to a pupil, "you will find something far greater in the
woods than you will in books; stones and trees will teach you that which
you will never learn from masters." The arrival of Bernard and his
companions was a turning-point in the history of Citeaux; and the
monastery had to send out two colonies, to La Ferte and Pontigny, and in
1115 a third, under Bernard himself, to Clairvaux. Here, in a deep
umbrageous valley, traversed by a limpid stream, the thirteen pioneers
built a house little better than a barn. Their privations were great.
Beech-nuts and roots were at first their main support; but soon the
sympathy of the surrounding country brought sufficiency for their frugal
needs. Bernard was consecrated Abbot of Clairvaux by the Bishop of
Chalons, the renowned William of Champeaux, with whom he established a
deep friendship.

His labours, anxieties and austerities had well-nigh brought Bernard to
the grave, when the good bishop, finding him inflexible, went to
Citeaux, and, prostrating himself before Stephen Harding, begged and
obtained leave to direct and manage Bernard for one year only. The young
abbot obeyed his new director absolutely, and lived in a cottage apart
from the monastery "at leisure for himself and God, and exulting, as it
were, in the delights of Paradise."

William of St. Thierry and other chroniclers, telling of Clairvaux at
this time, are fervid in their reverence and praise. "Methought I saw a
new heaven and a new earth" ... "the golden age seemed to have revisited
the world" ... "as you descended the hill you could see it was a temple
of God; the still, silent valley bespoke the unfeigned humility of
Christ's poor. In this valley full of men, where one and all were
occupied with their allotted tasks, a silence, deep as that of night,
prevailed. The sounds of labour, or the chants of the brethren in the
choral service, were the only exceptions. The order of this silence
struck such a reverence even into secular persons that they dreaded
breaking it even by pertinent remarks."

Saint Benedict's rule had reference only to a single religious house;
but Abbot Stephen of Citeaux united in one compact whole all the
monasteries which sprang from the parent stock of Citeaux, and
established an organised system of mutual supervision and control. A
general chapter was held annually in September, and every Cistercian
abbot whose monastery was in France, Italy or Germany was bound to
attend every year; t