“There was in Paris a young girl named Heloïse, the niece of a canon, Fulbert. It was his affectionate wish that she should have the best education in letters that could be procured. Her face was not unfair, and her knowledge was unequalled. This attainment, so rare in women, had given her great reputation.

“I had hitherto lived continently, but now was casting my eyes about, and I saw that she possessed every attraction that lovers seek; nor did I regard my success as doubtful, when I considered my fame and my goodly person, and also her love of letters. Inflamed with love, I thought how I could best become intimate with her. It occurred to me to obtain lodgings with her uncle, on the plea that household cares distracted me from study. Friends quickly brought this about, the old man being miserly and yet desirous of instruction for his niece. He eagerly entrusted her to my tutorship, and begged me to give her all the time I could take from my lectures, authorizing me to see her at any hour of the day or night, and punish her when necessary. I marvelled with what simplicity he confided a tender lamb to a hungry wolf. As he had given me authority to punish her, I saw that if caresses would not win my object, I could bend her by threats and blows. Doubtless he was misled by love of his niece and my own good reputation. Well, what need to say more: we were united first by the one roof above us, and then by our hearts. Our hours of study were given to love. The books lay open, but our words were of love rather than philosophy, there were more kisses than aphorisms; and love was oftener reflected in our eyes than the lettered page. To avert suspicion, I struck her occasionally—very gentle blows of love. The joy of love, new to us both, brought no satiety. The more I was taken up with this pleasure, the less time I gave to philosophy and the schools—how tiresome had all that become! I became unproductive, merely repeating my old lectures, and if I composed any verses, love was their subject, and not the secrets of philosophy; you know how popular and widely sung these have become. But the students! what groans and laments arose from them at my distraction! A passion so plain was not to be concealed; every one knew of it except Fulbert. A man is often the last to know of his own shame. Yet what everybody knows cannot be hid forever, and so after some months he learned all. Oh how bitter was that uncle’s grief! and what was the grief of the separated lovers! How ashamed I was, and afflicted at the affliction of the girl! And what a storm of sorrow came over her at my disgrace. Neither complained for himself, but each grieved at what the other must endure.”

“The separation of our bodies joined our souls more closely and inflamed our love. Shame spent itself and made us unashamed, so small a thing it seemed compared with satisfying love. Not long 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!”

“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 shame. From her soul, she detested this marriage which would be so utterly ignominious for me, and a burden to me. She expatiated on the disgrace and inconvenience of matrimony for me and quoted the Apostle Paul exhorting men to shun it. If I would not take the apostle’s advice or listen to what the saints had said regarding the matrimonial yoke, I should at least pay attention to the philosophers—to Theophrastus’s words upon the intolerable evils of marriage, and to the refusal of Cicero to take a wife after he had divorced Terentia, when he said that he could not devote himself to a wife and philosophy at the same time. ‘Or,’ she continued, laying aside the disaccord between study and a wife, ‘consider what a married man’s establishment would be to you. What sweet accord there would be between the schools and domestics, between copyists and cradles, between books and distaffs, between pen and spindle! Who, engaged in religious or philosophical meditations, could endure a baby’s crying and the nurse’s ditties stilling it, and all the noise of servants? Could you put up with the dirty ways of children? The rich can, you say, with their palaces and apartments of all kinds; their wealth does not feel the expense or the daily care and annoyance. But I say, the state of the rich is not that of philosophers; nor have men entangled in riches and affairs any time for the study of Scripture or philosophy. The renowned philosophers of old, despising the world, fleeing rather than relinquishing it, forbade themselves all pleasures, and reposed in the embraces of philosophy.’”

“It is not for me to point out—for I would not be thought to instruct Minerva—how soberly and continently all these men lived who, according to Augustine and others, were called philosophers as much for their way of life as or their knowledge. If laymen and Gentiles, bound by no profession of religion, lived thus, surely you, a clerk and canon, should not prefer low pleasures to sacred duties, nor let yourself be sucked down by this Charybdis and smothered in filth inextricably. If you do not value the privilege of a clerk, at least defend the dignity of a philosopher. If reverence for God be despised, still let love of decency temper immodesty. Remember, Socrates was tied to a wife, and through a nasty accident wiped out this blot upon philosophy, that others afterwards might be more cautious; which Jerome relates in his book against Jovinianus, how once when enduring a storm of Xanthippe’s clamours from the floor above, he was ducked with slops, and simply said, ‘I knew such thunder would bring rain.’

“Finally she said that it would be dangerous for me to take her back to Paris; it was more becoming to me, and sweeter to her, to be called my mistress, so that affection alone might keep me hers and not the binding power of any matrimonial chain; and if we should be separated for a time, our joys at meeting would be the dearer for their rarity. When at last with all her persuasions and dissuasions she could not turn me from my folly, and could not bear to offend me, with a burst of tears she ended in these words: ‘One thing is left: in the ruin of us both the grief which follows shall not be less than the love which went before.’ Nor did she here lack the spirit of prophecy.”

“Leaving our son in my sister’s care, we stole back to Paris, and shortly after, having in the night celebrated our vigils in a certain church, we were married at dawn in the presence of her uncle and some of his and our friends. We left at once separately and with secrecy, and afterwards saw each other only in privacy, so as to conceal what we had done. But her uncle and his household began at once to announce the marriage and violate his word; while she, on the contrary, protested vehemently and swore that it was false. At that he became enraged and treated her vilely. When I discovered this I sent her to the convent of Argenteuil, near Paris, where she had been educated. There I had her take the garb of a nun, except the veil. Hearing this, the uncle and his relations thought that I had duped them, ridding myself of Heloïse by making her a nun. So having bribed my servant, they came upon me by night, when I was sleeping, and took on me a vengeance as cruel and irretrievable as it was vile and shameful. Two of the perpetrators were pursued and vengeance taken.

“In the morning the whole town was assembled, crying and lamenting my plight, especially the clerks and students; at which I was afflicted with more shame than I suffered physical pain. I thought of my ruined hopes and glory, and then saw that by God’s just judgment I was punished where I had most sinned, and that Fulbert had justly avenged treachery with treachery. But what a figure I should cut in public! how the world would point its finger at me! I was also confounded at the thought of the Levitical law, according to which I had become an abomination to the Church.[2] In this misery the confusion of shame—I confess it—rather than the ardour of conversion drove me to the cover of the cloister, after she had willingly obeyed my command to take the veil. I became a monk in the abbey of St. Denis, and she a nun in the convent of Argenteuil. Many begged her not to set that yoke upon her youth; at which, amid her tears, she broke out in Cornelia’s lament: ‘O great husband! undeserving of my couch! Has fortune rights over a head so high? Why did I, impious, marry thee to make thee wretched? Accept these penalties, which I gladly pay.’[3] With these words, she went straight to the altar, received the veil blessed by the bishop, and took the vows before them all.”

“she, once my wife, now my sister in Christ, had taken the veil, and was at this time prioress. The nuns were rudely driven out. News of this came to me as a suggestion from the Lord to bethink me of the deserted Paraclete. Going thither, I invited Heloïse and her nuns to come and take possession. They accepted, and I gave it to them. Afterward Pope Innocent II. confirmed this grant to them and their successors in perpetuity. There for a time they lived in want; but soon the Divine Pity showed itself the true Paraclete, and moved the people of the neighbourhood to take compassion on them, and they soon knew no lack. Indeed as women are the weaker sex, their need moves men more readily to pity, and their virtues are the more grateful to both God and man. And on our sister the Lord bestowed such favour in the eyes of all, that the bishops loved her as a daughter, the abbots as a sister, the laity as a mother; and all wondered at her piety, her wisdom, and her gentle patience in everything. She rarely let herself be seen, that she might devote herself more wholly to prayers and meditations in her cell; but all the more persistently people sought her spiritual counsel.”

“To her master, rather to a father, to her husband, rather to a brother, his maid or rather daughter, his wife or rather sister, to Abaelard, Heloïse.

“Your letter, beloved, written to comfort a friend, chanced recently to reach me. Seeing by its first lines from whom it was, I burned to read it for the love I bear the writer, hoping also from its words to recreate an image of him whose life I have ruined. Those words dropped gall and absinthe as they brought back the unhappy story of our intercourse and thy ceaseless crosses, O my only one. Truly the letter must have convinced the friend that his troubles were light compared with yours, as you showed the treachery and persecutions which had followed you, the calumnies of enemies and the burning of your glorious book, the machinations of false brothers, and the vile acts of those worthless monks whom you call your sons. No one could read it with dry eyes. Your perils have renewed my griefs; here we all despair of your life and each day with trembling hearts expect news of your death. In the name of Christ, who so far has somehow preserved thee for himself, deign with frequent letters to let these weak servants of Him and thee know of the storms overwhelming the swimmer, so that we who alone remain to thee may be participators of thy pain or joy. One who grieves may gain consolation from those grieving with him; a burden borne by many is more lightly borne. And if this tempest abates, how happy shall we be to know it. Whatever the letters may contain they will show at least that we are not forgotten. Has not Seneca said in his letter to Lucilius, that the letters of an absent friend are sweet? When no malice can stop your giving us this much of you, do not let neglect prove a bar.

“You have written that long letter to console a friend with the story of your own misfortunes, and have thereby roused our grief and added to our desolation. Heal these new wounds. You owe to us a deeper debt of friendship than to him, for we are not only friends, but friends the dearest, and your daughters. After God, you alone are the founder of this place, the builder of this oratory and of this congregation. This new plantation for a holy purpose is your own; the delicate plants need frequent watering. He who gives so much to his enemies, should consider his daughters. Or, leaving out the others here, think how this is owing me from thee: what thou owest to all women under vows, thou shalt pay more devotedly to thine only one. How many books have the holy fathers written for holy women, for their exhortation and instruction! I marvel at thy forgetfulness of these frail beginnings of our conversion. Neither respect of God nor love of us nor the example of the blessed fathers, has led thee by speech or letter to console me, cast about, and consumed with grief. This obligation was the stronger, because the sacrament of marriage joined thee to me, and I—every one sees it—cling to thee with unmeasured love.

“Dearest, thou knowest—who knows not?—how much I lost in thee, and that an infamous act of treachery robbed me of thee and of myself at once. The greater my grief, the greater need of consolation, not from another but from thee, that thou who art alone my cause of grief may be alone my consolation. It is thou alone that canst sadden me or gladden me or comfort me. And thou alone owest this to me, especially since I have done thy will so utterly that, unable to offend thee, I endured to wreck myself at thy command. Nay, more than this, love turned to madness and cut itself off from hope of that which alone it sought, when I obediently changed my garb and my heart too in order that I might prove thee sole owner of my body as well as of my spirit. God knows, I have ever sought in thee only thyself, desiring simply thee and not what was thine. I asked no matrimonial contract, I looked for no dowry; not my pleasure, not my will, but thine have I striven to fulfil. And if the name of wife seemed holier or more potent, the word mistress (amica) was always sweeter to me, or even—be not angry!—concubine or harlot; for the more I lowered myself before thee, the more I hoped to gain thy favour, and the less I should hurt the glory of thy renown. This thou didst graciously remember, when condescending to point out in that letter to a friend some of the reasons (but not all!) why I preferred love to wedlock and liberty to a chain. I call God to witness that if Augustus, the master of the world, would honour me with marriage and invest me with equal rule, it would still seem to me dearer and more honourable to be called thy strumpet than his empress. He who is rich and powerful is not the better man: that is a matter of fortune, this of merit. And she is venal who marries a rich man sooner than a poor man, and yearns for a husband’s riches rather than himself. Such a woman deserves pay and not affection. She is not seeking the man but his goods, and would wish, if possible, to prostitute herself to one still richer. Aspasia put this clearly when she was trying to effect a reconciliation between Xenophon and his wife: ‘Until you come to think that there is nowhere else a better man or a woman more desirable, you will be continually looking for what you think to be the best, and will wish to be married to the man or woman who is the very best.’ This is indeed a holy, rather than a philosophical sentiment, and wisdom, not philosophy, speaks. This is the holy error and blessed deception between man and wife, when affection perfect and unimpaired keeps marriage inviolate not so much by continency of body as by chastity of mind. But what with other women is an error, is, in my case, the manifest truth: since what they suppose in their husbands, I—and the whole world agrees—know to be in thee. My love for thee is truth, being free from all error. Who among kings or philosophers can vie with your fame? What country, what city does not thirst to see you? Who, I ask, did not hurry to see you appearing in public and crane his neck to catch a last glimpse as you departed? What wife, what maid did not yearn for you absent, and burn when you were present? What queen did not envy me my joys and couch? There were in you two qualities by which you could draw the soul of any woman, the gift of poetry and the gift of singing, gifts which other philosophers have lacked. As a distraction from labour, you composed love-songs both in metre and in rhyme, which for their sweet sentiment and music have been sung and resung and have kept your name in every mouth. Your sweet melodies do not permit even the illiterate to forget you. Because of these gifts women sighed for your love. And, as these songs sung of our loves, they quickly spread my name in many lands, and made me the envy of my sex. What excellence of mind or body did not adorn your youth? No woman, then envious, but now would pity me bereft of such delights. What enemy even would not now be softened by the compassion due me?

“I have brought thee evil, thou knowest how innocently. Not the result of the act but the disposition of the doer makes the crime; justice does not consider what happens, but through what intent it happens. My intent towards thee thou only hast proved and alone canst judge. I commit everything to thy weighing and submit to thy decree.

“Tell me one thing: why, after our conversion, commanded by thee, did I drop into oblivion, to be no more refreshed by speech of thine or letter? Tell me, I say, if you can, or I will say what I feel and what every one suspects: desire rather than friendship drew you to me, lust rather than love. So when desire ceased, whatever you were manifesting for its sake likewise vanished. This, beloved, is not so much my opinion as the opinion of all. Would it were only mine and that thy love might find defenders to argue away my pain. Would that I could invent some reason to excuse you and also cover my cheapness. Listen, I beg, to what I ask, and it will seem small and very easy to you. Since I am cheated of your presence, at least put vows in words, of which you have a store, and so keep before me the sweetness of thine image. I shall vainly expect you to be bountiful in acts if I find you a miser in words. Truly I thought that I merited much from you, when I had done all for your sake and still continue in obedience. When little more than a girl I took the hard vows of a nun, not from piety but at your command. If I merit nothing from thee, how vain I deem my labour! I can expect no reward from God, as I have done nothing from love of Him. Thee hurrying to God I followed, or rather went before. For, as you remembered how Lot’s wife turned back, you first delivered me to God bound with the vow, and then yourself. That single act of distrust, I confess, grieved me and made me blush. God knows, at your command I would have followed or preceded you to fiery places. For my heart is not with me, but with thee; and now more than ever, if not with thee it is nowhere, for it cannot exist without thee. That my heart may be well with thee, see to it, I beg; and it will be well if it finds thee kind, rendering grace for grace—a little for much. Beloved, would that thy love were less sure of me so that it might be more solicitous; I have made you so secure that you are negligent. Remember all I have done and think what you owe. While I enjoyed carnal joy with you, many people were uncertain whether I acted from love or lust. Now the end makes clear the beginning; I have cut myself off from pleasure to obey thy will. I have kept nothing, save to be more than ever thine. Think how wicked it were in thee where all the more is due to render less, nothing almost; especially when little is asked, and that so easy for you. In the name of God to whom you have vowed yourself, give me that of thee which is possible, the consolation of a letter. I promise, thus refreshed, to serve God more readily. When of old you would call me to pleasures, you sought me with frequent letters, and never failed with thy songs to keep thy Heloïse on every tongue; the streets, the houses re-echoed me. How much fitter that you should now incite me to God than then to lust? Bethink thee what thou owest; heed what I ask; and a long letter I will conclude with a brief ending: farewell only one!”