had to hurry off again to
Italy on account of the defection of the influential monastery of Monte
Casino to Anacletus.

Not long after his last return from Italy, Bernard met Pierre Abelard.
This brilliant and unfortunate man had incurred the charge of heresy,
and at some time in the year 1139 Bernard was induced to meet and confer
with him. Nothing seems to have resulted from the conference, for
Abelard went in 1140 to the Bishop of Sens and demanded an opportunity
of being confronted with Bernard at an approaching synod. The abbot of
Clairvaux, although unwilling, was at last persuaded to accept the
challenge. Louis VII., King of France, Count Theobald of Champagne, and
the nobles of the realm assembled to witness the notable contest.
Abelard came with a brilliant following; but on the second day of the
synod, to the surprise of everybody, he abruptly closed the proceeding
by appealing to Rome. The works of Abelard were condemned, but his
appeal and person were respected, and Bernard prepared a strong
condemnatory letter to be sent to the Pope. As the great scholar was on
his way to Rome to follow his appeal, he stayed to rest at Cluny with
Peter the Venerable, who persuaded him to go to Bernard. When the two
great hearts met in the quiet of Clairvaux, all animosities were
resolved in peace; and Abelard, returning to Cluny, abandoned his appeal
and observed the rule of the house until his death, which he endured, as
Peter the Venerable wrote to Heloise, fully prepared and comforted, at
Chalons in 1142.

The infidels of the East having taken Edessa in 1146, the power of the
Christians in the Holy Land was broken; and Eugenius III., who had been
a monk of Clairvaux, appointed Bernard to preach a new crusade. He set
on foot a vast host under the personal leadership of Louis VII. and
Conrad the Emperor, accompanied by Queen Eleanor and many noble ladies
of both realms. The ill fortunes which attended this war brought to
Bernard the greatest bitterness of his life. So signal was the failure
of the Second Crusade, that but a pitiful remnant of the brilliant army
which had crossed the Bosphorus returned to Europe, and Bernard was
assailed with execration from hut and castle throughout the length of
Europe. His only answer was as gentle as his life: "Better that I be
blamed than God." He did not neglect, however, to point out that the
evil lives and excesses of those who attempted the Crusade were the real
causes of the fa