to arrange a rule of life for its
inmates, and to encourage them in their vocation. Although on these
occasions he saw nothing of Heloise, he did not escape the malignant
suspicions of the world, nor of his own flock, which now became more
unruly than ever,--so much so that he was compelled to live outside the
monastery. Excommunication was tried in vain, and even the efforts of a
Papal legate failed to restore order. For Abelard there was nothing but
"fear within and conflict without." It was at this time, about 1132,
that he wrote his famous 'Historia Calamitatum,' from which most of the
above account of his life has been taken. In 1134, after nine years of
painful struggle, he definitely left St. Gildas, without, however,
resigning the abbotship. For the next two years he seems to have led a
retired life, revising his old works and composing new ones.

Meanwhile, by some chance, his 'History of Calamities' fell into the
hands of Heloise at the Paraclete, was devoured with breathless
interest, and rekindled the flame that seemed to have smoldered in her
bosom for thirteen long years. Overcome with compassion for her husband,
for such he really was, she at once wrote to him a letter which reveals
the first healthy human heart-beat that had found expression in
Christendom for a thousand years. Thus began a correspondence which, for
genuine tragic pathos and human interest, has no equal in the world's
literature. In Abelard, the scholarly monk has completely replaced the
man; in Heloise, the saintly nun is but a veil assumed in loving
obedience to him, to conceal the deep-hearted, faithful, devoted
flesh-and-blood woman. And such a woman! It may well be doubted if, for
all that constitutes genuine womanhood, she ever had an equal. If there
is salvation in love, Heloise is in the heaven of heavens. She does not
try to express her love in poems, as Mrs. Browning did; but her simple,
straightforward expression of a love that would share Francesca's fate
with her lover, rather than go to heaven without him, yields, and has
yielded, matter for a hundred poems. She looks forward to no salvation;
for her chief love is for him. _Domino specialiter, sua singulariter_:
"As a member of the species woman I am the Lord's, as Heloise I am
yours"--nominalism with a vengeance!

But to return to Abelard. Permanent quiet in obscurity was plainly
impossible for him; and so in 1136 we find him back at Ste. Genevieve,
lecturing to crowds of