The suggestion is specious, but in this matter we are not left to conjecture; almost everything which was done in the Order after 1221 was done either without Francis's knowledge or against his will.

If one were inclined to doubt this, it would need only to glance over that most solemn and also most adequate manifesto of his thought--his Will.

There he is shown freed from all the temptations which had at times made him hesitate in the expression of his ideas, bravely gathering himself up to summon back the primitive ideal, and set it up in opposition to all the concessions which had been wrung from his weakness.
The Will is not an appendix to the Rule of 1223, it is almost its revocation.

But it would be a mistake to see in it the first attempt made to return to the early ideal.

The last five years of his life were only one incessant effort at protest, both by his example and his words.
In 1222 he addressed to the brethren of Bologna a letter filled with sad forebodings.