In his last moments Suger invoked the assistance and the prayers of St. Bernard, who sustained his courage, and exhorted him not to turn his thoughts from the heavenly Jerusalem, in which both of them hoped soon to meet; but in spite of the exhortations of his friend, the abbot of St. Denis regretted, when dying, not having been able to succour the holy city. St. Bernard was not long before he followed Suger to the tomb, bearing with him a deep regret at having preached an unfortunate war.
France lost in the same year two men who had greatly illustrated her, the one by talents and qualities useful to his country, the other by his eloquence and virtues dear to all Christians. At a time when general attention was given to the defence of the privileges of the Church, Suger defended the interests of royalty and the people; whilst eloquent preachers were animating the public zeal for holy wars which were always accompanied by disasters, the skilful minister of Louis VII. was preparing France, at a future day, to gather the salutary fruits of these great events. He was accused of having gone too deeply into the mundane affairs of his age; but politics never banished from his mind the precepts of the gospel. According to the judgment of his contemporaries, he lived at the court like a wise courtier, and in his cloister like a pious monk.[293] If there is in the church of France, wrote St. Bernard to Pope Eugenius, any vase of price which would embellish the palace of the King of kings, it is doubtless the venerable abbot Suger. As abbot of St. Denis, he, perhaps, enjoyed more wealth than any monk ought to possess, since we see he proposed to maintain an army, but he always employed his treasures in the service of his country and the Church, and never had the state been so rich as under his administration. His whole life was a long series of prosperity, and of actions worthy of being remembered. He reformed the monks of his order without incurring their hatred; he created the happiness of the people without proving their ingratitude; and served kings, and yet obtained their friendship. Fortune favoured all his undertakings, and that there should be nothing unprosperous in his life, and that he might be reproached with no fault, he died when he was about to conduct an army to the East.
Suger and St. Bernard, united by religion and friendship, had a very different destiny; the first, born in a low condition, gave himself to the disposal of fortune, who carried him up to the highest dignities; the second, born in a more elevated rank, hastened to descend from it, and was nothing but by his genius. St. Bernard rendered few services to the state, but he defended religion with indefatigable zeal; and as church then took precedence of country, he was greater than the abbot Suger in the eyes of his contemporaries. Whilst he lived, the eyes of all Europe were fixed upon the abbot of Clairvaux; he was as a light placed in the midst of Christendom, every word he preached had the holy authority of the religion he taught. He stifled all schisms, silenced all impostors, and by his labours, merited in his age the title of the last father of the Church, as richly as the great Bossuet merited it in his.
St. Bernard may be reproached with having too frequently issued from his retreat, and with not having always been, as he himself expresses it, the disciple of oaks and beeches. He had a hand in most of the political events of his time, and interfered in all the affairs of the Holy See. Christians often asked who was the head of the Church; popes and princes sometimes murmured against his authority; but it must never be forgotten that he unceasingly preached moderation to kings, humanity to the people, and poverty to the clergy.
BOOK VII.
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THIRD CRUSADE.
A.D. 1148-1188.