From the outset, Bernard craved a monastic life, and when he grew up insisted on dedicating himself to Heaven. His first success was the conversion of his brothers, whom he carried with him to the cloister, with the exception of the youngest, who was then a child. As the brothers passed through the castle courtyard, on their way to the convent, Guy, the eldest, said to the boy, who was playing there with other children, “Well, Nivard, all our land is now yours.” “So you will have heaven and I earth,” the child answered; “that is an unequal division.” And a few years after he joined his brothers.[112] The father and one daughter then were left alone, and at last they too entered convents, where they died. At twenty-two, when Bernard took his vows at Citeaux, his influence was so strong that he carried with him thirty of his comrades, and mothers are said to have hid their sons from him, and wives their husbands, lest he should lure them away. He actually broke up so many homes that the abandoned wives formed a nunnery, which afterward grew rich. His abilities were so marked that his superiors singled him out, when he had hardly finished his novitiate, to found a house in the wilderness. This house became Clairvaux, in the twelfth century the most famous monastery of the world. In the Middle Ages, convents were little patronized until by some miracle they had proved themselves worthy of hire; their early years were often passed in poverty, and Clairvaux was no exception to the rule, for the brethren suffered privations which nearly caused revolt. In the midst of his difficulties, Bernard’s brother Gérard, who was cellarer, came to him to complain that the fraternity were without the barest necessities of life. The man of God asked, “How much will suffice for present wants?” Gérard replied, “Twelve pounds.” Bernard dismissed him and betook himself to prayer. Soon after Gérard returned and announced that a woman was without and wished to speak with him. “She, when he had come to her, prostrating herself at his feet, offered him a gift of twelve pounds, imploring the aid of his prayers for her husband, who was dangerously sick. Having briefly spoken with her, he dismissed her, saying: ‘Go. You will find your husband well.’ She, going home, found what she had heard had come to pass. The abbot comforting the weakness of his cellarer, made him stronger for bearing other trials from God.”[113] Although his family were somewhat sceptical about his gifts, and even teased him to tears, the monk William tells, in his chronicle, how he soon performed an astounding miracle which made Clairvaux a “veritable valley of light,” and then wealth poured in upon him. Meanwhile, his constitution, which had never been vigorous, had been so impaired by his penances that he was unable to follow the monastic life in its full rigour, and he therefore threw himself into politics, to which he was led both by taste and by the current of events.