“Leaving our son in my sister’s care, we stole back to Paris, and shortly after, having in the night celebrated our vigils in a certain church, we were married at dawn in the presence of her uncle and some of his and our friends. We left at once separately and with secrecy, and afterwards saw each other only in privacy, so as to conceal what we had done. But her uncle and his household began at once to announce the marriage and violate his word; while she, on the contrary, protested vehemently and swore that it was false. At that he became enraged and treated her vilely. When I discovered this I sent her to the convent of Argenteuil, near Paris, where she had been educated. There I had her take the garb of a nun, except the veil. Hearing this, the uncle and his relations thought that I had duped them, ridding myself of Heloïse by making her a nun. So having bribed my servant, they came upon me by night, when I was sleeping, and took on me a vengeance as cruel and irretrievable as it was vile and shameful. Two of the perpetrators were pursued and vengeance taken. “In the morning the whole town was assembled, crying and lamenting my plight, especially the clerks and students; at which I was afflicted with more shame than I suffered physical pain. I thought of my ruined hopes and glory, and then saw that by God’s just judgment I was punished where I had most sinned, and that Fulbert had justly avenged treachery with treachery. But what a figure I should cut in public! how the world would point its finger at me! I was also confounded at the thought of the Levitical law, according to which I had become an abomination to the Church.[2] In this misery the confusion of shame--I confess it--rather than the ardour of conversion drove me to the cover of the cloister, after she had willingly obeyed my command to take the veil. I became a monk in the abbey of St. Denis, and she a nun in the convent of Argenteuil. Many begged her not to set that yoke upon her youth; at which, amid her tears, she broke out in Cornelia’s lament: ‘O great husband! undeserving of my couch! Has fortune rights over a head so high? Why did I, impious, marry thee to make thee wretched? Accept these penalties, which I gladly pay.’[3] With these words, she went straight to the altar, received the veil blessed by the bishop, and took the vows before them all.”