At Clairvaux, in a valley so dismal as to have won the name of the _Valley of Wormwood_, lived the very incarnation of asceticism, stern religious orthodoxy, and uncompromising conservatism--Saint Bernard. To him, a restless, daring innovator like Abélard was abhorrent. To profess doctrines that led to the view that original sin was less a sin than a punishment, that the redemption of man was an act of pure love, not one of necessity for our redemption, that God, in short, was a God of Love, not a God of Wrath--what was all this but striking at the very root of that exquisite mortification of the flesh, the prayers, the fasting, the actual corporeal torment inflicted upon himself by Saint Bernard in the hope of purchasing remission of his sin? His sin, we may remark, consisted merely in being descended from Adam, for he had been pure in life from his youth up. Saint Bernard was looked upon even in his own life as almost a saint; his influence was tremendous. He now began to stir up the powers of the Church, from the Pope down, against Abélard. The latter, puffed up with pride at his renewed success, or perhaps willing to risk all at one throw, did not wait for the Church to proceed against him: he challenged his enemies to prove his doctrines heretical; he challenged Bernard himself to meet him in debate before a council that was to meet at Sens in 1140. Fully aware of his inferiority as a logician to this trained thinker, Saint Bernard reluctantly consented to take up the battle for orthodoxy. All was ready; Abélard appeared before the council, realized that his case was prejudged, and appealed to Rome. Nevertheless, Saint Bernard got the council to pass judgment against Abélard and to sentence him to silence and to perpetual reclusion in a monastery, and Innocent II., the next year, confirmed the finding of the council. Broken in spirit, Abélard nevertheless set out for Rome to urge his plea in person, but at Cluni he broke down in health. Tenderly cared for by the good abbot, Peter the Venerable, who effected a sort of reconciliation between Abélard and the triumphant Abbot of Clairvaux, Abélard lingered but a few months. To ease his dying days Peter the Venerable had him removed to the little priory of Saint Marcel, a dependency of Cluni, where he died, April 21, 1142.