Inscriptions of Propertii have been found at Assisi.
He spent a year in prison at Perugia, and when peace was made at the end of 1202 he returned to Assisi and recommenced his old life.
On his recovery he set out on a military expedition, but at the end of the first day's march he fell ill, and had to stay at Spoleto and return to Assisi.
The determining episode of his life followed soon after his return to Assisi; as he was riding he met a leper who begged an alms; Francis had always had a special horror of lepers, and turning his face he rode on; but immediately an heroic act of self-conquest was wrought in him; returning he alighted, gave the leper all the money he had about him, and kissed his hand.
This enthusiastic love of poverty is certainly the keynote of St Francis's spirit; and so one of his disciples in an allegorical poem (translated into English as The Lady of Poverty by Montgomery Carmichael, 1901), and Giotto in one of the frescoes at Assisi, celebrated the "holy nuptials of Francis with Lady Poverty."