But even a secret marriage was attended with great embarrassment.  The news of it leaks out through the servants.  The envious detractors of Abelard rejoice in his weakness and his humiliation.  His pride now takes offence, and he denies the ties; and so does Heloise.  The old uncle is enraged and indignant.  Abelard, justly fearing his resentment,—­yea, being cruelly maltreated at his instigation,—­removes his wife to the convent where she was educated, and induces her to take the veil.  She obeys him; she obeys him in all things; she has no will but his.  She thinks of nothing but his reputation and interest; she forgets herself entirely, yet not without bitter anguish.  She accepts the sacrifice, but it costs her infinite pangs.  She is separated from her husband forever.  Nor was the convent agreeable to her.  It was dull, monotonous, dismal; imprisonment in a tomb, a living death, where none could know her agonies but God; where she could not even hear from him who was her life.

Yet immolation in the dreary convent, where for nearly forty years she combated the recollection of her folly, was perhaps the best thing for her.  It was a cruel necessity.  In the convent she was at least safe from molestation; she had every opportunity for study and meditation; she was free from the temptations of the world, and removed from its scandals and reproach.  The world was crucified to her; Christ was now her spouse.

To a convent also Abelard retired, overwhelmed with shame and penitence.  At St. Denis he assumed the strictest habits, mortified his body with severe austerities, and renewed with ardor his studies in philosophy and theology.  He was not without mental sufferings, but he could bury his grief in his ambition.  It would seem that a marked change now took place in the character of Abelard.  He was less vain and conceited, and sought more eagerly the consolations of religion.  His life became too austere for his brother monks, and they compelled him to leave this aristocratic abbey.  He then resumed his lectures in the wilderness.  He retreated to a desert place in Champagne, where he constructed a small oratory with his own hands.  But still students gathered around him.  They, too, constructed cells, like ancient anchorites, and cultivated the fields for bread.  Then, as their numbers increased, they erected a vast edifice of stone and timber, which Abelard dedicated to the Holy Comforter, and called the Paraclete.  It was here that his best days were spent.  His renewed labors and his intellectual boldness increased the admiration of his pupils.  It became almost idolatry.  It is said that three thousand students assembled at the Paraclete to hear him lecture.  What admiration for genius, when three thousand young men could give up the delights of Paris for a wilderness with Abelard!  What marvellous powers of fascination he must have had!