Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already made himself widely famous as a rhetorician, came to found a school of rhetoric in Paris. The originality of his principles, his eloquence, and his great physical strength and beauty created a profound sensation. He saw Héloïse, and was captivated by her blooming youth, her beauty, and her charming disposition.
He wrote to her; she answered. He wrote again; she answered again. He was now in love. He longed to know her--to speak to her face to face.
His school was near Fulbert's house. He asked Fulbert to allow him to call. The good old swivel saw here a rare opportunity: his niece, whom he so much loved, would absorb knowledge from this man, and it would not cost him a cent. Such was Fulbert--penurious.
Fulbert's first name is not mentioned by any author, which is unfortunate.
However, George W. Fulbert will answer for him as well as any other. We will let him go at that. He asked Abelard to teach her.
Abelard was glad enough of the opportunity. He came often and stayed long. A letter of his shows in its very first sentence that he came under that friendly roof like a cold-hearted villain as he was, with the deliberate intention of debauching a confiding, innocent girl. This is the letter: I cannot cease to be astonished at the simplicity of Fulbert;I was as much surprised as if he had placed a lamb in the power of a hungry wolf. Héloïse and I, under pretext of study, gave ourselves up wholly to love, and the solitude that love seeks our studies procured for us. Books were open before us, but we spoke oftener of love than philosophy, and kisses came more readily from our lips than words. And so, exulting over an honorable confidence which to his degraded instinct was a ludicrous "simplicity," this unmanly Abelard seduced the niece of the man whose guest he was. Paris found it out. Fulbert was told of it--told often--but refused to believe it. He could not comprehend how a man could be so depraved as to use the sacred protection and security of hospitality as a means for the commission of such a crime as that. But when he heard the rowdies in the streets singing the lovesongs of Abelard to Héloïse, the case was too plain--lovesongs come not properly within the teachings of rhetoric and philosophy.
He drove Abelard from his house. Abelard returned secretly and carried Hé1oïse away to Palais, in Brittany, his native country. Here, shortly afterward, she bore a son, who, from his rare beauty, was surnamed Astrolabe--William G. The girl's flight enraged Fulbert, and he longed for vengeance, but feared to strike lest retaliation visit Héloïse--for he still loved her tenderly. At length Abelard offered to marry Héloïse--but on a shameful condition: that the marriage should be kept secret from the world, to the end that (while her good name remained a wreck, as before)his priestly reputation might be kept untarnished. It was like that miscreant.
Fulbert saw his opportunity and consented. He would see the parties married and then violate the confidence of the man who had taught him that trick;he would divulge the secret and so remove somewhat of the obloquy that attached to his niece's fame. But the niece suspected his scheme. She refused the marriage at first; she said Fulbert would betray the secret to save her, and besides, she did not wish to drag down a lover who was so gifted, so honored by the world, and who had such a splendid career before him. It was noble, self-sacrificing love, and characteristic of the pure-souled Héloïse, but it was not good sense.
But she was overruled, and the private marriage took place. Now for Fulbert! The heart so wounded should be healed at last; the proud spirit so tortured should find rest again; the humbled head should be lifted up once more. He proclaimed the marriage in the high places of the city and rejoiced that dishonor had departed from his house. But lo! Abelard denied the marriage! Héloïse denied it! The people, knowing the former circumstances, might have believed Fulbert had only Abelard denied it, but when the person chiefly interested--the girl herself--denied it, they laughed, despairing Fulbert to scorn.
The poor canon of the cathedral of Paris was spiked again. The last hope of repairing the wrong that had been done his house was gone. What next? Human nature suggested revenge. He compassed it. The historian says: Ruffians, hired by Fulbert, fell upon Abelard by night, and inflicted upon him a terrible and nameless mutilation. I am seeking the last resting place of those "ruffians." When I find it I shall shed some tears on it, and stack up some bouquets and immortelles, and cart away from it some gravel whereby to remember that howsoever blotted by crime their lives may have been, these ruffians did one just deed, at any rate, albeit it was not warranted by the strict letter of the law.
Héloïse entered a convent and gave good-bye to the world and its pleasures for all time. For twelve years she never heard of Abelard--never even heard his name mentioned. She had become prioress of Argenteuil and led a life of complete seclusion. She happened one day to see a letter written by him, in which he narrated his own history. She cried over it and wrote him. He answered, addressing her as his "sister in Christ." They continued to correspond, she in the unweighed language of unwavering affection, he in the chilly phraseology of the polished rhetorician. She poured out her heart in passionate, disjointed sentences; he replied with finished essays, divided deliberately into heads and subheads, premises and argument.
She showered upon him the tenderest epithets that love could devise, he addressed her from the North PoIe of his frozen heart as the "Spouse of Christ"! The abandoned villain!