his heresies, in the form of sentences sundered from their context in his works,—­some of them, indeed, from works which he never wrote,—­and to call upon the council to condemn them. (These theses may be found in Denzinger’s ‘Enchiridion Symbolorum et Definitionum,’ pp. 109 seq.) Abelard, clearly understanding the scheme, feeling its unfairness, and knowing the effect of Bernard’s lachrymose pulpit rhetoric upon sympathetic ecclesiastics who believed in his power to work miracles, appeared before the council, only to appeal from its authority to Rome.  The council, though somewhat disconcerted by this, proceeded to condemn the disputed theses, and sent a notice of its action to the Pope.  Fearing that Abelard, who had friends in Rome, might proceed thither and obtain a reversal of the verdict, Bernard set every agency at work to obtain a confirmation of it before his victim could reach the Eternal City.  And he succeeded.

The result was for a time kept secret from Abelard, who, now over sixty years old, set out on his painful journey.  Stopping on his way at the famous, hospitable Abbey of Cluny, he was most kindly entertained by its noble abbot, who well deserved the name of Peter the Venerable.  Here, apparently, he learned that he had been condemned and excommunicated; for he went no further.  Peter offered the weary man an asylum in his house, which was gladly accepted; and Abelard, at last convinced of the vanity of all worldly ambition, settled down to a life of humiliation, meditation, study, and prayer.  Soon afterward Bernard made advances toward reconciliation, which Abelard accepted; whereupon his excommunication was removed.  Then the once proud Abelard, shattered in body and broken in spirit, had nothing more to do but to prepare for another life.  And the end was not far off.  He died at St. Marcel, on the 21st of April, 1142, at the age of sixty-three.  His generous host, in a letter to Heloise, gives a touching account of his closing days, which were mostly spent in a retreat provided for him on the banks of the Saone.  There he read, wrote, dictated, and prayed, in the only quiet days which his life ever knew.

The body of Abelard was placed in a monolith coffin and buried in the chapel of the monastery of St. Marcel; but Peter the Venerable twenty-two years afterward allowed it to be secretly removed, and carried to the Paraclete, where Abelard had wished to lie.  When Heloise, world-famous for learning, virtue, and saintliness, passed away, and her body was laid beside his, he opened his arms and clasped her in close embrace.  So says the legend, and who would not believe it?  The united remains of the immortal lovers, after many vicissitudes, found at last (let us hope), in 1817, a permanent resting place, in the Parisian cemetery of Pere Lachaise, having been placed together in Abelard’s monolith coffin.  “In death they were not divided.”