Meanwhile, Abelard neglects his public duties, and his attachment to one fair student becomes the subject of speculation and banter among his scholars. By degrees the weakness of the great Scholastic is bruited in the streets, and ballads are sung at night in the public places associating his name with the niece of Fulbert. One of these Abelard himself overhears. Here is one strophe with its refrain:—
C’est l’histoire singulière
A se raconter le soir,
Du maître et l’ecolière,
De l’amour et du savoir.
Fillettes, fillettes,
Trop lire est mauvais.
Cueillez des violettes
Au prè Saint-Gervais.
He is alarmed, and his consternation is increased when he learns from Eloisa that the suspicions of her uncle have been aroused. There is but one remedy—marriage. Eloisa protests; for will not marriage rob Abelard of glory and preferment? At last she consents, but with the utmost reluctance, to secret nuptials. Abelard himself, in the celebrated letter written by him, Ad Amicum, declares that Fulbert was privy to their union, and that it was the self-sacrificing denial by Eloisa, after the marriage, that any union had taken place, which roused the vindictiveness of her uncle. De Rémusat, I suppose for the sake of dramatic effect, represents Fulbert as ignorant of the marriage, until the mutilated body of Abelard lies at her feet:—