"Up to now I had thought I had deserved much of you, seeing that I carried out everything for your sake and continue up to the present moment in complete obedience to you. It was not any sense of vocation which brought me as a young girl to accept the austerities of the cloister, but your bidding alone, and if I deserve no gratitude from you, you may judge for yourself how my labours are in vain. I can expect no reward for this from God, for it is certain that I have done nothing as yet for love of him."
Heloise, in a letter to Abelard
Peter Abelard was considered one of the greatest thinkers of his time. Heloise was a young girl whose uncle was wealthy enough to employ Abelard as her tutor. Their love affair was epic. When Heloise became pregnant, Abelard married her in secret. Why in secret? Well, philosophers were generally bachelors for life, and both feared that a marriage would ruin Abelard's reputation. Heloise was sent to a convent, and the two continued to have romantic trysts while she was there. When Heloise's Uncle discovered that she had been moved to a convent, he believed that she had been abandoned by her lover and enacted revenge on Abelard by having him castrated in the middle of the night.
Humiliated, Abelard himself became a monk, and Heloise eventually took religious vows and became an Abbess. They are buried together at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Read More:
Old Love Stories Retold: Abelard and Heloise
The Love Letters of Abelard and Heloise
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