"What is the meaning in the cloisters, before the brother occupied in reading, of those ridiculous monsters, those deformed beauties, those beautiful deformities? What do they there, those unclean apes, those fierce lions, those monstrous centaurs, those figures half man, half beast, those striped tigers, those fighting soldiers, those huntsmen who sound the horn? On one side, I see many heads on a single body; on the other, many bodies with a single head; here a beast with a serpent's tail; there a fish with an animal's head. Half a horse ends in half a goat; a horned animal bears a horse's croup. Everywhere appears a multitude of varied and uncouth forms. More pleasure is taken in reading on marble than in books; we choose rather to pass the whole day in looking upon these pictures than in meditating upon the Divine Law. Great God, though we blush not at such follies, let us blush, at least, at the sums they cost!"[107] However worthy such ideals might be from the spiritual point of view--and no one, surely, can read Bernard's letter without feeling its power and sincerity--it is obvious that, like those of the later Puritanism, they bore within them the germs of their own destruction. No community of man, even in those glorious days of the early middle ages, could live, for long, up to that standard; and as the order established itself all over Europe, almost, the diffusion of its forces resulted necessarily in a swift falling away, and loss of prestige. That change, though, perhaps, a disaster for the Christian church, was the salvation of Western Europe; for, had the ideals of Citeaux finally prevailed over those of Cluny, the glorious Gothic arts of the next three centuries, upon which Cluny certainly exercised great influence--of which, indeed, she was the mother--would not have attained the same development. * * * * * Among the distinguished visitors to Citeaux, were Louis le Gros, in 1127; Pope Eugène III., who presided over the chapter general, in 1148; Louis VII., in 1166; and Louis IX. (St. Louis), who came here from Vézelay, in 1244. On that occasion, according to custom, the Duke of Burgundy, Hugues IV., preceded the royal cortège up to the limit of his lands. As they approached Citeaux, coming in sight of the church, all left their horses, and advanced on foot in the attitude of prayer. The prelates, the abbots who were there, and the monks, to the number of five hundred, came forth in procession to welcome the monarch visiting them for the first time. Louis IX. and Queen Blanche did not lodge in the abbey, but in the Hotel du Duc de Bourgogne, without the walls. They were specially authorized to eat meat during their stay, on condition that such permission would not be granted on a future occasion.[108]