" And in Deuteronomy (xxiii, 1), "He that is wounded in the
stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the
congregation of the Lord."
I must confess that in my misery it was the overwhelming sense of
my disgrace rather than any ardour for conversion to the religious
life that drove me to seek the seclusion of the monastic cloister.
Heloise had already, at my bidding, taken the veil and entered a
convent. Thus it was that we both put on the sacred garb, I in the
abbey of St. Denis, and she in the convent of Argenteuil, of which
I have already spoken. She, I remember well, when her fond friends
sought vainly to deter her from submitting her fresh youth to the
heavy and almost intolerable yoke of monastic life, sobbing and
weeping replied in the words of Cornelia:
"... O husband most noble,
Who ne'er shouldst have shared my couch! Has fortune such power
To smite so lofty a head? Why then was I wedded
Only to bring thee to woe? Receive now my sorrow,
The price I so gladly pay."
(Lucan, "Pharsalia," viii, 94.)
With these words on her lips did she go forthwith to the altar, and
lifted therefrom the veil, which had been blessed by the bishop,
and before them all she took the vows of the religious life.
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