Whatever may have been the aim of Abélard in writing his ‘Story,’ it had one immediate consequence of the first literary importance. Great of itself, it evoked a correspondence which is unique in the literature of the world. It fell into the hands of Abbess Heloise, and led to the writing of her famous _Letters_. CHAPTER XI THE LETTERS OF ABÉLARD AND HELOISE The true interest of the correspondence between the abbot husband and the abbess wife, which resulted from the publication of the ‘Story of my Calamities,’ needs to be pointed out afresh at the beginning of the twentieth century. It has been obscured through the eagerness of historians to indicate parallels and the tendency of poets and romancers to isolate features which appeal to them. During the eighteenth century the famous letters were made familiar to English readers by a number of translations from the French or from the original Latin. Even then there was a tendency to read them apart from the lives of the writers, or at least without an adequate preliminary study of their characters and their fortunes. Those translations are read no longer. Apart from the limited number of readers who have appreciated the excellent French versions of Madame Guizot and M. Gréard, an idea is formed of the letters and their writers from a few ardent fragments, which are misleading in their isolation, and from the transference of the names ‘Abélard’ and ‘Heloise’ to more recent characters of history or romance. The letters must be read anew in the light of our augmented knowledge and of the juster psychological analysis which it has made possible.