maintaining any constant resolutions, unless they were forced by the
necessity of fixed vows. I wanted those vows, and Heaven itself, for
your security, that I might no longer distrust you. Ye holy mansions,
ye impenetrable retreats, from what numberless apprehensions have you
freed me? Religion and Piety keep a strict guard round your grates
and high walls. What a haven of rest is this to a jealous mind? and
with what impatience did I endeavour it! I went every day trembling
to exhort you to this sacrifice; I admired, without daring to mention
it then, a brightness in your beauty which I had never observed
before. Whether it was the bloom of a rising virtue, or an
anticipation of that great loss I was going to suffer, I was not
curious in examining the cause, but only hastened your being
professed. I engaged your Prioress in my guilt by a criminal bribe,
with which I purchased the right of burying you. The professed of the
house were also bribed, and concealed from you, by my directions, all
their scruples and disgusts. I omitted nothing, either little or
great: and if you had escaped all my snares, I myself would not have
retired: I was resolved to follow you every where. This shadow of
myself would always have pursued your steps, and continually
occasioned either your confusion or fear, which would have been a
sensible gratification to me.
But, thanks to Heaven, you resolved to make a vow; I accompanied
you with terror to the foot of the altar: and while you stretched out
your hand to touch the sacred cloth, I heard you pronounce distinctly
those fatal words which for ever separated you from all men. 'Till
then your beauty and youth seemed to oppose my design, and to
threaten your return into the world. Might not a small temptation
have changed you? Is it possible to renounce one's self entirely at
the age of two and twenty? at an age which claims the most absolute
liberty, could you think the world no longer worthy of your regard?
How much did I wrong you, and what weakness did I impute to you? You
were in my imagination nothing but lightness and inconstancy. Might
not a young woman, at the noise of the flames, and the fall of Sodom,
look back, and pity some one person? I took notice of your eyes, your
motion, your air; I trembled at every thing. You may call such a
self-interested conduct treachery, perfidiousness, murder. A love
which was so like to hatred ought to provoke the utmost contempt and
anger.
It is fit you should know, that the very moment when I was
convinced of your being entirely devoted to me, when I saw you were
infinitely worthy of all my love and acknowledgement, I imagined I
could love you no more; I thought it time to leave off giving you any
marks of affection; and I considered, that by your holy espousals you
were now the peculiar care of Heaven, even in the quality of a wife.
My jealousy seemed to be extinguished. When God only is our rival, we
have nothing to fear: and being in greater tranquillity than ever
before, I dared even to offer up prayers, and beseech him to take you
away from my eyes: but it was not a time to make rash prayers; and my
faith was too imperfect to let them be heard. He who sees the depth
and secrets of all men's hearts, saw mine did not agree with my
words. Necessity and despair were the springs of this proceeding.
Thus I inadvertently offered an insult to Heaven rather than a
sacrifice. God rejected my offering and my prayers, and continued my
punishment, by suffering me to continue my love. Thus, under the
guilt of your vows, and of the passion which preceded them, I must be
tormented all the days of my life.
If God spoke to your heart, as to that of a Religious, whose
innocence had first engaged him to heap on it a thousand favours, I
should have matter of comfort; but to see both of us victims of a
criminal love; to see this love insult us, and invest itself with our
very habits, as with spoils it has taken from our devotion, fills me
with horror and trembling. Is this a state of reprobation? or are
these the consequences of a long drunkenness in profane love? We
cannot say love is a drunkenness and a poison till we are illuminated
by grace; in the mean time, it is an evil which we dote on. When we
are under such a mistake the knowledge of our misery is the first
step towards amendment. Who does not know that it is for the glory of
God to find no other foundation in man for his mercy than man's very
weakness? When he has shewed us this weakness, and we bewail it, he
is ready to put forth his omnipotence to assist us. Let us say for
our comfort that what we suffer is one of those long and terrible
temptations which have sometimes disturbed the vocations of the most
Holy.
God can afford his presence to men, in order to soften their
calamities, whenever he shall think fit. It was his pleasure when you
took the veil, to draw you to him by his grace. I saw your eyes, when
you spoke your last farewell, fixed upon the cross. It was above six
months before you wrote me a letter, nor during all that time did I
receive any message from you. I admired this silence, which I durst
not blame, and could not imitate. I wrote to you; you returned me no
answer. Your heart was then shut; but this guardian of the spouse is
now opened, he is withdrawn from it, and has left you alone. By
removing from you, he has made trial of you; call him back and strive
to regain him. We must have the assistance of God that we may break
our chains; we have engaged too deeply in love to free ourselves. Our
follies have penetrated even into the most sacred places. Our amours
have been matter of scandal to a whole kingdom. They are read and
admired; love which produced them has caused them to be described. We
shall be a consolation for the failings of youth hereafter. Those who
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
dear upon it? I have renounced without difficulty all the charms of
life, preserving only my love, and the secret pleasure of thinking
incessantly of you, and hearing that you live; and yet alas! you do
not live for me, and I dare not even flatter myself with the hopes
that I shall ever enjoy a sight of you more. This is the greatest of
my afflictions. Merciless Fortune! hast thou not persecuted me
enough? Thou dost not give me any respite? thou hast exhausted all
thy vengeance upon me, and reserved thyself nothing whereby thou
mayst appear terrible to others. Thou hast wearied thyself in
tormenting me, and others have nothing now to fear from thy anger.
But to what purpose dost thou still arm thyself against me? The
wounds I have already received leave no room for new ones; why cannot
I urge thee to kill me? or dost thou fear, amidst the numerous
torments thou heapest on me, dost thou fear that such a stroke would
deliver me from all? Therefore thou preservest me from death, in
order to make me die every moment.
Dear _Abelard_, pity my despair! Was ever any thing so
miserable! The higher you raised me above other women who envied me
your love, the more sensible am I now of the loss of your heart. I
was exalted to the top of happiness, only that I might have a more
terrible fall. Nothing could formerly be compared to my pleasures,
and nothing now can equal my misery. My glory once raised the envy of
my rivals; my present wretchedness moves the compassion of all that
see me. My fortune has been always in extremes, she has heaped on me
her most delightful favours, that she might load me with the greatest
of her afflictions. Ingenious in tormenting me, she has made the
memory of the joys I have lost, an inexhaustible spring of my tears.
Love, which possest was her greatest gift, being taken away,
occasions all my sorrow. In short, her malice has entirely succeeded,
and I find my present afflictions proportionably bitter as the
transports which charmed me were sweet.
But what aggravates my sufferings yet more, is, that we began to
be miserable at a time when we seemed the least to deserve it. While
we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of a criminal love, nothing
opposed our vicious pleasures. But scarce had we retrenched what was
unlawful in our passion, and taken refuge in marriage against that
remorse which might have pursued us, but the whole wrath of heaven
fell on us in all its weight. But how barbarous was your punishment?
The very remembrance makes me shake with horror. Could an outrageous
husband make a villain suffer more that had dishonoured his bed? Ah!
What right had a cruel uncle over us? We were joined to each other
even before the altar, which should have protected you from the rage
of your enemies. Must a wife draw on you that punishment which ought
not to fall on any but an adulterous lover? Besides, we were
separated; you were busy in your exercises, and instructed a learned
auditory in mysteries which the greatest geniuses before you were not
able to penetrate; and I, in obedience to you, retired to a cloister.
I there spent whole days in thinking of you, and sometimes meditating
on holy lessons, to which I endeavoured to apply myself. In this very
juncture you became the victim of the most unhappy love. You alone
expiated the crime common to us both: You only were punished, though
both of us were guilty. You, who were least so, was the object of the
whole vengeance of a barbarous man. But why should I rave at your
assassins? I, wretched I, have ruined you, I have been the original
of all your misfortunes! Good Heaven! Why was I born to be the
occasion of so tragical an accident? How dangerous is it for a great
man to suffer himself to be moved by our sex! He ought from his
infancy to be inured to insensibility of heart, against all our
charms. _Hearken, my Son_, (said formerly the wisest of Men)
_attend and keep my instructions; if a beautiful woman by her
looks endeavour to intice thee, permit not thyself to be overcome by
a corrupt inclination; reject the poison she offers, and follow not
the paths which she directs. Her house is the gate of destruction and
death_. I have long examined things, and have found that death
itself is a less dangerous evil than beauty. 'Tis the shipwreck of
liberty, a fatal snare, from which it is impossible ever to get free.
'Twas woman which threw down the first man from that glorious
condition in which heaven had placed him. She who was created in
order to partake of his happiness, was the sole cause of his ruin.
How bright had been the glory, _Sampson_, if thy heart had been
as firm against the charms of _Dalilah_, as against the weapons
of the _Philistines_! A woman disarmed and betrayed thee, who
hadst been a glorious conqueror of armies. Thou saw'st thyself
delivered into the hands of they enemies; thou wast deprived of thy
eyes, those inlets of love into thy soul: distracted and despairing
didst thou die, without any consolation but that of involving thy
enemies in thy destruction. _Solomon_, that he might please
women, forsook the care of pleasing God. That king, whose wisdom
princes came from all parts to admire, he whom God had chose to build
him a temple, abandoned the worship of those very alters he had had
defended, and proceeded to such a pitch of folly as even to burn
incense to idols. _Job_ had no enemy more cruel than his wife:
what temptations did he not bear? The evil spirit, who had declared
himself his persecutor, employed a woman as an instrument to shake
his constancy; and the same evil spirit made _Heloise_ an
instrument to ruin _Abelard_! All the poor comfort I have is,
that I am not the voluntary cause of your misfortune. I have not
betrayed you; but my constancy and love have been destructive to you.
If I have committed a crime in having loved you with constancy, I
shall never be able to repent of that crime. Indeed I gave myself up
too much to the captivity of those soft errors into which my rising
passion seduced me. I have endeavoured to please you even at the
expence of my virtue, and therefore deserve those pains I feel. My
guilty transports could not but have a tragical end. As soon as I was
persuaded of your love, alas! I scarce delayed a moment, resigning
myself to all your protestations. To be beloved by _Abelard_
was, in my esteem, too much glory, and I too impatiently desired it
not to believe it immediately. I endeavoured at nothing but
convincing you of my utmost passion. I made no use of those defences
of disdain and honour; those enemies of pleasure which tyrannize over
our sex, made in me but a weak and unprofitable resistance. I
sacrificed all to my love, and I forced my duty to give place to the
ambition of making happy the most gallant and learned person of the
age. If any consideration had been able to stop me, it would have
been without doubt the interest of my love. I feared, lest having
nothing further for you to desire, your passion might become languid,
and you might seek for new pleasures in some new conquest. But it was
easy for you to cure me of a suspicion so opposite to my own
inclination. I ought to have forseen other more certain evils, and to
have considered, that the idea of lost enjoyments would be the
trouble of my whole life.