Considering that Latin was a tongue which youths learned at school rather than at their mothers’ knees, such writing as Bernard’s is a triumphant recasting of an ancient language. One notices in him, as generally with mediaeval religious writers, the influence of the Vulgate, which was mainly in the language of St. Jerome--of Jerome when not writing as a literary virtuoso, but as a scholar occupied with rendering the meaning, and willing to accept such linguistic innovations as served his purpose.[260] But beyond this influence, one sees how masterful is Bernard’s diction, quite freed from observance of classical principles, quite of the writer and his time, adapting itself with ease and power to the topic and character of the composition, and always expressive of the personality of the mighty saint. Hildebert of Le Mans was a few years older than St. Bernard. As an example of his prose a letter may be cited, of which the translation has been given. It was written in 1128, when he was Archbishop of Tours, in protest against the encroachments of the royal power of the French king, Louis the Fat, upon the rights of the Archiepiscopacy of Tours in the matter of ecclesiastical appointments within that diocese: “In adversis nonnullum solatium est, tempora sperare laetiora. Diutius spes haec mihi blandita est, et velut agricolam messis in herba, sic animum meum prosperitatis expectatio confortavit. Caeterum jam nihil est quo serenitatem nimbosi temporis exspectem, nihil est quo navis, in cujus puppi sedeo, crebris agitata turbinibus, portum quietis attingat. “Silent amici, silent sacerdotes Jesu Christi. Denique silent et illi quorum suffragio credidi regem mecum in gratiam rediturum. Credidi quidem, sed super dolorem vulnerum meorum rex, illis silentibus, adjecit. Eorum tamen erat gravamini ecclesiae canonicis obviare institutis. Eorum erat, si res postulasset, opponere murum pro domo Israel. Verum apud serenissimum regem opus est exhortatione potius quam increpatione, consilio quam praecepto, doctrina quam virga. His ille conveniendus fuit, his reverenter instruendus, ne sagittas suas in sene compleret sacerdote, ne sanctiones canonicas evacuaret, ne persequeretur cineres Ecclesiae jam sepultae, cineres in quibus ego panem doloris manduco, in quibus bibo calicem luctus, de quibus eripi et evadere, de morte ad vitam transire est.