“stiff-necked in their holy obstinacy,” left Molêmes, and sought a new abode in the wilderness. The site which they chose--in the diocese of Chalon-sur-Saône, not far from Dijon--was no happy valley, no “green retreat” such as the earlier Benedictine founders had been wont to select. It was a dismal swamp overgrown with brushwood, a forlorn, dreary, unhealthy spot, from whose marshy character the new house took its name of “the Cistern”--_Cistellum_, commonly called Citeaux. There the little band set to work in 1098 to carry into practice their views of monastic duty. The brotherhood of Molêmes, left without a head by their abbot’s desertion, presently appealed to the archbishop of Lyons and the Pope, and after some negotiation Robert, willingly or unwillingly, returned to his former post. His departure gave a shock to the foundations of the new community; zeal was already growing cold, and of those who had followed him out from Molêmes all save eight followed him back again. Those eight--“few in number, but a host in merit”--at once chose their prior Alberic to be abbot in Robert’s stead, while the true founder, Stephen Harding, undertook the duties of prior. Upon Alberic’s death in 1110 Stephen became abbot in his turn, and under him the little cistern in the wilderness became a fountain whose waters flowed out far and wide through the land. Three-and-twenty daughter-houses were brought to completion during his life-time. One of the earliest was Pontigny, founded in 1114, and destined in after-days to become inseparably associated with the name of another English saint. Next year there went forth another Cistercian colony, whose glory was soon to eclipse that of the mother-house itself. Its leader was a young monk called Bernard, and the place of its settlement was named Clairvaux.[191] [191] For the Life of S. Stephen Harding, and the early history of Citeaux and its order, see Will. Malm. _Gesta Reg._, l. iv. cc. 334–337 (Hardy, pp. 511–517); Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), pp. 711–714; and _Gallia Christiana_, vol. iv. pp. 980–984.