these debates I was adjudged victor. Now this, to those among my
fellow students who were ranked foremost, seemed all the more
insufferable because of my youth and the brief duration of my
studies.

Out of this sprang the beginning of my misfortunes, which have
followed me even to the present day; the more widely my fame was
spread abroad, the more bitter was the envy that was kindled
against me. It was given out that I, presuming on my gifts far
beyond the warranty of my youth, was aspiring despite my tender,
years to the leadership of a school; nay, more, that I was making
read the very place in which I would undertake this task, the place
being none other than the castle of Melun, at that time a royal
seat. My teacher himself had some foreknowledge of this, and tried
to remove my school as far as possible from his own. Working in
secret, he sought in every way he could before I left his following
to bring to nought the school I had planned and the place I had
chosen for it. Since, however, in that very place he had many
rivals, and some of them men of influence among the great ones of
the land, relying on their aid I won to the fulfillment of my wish;
the support of many was secured for me by reason of his own
unconcealed envy. From this small inception of my school, my fame
in the art of dialectics began to spread abroad, so that little by
little the renown, not alone of those who had been my fellow
students, but of our very teacher himself, grew dim and was like to
die out altogether. Thus it came about that, still more confident
in myself, I moved my school as soon as I well might to the castle
of Corbeil, which is hard by the city of Paris, for there I knew
there would be given more frequent chance for my assaults in our
battle of disputation.