Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/396

  queen on this occasion ministered like Martha, and heard like Mary."

When a reverse of fortune took place, and Maximus, conquered by Theodosius, Emperor of the East, fell a victim to popular fury at Aquileia, Helena was in Britain, and the spot where she received the tidings of her husband's death is still pointed out by the Welsh people, in the beautiful vale of Festinivy, where the springs called Fynnon Helen are said to have sprung from her tears.

HELOISE,

famous by her unfortunate passion for Abelard, was born about 1101 or 1102. Her parents are unknown, but she lived with her uncle, Fulbert, a canon of the cathedral of Paris. Her childhood was passed in the convent of Argenteuil, but as soon as she was old enough, she returned to her uncle, who taught her to speak and write in Latin, then the language used in literary and polite society. She is also said to have understood Greek and Hebrew. To this education, very uncommon at that time, Heloise added great beauty, and refinement and dignity of manner; so that her fame soon spread beyond the walls of the cloister, throughout the whole kingdom.

Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already made himself very celebrated as a rhetorician, came to found a new school in that art at Paris, where the originality of his principles, his eloquence, and his great physical strength and beauty, made a deep sensation. Here he saw Heloise, and commenced an acquaintance by letter; but, impatient to know her more intimately, he proposed to Fulbert that he should receive him into his house, which was near Abelard's school. Fulbert was avaricious, and also desirous of having his niece more thoroughly instructed, and these two motives induced him to consent to Abelard's proposal, and to request him to give lessons in his art to Heloise. He even gave Abelard permission to use physical punishment towards his niece, if she should prove rebellious.

Discovering too late the criminal intimacy of his niece and Abelard, he sent the latter from his house; but he contrived to return, and carry off Heloise to Palais, in Brittany, his native country. Here she gave birth to a son, surnamed Astrolabe from his beauty, who passed his life in the obscurity of a monastery.

The flight of Heloise enraged Fulbert to the highest degree; but he was afraid to act openly against Abelard, lest his niece, whom he still loved, might be made to suffer in retaliation. At length Abelard, taking compassion on his grief, sent to him, implored his forgiveness, and offered to marry Heloise, if the union might be kept secret, so that his reputation as a religious man should not suffer. Fulbert consented to this, and Abelard went to Heloise for that purpose; but Heloise, unwilling to diminish the future fame of Abelard by a marriage, which must be a restraint upon him, refused at first to listen to him. She quoted the precepts and the example of all learned men, sacred and profane, to prove to him that he ought to remain free and untrammelled. She also warned him that her uncle's reconciliation was too easily obtained, and that it was but a feint to entrap him more surely. But Abelard was resolute, and Heloise returned to Paris, where they were soon after married. 