TRUE’STORY OF ABELARD AKD ELOISA. 
497 
attachments) there was more love on her side than on his. The catas- 
trophe followed, in all probability, soon after the second elopement; 
and five persons were engaged in it, besides Hnbert, and a treache- 
rous servant of Abelard's. Of these only one and the servant were 
taken ; they suffered by the lex talionis, and had their eyes put out 
besides; and Hubert’s goods were confiscated to the church. 
Abelard, resolving now to retire from the world, made his unfor- 
tunate mistress do the same — though she seems not to have finally 
made up her mind for two years. She took the veil in 1122, at Ar- 
genteuil, after the usual noviciate of a year — and he soon after pro- 
fessed at St. Denis. Being of a turbulent, austere, and even quarrel- 
some disposition, he could not remain long in this fraternity, but 
retired to a wild forest near Nogent-sur-Seine, where he founded the 
Paraclete, some time between 1128 and 1130. Although, at first, he 
had only a loghouse for a chapel, and a few miserable huts for habi- 
tations, his great fame attracted scholars, who flocked around him, 
and led the life of hermits, to receive his instructions. In this situation 
he was chosen abbot of St. Gildas de Ruyr, whither he immediately 
repaired. Meantime Eloisa’s convent was dissolved, by the appro- 
priation of its lands to another house, and Abelard invited her to 
become abbess of the Paraclete, where she established herself with 
some other refugees, among whom were tw^o of his nieces. At St. 
Gildas, to which he returned as soon as he had put Eloisa in posses- 
sion of the Paraclete, he, as usual, quarrelled with his monks ; his 
misfortunes, indeed, seem to have soured his temper, naturally irritable. 
Peter of Cluni afforded him a retreat ; and he died in that monastery, 
of a cutaneous disease, in April 1 142, at the age of sixty-three. Eloisa 
survived him tw'enty years, and died at the same age. Their only 
child, who, from his extraordinary beauty, was named Astrolabe, took 
orders, obtained a canonry through the interest of the good abbot of 
Cluni, and survived his father, but has left no further traces of himself 
in history. Some of Eloisa’s letters speak of her anxiety for his advance- 
ment in the church, with her characteristic earnestness and warmth 
of affection. 
The remains of Abelard were transported to the Paraclete by Eloisa’s 
desire, and she was herself buried in the same coffin. Their bodies 
were afterwards separated, but, in the year 1779, they were again 
united ; and, on opening the coffins, it was then observed that Abe- 
lard’s bones were reduced to dust, except the scull, which was of an 
extraordinary thickness ; that Eloisa’s were much better preserved, 
and her skull was also peculiarly thick, and the teeth of a beautiful 
whiteness. These remains w'ere, during the Revolution, carried to 
Paris, and were, till lately, in the Museum of Ancient Monuments ; 
but the piety of the restored government has consigned them to a 
consecrated place in the cemetery of Pere La Chaise. 
The tradition of the Paraclete is not very favourable to the amenity 
of Eloisa’s temper and manners in her retreat, however exalted a notion 
it may give of the charms of her conversation— charms, to which all 
accounts bear witness; and, indeed, the remains of her correspondence 
themselves impress us with an extraordinary sense of her merits. Tile 
best judges have given to her style the oreference over that of her 
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