As a piece of literature the ‘Story’ lies under the disadvantage of being written in degenerate Latin. With all his classical reading, Abélard has not escaped the use of forms which gravely offend the classical taste. Perhaps John of Salisbury is superior to him in this respect; there have certainly been later theologians, such as Petavius, who have far surpassed him. But, apart from this limitation in form, it is as high above the many biographies and autobiographies of his contemporaries as he himself was above most of their writers. Abbot Suger’s autobiography is a piece of vulgar and crude self-advertisement beside it. It has not the mere chance immortality which honours such works as that of Suger, and which is wholly due to the zeal of the modern collector of ancient documents; it has the germ of immortality within it—the same soul that lives in the _Confessions_ of Augustine: those who understand that soul will not add the _Confession_ of Rousseau. And the confession of Abélard has this singular feature: it is written by a man to whom the former sinful self is dead in a way which was impossible to Augustine. That feature implies both advantages and disadvantages, but it at least gives a unique value and interest to the document. We have throughout relied on and quoted this autobiography, so that an analysis of its contents would be superfluous. There remains, however, the interesting question of Abélard’s motive for writing it. It is ostensibly written as a letter, addressed to a friend who is in trouble, and merely intended to give him some consolation by a comparison of the sorrows of Abélard. No one will seriously question that this is only a rhetorical artifice. Probably it reached such a friend, but it was obviously written for ‘publication.’ In its sincere acknowledgment of whatever fault lay on his conscience, only striving to excuse where the intention was clearly good, that is, in the matter of his theological opinions, the letter must be regarded as a conciliatory document. Not only its elaborate construction, but its care in explaining how guiltless he was in the making of most of his enemies—Anselm, Alberic, Norbert, Bernard, and the monks of St. Denis and St. Gildas—impel us to think that it was intended for circulation in France. In a few years we shall find him in Paris once more. Deutsch believes that the ‘Story’ was written and circulated to prepare the way for his return, and this seems very probable. From ‘the ends of the earth’ his thoughts and hopes were being redirected towards Paris; it had availed him nothing to fly from it. But there were calumnious versions abroad of every step in his eventful life, and even Bernard sneered at his experience at St. Gildas. He would make an effort to regain the affection of some of his old friends, or to create new admirers.