Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/106

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60 WORKMEN AND HEROES the Cid's memory of this barbarity ; but all unite in recording the successful siege of the city, which he took in 1094. While he lived, the Moors vainly tried to re- take it ; but on his death, which is supposed to have occurred in 1099, Valencia again fell. Romance has colored with glowing tints this scanty historic outline of the Cid's life. Spanish literature, for two or three hundred years after his death, is almost confined to epic or ballad poetry, of which he is the hero. To acquire such a fame demanded a force of character, which, if not accurately painted by these loving and fanciful narrators, cannot have fallen far short of the glory with which the world will forever associate the name of the Cid Campeador. ST. BERNARD BY HENRY G. HEWLETT I (1091-1153) N 1091, when the career of the Cid was drawing to a close in Spain, a yet greater Christian champion was born in France ; greater, if only in this, that the weapons of his warfare were not carnal. That the work was good in itself, we think will be clear from a perusal of the life of the warrior - monk, St Bernard. His birthplace was Fon- taines, near Dijon, in Burgundy; his father, Tecelin, a knight of honorable reputation, and so ab- sorbed in his profession that he was compelled to leave the care of his seven sons, of whom Bernard was the third, to his wife Aleth. She was a pious and gentle woman, strictly attached to the duties of religion, and anxious for the spiritual rather than the temporal welfare of her children, whom she therefore devoted to the clois- ter. A dream, it is said, had indicated to her the .future fame of her third son, before his birth. He rapidly dis- played signs of possessing no ordinary character. His education was undertaken by the then celebrated school of Chantillon and the University of Paris, where he remained some years, actively pursuing his studies. His mother died soon