opens to him his heart and the hospitalities of his convent, not as a
repentant prodigal, but as the greatest genius of his age, brought low
by religious persecution. Peter did all in his power to console his
visitor, and even privately interceded with the Pope, remembering only
Abélard's greatness and his misfortunes. And the persecuted philosopher,
through the kind offices of the abbot, was left in peace, and was even
reconciled with Bernard,--an impossibility without altered opinions in
Abélard, or a submission to the Church which bore all the marks
of piety.

The few remaining days of this extraordinary man, it seems, were spent
in study, penitence, and holy meditation. So beloved and revered was he
by the community among whom he dwelt, that for six centuries his name
was handed down from father to son among the people of the valley and
town of Cluny. "At the extremity of a retired valley," says Lamartine,
"flanked by the walls of the convent, on the margin of extensive
meadows, closed by woods, and near to a neighboring stream, there exists
an enormous lime-tree, under the shade of which Abélard in his closing
days was accustomed to sit and meditate, with his face turned towards
the Paraclete which he had built, and where Héloïse still discharged the
duties of abbess."

But even this pensive pleasure was not long permitted him. He was worn
out with sorrows and misfortunes; and in a few months after he had
crossed the hospitable threshold of Cluny he died in the arms of his
admiring friend. "Under the instinct of a sentiment as sacred as
religion itself, Peter felt that Abélard above and Héloïse on earth
demanded of him the last consolation of a reunion in the grave. So,
quietly, in the dead of night, dreading scandal, yet true to his
impulses, without a hand to assist or an eye to witness, he exhumed the