Y2
 
 324 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 pity for sinners were known to be illimitable, and whose name 
 had then been, for five years, revered as that of a prophet 
 acquainted with the secrets of God. For it was told of him 
 at the last, and to the surprise of all, "Behold he prayeth ! " 
 Worn out and dying, unclean and uncared for, the forlorn 
 creature dragged himself and his chains, day by day, from 
 his pallet to the grating of his cell, where a dim ray from 
 without fell upon his unshorn and haggard face ; and 
 clutching, with foul and bony fingers the bars of his window, 
 he remained, hour after hour, and day after day, gasping 
 forth in his agony, without ceasing, the words, " Cor con- 
 tritum et humiliatum, Deus non despicies" " A broken and 
 a contrite heart, God, thou wilt not despise." 1 He died 
 on the 18th of December, 1385, at the age of sixty-four. 
 
 In the course of this narrative, the letters of Catharine, 
 which have been quoted in order to illustrate her public 
 career, are for the most part those addressed to great 
 people, princes and potentates, ecclesiastical and tem- 
 poral. It must not be supposed, however, that her cor- 
 respondence was wholly, or even chiefly, with persons of 
 high rank or authority ; the greater number of them are 
 addressed to humbler persons. Many are written to mem- 
 bers of her own family, which was a very large one ; a great 
 number to men and women at the heads of convents or 
 religious societies ; others are addressed to persons with- 
 out name, who were in some kind of trouble and greatly 
 in need of a friend. The following list will give some 
 idea of the extent and variety of her correspondence : 
 
 i Muratori, Lib. xii., p. 669 ; and notes of P. Burlamacchi on the 
 Letters of St. Catharine."
 
 Variety of her Correspondence. 325 
 
 Twenty-four letters to Master Pipino, a tailor of Florence, 
 and Agnesa his wife. (These were probably the honour- 
 able citizens who sheltered her during the revolution, when 
 it was deemed unsafe by others to receive her into their 
 houses). A letter to the keeper of the prisons (stinche) at 
 Florence. To a harness-maker of Lucca. To the Elders 
 of Lucca. To Master Francis, physician to the Pope. 
 Five letters to Peter Grambiacorti, Signore of Pisa, and 
 his family. To Master Cristofero Gana, who had asked 
 her to help him to choose a wife. Many letters to Alessia 
 dei Sarracini, her most dear and intimate friend. To 
 Laurencio di Pino, Jurisconsult and Professor of Law at 
 the University of Bologna. To her three brothers settled 
 as wool-dyers at Florence. (In one of these letters she 
 begs them to be more loving to their mother, Lapa, and to 
 repay to her some money which she had lent them). Many 
 letters to Stephen, and to Neri di Landoccio. To a linen- 
 weaver at Florence. To a currier named Perotti and 
 to Lippa his wife, at Lucca. To Sabri, a goldsmith at 
 Siena. To an abominably profligate man, name not 
 mentioned. To several prisoners at Siena. To the Jew 
 Consiglio, a usurer, who had settled in Siena and made 
 so large a fortune that the magistrates of the city thought 
 it right to institute an inquiry into the means by which 
 he had amassed it. Many letters addressed to the magis- 
 trates of Siena and of Lucca ; to the gonfaloniers of 
 Perugia, of Florence, and of Koine. To various citizens 
 of Siena, thirty-four letters. To Brothers of St. Dominic, 
 and to Mantellatas, fifty-five letters. A letter to her 
 little niece Jenny ; one to a great prelate not named ; 
 and one to a " Lady who was always murmuring." One
 
 326 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 of the most remarkable of her letters, in respect of dignity 
 of style, is that which she addressed to the magistrates of 
 Siena when they complained of the length of her visit to 
 the aristocratic family of the Salimbeni, in the neighbour- 
 hood of that city. She writes : "In reply, dear Brothers 
 and Signors, to the letter which Thomas di Guelfuccio 
 has brought me from you, I desire to thank you for the 
 kindness which you manifest towards your fellow-citizens, 
 and towards myself in particular, who am so little worthy. 
 You desire my return. I do not act on my own impulse, 
 but I leave it to God to order my ways ; and so soon as 
 the Holy Spirit permits me to obey your orders, I will bow 
 my head, and go wherever it is your good pleasure that I 
 should go ; but I shall always consider the will of God 
 before that of men. At the present moment I see it not to 
 be possible for me to return, because it is necessary that I 
 should conclude an important business concerning the 
 convent of St. Agnes, and that I should confer with the 
 nephews of Monsignore Spinello, in order to bring about 
 the reconciliation of the sons of Lorenzo. A long time has 
 elapsed since you yourselves took up this affair, and as 
 yet nothing has been accomplished. I do not wish that, 
 through any negligence of mine, or through my sudden 
 departure, the matter should be postponed. I should fear 
 thus to displease God. Be assured I will return as soon 
 as God's work is completed. Have patience, therefore, 
 gentlemen you and my other fellow-citizens. Do not 
 open your hearts to all the fancies suggested by the evil 
 one, who only desires to hinder every good work for 
 the honour of God, the salvation of souls, and your own 
 peace. I regret the trouble which my fellow-citizens
 
 Extracts from her Letters. 327 
 
 give themselves in their judgments of me. It appears as 
 though they had no better occupation in life than to speak 
 ill of me and my companions. For myself they are right, 
 for I have faults enough ; but for those who are with me, 
 they are wrong. We shall conquer, however, by patience. 
 Patience is never conquered ; she is always victorious, and 
 ever remains at last mistress of the position. What really 
 grieves me is that the darts flung after us fall back again 
 upon those who fling them. No more. May you rest in the 
 holy remembrance of God. CATHARINE." One more cita- 
 tion only shall be given, as characteristic of her tender and 
 liberal nature. Fra Giusto, prior of the convent of Mon- 
 toliveto, had had scruples about receiving into his com- 
 munity a certain gentle young friend of Catharine, because 
 he was the illegitimate and disowned son of a dissolute 
 man. Catharine writes : " I pray you, dear father, never 
 to regard anyone in the light of any outward circumstances, 
 or of any greatness or baseness of birth which he may 
 possess. Question not if such an one be legitimately or 
 illegitimately born. The Son of God, in whose steps you 
 are bound to follow, never discarded anyone on account of 
 his outward condition, were he a just man or a criminal ; 
 but every reasonable creature desiring to flee from siii 
 
 was and is acceptable to him Let this youth 
 
 be born as he may, God no more despises the soul of 
 one born in sin, than he does the soul of one born in 
 wedlock. It is good and sincere desires alone which are 
 regarded by our God ; and, therefore, I pray and demand 
 that you receive kindly this tender plant who desires to 
 be planted in your garden, for he has a good will and holy 
 desires. ... I have wondered exceedingly at your refusal
 
 328 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 of him. Perhaps he who brought the message made some 
 mistake. But now I pray you, in the name of Christ 
 crucified, to dispose yourself to receive him heartily, for he 
 is a good boy ; if he had not been so, I would not have sent 
 him to you." On another occasion she wrote to an Abbot 
 of Montoliveto, beseeching, or rather commanding, him to 
 receive again a young monk who had run away, and now 
 penitently desired to return. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the many letters addressed 
 by her to persons in a humble sphere of life were such as we, 
 in modern times, may write very many of in a day, on com- 
 mon matters of business. The letters to her friends who 
 were artisans or tradesmen of Florence and Siena are in 
 general very long and earnest arguments upon the Christian 
 life, and full of affectionate counsels concerning the state 
 and condition of the individual addressed, and of his family. 
 She wrote to them in the same terms as she wrote to 
 Kings, Cardinals, and Popes with reverence and con- 
 siderateness, combined with courageous truthfulness, and, 
 when necessary, with severity, and addressing them alike 
 as " most dear and honoured father in Christ." She was a 
 true republican, in the sense that in her dealings with men 
 as fellow-sinners and fellow-Christians she recognized no 
 differences of rank. 
 
 It is not difficult to imagine what were the faults in 
 Catharine's character, and the natural tendencies against 
 which she, most probably all her life, had to contend. 
 Her zeal and fire would naturally carry her on to im- 
 patience; and it must have been difficult for her to bear 
 with equanimity the delays and checks induced by the 
 stumblings and errors of others which so often postponed
 
 The Faults in her Character. 329 
 
 or injured the work she had at heart. It is evident also 
 that her genius for command may have tempted her to 
 exercise an imperious self-will, and to rule in too despotic 
 a manner. Again, there are evidences that at times, when 
 the strong claims of active duty were relaxed, she incurred 
 a danger of being carried away by excess of feeling, in the 
 exaltation of her spirit, and the intense communion of her 
 soul with the unseen. This latter danger was controlled, 
 however, by the deep, strong, human affection which ever 
 impelled her to impart to others all that she had received 
 of God, and to see in every human being who needed help 
 the image of him whom her soul adored. Impatience and 
 impetuosity of will were corrected as indeed every other 
 fault of character can alone be corrected by the constant 
 exercise of the virtues which balanced and controlled them, 
 hope, patience, faith, and the renunciation of self. Towards 
 the end of her life it is observable that she dwelt very 
 strongly and constantly on the virtue of patience that 
 virtue of which no doubt she had felt the deficiency in 
 herself, and which she had resolutely striven to possess. 
 Patience, she thought, was the great lesson, above all 
 others, which God is always teaching his children. She 
 calls it the " touchstone of all the virtues." 
 
 The canonization of Catharine took place in 1461. 
 The proceedings had first been instituted, and witnesses 
 had begun to be questioned, in 1402, by Gregory XII. 
 But the troubles of his times in connection with the 
 Schism obliged him to postpone these preliminaries; and it 
 fell to the lot of Eneas Silvius, a Sienese, who was elevated 
 to the papacy as Pius II., to place her name on the 
 calendar of the saints. There is a touch of nature in
 
 330 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 the otherwise formal Bull of Canonization published by 
 him. "This affair has been deferred," he says, "until 
 our time, and the canonization of our countrywoman has 
 been referred to us. The sanctity of the virgin of Siena 
 shall be proclaimed by a native of Siena ; and we confess 
 that in this we experience a sensible consolation. We 
 should have contemplated in any case with joy the 
 virtues, the genius, the greatness of soul, the strength 
 and fortitude of this blessed Catharine ; but we do so all 
 the more because she, like ourselves, first saw the light 
 in the city of Siena." 
 
 Cardinal Ximenes caused the letters of Catharine to be 
 translated into Spanish about the year 1450, Spain having, 
 up to that time, refused, in its partisanship for Clement, 
 to recognize the merits of the champion of Urban VI. 
 
 Catharine's letters only very rarely contain any allusions 
 to her own outward history, although they reveal abundantly 
 the character of her mind. They are for the most part 
 purely spiritual ; and when she refers to any contemporary 
 event, it is from the lofty view of the Christian, who regards 
 more the spirit than the external movements of the times 
 in which she is placed. It is with difficulty that we are 
 able to trace in them any clear outline even of her own 
 outward relations with the Church and with her personal 
 friends and contemporaries, though we see in them clearly 
 the travail of her soul for all these, and her indefatigable 
 zeal in labouring to win men to Christ. 
 
 I have accomplished my task, of writing the story of 
 the life of Catharine of Siena. Very imperfectly, I am 
 too well aware, has it been done ; yet I conclude with the 
 hope that the record may carry a message to the hearts
 
 Mediaeval Biographies of the Saints. 331 
 
 of many who read it, and may be the means of reviving the 
 strong and loving influence of this woman, who lived five 
 hundred years ago, so that it may he said concerning her, 
 even now, " she being dead, yet speaketh." It is no easy 
 task, looking back through the mists of ages, to discover 
 athwart the medium of the apotheoses of the saint which 
 are presented to us by Catholic writers as biography, the 
 real woman, such as she was in her true character. The 
 greatest of the saints were flesh and blood like ourselves ; 
 yet not so, by any means, are the}' represented by the 
 mediaeval hagiologist. The memoir by Father Raymond 
 gives us the internal life of Catharine as faithfully as he 
 was able to render it ; but her wonderful outward life and 
 public career are almost entirely left out of his record. 
 When he mentions any part of these, he does so only 
 parenthetically, and in order to illustrate the several virtues 
 which formed, as he says, " her aureole." The formality of 
 style usual in his time leads him to head his various chapters 
 according to the different graces in which she excelled. 
 One is headed "Her Patience;" another "Her Austerities;" 
 another "Her Sighs for Death," &c. A more wearisome 
 and uninteresting memoir could hardly be imagined of a 
 very original and highly gifted person, whose life was 
 like a beautiful drama, ever widening, and increasing in 
 solemnity and fulness of incident to the end. And yet 
 conscience reproaches me for a species of ingratitude in 
 pronouncing this judgment of Raymond's work; for to 
 him, above all others, are we indebted for the key to 
 both her inward and outward life ; and from him alone, 
 her intimate friend and companion, do we gather some 
 of the most touching incidents and the most characteristic
 
 332 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 traits. He rarely condescends, however, to give a plain 
 statement of any of the facts of her life. For example, he 
 never states historically that she went to Florence, or why. 
 He merely says, in different parts of his book, " When we 
 were at Florence, she did or said so and so;" and then calls 
 upon the reader to admire the great humility or the super- 
 human patience of the saint. He very rarely gives a date. 
 There are, it may be said, three dates in the whole course 
 of the book, which come to the eager student of her active 
 life with a sense of surprise and relief, as a sign-post would 
 to a traveller after a hundred miles of vague wandering 
 through a country without roads. All the other early bio- 
 graphies of Catharine are based upon that of Kaymond, with 
 little variation. It may be truly said that these biographers 
 unconsciously represented Catharine in a form which as 
 nearly resembled the real woman as the figures on the 
 painted windows of old churches resemble the flesh and 
 blood originals. To describe human enthusiasm in high and 
 passionate action requires a gift which few writers have 
 possessed. Instead of the high and beautiful humanity, 
 the old biographers of the saints give us only a super- 
 humanity which leaves us with an unsatisfied longing to 
 possess the real portrait instead. Fully appreciating the 
 difficulty of the task, and foreseeing the necessarily most 
 imperfect result, I set it as my aim to endeavour, by 
 steady and honest study, to bring out truthfully, as far as 
 was possible, the real woman, Catharine of Siena. At 
 the best, the picture must be defective. Owing to the 
 omissions in the biographies of Kaymond and his imita- 
 tors, it has been necessary to search for side lights upon 
 her character and career, in many of the annalists and
 
 Her Detractors. 333 
 
 chroniclers of her time, lay and ecclesiastical. Some of 
 these have afforded considerable help towards eliciting the 
 humanness of the person portrayed, and the reality and 
 activity of her life. Although in most of these her name is 
 cited with a tender reverence, yet this is not always the 
 case. The adverse testimonies are not without their value. 
 Some speak of her as one "reputed to be wise," but having 
 no knowledge of the world, of public questions, or of diplo- 
 macy. The French historians of the Schism who espoused 
 the cause of Clement VII. seldom speak well of her. This 
 is not unnatural, considering the prominent part she took 
 in upholding the Italian Pope. Indeed, her reputation in 
 France, until a very recent date, has suffered from the 
 blackening touches given to the portrait of her character by 
 the Clementines, in the same way that the character of Joan 
 of Arc remained in England so long under the slur cast 
 upon her by our own Shakespeare and his contemporaries. 
 M. Bouchon, the translator into French of Machiavelli's 
 " History of Florence," made the following comment upon 
 the notice there given of Catharine and her mission to 
 Florence : " Pius II. on his death-bed repented bitterly of 
 three things : of having written the book of ' The two 
 Lovers ; ' of having preached a crusade ; and of having 
 canonized that sovereignly contemptible woman, Catha- 
 rine of Siena.'' 1 Sismondi remarks, with a touch of the 
 peculiar nineteenth century scorn of women : " It was 
 not to be expected that they (the Eight of War) should 
 
 1 It maybe worthy of remark, that Maimbourg, a historian of the 
 period of the Schism, who was an ardent Clementine, invariably 
 speaks with respect of Catharine.
 
 334 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 be biassed by the advice of a well-meaning but enthusiastic 
 woman, in matters of importance to the State;" and we 
 have occasional notices of her, of this character, either 
 contemptuously patronizing or positively hostile, down to 
 a few words of the present day, written by the Rev. 
 Andrew Reed, who speaks of her as the " Dominican 
 Pythoness," who was "said to have visions of Christ." 1 
 
 There is, however, a certain value, real of its kind, in 
 the early biographies, pale and unlife-like, and abounding 
 in puerilities as they are. The writers at least believed 
 what they wrote, and their affection for the subject of 
 their biographies led them undoubtedly to put down the 
 substance of the truth concerning her, however en- 
 veloped that substance may be with clouds of incense 
 and mists of superstitious reverence. Tedious and dis- 
 appointing as they are, they will yet appear to many 
 readers far more satisfactory than sketches of her life, or 
 poems in her honour written by persons full of enthusiasm 
 for the genius and power of the human being, full of 
 poetic appreciation of the beauty of the life of self-devo- 
 tion (or as it is now the fashion to call it, altruism), but 
 utterly rejecting the faith of which that life was the out- 
 come and product. Alike inquisitive and critical con- 
 cerning the ecstasies, exaltations, and trances of the 
 mystic, while dwelling with artistic delight on the beauty 
 of this noble apparition on the stage of history, the 
 modern sceptic throws himself for the moment on his 
 face before her, and worships " he knows not what ;" he 
 
 1 "The Story of Christianity, from the Apostles to the Present 
 Day," p. 287.
 
 Lessons of her Life. 335 
 
 then goes his way, never having truly known what manner 
 of person she was, unbelieving as ever in regard to the 
 common inheritance which the poorest and most miserable 
 struggler after Christ shares with the highest and holiest of 
 the saints, and ignorant as before of that eternal source and 
 fount of life whence the most noble and gifted, as well as 
 the meanest of the children of men must needs draw the life 
 through which alone they are transformed into saints of God. 
 
 There is no need to call upon any to admire the genius 
 of Catharine. There are many who will be able to draw 
 philosophical deductions, infinitely better than I can, from 
 the facts of such a life and such a character as have been 
 depicted. There are many who will be interested in regard- 
 ing Catharine as a typical character, or the representative 
 of much that was the best and strongest in the era in which 
 she lived ; as a person who could only by any possibility 
 have been born and nurtured under the sunny skies of 
 Italy, who could only have proceeded from such a simple 
 and hardy race as that of the artisans of Siena, and who 
 could only have reached what she attained to under the 
 combined and strongly-contrasted influences of Roman 
 Catholicism and Republicanism. In all these respects 
 Catharine stands, as it were, apart from us, and at a dis- 
 tance. We have no share in the circumstances above 
 named, which may have contributed more or less to her 
 greatness. In concluding, therefore, I had rather draw 
 attention to what we in England, and in the nineteenth 
 century, have in common with her what, indeed, every 
 human being shares or may share with her. 
 
 In common with her, we possess much that is external 
 to us; the priceless inheritance claimed and striven for
 
 336 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 by all who have been truly great in the sense of bringing 
 blessing to humanity. We have one Father, the Eternal, 
 the Just One, the ever Faithful, whose name is Love. We 
 have one Saviour, he who is the Word, who was with God 
 from the beginning, and who was made flesh and lived 
 among us, died, and rose again for our salvation. We have 
 one Source, approachable by us all, of undying spiritual 
 life the Holy Spirit, whom that Saviour poured forth upon 
 his waiting disciples on the day of Pentecost, and who now 
 waits each moment at the door of every heart, to be ad- 
 mitted and to bring light, life, and peace. We have, in 
 common with the saint whose life we have followed, an ever- 
 free access to the Father, by prayer. That path of prayer 
 which she firmly and unwearyingly trod is open to every 
 one of us. If her life illustrates one truth more forcibly than 
 another, it is that of the efficacy and power of prayer, and 
 the fidelity of God in answering the petitions of those who 
 wait on him. We have, in common with her, not only all 
 this, which is external to ourselves, but we have each one 
 of us within us the power to look upward, to pray, to turn 
 our faces resolutely to the light, and to urge ourselves 
 onwards towards that light. It requires no mighty genius 
 to become strong in faith and in prayer. It needs not the 
 hand of a giant to lay hold upon the hand of the All- 
 powerful and All-loving. The hand of a child can equally 
 well grasp that hand, and, in so doing, out of weakness be 
 made strong. We have the power to cultivate the human 
 affection within us, until, freeing itself from all littleness 
 and egotism, it embraces humanity, and, liberated from 
 the thraldom of restless passion and excess, it becomes a 
 chastened, ever-burning, and unquenchable love towards
 
 Lexwns of her Life,. 337 
 
 our fellows, ever ready to weep with those who weep, and 
 to rejoice with those who rejoice, to believe all things, to 
 hope all things, and to endure all things. 
 
 We all have the power, God helping us, to become honest, 
 truthful, courageous, just, patient, self-denying, and kind. 
 We can all learn to oppose persistently and with courage 
 what we know to be evil, and to speak each one to his 
 neighbour, faithfully and in love, what we believe to be the 
 truth. 
 
 Every truly great man or woman who can justly be 
 called blessed as well as great, learned at first to be faithful 
 n a few things, and in that which was least, before being 
 called to control and to act in the midst of great things ; 
 and for each of us it is possible to begin from this moment 
 to perform every act of our daily life with an upright in- 
 tention and a pure conscience before God and man ; and in 
 so doing we shall have already advanced not a few steps 
 along that path of humble glory which the blessed great 
 have trodden before us. No truer meed of praise could be 
 given to any man than that which Lord Cobham gave to 
 Wycliffe : " As for that virtuous man Wycliffe, I shall say, 
 of my part, both before God and man, that before I knew 
 that despised doctrine of his I never abstained from sin. 
 But since I learned therein to fear my Lord God, it hath 
 otherwise, I trust, been with me. So much grace could I 
 never find before in any instructions of the Church." 
 There were hundreds who might have said this of Catharine 
 of Siena. What can one human being do better for another 
 than this so to tell him the truth of Christ as to win him 
 from sin and weakness, and set him on the path to heaven ? 
 This again, then, we have in common with Catharine the 
 
 z
 
 338 Catharine of Siena. 
 
 wonderful power with which God has endowed us, as social 
 and sympathetic beings, to impart what we know and love, 
 to pass on from hand to hand the torch we bear, be it of a 
 blazing brightness or as yet but dimly burning. But first 
 we must ourselves possess the light. 
 
 Look well, then, reader, at this poor saint, at all the 
 saints, at the good and noble, the great cloud of witnesses 
 who have gone before, and are going. For as they were 
 and are, so you may be. But, turning from these, look 
 higher still. Turn your eyes towards him who is the Light 
 of the World, the Saviour, to whom I pray that he will 
 bless this poor work, and make it fruitful of blessing in the 
 hearts of those who are able to read the lesson of a holy 
 life through all the imperfections which mar the record. 
 
 THE KND.
 
 JUST PUBLISHED. 
 
 A NEW WORK BY MRS. JOSEPHINE BUTLER, 
 ENTITLED : 
 
 THELADYOFSHUNEM: 
 
 BIBLE STUDIKS FOR PARENTS. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. I. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 II. THE LADY OF SHUNKM. 
 III. ABRAHAM AS A FATHER. 
 IV. THE BAR SINISTER. 
 V. THE GOD OF FAMILIES. 
 VI. EVERY GOOD AND EVERY PERFECT GIFT. 
 
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 Series 9482