He was forever in the streets with his companions, compelling attention by his extravagant or fantastic attire.

Even at night the joyous company kept up their merrymakings, causing the town to ring with their noisy songs.[21] At this very time the troubadours were roaming over the towns of Northern Italy[22] and bringing brilliant festivities and especially Courts of Love into vogue.

If they worked upon the passions, they also made appeal to feelings of courtesy and delicacy; it was this that saved Francis.

In the midst of his excesses he was always refined and considerate, carefully abstaining from every base or indecent utterance.[23] Already his chief aspiration was to rise above the commonplace.

Tortured with the desire for that which is far off and high,[24] he had conceived a sort of passion for chivalry, and fancying that dissipation was one of the distinguishing features of nobility, he had thrown himself into it with all his soul.
But he who, at twenty, goes from pleasure to pleasure with the heart not absolutely closed to good, must now and then, at some turning of the road, become aware that there are hungry folk, who could live a month on what he spends in a few hours on frivolity.