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."
What were those meditations and those prayers uttered or unuttered in that cell? They did not always refer to the kingdom of heaven, judging from the abbess's first letter to her former lover. After the installation of Heloïse and her nuns, Abaelard rarely visited the Paraclete, although his advice and instruction was desired there. His visits gave rise to too much scandal. In the course of time, however, the Historia calamitatum came into the hands of Heloïse, and occasioned this letter, which seems to issue forth out of a long silence; ten years had passed since she became a nun. The superscription is as follows:
"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
