Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/108

 62 WORKMEN AND HEROES been his constant self-appeal. Poor and unarmed, a priest or monk in those days had nothing wherewith to oppose the tyranny of the powerful nobility, save the weapons of religion and intellect. How righteously they could be used we shall see in the case of Bernard. In repeated instances he interposed the weight of his authority between the anger of a king or noble and the weakness of a subject or tenant, and scarcely ever failed in his object. One of the most remarkable ex- amples of this kind was his conduct toward the Count of Aquitaine. This noble- man, a man of immense strength of will no less than body, and violent and des- potic beyond his fellows, having espoused the cause of one rival Pope against another, dismissed from their sees several excellent bishops in his territory' who were adverse to his views, and supplied their places without regard to fitness of character. Bernard, having twice remonstrated in vain, after the last interview held a solemn mass in the church near the count's castle, at which that noble- man, as excommunicated, could not be present, but stood outside. The con- secration of the wafer was duly performed, and the blessing bestowed upon the people, when Bernard suddenly made his way through the crowd, bearing in his hand the Host on its paten (or plate), and confronted the astonished count as he stood at the church door amid his soldiery. With pale, stern face, and flashing eyes, the daring monk thus addressed the haughty chief : " Twice have the Lord's servants entreated you, and you have despised them. Lo ! now the blessed Son of the Virgin the Head and Lord of that Church which you persecute appears to you ! Behold your Judge, to whom your soul must be rendered ! Will you reject Him like His servants ?" A hush of awe and expectation among the by- standers followed these words, broken by a groan from the conscience-stricken count, whose imagination was filled with such lively terror of Divine wrath that he fell fainting to the ground. Though raised up by his men, he again fell speechless. Bernard, seizing the opportunity, called to his side one of the de- posed bishops, and on the count's recover}' ordered that the kiss of reconciliation should be bestowed, and the exile restored. The effect of this scene was not transient, for the proud spirit had been subdued in the count's heart, and he per- formed penance for his offences by going on pilgrimage. Various other instances of Bernard's boldness in rebuking kings, nobles, and even Popes, might be adduced. His most remarkable appearance as a political peace-maker was in the dispute which took place after the death of Pope Ho- norius II., as to the succession to the popedom. Two rival factions at Rome con- tended for the claims of separate candidates : one a wealthy and worldly, the other a learned and pious, cardinal. Bernard, as we may suppose, supported the cause of the latter, who took the name of Innocent II. At the council of Etampes, where Louis VI. of France and his nobles were assembled, the monk's eloquence prevailed over all the arguments of diplomacy, and the influence of France was pledged to the side of Innocent. Bernard next engaged aid from Henry I., of England, and Lothaire, the Emperor of Germany. He then pro- ceeded to Milan, where the party of the rival Pope, Anaclete, and his supporter, Conrad, Duke of Suabia, Lothaire's antagonist, was strongest. Bernard's fame