Letters226 Letter CCXXVI. To Louis, KING OF THE FRENCH (A.D. 1143)

Bernard and Hugo complain of the King's persistence in ill-doing.

To Louis, by the grace of God illustrious King of the French, and Duke of Aquitaine, HUGH, Bishop of Auxerre, his humble servant, and BERNARD, Abbot of Clairvaux, wish health, and desire that he should love righteousness, and judge his land in wisdom.

1. It is a long time since we left our homes and set aside our private interests in order to labour, as God is our witness, for your peace, and the peace of your realm. We lament that so far we have reaped no fruit, or very little, in return for all our labour. Still the poor are crying after us, still the land is daily going to ruin. Do you ask what land? Yours, none other. For it is within your realm, and against your realm that all these evils are being perpetrated. For whether it be your friends or your enemies who are being impoverished, taken prisoners, and crushed by that war, they are from nowhere else than your kingdom. In it the saying of the Saviour seems to be daily coming true, that every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation (S. Luke xi. 17). To this there is added the fact that these dividers and desolators themselves have made you the head and leader of this wickedness, when they ought to have feared you especially as their opponent, and felt you most of all as their punisher. Still, we hoped that you, touched and illuminated by God, had perceived their great wickedness, had recognized your error, and were desirous under wiser counsels to withdraw your foot from this snare.

2. But the conference lately held between us at Corbeil, has dispelled any such hope. For you know how, and how unreasonably (by your leave be it said) you then left us. Whence it happened that your displeasure with us did not allow us to give you any clear explanation of that passage in our discourse which displeased you. But if you had deigned to await it with undisturbed mind you might, perhaps, have learnt that nothing was said by us that was an insult to your majesty, or unendurable in the present position of your affairs. But, as it is, since you have been provoked without any cause, you have disturbed and confused us, and you also keep us, being men who desire and seek your good, in doubt and anxiety as to what we are to do. What has disturbed you is nothing but the fraud of the wicked, and the idle talk of men who know little, who call evil good and good evil. But though we have been troubled, yet we do not altogether despair of the help of the Spirit, who, we see, has wholesomely smitten your mind for your past evil deeds, and we still stand and wait till your better nature return, and you effectually accomplish what you have wisely begun. For this reason we have sent to you our dear brother Andrew of Baudiment, who will tell you of these things more fully, and will faithfully bring back word to us of whatever reply you may have been pleased to give. But if (which God forbid) you persist in withstanding good advice, we are clean from your blood; God will not any longer suffer His Church to be trodden down either by you or yours.