It was now a question of dialectics and rhetoric versus diplomacy; though indeed we must credit Abélard—or his ‘esquire,’ as Bernard calls Arnold of Brescia—with a fine diplomatic move in claiming the discussion. There are several reasons for thinking that the Bishop of Paris was in Rome at the time, or the discussion should have been sought at Notre Dame. The next _instantia_ was the Archbishop of Sens, and Abélard continued to assail that prelate until he was forced to accept the petition. Not improbably it appealed to the sporting instinct of old ‘Henry the Boar,’ a man of noble extraction, and of extremely worldly life before he fell under the influence of the ubiquitous Bernard. The quarrel of the two great luminaries of France was now notorious. He could not well refuse to open the lists for a superb trial by combat. But Bernard had an entirely different theory of the condemnation of a heretic. He trusted to his personal influence and immense epistolary power. Abélard’s works were available, and were sufficient for the grounding of a condemnation, he said. He was not merely impatient of the implied doubt of the infallibility of his judgment; he shrank nervously from the thought of such an encounter. He did not conceal for a moment his dread of Abélard’s power. ‘I am a boy beside him,’ he pleaded, ‘and he is a warrior from his youth.’ On the other hand, if it became a question of a diplomatic struggle for a condemnation of the books at Rome, the positions would be exactly reversed. He refused to enter the lists with Abélard.