The abbey of Argenteuil, where Heloisa was prioress, was a dependency of the abbey of St. Denis. The parent monastery reclaimed the building and turned out Heloisa and the nuns. Abelard invited them to meet him at the Paraclete, and he established them in the oratory and its appurtenances, which had remained unoccupied since he settled in Brittany. He took frequent journeys from his abbey to instruct and console them, till finding that his visits gave rise to scandal, he went no more. Heloisa had not seen him or heard from him for a considerable period, when his letter to the unknown friend fell by accident into her hands, and she immediately replied to it. Her character, whether drawn by herself or some fabricator who wrote in her name, comes out clearly in the correspondence. Abelard states that she laboured to dissuade him from marriage when he informed her of his promise to Fulbert after the detection of the intrigue. She said that it would be dishonourable for a philosopher, whom nature had created for the world, to be enslaved to a woman, and submitted to the ignominious yoke of matrimony. She said that his renown would be diminished, that his future career would be checked, that the church would be injured, and that she could have no pride in a union which would degrade both of them by tarnishing his glory. In her answer she confirms his representations; and adds, that if the name of wife was holier, she held that of mistress, concubine, or harlot, to be sweeter, not only for the reasons which Abelard had recapitulated, but because she hoped that the less she made herself the more she would rise in his favour. Dean Milman is in error when he asserts that she "resisted the marriage in an absolute, unrivalled spirit of devotion, so wonderful that we forget to reprove."[571] She did not overlook her personal interests, but believed that the concubine would enjoy more love and consideration than the wife. The theory of her willingness to be sacrificed that her admirer might be elevated has arisen from the inference, contradicted by her language, that she felt the disgrace of her illicit connection. Nothing could be more remote from her thoughts. She was proud of the distinction.