OF THE ABBEY TO WHICH HE WAS CALLED AND OF THE PERSECUTION HE HAD
FROM HIS SONS, THAT IS TO SAY THE MONKS, AND FROM THE LORD OF THE
LAND
While I was thus afflicted with so great perturbation of the
spirit, and when the only way of escape seemed to be for me to seek
refuge with Christ among the enemies of Christ, there came a chance
whereby I thought I could for a while avoid the plottings of my
enemies. But thereby I fell among Christians and monks who were far
more savage than heathens and more evil of life. The thing came
about in this wise. There was in lesser Brittany, in the bishopric
of Vannes, a certain abbey of St. Gildas at Ruits, then mourning
the death of its shepherd. To this abbey the elective choice of the
brethren called me, with the approval of the prince of that land,
and I easily secured permission to accept the post from my own
abbot and brethren. Thus did the hatred of the French drive me
westward, even as that of the Romans drove Jerome toward the East.
Never, God knows, would I have agreed to this thing had it not been
for my longing for any possible means of escape from the sufferings
which I had borne so constantly.
The land was barbarous and its speech was unknown to me; as for the
monks, their vile and untameable way of life was notorious almost
everywhere. The people of the region, too, were uncivilized and
lawless. Thus, like one who in terror of the sword that threatens
him dashes headlong over a precipice, and to shun one death for a
moment rushes to another, I knowingly sought this new danger in
order to escape from the former one. And there, amid the dreadful
roar of the waves of the sea, where the land's end left me no
further refuge in flight, often in my prayers did I repeat over and
over again: "From the end of the earth will I cry unto Thee, when
my heart is overwhelmed" (Ps. lxi, 2).
No one, methinks, could fail to understand how persistently that
undisciplined body of monks, the direction of which I had thus
undertaken, tortured my heart day and night, or how constantly I
was compelled to think of the danger alike to my body and to my
soul. I held it for certain that if I should try to force them to
live according to the principles they had themselves professed, I
should not survive. And yet, if I did not do this to the utmost of
my ability, I saw that my damnation was assured. Moreover, a
certain lord who was exceedingly powerful in that region had some
time previously brought the abbey under his control, taking
advantage of the state of disorder within the monastery to seize
all the lands adjacent thereto for his own use, and he ground down
the monks with taxes heavier than those which were extorted from
the Jews themselves.
The monks pressed me to supply them with their daily necessities,
but they held no property in common which I might administer in
their behalf, and each one, with such resources as he possessed,
supported himself and his concubines, as well as his sons and
daughters. They took delight in harassing me on this matter, and
they stole and carried off whatsoever they could lay their hands
on, to the end that my failure to maintain order might make me
either give up trying to enforce discipline or else abandon my post
altogether. Since the entire region was equally savage, lawless and
disorganized, there was not a single man to whom I could turn for
aid, for the habits of all alike were foreign to me. Outside the
monastery the lord and his henchmen ceaselessly hounded me, and
within its walls the brethren were forever plotting against me, so
that it seemed as if the Apostle had had me and none other in mind
when he said: "Without were fightings, within were fears" (II Cor. vii, 5).
I considered and lamented the uselessness and the wretchedness of
my existence, how fruitless my life now was, both to myself and to
others; how of old I had been of some service to the clerics whom I
had now abandoned for the sake of these monks, so that I was no
longer able to be of use to either; how incapable I had proved
myself in everything I had undertaken or attempted, so that above
all others I deserved the reproach, "This man began to build, and
was not able to finish" (Luke xiv, 30). My despair grew still
deeper when I compared the evils I had left behind with those to
which I had come, for my former sufferings now seemed to me as
nought. Full often did I groan: "Justly has this sorrow come upon
me because I deserted the Paraclete, which is to say the Consoler,
and thrust myself into sure desolation; seeking to shun threats I
fled to certain peril."
The thing which tormented me most was the fact that, having
abandoned my oratory, I could make no suitable provision for the
celebration there of the divine office, for indeed the extreme
poverty of the place would scarcely provide the necessities of one
man. But the true Paraclete Himself brought me real consolation in
the midst of this sorrow of mine, and made all due provision for
His own oratory. For it chanced that in some manner or other,
laying claim to it as having legally belonged in earlier days to
his monastery, my abbot of St. Denis got possession of the abbey of
Argenteuil, of which I have previously spoken, wherein she who was
now my sister in Christ rather than my wife, Héloïse, had taken the
veil. From this abbey he expelled by force all the nuns who had
dwelt there, and of whom my former companion had become the
prioress. The exiles being thus dispersed in various places, I
perceived that this was an opportunity presented by God himself to
me whereby I could make provision anew for my oratory. And so,
returning thither, I bade her come to the oratory, together with
some others from the same convent who had clung to her.
On their arrival there I made over to them the oratory, together
with everything pertaining thereto, and subsequently, through the
approval and assistance of the bishop of the district, Pope
Innocent II promulgated a decree confirming my gift in perpetuity
to them and their successors. And this refuge of divine mercy,
which they served so devotedly, soon brought them consolation, even
though at first their life there was one of want, and for a time of
utter destitution. But the place proved itself a true Paraclete to
them, making all those who dwelt round about feel pity and
kindliness for the sisterhood. So that, methinks, they prospered
more through gifts in a single year than I should have done if I
had stayed there a hundred. True it is that the weakness of
womankind makes their needs and sufferings appeal strongly to
people's feelings, as likewise it makes their virtue all the more
pleasing to God and man. And God granted such favour in the eyes of
all to her who was now my sister, and who was in authority over the
rest, that the bishops loved her as a daughter, the abbots as a
sister, and the laity as a mother. All alike marvelled at her
religious zeal, her good judgment and the sweetness of her
incomparable patience in all things. The less often she allowed
herself to be seen, shutting herself up in her cell to devote
herself to sacred meditations and prayers, the more eagerly did
those who dwelt without demand her presence and the spiritual
guidance of her words.