supplied Louis with money and defended his throne against plots, and
ultimately persuaded him to return to France. But during the Crusade
Louis and his wife Eleanor, the daughter and heiress of William X of
Aquitaine, had quarrelled bitterly. Louis had disgusted his
high-spirited wife by behaving more like a pilgrim than a warrior;
while Eleanor had attempted to divert the French troops to the aid of
her uncle, Raymond of Antioch. Suger alone preserved some sort of
harmony between the ill-assorted pair; but he died in 1151, and
Bernard, who had never approved of the marriage on canonical grounds,
lent his support to Louis' desire for a declaration of its invalidity,
though Louis and Eleanor had been married for thirteen years and there
were two daughters. The dissolution of the marriage was pronounced by
an ecclesiastical Council in 1152, and in the same year Eleanor,
taking with her all her extensive lands, married the young Henry of
Anjou and Normandy, who two years later became King of England.

[Sidenote: Bernard as defender of the Faith.]

Bernard and Suger were friends; but while the predominant work of
Suger's life had been the supremacy of the House of Capet, it is vain
to attempt to trace in Bernard any prejudice in favour of a growing
French nationality. He represents the cosmopolitan Church of the
Middle Ages; and his career is a supreme instance of the power which
results from an absolutely single-minded devotion to a lofty cause. In
masterful vehemence he challenges comparison with Hildebrand; but
unlike the Pope, he never identified the Church with his own
interests. He steadfastly refused all offers of advancement for
himself, although he did not dissuade his own monks from accepting
preferment. He would have preferred to live out his life as the
obscure head of a poor and secluded community; and even if the