I considered and lamented the uselessness and the wretchedness of
my existence, how fruitless my life now was, both to myself and to
others; how of old I had been of some service to the clerics whom I
had now abandoned for the sake of these monks, so that I was no
longer able to be of use to either; how incapable I had proved
myself in everything I had undertaken or attempted, so that above
all others I deserved the reproach, "This man began to build, and
was not able to finish" (Luke xiv, 30). My despair grew still
deeper when I compared the evils I had left behind with those to
which I had come, for my former sufferings now seemed to me as
nought. Full often did I groan: "Justly has this sorrow come upon
me because I deserted the Paraclete, which is to say the Consoler,
and thrust myself into sure desolation; seeking to shun threats I
fled to certain peril."

The thing which tormented me most was the fact that, having
abandoned my oratory, I could make no suitable provision for the
celebration there of the divine office, for indeed the extreme
poverty of the place would scarcely provide the necessities of one
man. But the true Paraclete Himself brought me real consolation in
the midst of this sorrow of mine, and made all due provision for
His own oratory. For it chanced that in some manner or other,
laying claim to it as having legally belonged in earlier days to
his monastery, my abbot of St. Denis got possession of the abbey of
Argenteuil, of which I have previously spoken, wherein she who was
now my sister in Christ rather than my wife, Héloïse, had taken the
veil. From this abbey he expelled by force all the nuns who had
dwelt there, and of whom my former companion had become the
prioress. The exiles being thus dispersed in various places, I
perceived that this was an opportunity presented by God himself to