retired and was deep in slumber the treacherous valet unbarred the
door. The hirelings of Fulbert entered and fell upon the sleeping
man. Three of them bound him fast, while the fourth, with a razor,
inflicted on him the most shameful mutilation that is possible.
Then, extinguishing the lights, the wretches slunk away and were
lost in darkness, leaving behind their victim bound to his couch,
uttering cries of torment and bathed in his own blood.

It is a shocking story, and yet it is intensely characteristic of
the lawless and barbarous era in which it happened. Early the next
morning the news flew rapidly through Paris. The city hummed like
a bee-hive. Citizens and students and ecclesiastics poured into
the street and surrounded the house of Abelard.

"Almost the entire city," says Fulques, as quoted by McCabe, "went
clamoring toward his house. Women wept as if each one had lost her
husband."

Unmanned though he was, Abelard still retained enough of the
spirit of his time to seek vengeance. He, in his turn, employed
ruffians whom he set upon the track of those who had assaulted
him. The treacherous valet and one of Fulbert's hirelings were run
down, seized, and mutilated precisely as Abelard had been; and
their eyes were blinded. A third was lodged in prison. Fulbert
himself was accused before one of the Church courts, which alone
had power to punish an ecclesiastic, and all his goods were
confiscated.

But, meantime, how did it fare with Heloise? Her grief was greater
than his own, while her love and her devotion were absolutely