toward reconciliation, which Abélard accepted; whereupon his
excommunication was removed. Then the once proud Abélard, shattered in
body and broken in spirit, had nothing more to do but to prepare for
another life. And the end was not far off. He died at St. Marcel, on the
21st of April, 1142, at the age of sixty-three. His generous host, in a
letter to Héloïse, gives a touching account of his closing days, which
were mostly spent in a retreat provided for him on the banks of the
Saône. There he read, wrote, dictated, and prayed, in the only quiet
days which his life ever knew.

The body of Abélard was placed in a monolith coffin and buried in the
chapel of the monastery of St. Marcel; but Peter the Venerable
twenty-two years afterward allowed it to be secretly removed, and
carried to the Paraclete, where Abélard had wished to lie. When Héloïse,
world-famous for learning, virtue, and saintliness, passed away, and her
body was laid beside his, he opened his arms and clasped her in close
embrace. So says the legend, and who would not believe it? The united
remains of the immortal lovers, after many vicissitudes, found at last
(let us hope), in 1817, a permanent resting place, in the Parisian
cemetery of Père Lachaise, having been placed together in Abélard's
monolith coffin. "In death they were not divided."

Abélard's character may be summed up in a few words. He was one of the
most brilliant and variously gifted men that ever lived, a sincere lover
of truth and champion of freedom. But unfortunately, his extraordinary
personal beauty and charm of manner made him the object of so much
attention and adulation that he soon became unable to live without
seeing himself mirrored in the admiration and love of others. Hence his
restlessness, irritability, craving for publicity, fondness for
dialectic triumph, and inability to live in fruitful obscurity; hence,