The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Jean Plaidy Page A

which were flourishing. One saw them wandering through the streets or along the riverbanks, deep in thought. Theories were thrashed out, opinions circulated.
    I could not fail to find it interesting.
    There was one who aroused my curiosity more than any other, and that was Peter Abelard, who, some said, was the most shrewd thinking and the boldest theologian of the day. I was first drawn to him because of his romantic history. His story was like one of those renowned in the songs I heard in my childhood. He could have been a gentleman of leisure for he was the eldest son of a noble Breton family, but he chose to be a scholar. His talent was soon discovered; he was a brilliant speaker and as he had new and startling ideas to express, he began to be talked of. He became one of the Realist teachers at the school of Notre Dame. He was all set for a brilliant career.
    But how easily one can fall! And since he fell through love, he seemed to me a romantic figure. He became tutor to Hlose, the niece of the Canon Fulbert. She was seventeen and very beautiful; they became lovers. When this was discovered, the Canon used every means at his disposal to separate them but he could not do so. They fled to Brittany, where Hlose bore a son. They were married. Hlose, having been assured that she had ruined Abelard’s career, agreed to give him up. How stupid lovers can be! But if they were not, there would be no story. Abelard was brought to the judgment of the monks, who, in order that he might not be tempted again, castrated him.
    That seemed to me a very tragic story—and to others too, for Abelard’s misfortune was talked of throughout France. For a while he lived in a hut but so many disciples came to him that the hut became a school known as the Paraclete. Then he was invited to become abbot of St. Gildas-de-Rhuys in Brittany. As for Paraclete, nuns came there and Hlose was put in charge of them. Abelard remained in the abbey for some time but he was persecuted, and the chief of his enemies was that Bernard of Clairvaux who had, indirectly, been the cause of my father’s death, for I was convinced that if he had never set out on the pilgrimage—which he would not but for his encounter with Bernard—he would be alive still.
    Abelard now and then was in Paris, and when he was there people flocked to his rooms to hear what he had to say.
    I often thought about him. He could have been another Bernard, another Suger, but love had stood in his way; and now, of course, for all his brilliance, he was something less than a man. I wondered whether he ever regretted it or, if he could have gone back, would have done it all again.
    How much wiser were those who took love lightheartedly, as surely it was meant to be taken.
    So the months slipped into years; and I was growing more and more restive, asking myself how a woman such as I was could go on living with a monk.
             
    Four years passed in this unsatisfactory manner. There were times when I felt rebellious, but I had remained faithful to Louis. Not with a very good grace, I admit. I often railed against my fate. Yet I had to be careful. I was in a precarious position. I had always to remember that I was Queen of France. There were times when I was tempted to take a lover. There were so many attractive men at the Court and all eager. If it had not been for the fact that I must bear the heir of France, I think I should have overcome my scruples. But the French crown was a matter of the utmost importance. I dared not risk having a child who was not Louis’s. It was something which, if it were discovered, could result in the most dire consequences.
    So I kept my emotions in check and tried to reconcile myself to Louis. He still admired me, though at times he remembered one or two little things against me: my conflict with Suger, for instance, and the fact that his mother, a woman of considerable ability, who had worked well with his father, had left the Court because of me.