After a time, Bernard was led to resolve on becoming a monk. But before doing so he contrived to bring his father, his uncle, his five brothers, and his sister to the same mind; and when he asked leave to enter the Cistercian order, it was at the head of a party of more than thirty. It is said that, as they were setting out, the eldest brother saw the youngest at play, and told him that all the family property would now fall to him. "Is it heaven for you, and earth for me?" said the boy; "that is not a fair division;" and he followed Bernard with the rest. We have seen that, although the Cistercian order had been founded some years, people were afraid to join it because the rule was so strict.[79] But the example of Bernard and his companions had a great effect, and so many others were thus led to enter the order, that the mother-monastery was far too small to hold them. Bernard was chosen to be head of one of the swarms which went forth from Citeaux. The name of his new monastery was Clairvaux, which means _The Bright Valley_. When he and his party first settled there, they had to bear terrible hardships. They suffered from cold and from want of clothing. For a time they had to feed on porridge made of beech-leaves; and even when the worst distress was over, the plainness and poverty of their way of living astonished all who saw it. [79] Page 209. Bernard himself went so far in mortification that he made himself very ill, and would most likely have died, if a bishop, who was his friend, had not stepped in and taken care of him for a time. Bernard afterwards understood that he had been wrong in carrying things so far; but the people who saw how he had worn himself down by fasting and frequent prayer, were willing to let themselves be led to anything that so saintly a man might recommend to them. It was even believed that he had the gift of doing miracles; and this added much to the admiration which he raised wherever he went. Perhaps there never was a man who had greater influence than Bernard; for, although he did not rise to be anything more than Abbot of Clairvaux, and refused all higher offices, he was able, by the power of his speech, and by the fame of his saintliness, to turn kings and princes, popes and emperors, and even whole assemblies of men, in any way that he pleased. When two popes had been chosen in opposition to each other, Bernard was able to draw all the chief princes of Christendom into siding with that pope whose cause he had taken up; and when the other pope's successor had been brought so low that he could carry on his claims no longer, he went to Bernard, entreating him to plead for him with the successful pope, Innocent II., and was led by the abbot to throw himself humbly as a penitent at Innocent's feet.