However, it is a task of extreme difficulty for an impartial student to trace with confidence the early stages of that memorable conflict. We have seen the Bernardist version; the version of some of the recent biographers of Abélard is very different. Deutsch and Hausrath, able and critical scholars, believe that the letter from William of St. Thierry had been written, wholly or in part, by Bernard himself; that Bernard’s reply was part of a comedy of intrigue; that a timid and treacherous conventicle of the Cistercian monks, including Bernard, had deliberately drawn up in advance this equivocal plan of campaign. Now, if the Catholic enthusiast is incapable of dealing quite impartially with such a problem, it is equally certain that the heretic has a similar disturbing element in his natural predilection for picking holes in the coats of the canonised. The evidence must be examined very carefully. The presumption is that a man of the exalted idealism and stern self-discipline of St. Bernard would not lend himself to such manœuvres. Yet these things are not inconsistent with the dignity of canonisation; moreover, the object was a great and holy one—and Bernard had a mortal dread of the dialectician. In the first place, then, it is impossible to credit Bernard with the whole of the letter which bears the name of William of St. Thierry. Much of it is by no means Bernardesque in style and manner; and there are passages which it is quite impossible, on moral grounds, to conceive as having been written by Bernard himself. At the same time much of it does certainly seem to have been written by Bernard. There are few better judges of such a point than Deutsch. The contention that William would not have dared to address such a demand simultaneously to Bernard and Geoffrey without instructions is more precarious. On the other hand, the letter seems in many respects to support the idea of a diplomatic arrangement. It is addressed to Bernard and to Geoffrey of Chartres, and opens as follows: ‘God knows that I am filled with confusion, my lords and fathers, when I am constrained to address you, insignificant as I am, on a matter of grave urgency, since you and others whose duty it is to speak remain silent.’ After a little of this strain he recounts how he ‘lately chanced to read a certain work’ of the dreadful heretic he has named—the _Theology of Peter Abélard_. From it he selects thirteen heretical propositions (we shall meet them later), which he submits to their judgment. If they also condemn, he calls for prompt and effective action. ‘God knows that I too have loved him’ [Abélard], he says, ‘and would remain in charity with him, but in such a cause as this I know no friend or acquaintance.’ Finally, he says: ‘There are, I am told, other works of his, the _Sic et Non_ and the _Scito te Ipsum_, and others ... but I am told that they shun the light, and cannot be found.’