Before his elevation to the dignity of abbot of St. Denis, when charged with diverse missions either to ecclesiastical gatherings or to the court at Rome, or even called upon to defend with mailed fist certain domains belonging to St. Denis against the brigand nobles who ravaged them, he displayed in turn the tact of the ecclesiastic and the courage of the knight. Later on, when Louis had constituted him his most intimate adviser, it seems that so much power temporarily dazzled Suger. St. Bernard speaks of his pomp and pride, and of the disorder introduced into his abbey. “The interior of the monastery,” he says, “is filled with knights, sometimes it is even open to women; one hears business of all sorts being transacted there; there quarrels break out; lastly it is there that that which is Cæsar’s is rendered unto Cæsar, without deduction or delay, but never unto God that which is God’s.” Whether it be that St. Bernard’s warnings aroused Suger from this first intoxication of power, or whether he perceived of himself the harm the scandal would do him, he did not delay putting an end to it. In 1127 he introduced drastic reforms into his abbey, compelled his monks to submit to them, and scrupulously conformed himself, and very shortly his power in the court was but more firmly established by this episode. Proud of the austerity of his morals, whilst at the same time profiting by his influence, the church cried him up on all occasions, and bishops and abbots of the most celebrated monasteries contemplated with equal pride the gorgeous church rebuilt by him at St. Denis, and the humble cell, barely fifteen feet long by ten feet wide, where he applied himself in solitude to religious exercises. After the death of Louis the Fat his power increased yet more; the indolent and incompetent Louis the Young shifting to his shoulders the whole weight of the government. [Sidenote: [1147-1149 A.D.]]