How great the democratic power of such an Order which had sprung from the very entrails of the people! And thence its rapid prosperity, its teeming growth in a few years, friaries arising upon all sides, and the third Order* so invading the secular population as to impregnate and absorb it.

And that there was here a genuine growth of the soil, a vigorous vegetation of the plebeian stock was shown by an entire national art arising from it--the precursors of the Renascence in painting and even Dante himself, the soul of Italia's genius.
* The Franciscans, like the Dominicans and others, admit, in addition to the two Orders of friars and nuns, a third Order comprising devout persons of either sex who have neither the vocation nor the opportunity for cloistered life, but live in the world, privately observing the chief principles of the fraternity with which they are connected.

In central and southern Europe members of these third Orders are still numerous .-- Trans.
For some days now, in the Rome of the present time, Pierre had been coming into contact with those great Orders of the past.

The Franciscans and the Dominicans were there face to face in their vast convents of prosperous aspect.

But it seemed as if the humility of the Franciscans had in the long run deprived them of influence.