One does not like to accept too easily this romantic proposal to find refuge under the protection of the crescent, yet Abélard’s words compel us to do so. ‘God knows,’ he says, ‘that at times I fell into so deep a despair that I proposed to go forth from Christendom and betake me to the heathens ... to live a Christian life amid the enemies of Christ.’ Possibly he would have done so, if he had had a better knowledge of Spain at that time. The Arabs of Spain were no enemies of Christ. Only a most perverse idea of their state could make an able thinker and teacher thus regard a life amongst them as a matter of ultimate and desperate resort. Had they but conquered Europe, materially or morally, half the problems that still harass it—or ought to do—would have been solved long ago. It is pathetic to find Abélard speculating whether the hatred of the Christians for him will not make his path easier to the favour of the Arabs, by producing in them an impression that he had been unfaithful to Christian dogma. The caliphs could keep a watchful eye on the thoughts of professed Mohammedan philosophers, but they cared little about the theories of others. Abélard, with his pronounced tendency to concentrate on natural-religious and ethical truths, would have found an honoured place in Spain; and he would quickly have buried his dogmas there. Abélard was spared the trial of so desperate and dreadful a secession. Far away on the coast of Brittany an abbot died in 1125, and Abélard’s evil genius put it into the hearts of the monks to offer the vacant dignity to the famous teacher. They sent some of their number to see him at the Paraclete. It seemed a providential outlet from his intolerable position. There were abbeys and abbeys, it was true, but his Breton optimism and trust in fate closed that avenue of speculation. Conon, Duke of Brittany, had agreed to his installation. Suger made no opposition; he probably saw the net that was being drawn about him in France. Abélard turned sadly away from the vale of the Paraclete and the devoted colony, and faced the mists of the west and of the future. ‘I came not to bring peace into the world but the sword.’ CHAPTER X THE TRIALS OF AN ABBOT