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6 afterwards the girl knew that she was to be a mother, and in the greatest exultation wrote and asked me to advise what she should do. One night, as we agreed on, when Fulbert was away I bore her off secretly and sent her to my own country, Brittany, where she stayed with my sister till she gave birth to a son, whom she named Astralabius.

"The uncle, on his return to his empty house, was frantic. He did not know what to do to me. If he should kill or do me some bodily injury, he feared lest his niece, whom he loved, would suffer for it among my people in Brittany. He could not seize me, as I was prepared against all attempts. At length, pitying his anguish, and feeling remorse at having caused it, I went to him as a suppliant and promised whatever satisfaction he should demand. I assured him that nothing in my conduct would seem remarkable to any one who had felt the strength of love or would take the pains to recall how many of the greatest men had been thrown down by women, ever since the world began. Whereupon I offered him a satisfaction greater than he could have hoped, to wit, that I would marry her whom I had corrupted, if only the marriage might be kept secret so that it should not injure me in the minds of men. He agreed and pledged his faith, and the faith of his friends, and sealed with kisses the reconciliation which I had sought—so that he might more easily betray me!"

It will be remembered that Abaelard was a clerk, a clericus, in virtue of his profession of letters and theology. Never having taken orders, he could marry; but while a clerk's slip could be forgotten, marriage might lead people to think he had slighted his vocation, and would certainly bar the ecclesiastical preferment which such a famous clericus might naturally look forward to. Nevertheless, he at once set out to fetch Heloïse from Brittany, to make her his wife. The stand which she now took shows both her mind and heart:

"She strongly disapproved, and urged two reasons against the marriage, to wit, the danger and the disgrace in which it would involve me. She swore—and so it proved—that no satisfaction would ever appease her uncle. She asked how she was to have any glory through me when she should have made me inglorious, and should have humiliated both herself and me. What penalties would the world exact from her if she deprived it of such a luminary; what curses, what damage to the Church, what lamentations of philosophers, would follow on this marriage. How indecent, how lamentable would it be for a man whom nature had made for all, to declare that he belonged to one woman, and subject himself to such