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To St Francis, a man amongst men, the lust of the earth was radically allied with pride of class, an inordinate ambitiousness of glory, and a love of luxury. Poverty, as Francis understood it, meant the antithesis of all this. The Lady Poverty (to borrow the Saint's own imagery) was an outcast; she was the despised of men; and she walked amid the rough ways of the earth with threadbare garments and bruised feet.
The story how Francis found his ideal bride and came to
