“God’s mercy visiting us, we have been visited by the favour of your graciousness. We are glad, kindest father, and we glory that your greatness condescended to our insignificance. A visit from you is an honour even to the great. The others may know the great benefit they received from the presence of your highness. I cannot tell in words, or even comprehend in thought, how beneficial and how sweet your coming was to me. You, our abbot and our lord, celebrated mass with us the sixteenth of the Calends of last December; you commended us to the Holy Spirit; you nourished us with the Divine Word;--you gave us the body of the master, and confirmed that gift from Cluny. To me also, unworthy to be your servant, though by word and letter you have called me sister, you gave as a pledge of sincere love the privilege of a Tricenarium, to be performed by the brethren of Cluny, after my death, for the benefit of my soul. You have promised to confirm this under your seal. May you fulfil this, my lord. Might it please you also to send to me that other sealed roll, containing the absolution of the master, that I may hang it on his tomb. Remember also, for the love of God, our--and your--Astralabius, to obtain for him a prebend from the bishop of Paris or another. Farewell. May God preserve you, and grant to us sometime your presence.” The good abbot replied with a kind and affectionate letter, confirming his gift of the Tricenarium, promising to do all he could for Astralabius, and sending with his letter the record of Abaelard’s absolution, as follows: “I, Peter, Abbot of Cluny, who received Peter Abaelard to be a monk in Cluny, and granted his body, secretly transported, to the Abbess Heloïse and the nuns of the Paraclete, absolve him, in the performance of my office (_pro officio_) by the authority of the omnipotent God and all the saints, from all his sins.” Abaelard died in the year 1142, aged sixty-three. Twenty-one years afterward Heloïse died at the same age, and was buried in the same tomb with him at the Paraclete: “Hoc tumulo abbatissa jacet prudens Heloïssa.” CHAPTER XXVI GERMAN CONSIDERATIONS: WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE A criticism of the world of feudalism, chivalry, and love may be had from the impressions and temperamental reactions of a certain thinking atom revolving in the same. The atom referred to was Walther von der Vogelweide, a German, a knight, a Minnesinger, and a national poet whose thoughts were moved by the instincts of his caste and race.