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Letter I. To his Cousin Robert, who had Withdrawn from the Cistercian Order to the Cluniac

(Circa 1119.)

He recalls, 'with wonderful gentleness, and affection more than fatherly, Robert, his relative; -who, induced either by shrinking from a very severe Rule, the attraction of a freer life, or the blandishments and cunning suggestions of others, had withdrawn from the Cistercian Order to the Cluniac.

1. I have waited long enough, my dear son Robert, perhaps too long, [hoping] that the grace of God might deign to visit both your soul and mine, inspiring you with salutary contrition and me with joy for your repentance. But since my hope is so far not fulfilled, I am no longer able to hide my grief or express my anxiety. Thus, though wounded, I am obliged to call upon my assailant; despised, to ask for the pity of him who contemns me; though injured, to make satisfaction to my injurer; and in fine, against all rule, to beseech him who ought to beseech me. Extreme grief does not deliberate or observe limits, is not ashamed, does not fear loss of dignity; it disregards measure, and rule, and order. The powers of the mind are wholly occupied in relieving itself, by any means, of what causes it pain, or in obtaining what it suffers to be without. But you say: I have not injured nor despised anyone, but rather, being scorned and injured in many ways, I have fled from my enemy. Whom have I injured in fleeing from injuries? Is it not better to withdraw from the persecutor than to resist him ?- — to fly the striker than to strike back? Truly, I allow it. Not to contend have I begun to write, but to bring contention to an end. The pursuer — not the fugitive — is to be blamed for a flight from persecution. I pass over what has been done. I do not ask why or how. I do not discuss whose is the fault, and I wish to bury all remembrance of wrongs. Such [discussions] are wont to arouse, not to soften, differences. I speak only of what is more to my heart — unhappy that I am — to be deprived of you, and not to see you, death for whom would be to me life, and without whom life is death! I do not ask why you went away. I complain only because you have not returned. I speak not of the causes of your departure, but of the delay of your return. Return only, and there shall be peace. Return, and it shall suffice, and I will sing with joy, He was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found! (S. Luke xv. 32).

2. Surely it was my fault that you departed. I was rigid to a delicate youth; I was severe, and treated harshly a sensitive mind. When you were here you were wont, as far as I remember, to murmur against me, and since, as I have heard, you do not cease to blame me, though absent. It shall not be laid to your charge. I might, perhaps, allege that it was my duty to restrain the passions of petulant youth, and that those harsh beginnings of strict discipline are needful in early years, as the Scripture bears witness: Chasten thy son with a rod, and thou shalt deliver his soul from death (Prov. xxiii. 13); and, again, Whom the Lord loveth lie chasteneth, and scour geth every son whom lie receiveth (Heb. xii. 6), and that More wholesome are the wounds of a friend than the kisses of an enemy (Prov. xxvii. 6). But let it be, as I said, that it was by my fault you went away; only let there be no contention about the offence to hinder the amends for it. I have, perhaps, sometimes and in some matters acted unwisely towards you, but never have I been ill-disposed. Therefore, spare the penitent, or at least have consideration for one who speaks frankly to you. If you fear for the future you shall find me not what I was, because I think that you are not what you were. A changed person yourself, you shall find me changed, and him whom you before feared as a master you may safely embrace as a companion. Therefore, whether you withdrew by my fault, as you think and I do not dispute, or by your own, as many think, although I do not maintain it, or by our common fault, as I incline to think, if for this reason you demur to return, you alone shall be without excuse. Would you be free from all blame? Return. If you acknowledge your fault, I forgive it. Do you also forgive me where I acknowledge mine, otherwise either you are too indulgent to yourself, when you are conscious of your fault and yet will not acknowledge it, or you are too unmerciful to me, whom you will not forgive even when I make amends.

3. Now, if you are unwilling to return, seek some other excuse wherewith to flatter your conscience, for henceforth there will be no reason lor you to dread the severity of my rule. You need not fear that I shall be too severe to you J when you are here, seeing that I abase myself with my whole heart to you when absent, and am bound to you by entire .affection. I practise humility, I promise love, and do you still fear? You have fled from a stern [ruler]; return to a gentle one. Let my lenity recall you, since my severity drove you away. See, my son, how I wish to recall you— not in fear again and in the spirit of servitude, but in the spirit of filial adoption, in which you may call and not be disappointed, Abba, Father.' (Rom. viii. 15). Though you have caused me so great grief I use not threats and terrors, but caresses and entreaties. Others would, perhaps, employ different means; would lay before you your offence, would remind you of your vow, and awake in you the fear of judgment-They would reproach you with disobedience, with apostacy in abandoning a coarse garment for a fine habit, a diet of vegetables for dainties, and, in fine, poverty for riches. But I know that you are more easily induced by love than com pelled by fear, and I have not thought it needful to goad the unresisting, to terrify the frightened, to confound still more him who blushes. But would it not seem an unheard-of thing that a youth, modest, simple, and retiring, should have dared to violate his vow, to leave the place of his profession against the will of his brethren, the authority of his master, the obligation of his rule? Yet it is not more strange than that the piety of David should have been beguiled (2 Sam. xi.), the wisdom of Solomon mocked (1 Kings xi.), the strength of Samson rendered vain (Judges xvi.). What wonder that he who deceived our first parents and expelled them from Paradise should have seduced an inexperienced young man in the midst of a desert solitude! Add to this that he has not been led away by beauty, as the elders of Babylon (Hist, of Susan., 8), nor by the love of money, as Gehazi (2 Kings v. 20), nor by ambitious desires, as Julian the Apostate, but holiness deceived him, religion seduced him, the authority of his elders led him astray. Do you ask how?

4. A certain great Prior was sent forth by his superiors: and he, a wolf disguised in sheep's clothing, was admitted into the sheepfold. He attracts, he allures, he flatters; the preacher of a new Gospel, he commends drunkenness, condemns frugality; voluntary poverty he calls misery; fasts, vigils, silence, the labour of the hands, he styles folly; but, on the contrary, sloth he names contemplation; gluttony, loquacity, inquisitiveness, in short, every kind of excess, he calls discretion. What, he says, does God delight in our sufferings? Where does Scripture bid anyone to slay himself? W'hat sort of religion is it to dig the earth, to cut wood, to carry manure? Is it not the declaration of the Truth, / will have mercy and not sacrifice (S. Matt. ix. 13, Ezek. xxxiii. n, S. Matt. v. 7). Why has God created food if it is not permitted to eat it? or given us bodies if we must not sustain them?

o And then, He that is evil to himself, to whom will he be good (Ecclus. xiv. 5). What wise man ever hated his own flesh? (Eph. v. 29).

5. Thus with such pleadings a too credulous youth is seduced; he follows his deluder, he is led to Cluny; he is shorn, shaven, washed; in place of his worn, cheap, rustic clothes he is clad in new, fashionable, and costly ones, and thus he is taken into the convent. And with what honour, triumph, and observance! He, a youth, is set above his equals, above his seniors; the entire brotherhood favours, compliments, congratulates him; they all rejoice as victors when they divide the spoil. O, good Jesus! how many things are done for the destruction of one poor soul! Whose heart, however firm, would not grow soft? whose inner eye, however spiritual it might be, would not be confused? Among such distractions who could consult his conscience, who could either recognize truth, or maintain humility?

6. Application is made on his account to Rome. Apostolic authority is approached; and that the Pope may not refuse his consent, it is suggested to him that [the youth when] an infant was offered to that monastery by his parents. There was no one to contradict this; judgment was given upon a mere statement, and against the absent. Those who did the injury are justified, those who suffered it put off alto gether, and the offender absolved without making satisfaction. Too mild a sentence of absolution is confirmed by a cruel privilege, which, when reported, encouraged and rendered secure the ill-assured victim of bad advice. And among these things a soul may perish for which Christ died, because the Cluniacs choose! Profession is made upon profession, vows which will not be loosed and cannot be kept, and since the first agreement is made invalid, a pretext is found for a second, and sin heaped upon sin.

7. May He speedily come who will right wrongs judicially done and put to shame unlawful oaths, who will right those that suffer wrong, will judge the poor in justice, and contend with equity for the meek of the earth! To Thy tribunal, O, Lord Jesus, I appeal; to Thee I commit my cause, O, Lord God of Sabaoth, who judgest justly, and triest the reins and the hearts (Jer. xi. 20), whose eyes, as they cannot deceive, so they cannot be deceived. Thou seest who seeks the things which are Thine, and who seeks his own (1 Cor. xiii. 5). Thou knowest with what gentleness I have succoured him in all his temptations, with what groanings I have wearied for him the ears of Thy Holiness, how troubled I used to be by his faults and escapades. And now I fear that it was in vain. For I think, as far as I have tried, that it is for the profit neither of the mind or body of a young man, by himself sufficiently eager and inexperienced, to apply to the one such stimulants, to the other such incentives to vanity. Therefore, Lord Jesus, be Thou my judge; let my sentence come forth from Thy presence, let Thine eyes look upon the thing that is equal (Ps. xvii. 2).

8. Let them see and judge which ought rather to stand good, the vow of a father respecting his son or that of the son respecting himself, especially when he has made the vow even more perfect. Let them see how Thy servant, our law-giver Benedict,1 would have decided; whether what was done respecting a young infant, without his knowledge, or what he himself afterwards did advisedly of his own accord, when he was of an age to speak for himself, should hold good. It is clear that he was promised only, not given. The petition which the Rule prescribes was not made on his behalf by the parents, nor his hand with the petition folded in the covering of the altar, so that he might be offered before witnesses. A [piece of] ground is shown which is said to have been given with him and for him. But if they received him with the ground, why did they not keep him as well as the ground? Did they, perhaps, require more than its fruit, or value the land more than this soul? Otherwise, if offered to the monastery, what was he seeking in the world? If he were to be brought up for God, why was he abandoned to the devil? Why was Christ's sheep found a prey to the wolf? From the world you came, Robert, yourself being witness, not from Cluny, when you came to Citeaux. You requested admission, you begged, you entreated; but were put off for two years, on account of your tender age, though you were most un willing to wait. Which time being patiently and blamelessly fulfilled, you begged with many prayers and even (if you remember) tears, and at length obtained, the wished-for favour and the entrance [into the Order] which you had so desired. After this, being patiently proved for a year, according to the Rule, and your demeanour being resolved and without reproach, you were professed at your own wish; then first you discarded the secular dress and put on the religious habit.

9. O, foolish boy! who has enchanted you that you should not fulfil the vows of your owrn lips? Shall you not be justified or be condemned out of your own mouth? Why are you careful about your parent's vow and forgetful of your own, forgetting that out of your mouth, not of his, you will be judged? Who can flatter you with talk about an apostolical absolution, while the Word of God itself holds your conscience bound? No one, He says, putting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is Jit for the kingdom of God (S. Luke ix. 62). Question your own heart, your intention; let your conscience answer you why you fled, why you deserted your Order, your brethren, your place, and me; me, who am near you in blood and still nearer in spirit. If you are now living more severely, more correctly, more perfectly than before, then you may be confident that you have not looked back, and glory with the Apostle who says: Forgetting the things that are behind and pressing forward unto the things that are before, I press unto the mark (Philipp. iii. 13). But if it is otherwise, be not high-minded, but fear; because whatever indulgence you give to yourself in food, in unnecessary dress, in idle words, in unregulated and inquisitive licence, beyond what you have promised and have observed here, this beyond doubt is a looking back, a wandering from the path; in short, an apostacy.2

10. And these things I say to you, my son, not to distress you, but to warn you, for though you have many teachers in Christ, you have not many fathers (1 Cor. iv. 14). For (if you should deem it of any value) both by word and by my example have I begotten you to religion. Does it please you that another person should glory in you, who has laboured not at all for you and in you? Like as to the harlot before Solomon, so it has happened to me: namely, to her whose little son had been secretly taken away by another, who had overlaid and destroyed her own (1 Kings iii. 20).

11. Now for what advantage to you, or for what need of yours, have our friends endeavoured to do this? For as for me, if I had ever offended them in anything (which I am not conscious of having done), I would at once have made full amends. But it is strange if I have not sustained the worse reprisal; if (that is to say) I have been able to do them some such injury, as I have now endured from them. For I protest that they have taken, not the bone of my bones nor flesh of my flesh, but the very joy of my heart, the fruit of my spirit, the crown of my hope, and (as I verily feel) the half of my soul. And why? Perhaps they pitied you, and not bearing to see the blind leading the blind, they took you to their own leading, that you might not perish under mine. But could not you be saved, unless I were despoiled? And would that you maybe saved even without me! But is your salvation likely to be more advanced by nicety of dress, and abundance of dainties, than by frugality of dress and living? If soft and warm garments, fine and costly cloths, full sleeves, an ample hood, a thick and soft coverlet, and fine linen3 make a saint, why should not I also follow the example? But these are the comforts of the sick, not the weapons of combatants. For those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses (S. Matt. xi. 8). Wine and fine flour, mead and fat things, fight for the body, not the soul. With broiled meats the flesh, not the soul, is made fat. Many brethren in Egypt long served God without using even fish.4 Pepper, ginger, cumin, sage, and a thousand kinds of things pickled, delight indeed the palate, but inflame the passions. And do you place security in these things? or suppose that you can spend your youth safely thus? Salt, with hunger, is sufficient condiment to one who lives soberly and prudently; but if hunger is not waited for, it becomes needful to excite it with I know not what potions.

12. But what shall he do, you say, who cannot live other wise? I know that you are delicate and would not be able to endure a harder life, but that is only because you are accustomed to these things. But what if you could make yourself able? Do you ask how? Rise, gird yourself, shake off sloth, use your powers, move your arms, open those folded hands, do something useful, and you will soon find that you have appetite for what takes away hunger without pampering the palate. Many things which, when idle, you turn from, after labour you will take with relish. Cabbage, beans, pottage, coarse bread,5 with water, are little appetizing, I allow, to an idle person, but they seem great delicacies to one who has laboured. Having become unaccustomed to tunics,6 you are perhaps afraid to take to wear them again, as being too cold in winter and too hot in summer; but have you ever read, He who fears the hoar frost the snow shall fall upon him? (Job vi. 16). Idleness produces distaste, exercise, hunger. You fear watchings, fastings, and the labour of the hands; but these things are trifles to him who meditates on the everlasting burnings. Then the remembrance of the outer darkness causes you not to shudder at solitude. If you remember that every idle word shall be called in question (S. Matt. xii. 36), silence will not greatly displease you. That eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth, if brought before the eyes of the heart, will render hard mat or soft couch the same thing to you. Finally, if you have faithfully kept watch the whole time of the night which the Rule prescribes, with Psalms (Rule of S. Bened., cap. ix. seqq.), hard indeed will be the couch on which you will not sleep soundly.

13. Rise, soldier of Christ, shake off the dust, return to the battle whence you have fled, fight more bravely after your flight, and you shall conquer the more gloriously. Christ has indeed many soldiers who have set out bravely, stood fast and overcome, but few, who having turned back from flight and dared anew the peril which they had evaded, have put to flight the enemies from whom they had fled. And be cause every rare thing is precious, I rejoice that you should be of those who shall appear the more glorious the rarer they are. But do not think that because you have fled from the fight, you have escaped from the hands of the enemy. The adversary overtakes you with more pleasure when flying than he resists you when combating, and strikes more boldly at your back than he attacks face to face. Are you securely taking your morning slumbers, when at that time Christ rose from the dead; and thus unarmed, at once more timid yourself and less formidable to enemies? A multitude of armed ones have surrounded your house, and you are sleeping? Already they ascend the mound, they pull down the palisade, they rush in at the postern door. Is it safer for you that they should find you alone than with others — naked in your bed than armed and in the field? Rise up, seize your arms, and fly to your fellow soldiers whom you have deserted. Let fear itself join you again to those from whom it parted you. Why do you, O, effeminate warrior, shrink from the weight and hardness of your weapons? The adversary pressing on you and the darts flying around will make the shield, the cuirass, and the helmet seem to be no burden. Even the bravest soldiers have fears when the trumpet sounds before the combat, but when they are in the thick of the fight, the hope of victory and the fear of being overcome renders them intrepid. But what can you fear when the unanimity of your brethren and fellow combatants fortifies you on all sides, when the Angels stand beside you, when Christ, the leader of the war, will go before you, cheering His own on to victory, and saying, Be of good cheer; I have overcome the -world! (S. John xvi. 33). If Christ be for us, who can be against us? (Rom. viii. '31). You can fight safely when you are sure of victory. Safe, indeed, is warfare with and for Christ, for, though wounded, prostrate, trampled on, killed, if possible, a thousand times, yet, if only you do not fly, you shall not lose the victory. Flight, flight alone can take it from you. Woe to you if, in declining the fight, you lose at once the victory and the crown; which may God avert from you, my dearest son, since your condemnation will be the greater, if I have rightly charged you in this my letter.7

Footnotes

  1. According to the Rule of S. Benedict (Cap. lix.) the simple promise of the parents to devote a child to the Order was not binding. There must have been a solemn offering of the child, according to prescribed forms, during which he was clad in the monastic habit. It does not appear whether there had been any such formal offering of the young Robert. — [E.] ↩

  2. A stern declaration indeed against monks who, seeking greater laxity, held lightly the obligations of their Rule. See Letters 313, 382, and Serm. iii. on Ps. xc. VOL. I. 8 ↩

  3. Bernard notes here the different kinds of clothing which were in use among the Cluniacs, and which the Cistercians had rejected as contrary to the Rule. We may see in the little " Exordium Cisterciense " that they had rejected " frocks, furred tunics, linen shirts, drawers, cowls; also mattresses, and bed-clothes." Also in " The Book of Institutes," c. 15, " hoods lined with wool " are rejected. We see in the MS. Customs of CLuny, by Bernard of Cluny, c. 30, that among other things it was permitted to a monk of that monastery to have as articles of dress "two frocks, two hoods, two shirts, and three furred tunics, "and for the bed " a pillow, a sheet, a counterpane, a blanket, and a rug." The frocks differed from the hoods both in form and material, because the hood had only a narrow cowl, and either no sleeves at all or very narrow ones. The frock, on the contrary, had very ample sleeves and hood, and it was made of costly cloth, which was called froccu* or Jl occ us (whence the name fn>c k). Among ourselves the hood is still commonly calledyZoccfw. The Cistercians call it generally coulle (say cowl), because of their repugnance to frocks. The " coopertorium silvestre" of which S. Bernard speaks was a kind of outside wrap made of the skins of animals hunted in the forest. In his Apology, addressed to William, n. 24, Bernard of Cluny attacks the " cattinum " and "coverings which do not permit you to remain uncovered, either of lamb's skin or cat's skin, that of hares, nor in short, of any other kind of higher price." — See Life, B. iv. c. 36. ↩

  4. It appears by this that the monks of Citeaux used fish only rarely, and when upon a journey (see Life, B. vu. c. 20), nor eggs, as will be seen from what follows. We learn the practice with regard to eggs from a Letter of Abbot Fastred, printed at the end of those of S. Bernard. A novice, in distaste of all food during his last illness, " felt a desire for a cooked egg," but he observed abstinence to the end. The same author tells us that " vegetables were cooked without oil or fat," and Bernard himself speaks of " broths made with flour .... with oil and honey added," not butter, which he eat " with scruple" to warm his stomach. In this letter and the following one, which is from Peter di Roya, we see that the monks of Clairvaux drank a kind of beer, sometimes pure water, " rarely wine," and even then mixed with much water, which Humbert used for his infirmities, but only out of obedience (Bernard, Serm. on Saints, n. 4; Life, B. i. n. 46; Serm. 30 on the Canticles). Joannes Eremita (Lift of Bernard, B. ii. n. 10) speaks of the vine as being held under malediction at Clairvaux. ↩

  5. The Life (B. ii. n. 6) shows us what kind of bread was used at this time at Clairvaux. Fastred, in his letter cited above, says that it was made of oats. ↩

  6. The monks of Citeaux wore their tunics immediately upon the skin, without any garment of wool or linen between, but not the goats' hair cilicium (Lifet B. i. n. 39). ↩

  7. This Letter was dictated by Bernard in the open air, " in the midst of rain without rain," as says William, Abbot of S. Thierry (Life of S. Bernard, B. i. c. 2), and because of this marvel was placed before the other Letters. The place where this took place, close to Clairvaux, was marked by a little oratory in memory of it. It was written by William, afterwards first Abbot of Rievaulx,. in England, to whom some refer, but wrongly, those praises with which Gilbert of Holland, in his Sermon 41 (in Cantica), commemorates a certain Abbot of Rievaulx, without doubt the successor of William, by name Aelred, who died, according to Pitsaeus, in 1 1 66. For it can hardly be the case that this William of Rievaulx, who died 1 146, was praised by Gilbert in that sermon, which is in the form of a funeral oration, as if he were recently dead. Now Gilbert himself undertook the continuation of his explanation of the Canticles only after the death of S. Bernard, which happened in 1153, and in Sermon 30 he mentions the schism excited by the Emperor Frederick against Alexander III. in 1159. Robert, to whom this Letter was addressed, is called a relative of Bernard in this Letter, n. 9, and in Letter 32, n. 3. Joannes Eremita, an author of that time, speaks thus of him in his Life <>f S. Bernard, B. i. c. 2, n. 5: — " He was nephew of the same matron," namely, Alith, mother of S. Bernard, " of whom we are going to speak, and son of her sister. It was to him that the blessed Bernard addressed the first of his Letters.'' He is said to have lived sixty-seven years as a monk. Peter ChifHet, a monk of the Society of Jesus, in an appendix to his dissertation on the illustrious origin of S. Bernard, suggests that the mother of Robert was Diana, wife of Otho de Chatillon de Montbar, and in that case Robert would have been called the nephew of S. Bernard, either by the mere fancy of the person who collected his Letters, or by a mode of speaking once common, which allowed the children of two brothers or of two sisters, as well as those of a brother and of a sister, to be called nephew, provided that it was the younger alone who received that title from his cousin older than himself. And it is sufficiently clear that this was the relation of Robert to S. Bernard, as well from this Letter as from B. i. of the Life, c. 2. As to the date of this Letter, it seems to have been written about 1119. It would appear that Robert made his solemn profession among the Cistercians in 1113. When the monks of Cluny heard of this they had recourse to an under hand proceeding to bring him back to them. The Exordium Cisterc. Dis. 3, c. 9, thus refers to this: — '' In the meantime the Cluniac brothers, hearing that the young man had given himself to the Cistercian Order, were exceedingly indignant. ... As they did not presume to demand him publicly, being over awed by the reputation of the blessed Bernard, they resorted to a more crafty proceeding. A certain Prior was sent," etc. In the meantime S. Bernard long concealed his feelings, as he says in the commencement of this Letter, but at length, not being able to restrain his grief, he wrote this Letter, which did not, however, bring Robert back, as he complains in Letter 32, until he was sent back by Peter the Venerable. That Robert made his profession in 1 1 16 is apparently shown thus: Almost all writers, both within and without our Order, think that Robert was one of those thirty friends whom Bernard withdrew from the world and took with him to Citeaux, which, indeed, Bernard himself seems to indicate in these words of this Letter: — " For (if you should deem it of any value), both by word and my example, have I begotten you to religion." Then, on account of his extreme youth, his admission to Citeaux was put off for two years, after which he was received to make his novitiate, as Bernard asserts also in n. 8, and Bernard entered Citeaux in 11 (3, to which date, if the two years of waiting and one of probation be added, we have 1116 as the date of Robert's profession. This argument is much strengthened by the authority of the Exordium already cited, where it is said that Robert was admitted to his probation at Citeaux before Bernard was set over Clairvaux, that is to say, before 1115, in which year Clairvaux was founded, for the Exordium speaks thus: — " Dom Robert, formerly Abbot of Maison Dieu and a relative of the blessed Bernard according to the flesh, in his youth had taken upon him the light and easy yoke of the Lord at Citeaux. But afterwards, when that most reverend man of God, Bernard, was made Abbot of Clairvaux, he was trained up under him in that monastery in spiritual discipline.'' From this it appears that the departure of Robert from Clairvaux, or rather his being decoyed away, is to be attributed to the design and the influence of Pontius, Abbot of Cluny from i 109 to 1 122, and that it was not under the government of Peter the Venerable, who succeeded Pontius after Hugo II. had been abbot for three months only, as appears from the Chronicle of Cluny. It is very certain that Peter, who was a great lover of peace and uprightness, would not have been likely to send a prior to Clairvaux to draw away a young man, or, even if that be thought possible, the sending back of Robert would not have been counted among the benefits and offices of charity which he had done to S. Bernard, for he would not have been able to confer a benefit in repairing an injustice, for he writes thus in a certain epistle to Bernard (B. 6, ep. 35): — " Why, then, my dear friend, do you not wish to give me, at least for a month, one of your monks, when I have given up to you, induced by love towards you, Robert your relation, .Gamier, and certain others, not for a month, but permanently? " — from which it is to be remarked in passing, not only that Robert returned to Clairvaux, but that he was sent back by Peter in the beginning of his abbacy at Cluny. He was sent later on by Bernard as Abbot to Maison Dieu, in the Diocese of Dijon. ↩

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