Be it added, however, lest I should discourage others from visiting the castle, that the account of my experience was received most apologetically by several villagers, who assured me that the present inhabitants were "gentils," and that my cold reception must have been due to the fact, of which I was, of course, unaware, that there was illness in the house. My wrath having been appeased by lunch, and the attentions of a good-natured hostess, I proceeded boldly to climb to the head of the Valley of St. Point, and, after many kilometres of very hard work, was rewarded by a look back over the Valley, from below Tramaye. In the middle distance, shone, in the afternoon sun, bronze and white among the tapering poplars, the Village of St. Point, crowned by the ancient gray church; and, higher yet, the sombre trees of the garden, and the towers of Lamartine's château. Above Tramaye, itself a very eagle's aerie, one by one the lower valleys open out to view, until, at last, crossing the "col," you descend, for kilometre after kilometre, to Clermain in the Valley of the Grosne, one of the once-fortified advance-guard villages protecting the approach to Cluny from the South. [Illustration: End of chapter VI; House of Lamartine] FOOTNOTES: [90] Lorain, p. 95. [91] "Undermining of the monastic state and ruin of good monasteries."--Penjon's "Cluny," p. 125. [92] It was found in the façade of a barn, but once formed part of the arch of a Romanesque house. [93] For further particulars see the article on "Maisons" in Viollet-le-Duc's "Dictionnaire Raisonné," Tome vi., p. 222 and on. Also the chapter "Maisons Particuliéres" in M. Penjon's book. [94] "Cluny, la Ville et l'Abbaye," par A. Penjon, pp. 4-5. [95] "Le Tailleur de Pierre de St. Point," cap. vii., viii. [96] In the sixteenth century the castle was occupied by Guillaume de St. Point, Governor of Mâcon, a bitter enemy of the Calvinists. [97] You are shown the bed on which he died, many interesting photographs, articles of wearing apparel, and other personal relics of Lamartine, also many paintings by Mme. Lamartine, an English lady. There are others in the church. [Illustration: Chapter VII heading; St. Bernard] CHAPTER VII MORE POPE THAN YOU Purity and simplicity having been always potent factors in the development of the spiritual life, it followed, as the night the day, that Cluny's ever-growing indulgencies and luxury, while they sapped her own strength, laid her open to supercession by the devotees of an uncorrupted order. By the time of Pierre le Vénérable, that rival had already arisen. The Cistercian Order, under the rule of St. Bernard, at Clairvaux, had already supplanted Cluny as the first religious power of Europe. The story of the rise of Citeaux is full of legendary and historical interest.