modifying an essential passage in the plan at the last moment.[22] I have already so far described this Rule that there is no need to return to the subject here.
It was approved November 25, 1223.[23] Many memories appear to have clustered about the journey of Francis to Rome.

One day Cardinal Ugolini, whose hospitality he had accepted, was much surprised, and his guests as well, to find him absent as they were about to sit down at table, but they soon saw him coming, carrying a quantity of pieces of dry bread, which he joyfully distributed to all the noble company.

His host, somewhat abashed by the proceeding, having undertaken after the meal to reproach him a little, Francis explained that he had no right to forget, for a sumptuous feast, the bread of charity on which he was fed every day, and that he desired thus to show his brethren that the richest table is not worth so much to the poor in spirit as this table of the Lord.[24] We have seen that during the earlier years the Brothers Minor had been in the habit of earning their bread by going out as servants.

Some of them, a very small number, had continued to do so.

Little by little, in this matter also all had been changed.