THE last time we were
together, Philintus, you gave me a melancholy account of your
misfortunes; I was sensibly touched with the relation, and like a
true friend bore a share in your griefs. What did I not say to stop
your tears? I laid before you all the reasons philosophy could
furnish, which I thought might anyways soften the strokes of
fortune. But all these endeavours have proved useless; grief, I
perceive, has wholly seized your spirits, and your prudence, far
from assisting, seems to have forsaken you. But my skilful
friendship has found out an expedient to relieve you. Attend to me
a moment, hear but the story of my misfortunes, and yours,
Philintus, will be nothing as compared with those of the loving and
unhappy Abelard. Observe, I beseech you, at what expense I
endeavour to serve you; and think this no small mark of my
affection; for I am going to present you with the relation of such
particulars as it is impossible for me to recollect without
piercing my heart with the most sensible affliction. You know the
place where I was born, but not, perhaps, that I was born with
those complexional faults which strangers charge upon our
nation--an extreme lightness of temper, and great inconstancy. I
frankly own it, and shall be as free to acquaint you with those
good qualities which were observed in me. I had a natural vivacity
and aptness for all the polite arts. My father was a gentleman and
a man of good parts; he loved the wars, but differed in his
sentiments from many who follow that profession. He thought it no
praise to be illiterate, but in the camp he knew how to converse at
the same time with the Muses and Bellona. He was the same in the
management of his family, and took equal care to form his children
to the study of polite learning as to their military exercises. As
I was his eldest, and consequently his favourite son, he took more
than ordinary care of my education. I had a natural genius for
study, and made extraordinary progress in it. Smitten with the love
of books, and the praises which on all sides were bestowed upon me,
I aspired to no other reputation than that of learning. To my
brothers I leave the glory of battles and the pomp of triumphs;
nay, more, I yielded them up my birthright and patrimony. I knew
necessity was the great spur to study, and was afraid I should not
merit the title of learned if I distinguished myself from others by
nothing but a more plentiful fortune. Of all the sciences logic was
the most to my taste. Such were the arms I chose to profess.
Furnished with the weapons of reasoning I took pleasure in going to
public disputations to win trophies; and wherever I heard that this
art flourished, I ranged, like another Alexander, from province to
province, to seek new adversaries with whom I might try my
strength.
The ambition I had to become
formidable in logic led me at last to Paris, the centre of
politeness, and where the science I was so smitten with had usually
been in the greatest perfection. I put myself under the direction
of one Champeaux, a professor who had acquired the character of the
most skilful philosopher of his age, but by negative excellencies
only as being the least ignorant! He received me with great
demonstrations of kindness, but I was not so happy as to please him
long; for I was too knowing in the subjects he discoursed upon, and
I often confuted his notions. Frequently in our disputations I
pushed a good argument so home that all his subtlety was not able
to elude its force. It was impossible he should see himself
surpassed by his scholar without resentment. It is sometimes
dangerous to have too much merit.
Envy increased against me in
proportion to my reputation. My enemies endeavoured to interrupt my
progress, but their malice only provoked my courage. Measuring my
abilities by the jealousy I had raised, I thought I had no further
need for Champeaux's lectures, but rather that I was sufficiently
qualified to read to others. I stood for a post which was vacant at
Melun. My master used all his artifice to defeat my hopes, but in
vain; and on this occasion I triumphed over his cunning as before I
had done over his learning. My lectures were always crowded, and my
beginnings so fortunate, that I entirely obscured the renown of my
famous master. Flushed with these happy conquests, I removed to
Corbeil to attack the masters there, and so establish my character
of the ablest logician. The rush of travelling threw me into a
dangerous distemper, and not being able to recover my health, my
physicians, who perhaps were in league with Champeaux, advised me
to remove to my native air. Thus I voluntarily banished myself for
some years. I leave you to imagine whether my absence was not
regretted by the better sort. At length I recovered my health, when
I received news that my greatest adversary had taken the habit of a
monk; you may think it was an act of penitence for having
persecuted me; quite the contrary, ’twas ambition; he resolved to
raise himself to some church dignity, therefore fell into the
beaten track and took on him the garb of feigned austerity; for
this is the easiest and shortest way to the highest ecclesiastical
dignities. His wishes were successful and he obtained a bishopric;
yet did he not quit Paris and the care of his schools: he went to
his diocese to gather in his revenues, but returned and passed the
rest of his time in reading lectures to those few pupils which
followed him. After this I often engaged with him, and may reply to
you as Ajax did to the Greeks:—
'If you demand the fortune of
that day
When stak’d on this right hand
your honours lay,
If I did not oblige the foe to
yield,
Yet did I never basely quit the
field.'
About this time my father,
Beranger, who to the age of sixty had lived very agreeably, retired
from the world and shut himself up in a cloister, where he offered
up to Heaven the languid remains of a life he could make no further
use of. My mother, who was yet young, took the same resolution. She
turned a Religious, but did not entirely abandon the satisfactions
of life; her friends were continually at the grate, and the
monastery, when one has an inclination to make it so, is
exceedingly charming and pleasant. I was present when my mother was
professed. At my return I resolved to study divinity, and inquired
for a director in that study. I was recommended to one Anselm, the
very oracle of his time, but, to give you my own opinion, one more
venerable for his age and his wrinkles than for his genius or
learning. If you consulted him upon any difficulty, the sure
consequence was to be much more uncertain in the point. They who
only saw him admired him, but those who reasoned with him were
extremely dissatisfied. He was a great master of words and talked
much, but meant nothing. His discourse was a fire, which, instead
of enlightening, obscured everything with its smoke; a tree
beautified with variety of leaves and branches, but barren of
fruit. I came to him with a desire to learn, but found him like the
fig tree in the Gospel, or the old oak to which Lucan compares
Pompey. I continued not long underneath his shadow. I took for my
guides the primitive Fathers and boldly launched into the ocean of
the Holy Scriptures. In a short time I had made such progress that
others chose me for their director. The number of my scholars was
incredible, and the gratuities I received from them were
proportionate to the great reputation I had acquired. Now I found
myself safe in the harbour, the storms were passed, and the rage of
my enemies had spent itself without effect. Happy had I known to
make a right use of this calm! But when the mind is most easy ’tis
most exposed to love, and even security is here the most dangerous
state.
And now, my friend, I am going to
expose to you all my weaknesses. All men, I believe, are under a
necessity of paying tribute at some time or other to Love, and it
is vain to strive to avoid it. I was a philosopher, yet this tyrant
of the mind triumphed over all my wisdom; his darts were of greater
force than all my reasonings, and with a sweet constraint he led me
wherever he pleased. Heaven, amidst an abundance of blessings with
which I was intoxicated, threw in a heavy affliction. I became a
most signal example of its vengeance, and the more unhappy because,
having deprived me of the means of accomplishing satisfaction, it
left me to the fury of my criminal desires. I will tell you, my
dear friend, the particulars of my story, and leave you to judge
whether I deserved so severe a correction.
