your people are in the enjoyment, for the present, of a happy peace. You
will find your houses and your palaces in good condition through the care
we have taken to have them repaired. Behold me now in the decline of
age: and I dare to say that the occupations in which I have engaged for
the love of God and through attachment to your person have added many to
my years. In respect of the queen, your consort, I am of opinion that
you should conceal the displeasure she causes you, until, restored to
your dominions, you can calmly deliberate upon that and upon other
subjects."

On once more entering his kingdom, Louis, who, at a distance, had
sometimes lent a credulous ear to the complaints of the discontented or
to the calumnies of Suger's enemies, did him full justice and was the
first to give him the name of Father of the country. The ill success of
the crusade and the remembrance of all that France had risked and lost
for nothing, made a deep impression upon the public; and they honored
Suger for his far-sightedness whilst they blamed St. Bernard for the
infatuation which he had fostered and for the disasters which had
followed it. St. Bernard accepted their reproaches in a pious spirit:
"If," said he, "there must be murmuring against God or against me, I
prefer to see the murmurs of men falling upon me rather than upon the
Lord. To me it is a blessed thing that God should deign to use me as a
buckler to shield Himself. I shrink not from humiliation, provided that
His glory be unassailed." But at the same time St. Bernard himself was
troubled, and he permitted himself to give expression to his troubled
feelings in a singularly free and bold strain of piety. "We be fallen
upon very grievous times," he wrote to Pope Eugenius III.; "the Lord,
provoked by our sins, seemeth in some sort to have determined to judge
the world before the time, and to judge it, doubtless, according to His
equity, but not remembering His mercy. Do not the heathen say, 'Where is