Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/421

Rh they were married; but, anxious to wipe out the blot from his family, her uncle quickly spread abroad the report. Heloise as pertinaciously contradicted it; which so irritated Fulbert, who considered her husband only as to blame, that by an act of vengeance, he separated them; but, at the same time, forfeited his own benefices, and became an object of general detestation.

Abelard, in consequence, determined to leave the world, for a convent; but it was necessary for his peace that Heloise should do the same, which she scrupled not to do, making her profession, in her 22d year, as a nun of Argenteuil, a few days before he took upon him the order of St. Denis, where the licentious manners of the monks awakened his censure, and, in consequence, their hatred and persecution. He fled from them to other retreats; but the same unhappy destiny continually pursued him.

Heloise also, who had been chosen prioress of Argenteuil, on the dissolution of that monastery for the disorders of the nuns, applied to Abelard for advice, who obtained the assignment of the Paraclete, in Champagne, a house he had built, to her, where she founded a nunnery, and, by her exemplary conduct obtained general respect and admiration. They, at first, as dear friends who needed each other's counsel, sometimes met; but, after a while, found, that instead of consoling, these visits made them more unhappy, and discontinued them; when an epistle from Abelard to a friend, in which he recapitulated the misfortunes of his life, fell into the hands of Heloise, and caused those beautiful and impassioned letters, which have been preserved to posterity. In those written by her she complains, that even when she affected to devote her heart to God, it was fixed upon an earthly being, whom she could not yet tear