ttlement was
changed to Clairvaux, but for many years the poor monks' only food was
barley bread, with broth made from boiled beech leaves. Here Tescelin
came in his old age to live under the rule of his sons; and Humbeline,
the wealthy and rank-proud daughter, one day left her gay retinue at the
door of their little abbey and went to join the nuns at Jouilly.

While Bernard was studying and planting at Clairvaux, the word of his
piety and worth went everywhere through the land, and he came to be
consulted not only by his Superior at Citeaux, but by villein and noble,
even to the august persons of Louis the Fat of France and Henry the
Norman of England. His gentleness and integrity became the chief
reliance of the royal house of France, and his sermons and letters began
to be quoted at council board and synod even as far as Rome. The
austerity and poverty of the Cistercians had caused some friends of the
monks of Cluny to fall under Bernard's zealous indignation. He wrote to
William of St. Thierry a famous letter, mildly termed an Apology; in
which, by the most insinuating and biting satire, the laxity and
indulgence which had weakened or effaced the power of monastic example
(from which arraignment the proud house of Cluny was deemed not to
escape scot-free) were lashed with uncompromising courage.

France and Burgundy, with the more or less helpful aid of the Norman
dukes in England, had been very loyal to the interests of the Papacy.
When the schism of Anacletus II. arose in 1130, Innocent II., driven
from Rome by the armed followers of Peter de Leon, found his way at once
to the side of Louis VI. There he found Bernard, and upon him he leaned
from that time until the latter had hewed a road for him back to Rome
through kings, prelates, statesmen, and intriguers, with the same
unflinching steadfastness with which he had cut a way to the sunlight
for his vines and vegetables in the Valley of Wormwood. Bernard it was
who persuaded Henry of England to side with Innocent, and it was he who
stayed the revival of the question of investitures and won the Emperor
to the Pope at Liege. At the Council of Rheims in October 1131, Bernard
was the central figure; and when the path was open for a return to
Italy, the restored Pope took the abbot with him, leaving in return a
rescript releasing Citeaux from tithes. Bernard stayed in Italy until
1135, and left Innocent secure in Rome.

After a short period of peace at Clairvaux, he