But Abélard went straight to the centre of Paris, to the cloistral enclosure under the shadow of old Notre Dame,[5] where was the first episcopal school in the kingdom, and one of the first masters in Christendom. William of Champeaux was a comparatively young master, who had forced his way into high places by sheer ability. He was held to be the first dialectician in France, and ‘almost the first royal councillor.’ In the great philosophic controversy of the period he was the leader of the orthodox school. The Bishop of Paris had brought him to the island-city, and vested him with the dignity of archdeacon of the cathedral and _scholasticus_ (chancellor or rector) and master of the episcopal school. So high was the repute of his ability and his doctrine that, so Fleury says, he was called ‘the pillar of doctors.’ From an obscure local centre of instruction he had lifted the Parisian school into a commanding position, and had attracted scholars from many lands. And he was then in the prime of life. Within a few months Abélard made his authority totter, and set his reputation on the wane. In six or seven years he drove him, in shame and humiliation, from his chair, after a contest that filled Christendom with its echoes. [5] The Notre Dame of to-day, like the earlier Louvre, dates from the end of the twelfth century. Let us repeat that William of Champeaux was then in the prime of life, or only ten years older than Abélard. There are those who talk of the ‘venerable teacher’ and the audacious, irreverent stripling. This picture of the conflict is historically ridiculous. Rousselot and Michaud, two of the most careful students of Champeaux’s life, give the date of his birth as 1068 and 1070, respectively. He had fought his way with early success into the first chair in Christendom; he cannot have been much older than Abélard when he secured it. Abélard had an immeasurably greater ability; he was frankly conscious of the fact; and he seems promptly to have formed the perfectly legitimate design of ousting William—whose philosophy certainly seemed absurd to him—and mounting the great chair of Notre Dame.