4 October—Today is the 896^th anniversary of the death of Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone. He actually died the night of 3 October 1226, so the Roman Catholic Church naturally opted to celebrate his death on 4 October. But why not celebrate Giovanni’s birth? Easy. The actual day of his birth in 1181 or 1182 isn’t known.

That’s why today is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals. He’s also founder, in 1209, of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor (Ordo Fratrum Minorum, OFM, Order of Lesser Brothers) and patron saint of Italy, archeologists, merchants, messengers, metal workers, and, more recently, the environment.

Giovanni or Francis? He was born to a French mother of noble birth in Assisi (in central Italy) while his Italian father, a prosperous schmatta (in this case, silk) merchant, was on a business trip in France. Mom had him baptized as Giovanni. But when Pop got back, he took to calling the kid Francesco, meaning Frenchman. So the story goes.

Franciscans are known as Greyfriars (or Grayfriars, if you prefer) because the habit of at least one of the so-called First Orders—Conventual, Observant, Capuchin—is or has been at one time or another grey. Or beige, which used to be called grey. Maybe that’s where greige comes from. (Conventuals now wear black, Observants wear brown, Capuchins wear chestnut-brown. The 35-year-old order of Capuchin Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, out of New York, have gone back to grey.)

On the subject of Capuchins, everybody knows about Cardinal Richelieu, French King Louis XIII’s Éminence Rouge, or Red Eminence, because cardinals wear red robes and yarmulkes (skullcaps, a.k.a. zucchetti) and are called Eminence, who was also the king’s ultra-powerful prime minister. His greatest—arguably his only—contribution to society is his invention of the table knife. Really. But Richelieu was a Carthusian, not a Capuchin. As if that mattered. Especially to a cardinal.

Richelieu’s chief of staff, however, his right-hand man, the power behind the cardinal’s throne, Père Joseph François Leclerc du Tremblay, was a Capuchin. Although Tremblay never got to be a cardinal, he was called l’Éminence Grise, the Grey Eminence, in deference to his considerable albeit unofficial power.

Thus, to this day, a grey eminence is a powerful adviser who operates behind the scenes, often in an unofficial capacity.

In late 1995, I rescued a little stray grey kitten from behind a manse on Meadow Street, one of whose owners liked to lure squirrels into humane box traps and then shoot them. I caught the old bastard at it one day and naturally released the two squirrels before he could murder them. He threatened to shoot me. I dared him. The other owner refused to take in the helpless stray. Probably lucky for the kitten.

So naturally I named the little rescued kitten Père Joseph François Leclerc du Tremblay. What better name for a grey eminence? But the vet’s computer couldn’t handle that, so he became Joey. Not long after sweet little Joey arrived, Big Bad Joey, the Schwartze Geklafte Goniff Momzer (black-robed thieving bastard) showed up to shake down Litchfield and defame the name of God. His friends call him Yussi or Yossi, so naturally I’ve always called him Joey. No insult intended to the late Père Joseph the kitten . . .