Beside these, and a host of admiring nonentities, Abélard almost looked in vain for a friendly face amidst the pressing throng. The truth was that, as Rémusat says, ‘if Bernard had not prepared for debate, he had made every preparation for the verdict.’ The whole cathedral was with him. After his discourse of the preceding day, and the rumours that had preceded it, the priest-ridden citizens of Sens were prepared to stone the heretic, as the people of Soissons had threatened to do. The students would be divided, according to their schools. The monks longed to see the downfall of their critic. The king—the man who was to bear to his grave ‘the curse of Europe and the blessing of St. Bernard’—was not likely to hesitate. The Count de Nevers was a pious, credulous noble, who afterwards became a Cistercian monk. Otto of Freising says Count Theobald of Champagne was present, though the report does not mention him; in any case he had fallen largely under Bernard’s influence since his sister had gone down in the _White Ship_ in 1120. The clergy of Sens were with Bernard; their motto was: ‘The church of Sens knows no novelties.’ Of the judges proper, Geoffrey, Bishop of Chartres, was almost the only one who could be termed neutral; and even he had now become greatly amenable to Bernard’s influence. Archbishop Henry was completely in the hands of Bernard, his converter, who scolded him at times as if he were a boy. Archbishop Samson of Rheims owed his pallium to Bernard, in the teeth of the king’s opposition; he was deprived of it some years afterwards. Hugo of Mâcon, the aged Bishop of Auxerre, was a relative of Bernard’s and a fellow-monk at Cîteaux. Joscelin of Vieri, Bishop of Soissons, was the former teacher of Goswin, and the associate of Bernard on a papal mission a few years before. Geoffrey, Bishop of Châlons, Abélard’s former friend at St. Médard, had since been helped to a bishopric by Bernard. Hatto, Bishop of Troyes, had been won to Bernard. Alvise, Bishop of Arras, is said to have been a brother of Abbot Suger and friend of Goswin. Of the only two other bishops present, Helias of Orleans and Manasses of Meaux, we have no information. In such an assembly the nerve of the boldest speaker might well fail. Bernard had preached during the Mass on the importance of the true faith. Then when the critical moment came, he mounted the pulpit with a copy of the writings of Abélard, and the dense crowd, totally ignorant, most probably, of previous events, which were known only to the intimate friends of each combatant, held its breath for the opening of the struggle. The frail, worn, nervous figure in the flowing, white tunic began to read the indictment, but suddenly Abélard stepped forth before the astonished judges, and, crying out: ‘I will not be judged thus like a criminal; I appeal to Rome,’ turned his back on them and strode out of the cathedral.