Hitherto it had been blasphemy to think. The first human voice that the Middle Ages heard, the first, voice distinguishable from that of kings, of felons and of beasts, was Abailard’s. Whatever previously had been said was bellowed or stuttered. It was with the forgotten elegance of Athens that Abailard spoke, preaching as he did so the indulgence of God, the rehabilitation of the flesh, the inferiority of fear, love’s superiority.
Abailard, fascinating and gifted, was familiar with Greek and Hebrew, attainments then prodigious to which he added other abilities, the art of calming men while disturbing women—among others a young Parisian, Héloïse, herself a miracle of erudition and of beauty.
Abailard at the time was nearly thirty-eight, Héloïse not quite eighteen. Between them a liaison ensued that resulted in a secret marriage which Abailard afterward disavowed and which, for his sake, Héloïse denied. It ruined their lives and founded their fame. Had it been less catastrophic no word or memory of them could have endured. Misfortune made immortal these lovers, one of whom took the veil and the other the cowl and whose story has survived that of kingdoms.
In separation they corresponded. The letters of Héloïse are vibrant still. Only Sappho, in her lost songs to Phaon, could have exceeded their fervor. “God knows,” she wrote, “in you I sought but you, nothing but you. You were my one and only object, marriage I did not seek, nor my way but yours uniquely. If the title of wife be holy, I thought the name of mistress more dear. Rather would I have been called that by you than empress by an emperor.”
Abailard’s frigid and methodical answers were headed “To the bride of Christ,” or else “To my sister in Christ, from Abailard, her brother.” The tone of Héloïse’s replies was very different. “To my master, no; to my brother, no; to my husband, no; his sister, his bride, no; from Héloïse to Abailard.” Again she wrote: “At every angle of life God knows I fear to offend you more than Him, I desire to please Him less than I do you. It was your will not His that brought me where I am.”
It was true. She took the veil as though it were poison. She broke into the priory violently as the despairful plunge into death. Even that could not assuage her. But in the burning words which she tore from her breaking heart the true passion of love, which nothing earthly or divine can still, for the first time pulsated.