Adam’s departure, after this fulmination, left Abélard and his friends sadly perplexed. The abbot had the full force of canon law on his side, and he was evidently determined to exact his pound of flesh. However, whilst they were busy framing desperate resolves, they received information of the sudden death of Abbot Adam. He died a few days after leaving Champagne, on the 19th of February 1122. The event brought relief from the immediate pressure. Some time would elapse before it would be necessary to resume the matter with Adam’s successor, and there was room for hope that the new abbot would not feel the same personal vindictiveness. The monk who was chosen by the Benedictines of St. Denis to succeed Adam was one of the most remarkable characters of that curious age. Scholar, soldier, and politician, he had an enormous influence on the life of France during the early decades of the twelfth century. Nature intended him for a minister and a great soldier: chance made him a monk; worldly brothers made him an abbot, and St. Bernard completed the anomaly by ‘converting’ him in 1127. At the time we are speaking of he was the more active and prominent of two men whom Bernard called ‘the two calamities of the Church of France.’ He was born of poor parents, near one of the priories or dependencies of St. Denis. His talent was noticed by the monks, and his ‘vocation’ followed as a matter of course. He was studying in the monastic school when King Philip brought his son Louis to St. Denis, and the abbot sent for him, and made him companion to the royal pupil. He thus obtained a strong influence over the less gifted prince, and when Louis came to the throne in 1108, Suger became the first royal councillor. Being only a deacon in orders, there was nothing to prevent him heading the troops, directing a campaign, or giving his whole time to the affairs of the kingdom. He had proved so useful a minister that, when some of the monks of St. Denis came in great trepidation to tell the king they had chosen him for abbot, they were angrily thrust into prison. Suger himself was in Rome at the time, discharging a mission from the king, and he tells us, in his autobiography, of the perplexity the dilemma caused him. However, before he reached France, the king had concluded that an abbot could be as useful as a prior in an accommodating age. In the sequel, St. Denis became more royal, and less abbatial than ever—until 1127. St. Bernard complained that it seemed to have become the ‘war office’ and the ‘ministry of justice’ of the kingdom.