But that ‘repute throughout the kingdom,’ which Peter the Venerable grants her, was based on her precocious knowledge. It is generally estimated that she was in her seventeenth or eighteenth year when Abélard fell in love with her. She had spent her early years at the Benedictine nunnery at Argenteuil, a few miles beyond St. Denis. Her education was then continued by her uncle. Canon Fulbert has no reputation for learning in the chronicles of the time; in fact, the only information we have of him, from other sources than the story of Abélard, is that he was the happy possessor of ‘a whole bone’ out of the spine of St. Ebrulfus. However, it is indisputable that Heloise had a reputation for letters even at that time. Both Abélard and Peter of Cluny are explicit on the point; the latter says to her, in one of his admiring letters, ‘in study you not only outstripped all women, but there were few men whom you did not surpass.’ From this it is clear that the learning of Heloise was not distinguished only when compared with the general condition of the feminine mind. In fact, although Abbot Peter speaks slightingly of womanly education in general, this was a relatively bright period. We have already seen the wife and daughters of Manegold teaching philosophy at Paris with much distinction at the close of the eleventh century, and one cannot go far in the chronicles of the time without meeting many instances of a learned correspondence in Latin between prelates and women. Nevertheless, the learning of Heloise cannot have been considerable, absolutely speaking. Her opportunities were even more limited than the erudition of her time. That she knew Hebrew is explicitly stated by Abélard and Peter of Cluny, and also by Robert of Auxerre; but she probably learned it (with Greek) from Abélard, and knew no more than he. Her Latin is good; but it is impossible to discuss here her famous _Letters_, which give us our sole direct insight into her personality. Learned, critical, penetrative, she certainly was, but Rémusat’s estimate is entirely inadmissible. Beside Aspasia or Hypatia she would ‘pale her ineffectual fire.’