his enemies. He was
condemned to perpetual silence, and his books were ordered to be burned.

To this sentence it would appear that Abelard prepared to submit with
more humility than was to be expected from so bold and arrogant a man.
But he knew he could not resist an authority based on generally accepted
ideas any easier than Henry IV. could have resisted Hildebrand. He made
up his mind to obey the supreme authority of the Church, but bitterly
felt the humiliation and the wrong.

Broken in spirit and in reputation, Abelard, now an old man, set out on
foot for Rome to plead his cause before the Pope. He stopped on his way
at Cluny in Burgundy, that famous monastery where Hildebrand himself had
ruled, now, however, presided over by Peter the Venerable,--the most
benignant and charitable ecclesiastical dignitary of that age. And as
Abelard approached the gates of the venerable abbey, which was the pride
of the age, worn out with fatigue and misfortune, he threw himself at
the feet of the lordly abbot and invoked shelter and protection. How
touching is the pride of greatness, when brought low by penitence or
grief, like that of Theodosius at the feet of Ambrose, or Henry II. at
the tomb of Becket! But Peter raises him up, receives him in his arms,
opens to him his heart and the hospitalities of his convent, not as a
repentant prodigal, but as the greatest genius of his age, brought low
by religious persecution. Peter did all in his power to console his
visitor, and even privately interceded with the Pope, remembering only
Abelard's greatness and his misfortunes. And the persecuted philosopher,
through the kind offices of the abbot, was left in peace, and was even
reconciled with Bernard,--an impossibility without altered opinions in
Abelard, or a submission to the Church which bore all the marks
of piety.

The few remaining days of this extraordinary man, it seems, were spent
in study, penitence, and holy meditation. So beloved and revered was he
by the community among whom he dwelt, that for six centuries his name
was handed down from father to son among the people of the valley and
town of Cluny. "At the extremity of a retired valley," says Lamartine,
"flanked by the walls of the convent, on the margin of extensive
meadows, closed by woods, and near to a neighboring stream, there exists
an enormous lime-tree, under the shade of which Abelard in his closing
days was accustomed to sit and meditate, with his face turned