to anticipate attack and desired to be heard before an assembly to be
held at Sens (1140). Bernard reluctantly consented to take part in a
public controversy. But when they met, Abailard, probably feeling
himself surrounded by an unsympathetic audience, suddenly refused to
speak and appealed to the Pope. On his way to Rome he fell ill at
Cluny, where the saintly abbot, Peter the Venerable, received him as a
monk. He made a confession which chiefly amounted to a regret that he
had used words open to misconstruction, and he died in 1142 the inmate
of a Cluniac house.

Bernard remained upon the alert, intent on checking any further spread
of the teaching of Abailard's followers. But he had pushed matters to
an extreme, and there were many in high place who resented his efforts
to dictate the doctrine of the Church. Thus Gilbert de la Porree,
Bishop of Poictiers, a pupil of Abailard, was accused at the Council
of Rheims (1148) of erroneous doctrines regarding the being of God and
the Sacraments. Bernard tried to use his influence over Pope Eugenius
in order to procure the bishop's condemnation, and stirred up the
French clergy to assist him. The Cardinals addressed an indignant
remonstrance to the Pope, pointing out that as he owed his elevation
from a private position to the papacy to them, he belonged to them
rather than to himself, that he was allowing private friendship to
interfere with public duty, and that "that abbot of yours" and the
Gallican Church were usurping the function of the See of Rome. Bernard
had to explain away the action of his party, and the Council contented
itself with exacting from the accused a general agreement with the
faith of the Roman Church, and this was represented by Gilbert's
friends as a triumph.

Bernard's death restored the leadership of Christendom to the official