The school was divided
into two parties. Guillaume, being the more influential, prevented his
pupil from establishing himself as a lecturer in Paris, and Abelard
removed to Melun, at that time a royal residence and a city of some
importance. Here he opened a school of his own, which prospered so
greatly, in spite of the jealousy of Guillaume and the older teachers,
that he removed to Corbeil, near Paris, and was soon recognized as more
than the equal of his old instructor. But his health broke down under
the strain; he retired to rest and recuperate in his native land, and
remained there several years. Returning about 1108, he again met
Guillaume in argument, in the convent of Saint-Victor, outside Paris,
and again vanquished him, this time so completely that Guillaume gave up
his chair in Paris. His jealousy, however, still kept Abelard from
establishing himself in the great city. The young philosopher opened his
school on Mont Sainte-Genevieve, a hill just outside the walls of the
Paris of that day, where he taught with brilliant success, till summoned
to Brittany by his mother Lucie, then about to take the veil. On his
return from this trip he determined to study theology. The venerable
Anselm of Laon was the most distinguished teacher of theology, and to
him Abelard went. Here is part of his comment on Anselm, which will help
us to understand something of the writer's character.

"He enjoyed marvellous facility of speech, but his thought was without
value, even without good sense. The fire that he kindled filled his
house with smoke, but did not illuminate it. He was a tree dense with
foliage and beautiful from afar, but found fruitless when examined more
closely. I had come to him to gather fruit; I found in him the fig tree
cursed by the Lord, or the old oak to which Lucan compares Pompey: But
the shadow of a great name, the lofty oak in the midst of the fruitful
field." With such an opinion of his preceptor, it is not surprising that
Abelard grew impatient and talked imprudently. The immediate result was
that the young scholar proved, to his own satisfaction and apparently to
that of his hearers, that he could lecture on theology, as Anselm
understood theology, by the aid of ordinary intelligence alone. The
ultimate result was that he made an enemy of Anselm. He returned to
Paris--about 1115--in triumph, was given the chair formerly held by
Guillaume de Champeaux, and became a canon of the cathedral of Notre
Dame