These letters were handed over, for personal delivery, to Bernard’s monk-secretary, Nicholas; in many of them it is expressly stated that the bearer will enlarge upon the text more freely by word of mouth. We know enough about this monk to be assured of the more than fidelity with which he accomplished his task. Enjoying the full confidence of Bernard at that time, a very able and well-informed monk, Nicholas de Montier-Ramey was a thorough scoundrel, as Bernard learned to his cost a few years afterwards. He had to be convicted of forging Bernard’s seal and hand for felonious purposes before the keen scent of the abbot discovered his utter unscrupulousness. With Abélard lingering at Paris in his light-hearted way, the violence and energy of Bernard swept away whatever support he might have counted on at Rome. Throughout the curia Bernard had scattered his caricature of Abélard: a lawless monk, an abbot who neglected his abbey, a man of immoral life, an associate of the recognised enemies of the papacy, already condemned for heresy, a reviver of Arius and Nestorius and Pelagius, a teacher without reverence, a disturber of the faith of the simple. The pope did not hesitate a moment; the letters sent to him are masterpieces of diplomatic correspondence. The waverers in the curia were most skilfully worked. In mere secular matters such an attempt to corrupt the judges would be fiercely resented. Bernard lived in a transcendental region, that Hegelian land in which contradictions disappear. It was on the 4th of June that Abélard appealed to Rome. There were no Alpine tunnels in those days, and the journey from Paris to Rome was a most formidable one. Yet Bernard’s nervous energy had infused such spirit into the work, and he had chosen so able a messenger, that the whole case was ended in less than seven weeks. There cannot have been a moment’s hesitation at Rome. On the 16th of July the faithful of Rome gathered about the door of St. Peter’s for the solemn reading of the decree of excommunication. The pope was there, surrounded by his cardinals, and it was announced, with the usual impressive flourishes, that Abélard’s works were condemned to the flames and his person to be imprisoned by the ecclesiastical authorities. Rome has not been a model of the humane use of power, but she has rarely condemned a man unheard. On the sole authority of Bernard the decree recognised in Abélard’s ‘pernicious doctrine’ the already condemned errors of the early heresiarchs. Arnold of Brescia, who had not been officially indicted, was included in the condemnation. It was Bernard’s skilful use of his association with Abélard which chiefly impelled the pope. Innocent replies to Bernard’s appeal by sending back to him the decree of the condemnation of his antagonist, with a private note to the effect that it must not be published until after it has been read at an approaching synod. CHAPTER XIV CONSUMMATUM EST