before having succeeded in attracting so many pupils. In 1118 he
established a school in Paris, but from a variety of persecutions which
he endured, he was frequently obliged to retire to different parts of
France; his unfortunate attachment to Heloise is but too well known, and
she ultimately became the abbess of a convent which Abelard founded at
Nogent-sur-Seine, and which he called Paraclet. The number of pupils at
one time are stated to have been three thousand, and he instructed them
in the open air; it is also asserted that of his followers fifty became
either bishops or archbishops, twenty cardinals, and one pope, Celestin
II. In fact the fame of Abelard had arrived at such an altitude that he
was the means of giving a new era to Paris, which was designated the
city of letters; other professors became highly celebrated, and some
authors pretend that the immense concourse of students who ultimately
flocked to Paris, exceeded the number of the inhabitants, and there was
much difficulty in finding the means of lodging them; how great must
have been the anxiety for learning, as the masters were exceedingly
brutal and imparted their knowledge to the pupil by the force of blows,
which at length deterred many students from placing themselves under the
charge of such preceptors. This extraordinary desire for obtaining
education appears to have been almost a sudden impulse, as the immediate
descendants of Hugh Capet could not read or write, but were obliged to
make a mark as the signature to their edicts, whilst those who possessed
that accomplishment were styled clerks. Although much brilliance was
shed over the reign of Louis the Sixth by the learning of Abelard and
the professors who followed him, yet soon after the barbarous custom was
introduced of trial by combat; the idea might probably have been
suggested by Louis having challenged Henry the First of England to
decide their differences in a single encounter. Although Lewis the Fat
was so bulky as to have obtained the cognomen by which he was always
designated, he was one of the most active kings of France; constantly