BERNARD, ST, the first abbot of Clairvaux, was born in the year 1091, in the village of Fontaine, in Burgundy. He acquired so great a reputation by his zeal and abilities, that all the affairs of the church appeared to rest upon his shoulders, and kings and princes seemed to have chosen him for a general arbitrator of their differences. It was owing to him that Innocent II. was acknowledged sovereign pontiff, and after the death of Peter Louis anti-pope, that Victor, who had been named successor, made a voluntary abdication of his dignity. He convicted Abelard at the council of Sens, in the year 1140. He opposed the monk Raoul; he persecuted the followers of Arnaud de Breille; and, in 1148, he got Gilbert de la Porvée, bishop of Poitiers, and Eonde l'Etoile, to be condemned in the council of Rheims. By such zealous behaviour he verified (says Mr Bayle) the interpretation of his mother's dream. She dreamed, when she was with child of him, that she should bring forth a white dog, whose barking should be very loud. Being astonished at this dream, she consulted a monk, who said to her, "Be of good courage; you shall have a son who shall guard the house of God, and bark loudly against the enemies of the faith." But St Bernard went even beyond the prediction, for he barked sometimes against chimerical enemies: he was more happy in exterminating the heterodox, than in ruining the infidels; and yet he attacked these last, not only with the ordinary arms of his eloquence, but also with the extraordinary arms of prophecy. He preached up the crusade under Louis the Younger, and by this means he enlarged the troops of the crusaders beyond expression: but all the fine hopes with which he flattered the people were disappointed by the event; and when complaint was made that he had brought an infinite number of Christians to slaughter without going out of his own country, he cleared himself by saying that the sins of the croises had hindered the effect of his prophecies. In short, he is said to have founded 160 monasteries, and to have wrought a great number of miracles. He died on the 20th of August 1153, at 63 years of age. The best edition of his works is that of 1690, by Father Mabillon.