m, engaged him
to pass the rest of his days in his dominions. Abelard received this
favour with great joy, imagining that by leaving France he would
quench his passion for Heloise and gain a new peace of mind upon
entering into his new dignity.

The Abbey of St Gildas de Rhuys was founded on the inaccessible coast
near Vannes by St Gildas, a British saint, the schoolfellow and friend
of St Samson of Dol and St Pol of Leon, and counted among its monks
the Saxon St Dunstan, who, carried by pirates from his native isle,
settled on the desolate shores of Brittany and became, under the name
of St Goustan, the patron of mariners.

St Gildas built his abbey on the edge of a high, rocky promontory,
the site of an ancient Roman encampment, called Grand Mont, facing
the shore, where the sea has formed numerous caverns in the rocks.
The rocks are composed chiefly of quartz, and are covered to a
considerable height with small mussels. Abelard, on his appointment
to the Abbey of St Gildas, made over to Heloise the celebrated
abbey he had founded at Nogent, near Troyes, which he called the
Paraclete, or Comforter, because he there found comfort and
refreshment after his troubles. With Nogent he was to leave his
peace. His gentle nature was unable to contend against the coarse
and unruly Breton monks. As he writes in his well-known letter to
Heloise, setting forth his griefs: "I inhabit a barbarous country
where the language is unknown to me. I have no dealings with the
ferocious inhabitants. I walk the inaccessible borders of the
stormy sea, and my monks have no other rule than their own. I wish
that you could see my dwelling. You would not believe it an abbey. The
doors are ornamented only with the feet of deer, of wolves and bears,
boars, and the hideous skins of owls. I find each day new perils.
I expect at every moment to see a sword suspended over my head."

It is scarcely necessary to outline the history of Abelard. Suffice
it to say that he was one of the most brilliant scholars and
dialecticians of all time, possessing a European reputation in his
day. Falling in love with Heloise, niece of Fulbert, a canon of
Paris, he awoke in her a similar absorbing passion, which resulted in
their mutual disgrace and Abelard's mutilation by the incensed
uncle. He and his Heloise were buried in one tomb at the Paraclete.
The story of their love has been immortalized by the world's great
poets and painters.

An ancient Breton ballad o