Letters of Abelard and Heloise
offend after us will think themselves less guilty. We are criminals
whose repentance is late. O may it be sincere! Let us repair, as far
is possible, the evils we have done; and let France, which has been
the witness of our crimes, be astonished at our penitence. Let us
confound all who would imitate our guilt, let us take the part of God
against ourselves, and by so doing prevent his judgment. Our former
irregularities require tears, shame, and sorrow to expiate them. Let
us offer up these sacrifices from our hearts; let us blush, let us
weep. If in these weak beginnings, Lord, our heart is not entirely
thine, let it at least be made sensible that it ought to be so!
Deliver yourself, _Heloise_, from the shameful remains of a
passion which has taken too deep root. Remember that the least
thought for any other than God is adultery. If you could see me here,
with my meagre face and melancholy air, surrounded with numbers of
persecuting monks, who are alarmed at my reputation for learning, and
offended at my lean visage, as if I threatened them with a
reformation; what would you say of my base sighs, and of those
unprofitable tears which deceive these credulous men? Alas! I am
humbled under love, and not under the Cross. Pity me, and free
yourself. If your vocation be, as you say, my work, deprive me not of
the merit of it by your continual inquietudes. Tell me that you, will
honour the habit which covers you, by an inward retirement. Fear God,
that you may be delivered from your frailties. Love him, if you would
advance in virtue. Be not uneasy in the cloister, for it is the
dwelling of saints. Embrace your bands, they are the chains of Christ
Jesus: he will lighten them, and bear them with you, if you bear them
with humility.
Without growing severe to a passion which yet possesses you, learn
from your own misery to succour your weak sisters; pity them upon
consideration of your own faults. And if any thoughts too natural
shall importune you, fly to the foot of the Cross, and beg for mercy;
there are wounds open; lament before the dying Deity. At the head of
a religious society be not a slave, and having rule over queens,
begin to govern yourself. Blush at the least revolt of your senses.
Remember, that even at the foot of the altar we often sacrifice to
lying spirits, and that no incense can be more agreeable to them than
that which in those places burns in the heart of a Religious still
sensible of passion and love. If, during your abode in the world,
your soul has acquired a habit of loving, feel it now no more but for
Jesus Christ, Repent of all the moments of your life which you have
wasted upon the world, and upon pleasure; demand them of me, it is a
robbery which I am guilty of; take courage and boldly reproach me
with it.
I have been indeed your master, but it was only to teach you sin.
You call me your Father; before I had any claim to this title I
deserved that of Parricide. I am your brother, but it is the
affinity of our crimes that has purchased me that distinction. I am
called your Husband, but it is after a public scandal. If you have
abused the sanctity of so many venerable names in the superscription
of your letters, to do me honour, and flatter your own passion, blot
them out, and place in their stead those of a Murtherer, a Villain,
an Enemy, who has conspired against your honour, troubled your quiet,
and betrayed your innocence. You would have perished thro' my means,
but by an extraordinary act of grace, which that you might be saved,
has thrown me down in the middle of my course.
This is the idea that you ought to have of a fugitive, who
endeavours to deprive you of the hope of seeing him any more. But
when love has once been sincere, how difficult it is to determine to
love no more? 'Tis a thousand times more easy to renounce the world
than love. I hate this deceitful faithless world; I think no more of
it; but my heart, still wandering, will eternally make me feel the
anguish of having lost you, in spite of all the convictions of my
understanding. In the mean time tho' I so be so cowardly as to
retract what you have read, do not suffer me to offer myself to your
thoughts but under this last notion. Remember my last endeavours were
to seduce your heart. You perished by my means, and I with you. The
same waves swallowed us both up. We waited for death with
indifference, and the same death had carried us headlong to the same
punishments. But Providence has turned off this blow, and our
shipwreck has thrown us into an haven. There are some whom the mercy
of God saves by afflictions. Let my salvation be the fruit of your
prayers! let me owe it to your tears, or exemplary holiness! Tho' my
heart, Lord! be filled with the love of one of thy creatures, thy
hand can, when it pleases, draw out of it those ideas which fill its
whole capacity. To love _Heloise_ truly is to leave her entirely
to that quiet which retirement and virtue afford. I have resolved it:
this letter shall be my last fault. Adieu.
If I die here, I will give orders that my body be carried to the
house of the Paraclete. You shall see me in that condition; not to
demand tears from you, it will then be too late; weep rather for me
now, to extinguish that fire which burns me. You shall see me, to
strengthen your piety by the horror of this carcase; and my death,
then more eloquent than I can be, will tell you what you love when
you love a man. I hope you will be contented, when you have finished
this mortal life, to be buried near me. Your cold ashes need then
fear nothing, and my tomb will, by that means, be more rich and more
renowned.
LETTER IV.
_HELOISE to ABELARD._
In the following Letter the passion of _Heloise_
breaks, out with more violence than ever. That which she had received
from _Abelard_, instead of fortifying her resolutions, served
only to revive in her memory all their past endearments and
misfortunes. With this impression she writes again to her husband;
and appears now, not so much in the charter of a Religious, striving
with the remains of her former weakness, as in that of an unhappy
woman abandoned to all the transport of love and despair.
To _Abelard_, her well beloved in Christ Jesus, from
_Heloise_, his well-beloved, in the same Christ Jesus.
I read the letter I received from you with abundance of
impatience. In spite of all my misfortunes, I hoped to find nothing
in it besides arguments of comfort; but how ingenious are lovers in
tormenting themselves! Judge of the exquisite sensibility and force
of my love by that which causes the grief of my soul; I was disturbed
at the superscription of your letter! why did you place the name of
_Heloise_ before that of _Abelard_? what means this most
cruel and unjust distinction? 'Twas your name only, the name of
Father, and of a Husband, which my eager eyes sought after. I did not
look for my own, which I much rather, if possible, forget, as being
the cause of your misfortune. The rules of decorum, and the character
of Master and Director which you have over me, opposed that
ceremonious manner of addressing me; and Love commanded you to banish
it. Alas! you know all this but too well.
Did you write thus to me before Fortune had ruined my happiness? I
see your heart has deserted me, and you have made greater advances in
the way of devotion than I could wish. Alas! I am too weak to follow
you; condescend at least to stay for me, and animate me with your
advice. Will you have the cruelty to abandon me? The fear of this
stabs my heart: but the fearful presages you make at the latter end
of your Letter, those terrible images you draw of your death, quite
distracts me. Cruel _Abelard_! you ought to have stopped my
tears, and you make them flow; you ought to have quieted the disorder
of my heart, and you throw me into despair.
You desire that after your death I should take care of your ashes,
and pay them the last duties. Alas! in what temper did you conceive
these mournful ideas? and how could you describe them to me? Did not
the apprehension of causing my present death make the pen drop from
your hand? You did not reflect, I suppose, upon all those' torments
to which you were going to deliver me. Heaven, as severe as it has
been against me, is not in so great a degree so, as to permit me to
live one moment after you. Life without my _Abelard_ is an
unsupportable punishment, and death a most exquisite happiness, if by
that means I can be united with him. If Heaven hears the prayers I
continually make for you, your days will be prolonged, and you will
bury me.
Is it not your part to prepare me, by your powerful exhortations
against that great crisis, which shakes the most resolute and
confirmed minds? Is it not your part to receive my last sighs; take
care of my funeral, and give an account of my manners and faith? Who
but you can recommend us worthily to God; and by the fervour and
merit of your prayers, conduct those souls to him which you have
joined to his worship by solemn contracts? We expect these pious
offices from your paternal charity. After this you will be free from
those disquietudes which now molest you, and you will quit life with
more ease, whenever it shall please God to call you away. You may
follow us, content with what you have done, and in a full assurance
of our happiness: but till then, write not to me any such terrible
things. Are we not already sufficiently miserable? must we aggravate
our sorrows? Our life here is but a languishing death? will you
hasten it? Our present disgraces are sufficient to employ our
thoughts continually, and shall we seek new arguments of grief in
futurities? How void of reason are men, said Seneca, to make distant
evils present by reflection, and to take pains before death to lose
all the comforts of life?
When you have finished your course here below, you say it is your
desire that your body be carried to the house of the Paraclete, to
the intent that, being always exposed to my eyes, you may be for ever
present to my mind; and that your dear body may strengthen our piety,
and animate our prayers. Can you think that the traces you have drawn
in my heart can ever be worn out? or that any length of time can
obliterate the memory we have here of your benefits? And what time
shall I find for those prayers you speak of? Alas! I shall then be
filled with other cares. Can so heavy a misfortune leave me a
moment's quiet? can my feeble reason resist such powerful assaults?
When I am distracted and raving, (if I dare to say it,) even against
Heaven itself, I shall not soften it by my prayers, but rather
provoke it by my cries and reproaches! But how should I pray! or how
bear up against my grief? I should be more urgent to follow you than
to pay you the sad ceremonies of burial. It is for you for _Abelard_,
that I have resolved to live; if you are ravished from me, what use
can I make of my miserable days? Alas! what lamentations should I
make, if Heaven, by a cruel pity, should preserve me till that
moment? When I but think of this last separation; I feel all the
pangs of death; what shall I be then, if I should see this dreadful
hour? Forbear, therefore, to infuse into my mind such mournful
thoughts, if not for love, at least for pity.
You desire me to give myself up to my duty, and to be wholly
God's, to whom I am consecrated. How can I do that when you frighten
me with apprehensions that continually possess my mind day and night?
When an evil threatens us, and it is impossible to ward it off, why
do we give up ourselves to the unprofitable fear of it, which is yet
even more tormenting than the evil itself?
What have I to hope for after this loss of you? what can confine
me to earth when Death shall have taken away from me all that was