In those difficult years his vocation to monastic life was born. In a letter Bruno recounts the zealous beginning he felt. He and two of his friends, burning with divine love, had made a vote in the garden of a certain Adam to consecrate themselves to God.
It was wished that Bruno became successor to Manasse; yet although he knew that wearing a mitre was not only an honour for him, but also a powerful means to cooperate to the well-being and reform of the Church and perhaps of the nation, he did not accept. Instead he gave out his possessions to the poor, and went along with two companions, Peter and Lambert, to the abbacy of Molesmes to St Robert, who later became one of the founders of the Cistercian Order. At Sèche-Fontaine, he found an abode for a short while in a hermitage which belonged to the monastery. The place and circumstances did not satisfy Bruno who, following divine inspiration, wished to continue at some other locality looking for a suitable place where to lead his solitary life. He therefore went, together with six companions to Ugo, bishop of Grenoble, who led them to the solitude which was being desired. Ugo was himself guided by a vision which he had in a dream: seven stars which led seven pilgrims to the desert of Chartreuse.
