until coming to the unpretentious gate of a church whose greenery is the only setting and the only walls. Contrary to the edifices of other brotherhoods, the Cistercian abbeys had no defense, as the re-establishment of a very real poverty would have aux discouraged any pillagers. There is nothing to suggest that at their height, towards the beginning of the 13th century, the three sisters accumulated a wealth that brought them closer to the Cluny monks than to the spirit of St Bernard of Clairvaux.
Their farms grew, with barns sometimes quite far from the abbey itself, and the seigniorial rights, their urbane houses, their saltworks, their pasture land by the sea and in Haute-Provence, aroused a lust for wealth of which Bernard could have had no idea. The Cistercians, becoming bishops and popes, joined the dissoluteness of the world and discipline slackened. Belltowers, considered signs of vanity, were built and equipped with powerful bells, while in Le Thoronet, gourmet monks enjoyed feasts of game and fine fruit. Bands of Vaudois pillaged, sacked and burnt a part of the Sénanque abbey, while Benedictines of the arrogant abbey of Montmajour besieged Silvacane, killing some monks and driving out the others.
Ruined, the abbey became a bandits den. Only the abbey of Le Thoronet, which remains the most interesting of the three, came out more or less undamaged by these troubles times. The stones retain the memory of Bernard´s utopia and its inevitable failure.
The visitor here becomes aware of the constant struggle between ideals and the human state, and can finally assess that the extent of a dream is certainly weak in the face of history. What remains are three magnificent abbeys and a sort of strange sentiment of plentitude, soothed by the last echo of the Cistercian chants.
