Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir Page A

too might be suffering qualms of conscience over Vitry, but he was surprised to learn that she was not. Nevertheless, several matters were indeed troubling her, not least the problems of her sister. She asked him to use his influence with the Pope to have the excommunication on Raoul and Petronilla lifted and their marriage recognised by the Church. In return, she would persuade Louis to make peace with Theobald of Champagne and recognise Pierre de la Chatre as Archbishop of Bourges.
    Bernard was appalled at her brazen candour. In his opinion, these affairs were no business of a twenty-two-year-old woman. He was, in fact, terrified of women and their possible effect on him. As an adolescent, first experiencing physical desire for a young girl, he had been so filled with self-disgust that he had jumped into a freezing cold pond and remained there until his erection subsided. He strongly disapproved of his sister, who had married a rich man; because she enjoyed her wealth, he thought of her as a whore, spawned by Satan to lure her husband from the paths of righteousness, and refused to have anything to do with her. Nor would he allow his monks any contact with their female relatives.
    Now there stood before him the young, worldly, and disturbingly beautiful Queen of France, intent upon meddling in matters that were not her concern. Bernard's worst suspicions were confirmed: here, beyond doubt, was the source of that "counsel of the Devil" that had urged the King on to disaster and plunged him into sin and guilt. His immediate reaction was to admonish Eleanor severely.
    "Put an end to your interference with affairs of state," he ordered her in the voice that was capable of quelling the opposition of kings. So sternly did he reprove her that she burst into tears and revealed that she had interfered in politics because her life was empty and bitter, since "during all the seven years she had lived with the King, she had remained barren, apart from one hope in the early days, which had been quickly dashed. She despaired of ever having the longed-for child," although she had prayed many times to the Virgin to grant her wish. Could God, the healer of the lame, the blind, and the deaf, move Heaven to bestow on her the gift of motherhood?"
    Gratified to hear such proper womanly sentiments and moved by Eleanor's obvious distress, Bernard took compassion on her, but he still could not resist the opportunity to deliver a little homily.
    "My child," he said, in a more gentle tone, "seek those things which make for peace. Cease to stir up the King against the Church and urge him to a better course of action. If you will promise to do this, I in my turn promise to entreat the merciful Lord to grant you offspring."12
    Later that day, thanks to the intervention of Bernard and Abbot Suger, a treaty of peace was concluded between Louis and Theobald. As a result, the King returned to Count Theobald all the territory he had wrested from him during the recent war, renounced the oath he had sworn on holy relics, and confirmed Pierre de la Chatre as Archbishop of Bourges.
    Wisely, Louis meddled no further in the matter of the Vermandois marriage. The Pope eventually recognised the union as vahd, although Bernard warned that the couple would not enjoy each other for long, nor would their children be fruitful. Their only son, Ralph, died a leper, and their two daughters-- Elizabeth, who married Philip of Alsace, later Count of Flanders, and Eleanor, who married Matthew, Count of Beaumont-- both died childless. Raoul lived until 1151; Petronilla's date of death is not recorded.
    Louis had now done everything he could to make reparation for his great sin, yet still he was weighed down by guilt. He began privately to consider fulfilling the vow he had made in childhood, on behalf of his dead brother Philip, to take the Oriffamme of France on a pilgrimage to Christ's tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. "3 Yet events were moving in such a