Abélard was not a priest at that time. He was probably a canon of Notre Dame, but there are very satisfactory reasons for holding that he did not receive the priesthood until a much later date. In the ‘Story’ he makes Heloise address him, about this time, as ‘a cleric and canon,’ but he is nowhere spoken of as a priest. Had he been a priest, the circumstance would have afforded Heloise one of the most powerful objections to a marriage; in the curious and lengthy catalogue of such objections which we shall find her raising presently she does not mention the priesthood. But even if he were a priest, it is not at all clear that he would have considered this in itself an impediment to marriage. From the acts of the Council of London (1102), the Council of Troyes (1107), the Council of Rheims (1119), and others, we find that the decree of the Church against the marriage of priests, and even bishops, was far from being universally accepted. Indeed, we have specific reason for thinking that Abélard did not recognise an impediment of that character. In a work which bears the title _Sententiae Abaelardi_, we find the thesis, more or less clearly stated, that the priest may marry. The work is certainly not Abélard’s own composition, but the experts regard it as a careful summary of his views by some master of the period. Apart from the laxer view of love-relation which Abélard probably shared, we can only find firm ground to interpret his reluctance to marry in the fear of injuring his further ambition. Marriage was fast becoming a fatal obstacle to advancement in the ecclesiastical world; a lover—with wealth—was not a serious difficulty. Even this point, however, cannot be pressed; it looks as though his ambition had become as limp and powerless as all other feelings in the new tyranny of love. Historians have been so eager to quarrel with the man that they have, perhaps, not paid a just regard to the fact that Heloise herself was violently opposed to marriage, and conscientiously thought their earlier union more honourable. This will appear presently. Whatever struggle may have distracted Abélard after their separation, he was soon forced to take practical measures. Heloise found means to inform him—not with the conventional tears, but, he says, ‘with the keenest joy’—that she was about to become a mother. Fate had cut the ethical knot. He at once removed her from Fulbert’s house during the night, and had her conveyed, in the disguise of a nun,[17] to his home at Pallet. It is not clearly stated that Abélard accompanied her, but, beside the intrinsic probability, there is a local tradition that Abélard and Heloise spent many happy months together at Pallet, and there is a phrase in the ‘Story’ which seems to confirm it. However that may be, we find him in Paris again, after a time, seeking a reconciliation with Fulbert.