The literary and personal activity described in the preceding chapter, together with the elaboration of a new ‘theology,’ of which we shall read presently, brings the story of Abélard’s life down to 1135 or 1136. His movements during the three or four years after his flight from St. Gildas are very obscure. St. Bernard seems to speak of his presence in Paris at one time, though the passages can, and perhaps should, be explained away. Heloise speaks of his visits to the Paraclete. On the whole he probably remained in Brittany, at Nantes or Pallet, and devoted his time to literary work. But in 1136 we find him in Paris once more. Whether the monks succeeded in making Brittany too insecure for him, or the count failed to guarantee his income, or a natural disgust with the situation and longing for the intellectual arena impelled him to return, we cannot say. It is only known that in 1136 he was once more quickening the scholastic life of Europe from the familiar slope of St. Genevieve. So swift and eventful has been the career of the great teacher that one realises with difficulty that he is now almost an old man, a man in his fifty-seventh or fifty-eighth year. It is twenty years since the grim termination of his early Parisian activity, and a new generation fills the schools. The ideas with which he first startled and conquered the intellectual world have been made familiar. The vigour, the freshness, the charming pertinacity of youth have departed. Yet there is no master in Christendom, young or old, that can restrain the flood of ‘barbarians’ when ‘Li mestre’ reappears at Paris. John of Salisbury was amongst the crowd. It is from his _Metalogicus_ that we first learn of Abélard’s return to the arena, and the renewal of his old triumph. St. Bernard fully confirms the story, after his fashion. Indeed, in one sense Abélard’s triumph was greater than ever, for he gathered a notable group of followers about him on St. Genevieve. There was Arnold of Brescia, the scourge of the Italian clergy, the ‘gad-fly’ of the hierarchy. There was Gilbert de la Porée, a dreaded dialectician and rationalistic theologian. There was Hyacinth, the young deacon and noble from Rome, afterwards a power in the sacred college. There was Bérenger, the caustic critic, who gave Bernard many an unpleasant quarter of an hour. There were future bishops and theologians in remarkable numbers.