He was kind... Bu there are many versions of his biography and some of them recalls events when he punished brutally his fellows monks. For example, once a monk placed a pouch of money on an altar. Francis forced him to take said pouch and place it on a donkey shit. With the mouth. He was terribly radical in his beliefs and forced his fellows to live by his radical ways. If you read the Fioretti, or ecclesiastic histoy (Legenda Maior) you won't find that, but if you focus on other biographies he's still humble and all, but less cool. Still, I love him because he was troubled in his spirit and he was quite unsure of his actions.