le vaisseau est grand,
voute, et bien perce. Il y a bon fonds de livres
imprimez sur toutes sortes de matieres, et sept ou huit
cent manuscrits, dont la plupart sont des ouvrages des
peres de l'eglise[235].

The ground-plan (fig. 34) shews the writing-rooms or _scriptoria_,
apparently six in number, eastward of the church; and the bird's-eye view
(fig. 33) the library built over them. Unfortunately we know nothing of
the date of its construction. It occupied the greater part of the north
side of a cloister called "petit cloitre" or Farmery Cloister, from the
large building on the east side originally built as a Farmery (fig. 33,
B). It was approached by a newel-stair at its south-west corner (fig. 35).
This stair gave access to a vestibule, in which, on the west, was a door
leading into a room called small library (_petite bibliotheque_),
apparently built over one of the chapels at the east end of the church
(fig. 34). The destination of this room is not known. The library proper
was about 83 feet long by 25 feet broad[236], vaulted, and lighted by six
windows in the north and south walls. There was probably an east window
also, but as explained above, it was intended, when this plan was drawn,
to build a new gallery for books at this end of the older structure.

[Illustration: Fig. 34, Ground-plan of part of the Monastery of Citeaux.
From a plan dated 1718.]

[Illustration: Fig. 35, Ground-plan of the Library at Citeaux.]

I proceed next to the library at Clairvaux, a House which may be called
the eldest daughter of Citeaux, having been founded by S. Bernard in 1115.
This library was built in a position precisely similar to that at Citeaux,
namely, eastward of the church, on the north side of the second cloister,
over the _Scriptoria_. Begun in 1495, it was completed in 1503; and was
evidently regarded as a work of singular beauty, over which the House
ought to rejoice, for the building of it is commemorated in the following
stanzas written on the first leaf of a catalogue made between 1496 and
1509, and now preserved in the library at Troyes[237]:

La construction de cette librairie.

Jadis se fist cette construction
Par bons ouvriers subtilz et plains de sens
L'an qu'on disoit de l'incarnation
Nonante cinq avec mil quatre cens.

Et tant y fut besongnie de courage
En pierre, en bois, et autre fourniture
Qu'apres peu d'ans acheve fut louvrage
Murs et piliers et voulte et cou