insubordination to dissoluteness. They ornamented their convent with the
trophies of the chase. They thought more of bears and wild boars and
stags than they did of hymns and meditations. The new abbot, now a grave
and religious man, in spite of his opposition to the leaders of the
orthodox party, endeavored to reform the monks,--a hopeless task,--and
they turned against him with more ferocity than the theologians. They
even poisoned, it is said, the sacramental wine. He was obliged to hide
among the rocks to save his life. Nothing but aid from the neighboring
barons saved him from assassination.

Thus fifteen years were passed in alternate study, glory, suffering, and
shame. In his misery Abélard called on God for help,--his first great
advance in that piety which detractors depreciated. He wrote also to a
friend a history of his misfortunes. By accident this history fell into
the hands of Héloïse, then abbess of the Paraclete, which Abélard had
given her, and where she was greatly revered for all those virtues most
esteemed in her age. It opened her wound afresh, and she wrote a letter
to her husband such as has seldom been equalled for pathos and depth of
sentiment. It is an immortal record of her grief, her unsubdued
passion, her boundless love, not without gentle reproaches for what
seemed a cold neglect and silence for fifteen long and bitter years, yet
breathing forgiveness, admiration, affection. The salutation of that
letter is remarkable: "Héloïse to her lord, to her father, to her
husband, to her brother: his servant,--yes, his daughter; his
wife,--yes, his sister." Thus does she begin that tender and long
letter, in which she describes her sufferings, her unchanged affections,
her ardent wishes for his welfare, revealing in every line not merely
genius and sensibility, but a lofty and magnanimous soul. She glories in
what constitutes the real superiority of her old lover; she describes
with simplicity what had originally charmed her,--his songs and