The mythic additions to the portraiture of Heloise refer almost exclusively to her parentage and her beauty. Abélard introduces her to us as the niece of a canon of the cathedral chapter, named Fulbert. It is quite clear that Abélard considered her such throughout life, and that it was the belief of Heloise herself; but of her parentage neither of them speaks. In strict justice, the only inference we may draw from this is that she lost her parents at an early age. We should never have known the parentage of Abélard but for his own autobiography. However, the tradition that has charged itself with the romance of Abélard’s life found in this silence a convenient pretext for weaving further romantic elements into the story. There is a pretty collection of myths about Heloise’s birth, most of them, of course, making her illegitimate. The issue of lawful wedlock is ever too prosaic and ordinary for the romantic faculty—in spite of facts. The favourite theory is that Heloise was the daughter of Canon Fulbert; even Hausrath thinks Fulbert’s conduct points to this relationship. Two other canons of Paris are severally awarded the honour by various writers. On the other hand, it was inevitable that she should be given a tinge of ‘noble’ blood, and this is traced on the maternal side. Turlot makes the best effort—from the romantic point of view—in describing her as the daughter of an abbess, who was the mistress of a Montmorency, but who gave an air of respectability to her family matters by passing for the mistress of Fulbert. From the less interesting point of view of history, we can only say that she lived with her uncle, Canon Fulbert, and we must admit that we do not know whether she was illegitimate or an orphan. But the former category was very much the larger one, even in those violent days. It was also natural that tradition should endow her with a singular beauty: an endowment which sober history is unable to confirm. She must, it is true, have had a singular grace and charm of person. It is impossible to think that her mental gifts alone attracted Abélard. Moreover, in the course of the story, we shall meet several instances of the exercise of such personal power. But we cannot claim for her more than a moderate degree of beauty. ‘Not the least in beauty of countenance,’ says Abélard, ‘she was supreme in her knowledge of letters.’ The antithesis does not seem to be interpreted aright by those writers who think it denies her any beauty. ‘Not the least’ is a figure of rhetoric, well known to Abélard, which must by no means be taken with Teutonic literalness.