and useful characters of the age in which
he lived. He was born, June 15. 924, and
was heir to the noble family of Menthon.
In his earliest youth he showed a predilection
for religious studies, and a strong
inclination for the priesthood, which gave
his parents much uneasiness, for he was
their only child, and they wished to aggrandize
the family, by his marriage with
a young lady of Chateau Duing. Young
Bernard not having sufficient resolution
to refuse their pressing solicitations, suffered
the day for the celebration of the
nuptials to be fixed; but the previous evening
he escaped out of a window of the castle,
and fled over the Alps. His fate was for
many years unknown to his disconsolate
parents. At the castle they showed us the
window from which he threw himself, and
the rock on which he fell without being hurt;
but the height is so great that he must inevitably
have been dashed to pieces, unless
he made use of ropes. All difficulties of
this kind, however, are easily surmounted,
by having recourse to a miracle, which the
catholics say was wrought on the occasion.
There is a portrait of the lady to whom he
was to have been married still in the castle ;
SAINT BERNARD. 53
and if it be a faithful resemblance, we must
give the young saint credit for possessing
more self-denial and courage in running
away from her, than is to he found among
the young men of the present age. As the
picture of the lady and also one of the
saints are in oils, they must be of a much
later date than the 10th century. There is,
however, a portrait of St. Bernard painted
in distemper, with but little shading, which
appears very ancient, and in which he is
represented as extremely handsome, with an
expression of great dignity and benevolence.
Other portraits, which I have seen of the
saint elsewhere, preserve a resemblance
to this, and have probably been copied
from it.
After crossing the Alps, St. Bernard
arrived at Aoste, and received ordination,
and afterwards became archdeacon of the
cathedral. Possessing the zeal of an apostle,
he could not rest satisfied with the
easy duties of his office, but burned with
impatience to destroy the worship of the
heathen deities, for they were still adored
in some of the sequestered valleys of
the Pennine and Grecian Alps. He
employed himself for forty-two years in
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