When the time drew near for what Abélard afterwards called ‘their conventicle,’ he set out for Soissons with a small band of friends, who were to witness the chastisement of Alberic and Lotulphe. But those astute masters had not so naïve a view of the function of a council. Like St. Bernard, with whom, indeed, they were already in correspondence, they relied largely on that art of ecclesiastical diplomacy which is the only visible embodiment of the Church’s supernatural power. Moreover, they had the curious ecclesiastical habit of deciding that an end—in this case, the condemnation of Abélard—was desirable, and then piously disregarding the moral quality of the means necessary to attain it. How far the two masters had arranged all the conditions of the council we cannot say, but these certainly favoured their plans. Soissons, to begin with, was excellently suited for the holding of a council which was to condemn, rather than investigate. Its inhabitants would remember the sentence passed on Roscelin for a like offence. In fact Longueval says, in his _Histoire de l’Église Gallicane_, that the people of Soissons were religious fanatics as a body, and had of their own impulse burned, or ‘lynched,’ a man who was suspected of Manichæism, only a few years previously. Alberic and Lotulphe had taken care to revive this pious instinct, by spreading amongst the people the information that ‘the foreign monk,’ ‘the eunuch of St. Denis,’ who was coming to the town to be tried, had openly taught the error of tri-theism. The consequence was that when the Benedictine monk appeared in the streets with his few admirers, he had a narrow escape of being stoned to death by the excited citizens. It was a rude shock to his dream of a great dialectical triumph. On one point, however, Abélard’s simple honesty hit upon a correct measure. He went straight to Bishop Conon with his work, and submitted it for the legate’s perusal and personal judgment. The politician was embarrassed. He knew nothing whatever about theology, and would lose his way immediately in Abélard’s subtle analogies. However, he bade Abélard take the book to the archbishop and the two masters. They in turn fumbled it in silence, Abélard says, and at length told him that judgment would be passed on it at the end of the council.