The Innocents Abroad

Chapter 15

One of our pleasantest visits was to Pere la Chaise, the national

burying-ground of France, the honored resting-place of some of her

greatest and best children, the last home of scores of illustrious men

and women who were born to no titles, but achieved fame by their own

energy and their own genius. It is a solemn city of winding streets and

of miniature marble temples and mansions of the dead gleaming white from

out a wilderness of foliage and fresh flowers. Not every city is so well

peopled as this, or has so ample an area within its walls. Few palaces

exist in any city that are so exquisite in design, so rich in art, so

costly in material, so graceful, so beautiful.

We had stood in the ancient church of St. Denis, where the marble

effigies of thirty generations of kings and queens lay stretched at

length upon the tombs, and the sensations invoked were startling and

novel; the curious armor, the obsolete costumes, the placid faces, the

hands placed palm to palm in eloquent supplication--it was a vision of

gray antiquity. It seemed curious enough to be standing face to face, as

it were, with old Dagobert I., and Clovis and Charlemagne, those vague,

colossal heroes, those shadows, those myths of a thousand years ago! I

touched their dust-covered faces with my finger, but Dagobert was deader

than the sixteen centuries that have passed over him, Clovis slept well

after his labor for Christ, and old Charlemagne went on dreaming of his

paladins, of bloody Roncesvalles, and gave no heed to me.

The great names of Pere la Chaise impress one, too, but differently.

There the suggestion brought constantly to his mind is, that this place

is sacred to a nobler royalty--the royalty of heart and brain. Every

faculty of mind, every noble trait of human nature, every high occupation

which men engage in, seems represented by a famous name. The effect is a

curious medley. Davoust and Massena, who wrought in many a battle

tragedy, are here, and so also is Rachel, of equal renown in mimic

tragedy on the stage. The Abbe Sicard sleeps here--the first great

teacher of the deaf and dumb--a man whose heart went out to every

unfortunate, and whose life was given to kindly offices in their service;

and not far off, in repose and peace at last, lies Marshal Ney, whose

stormy spirit knew no music like the bugle call to arms. The man who

originated public gas-lighting, and that other benefactor who introduced

the cultivation of the potato and thus blessed millions of his starving

countrymen, lie with the Prince of Masserano, and with exiled queens and

princes of Further India. Gay-Lussac the chemist, Laplace the

astronomer, Larrey the surgeon, de Suze the advocate, are here, and with

them are Talma, Bellini, Rubini; de Balzac, Beaumarchais, Beranger;

Moliere and Lafontaine, and scores of other men whose names and whose

worthy labors are as familiar in the remote by-places of civilization as

are the historic deeds of the kings and princes that sleep in the marble

vaults of St. Denis.

But among the thousands and thousands of tombs in Pere la Chaise, there

is one that no man, no woman, no youth of either s*x, ever passes by

without stopping to examine. Every visitor has a sort of indistinct idea

of the history of its dead and comprehends that homage is due there, but

not one in twenty thousand clearly remembers the story of that tomb and

its romantic occupants. This is the grave of Abelard and Heloise--a

grave which has been more revered, more widely known, more written and

sung about and wept over, for seven hundred years, than any other in

Christendom save only that of the Saviour. All visitors linger pensively

about it; all young people capture and carry away keepsakes and mementoes

of it; all Parisian youths and maidens who are disappointed in love come

there to bail out when they are full of tears; yea, many stricken lovers

make pilgrimages to this shrine from distant provinces to weep and wail

and "grit" their teeth over their heavy sorrows, and to purchase the

sympathies of the chastened spirits of that tomb with offerings of

immortelles and budding flowers.

Go when you will, you find somebody snuffling over that tomb. Go when

you will, you find it furnished with those bouquets and immortelles. Go

when you will, you find a gravel-train from Marseilles arriving to supply

the deficiencies caused by memento-cabbaging vandals whose affections

have miscarried.

Yet who really knows the story of Abelard and Heloise? Precious few

people. The names are perfectly familiar to every body, and that is

about all. With infinite pains I have acquired a knowledge of that

history, and I propose to narrate it here, partly for the honest

information of the public and partly to show that public that they have

been wasting a good deal of marketable sentiment very unnecessarily.

STORY OF ABELARD AND HELOISE

Heloise was born seven hundred and sixty-six years ago. She may have had

parents. There is no telling. She lived with her uncle Fulbert, a canon

of the cathedral of Paris. I do not know what a canon of a cathedral is,

but that is what he was. He was nothing more than a sort of a mountain

howitzer, likely, because they had no heavy artillery in those days.

Suffice it, then, that Heloise lived with her uncle the howitzer and was

happy. She spent the most of her childhood in the convent of Argenteuil

--never heard of Argenteuil before, but suppose there was really such a

place. She then returned to her uncle, the old gun, or son of a gun, as

the case may be, and he taught her to write and speak Latin, which was

the language of literature and polite society at that period.

Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already made himself widely

famous as a rhetorician, came to found a school of rhetoric in Paris.

The originality of his principles, his eloquence, and his great physical

strength and beauty created a profound sensation. He saw Heloise, and

was captivated by her blooming youth, her beauty, and her charming

disposition. He wrote to her; she answered. He wrote again; she

answered again. He was now in love. He longed to know her--to speak to

her face to face.

His school was near Fulbert's house. He asked Fulbert to allow him to

call. The good old swivel saw here a rare opportunity: his niece, whom

he so much loved, would absorb knowledge from this man, and it would not

cost him a cent. Such was Fulbert--penurious.

Fulbert's first name is not mentioned by any author, which is

unfortunate. However, George W. Fulbert will answer for him as well as

any other. We will let him go at that. He asked Abelard to teach her.

Abelard was glad enough of the opportunity. He came often and staid

long. A letter of his shows in its very first sentence that he came

under that friendly roof like a cold-hearted villain as he was, with the

deliberate intention of debauching a confiding, innocent girl. This is

the letter:

"I cannot cease to be astonished at the simplicity of Fulbert;

I was as much surprised as if he had placed a lamb in the power

of a hungry wolf. Heloise and I, under pretext of study, gave

ourselves up wholly to love, and the solitude that love seeks

our studies procured for us. Books were open before us, but we

spoke oftener of love than philosophy, and kisses came more

readily from our lips than words."

And so, exulting over an honorable confidence which to his degraded

instinct was a ludicrous "simplicity," this unmanly Abelard seduced the

niece of the man whose guest he was. Paris found it out. Fulbert was

told of it--told often--but refused to believe it. He could not

comprehend how a man could be so depraved as to use the sacred protection

and security of hospitality as a means for the commission of such a crime

as that. But when he heard the rowdies in the streets singing the

love-songs of Abelard to Heloise, the case was too plain--love-songs come

not properly within the teachings of rhetoric and philosophy.

He drove Abelard from his house. Abelard returned secretly and carried

Heloise away to Palais, in Brittany, his native country. Here, shortly

afterward, she bore a son, who, from his rare beauty, was surnamed

Astrolabe--William G. The girl's flight enraged Fulbert, and he longed

for vengeance, but feared to strike lest retaliation visit Heloise--for

he still loved her tenderly. At length Abelard offered to marry Heloise

--but on a shameful condition: that the marriage should be kept secret

from the world, to the end that (while her good name remained a wreck, as

before,) his priestly reputation might be kept untarnished. It was like

that miscreant. Fulbert saw his opportunity and consented. He would see

the parties married, and then violate the confidence of the man who had

taught him that trick; he would divulge the secret and so remove somewhat

of the obloquy that attached to his niece's fame. But the niece

suspected his scheme. She refused the marriage at first; she said

Fulbert would betray the secret to save her, and besides, she did not

wish to drag down a lover who was so gifted, so honored by the world,

and who had such a splendid career before him. It was noble,

self-sacrificing love, and characteristic of the pure-souled Heloise,

but it was not good sense.

But she was overruled, and the private marriage took place. Now for

Fulbert! The heart so wounded should be healed at last; the proud spirit

so tortured should find rest again; the humbled head should be lifted up

once more. He proclaimed the marriage in the high places of the city and

rejoiced that dishonor had departed from his house. But lo! Abelard

denied the marriage! Heloise denied it! The people, knowing the former

circumstances, might have believed Fulbert had only Abelard denied it,

but when the person chiefly interested--the girl herself--denied it, they

laughed, despairing Fulbert to scorn.

The poor canon of the cathedral of Paris was spiked again. The last hope

of repairing the wrong that had been done his house was gone. What next?

Human nature suggested revenge. He compassed it. The historian says:

"Ruffians, hired by Fulbert, fell upon Abelard by night, and

inflicted upon him a terrible and nameless mutilation."

I am seeking the last resting place of those "ruffians." When I find it

I shall shed some tears on it, and stack up some bouquets and

immortelles, and cart away from it some gravel whereby to remember that

howsoever blotted by crime their lives may have been, these ruffians did

one just deed, at any rate, albeit it was not warranted by the strict

letter of the law.

Heloise entered a convent and gave good-bye to the world and its

pleasures for all time. For twelve years she never heard of Abelard

--never even heard his name mentioned. She had become prioress of

Argenteuil and led a life of complete seclusion. She happened one day to

see a letter written by him, in which he narrated his own history. She

cried over it and wrote him. He answered, addressing her as his "sister

in Christ." They continued to correspond, she in the unweighed language

of unwavering affection, he in the chilly phraseology of the polished

rhetorician. She poured out her heart in passionate, disjointed

sentences; he replied with finished essays, divided deliberately into

heads and sub-heads, premises and argument. She showered upon him the

tenderest epithets that love could devise, he addressed her from the

North Pole of his frozen heart as the "Spouse of Christ!" The abandoned

villain!

On account of her too easy government of her nuns, some disreputable

irregularities were discovered among them, and the Abbot of St. Denis

broke up her establishment. Abelard was the official head of the

monastery of St. Gildas de Ruys, at that time, and when he heard of her

homeless condition a sentiment of pity was aroused in his breast (it is a

wonder the unfamiliar emotion did not blow his head off,) and he placed

her and her troop in the little oratory of the Paraclete, a religious

establishment which he had founded. She had many privations and

sufferings to undergo at first, but her worth and her gentle disposition

won influential friends for her, and she built up a wealthy and

flourishing nunnery. She became a great favorite with the heads of the

church, and also the people, though she seldom appeared in public. She

rapidly advanced in esteem, in good report, and in usefulness, and

Abelard as rapidly lost ground. The Pope so honored her that he made her

the head of her order. Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking

as the first debater of his time, became timid, irresolute, and

distrustful of his powers. He only needed a great misfortune to topple

him from the high position he held in the world of intellectual

excellence, and it came. Urged by kings and princes to meet the subtle

St. Bernard in debate and crush him, he stood up in the presence of a

royal and illustrious assemblage, and when his antagonist had finished he

looked about him and stammered a commencement; but his courage failed

him, the cunning of his tongue was gone: with his speech unspoken, he

trembled and sat down, a disgraced and vanquished champion.

He died a nobody, and was buried at Cluny, A.D., 1144. They removed his

body to the Paraclete afterward, and when Heloise died, twenty years

later, they buried her with him, in accordance with her last wish. He

died at the ripe age of 64, and she at 63. After the bodies had remained

entombed three hundred years, they were removed once more. They were

removed again in 1800, and finally, seventeen years afterward, they were

taken up and transferred to Pere la Chaise, where they will remain in

peace and quiet until it comes time for them to get up and move again.

History is silent concerning the last acts of the mountain howitzer. Let

the world say what it will about him, I, at least, shall always respect

the memory and sorrow for the abused trust and the broken heart and the

troubled spirit of the old smooth-bore. Rest and repose be his!

Such is the story of Abelard and Heloise. Such is the history that

Lamartine has shed such cataracts of tears over. But that man never

could come within the influence of a subject in the least pathetic

without overflowing his banks. He ought to be dammed--or leveed, I

should more properly say. Such is the history--not as it is usually

told, but as it is when stripped of the nauseous sentimentality that

would enshrine for our loving worship a dastardly seducer like Pierre

Abelard. I have not a word to say against the misused, faithful girl,

and would not withhold from her grave a single one of those simple

tributes which blighted youths and maidens offer to her memory, but I am

sorry enough that I have not time and opportunity to write four or five

volumes of my opinion of her friend the founder of the Parachute, or the

Paraclete, or whatever it was.

The tons of sentiment I have wasted on that unprincipled humbug in my

ignorance! I shall throttle down my emotions hereafter, about this sort

of people, until I have read them up and know whether they are entitled

to any tearful attentions or not. I wish I had my immortelles back, now,

and that bunch of radishes.

In Paris we often saw in shop windows the sign "English Spoken Here,"

just as one sees in the windows at home the sign "Ici on parle

francaise." We always invaded these places at once--and invariably

received the information, framed in faultless French, that the clerk who

did the English for the establishment had just gone to dinner and would

be back in an hour--would Monsieur buy something? We wondered why those

parties happened to take their dinners at such erratic and extraordinary

hours, for we never called at a time when an exemplary Christian would be

in the least likely to be abroad on such an errand. The truth was, it

was a base fraud--a snare to trap the unwary--chaff to catch fledglings

with. They had no English-murdering clerk. They trusted to the sign to

inveigle foreigners into their lairs, and trusted to their own

blandishments to keep them there till they bought something.

We ferreted out another French imposition--a frequent sign to this

effect: "ALL MANNER OF AMERICAN DRINKS ARTISTICALLY PREPARED HERE." We

procured the services of a gentleman experienced in the nomenclature of

the American bar, and moved upon the works of one of these impostors. A

bowing, aproned Frenchman skipped forward and said:

"Que voulez les messieurs?" I do not know what "Que voulez les

messieurs?" means, but such was his remark.

Our general said, "We will take a whiskey straight."

[A stare from the Frenchman.]

"Well, if you don't know what that is, give us a champagne c**k-tail."

[A stare and a shrug.]

"Well, then, give us a sherry cobbler."

The Frenchman was checkmated. This was all Greek to him.

"Give us a brandy smash!"

The Frenchman began to back away, suspicious of the ominous vigor of the

last order--began to back away, shrugging his shoulders and spreading his

hands apologetically.

The General followed him up and gained a complete victory. The

uneducated foreigner could not even furnish a Santa Cruz Punch, an

Eye-Opener, a Stone-Fence, or an Earthquake. It was plain that he was a

wicked impostor.

An acquaintance of mine said the other day that he was doubtless the only

American visitor to the Exposition who had had the high honor of being

escorted by the Emperor's bodyguard. I said with unobtrusive frankness

that I was astonished that such a long-legged, lantern-jawed,

unprepossessing-looking specter as he should be singled out for a

distinction like that, and asked how it came about. He said he had

attended a great military review in the Champ de Mars some time ago, and

while the multitude about him was growing thicker and thicker every

moment he observed an open space inside the railing. He left his

carriage and went into it. He was the only person there, and so he had

plenty of room, and the situation being central, he could see all the

preparations going on about the field. By and by there was a sound of

music, and soon the Emperor of the French and the Emperor of Austria,

escorted by the famous Cent Gardes, entered the enclosure. They seemed

not to observe him, but directly, in response to a sign from the

commander of the guard, a young lieutenant came toward him with a file of

his men following, halted, raised his hand, and gave the military salute,

and then said in a low voice that he was sorry to have to disturb a

stranger and a gentleman, but the place was sacred to royalty. Then this

New Jersey phantom rose up and bowed and begged pardon, then with the

officer beside him, the file of men marching behind him, and with every

mark of respect, he was escorted to his carriage by the imperial Cent

Gardes! The officer saluted again and fell back, the New Jersey sprite

bowed in return and had presence of mind enough to pretend that he had

simply called on a matter of private business with those emperors, and so

waved them an adieu and drove from the field!

Imagine a poor Frenchman ignorantly intruding upon a public rostrum

sacred to some six-penny dignitary in America. The police would scare

him to death first with a storm of their elegant blasphemy, and then pull

him to pieces getting him away from there. We are measurably superior to

the French in some things, but they are immeasurably our betters in

others.

Enough of Paris for the present. We have done our whole duty by it. We

have seen the Tuileries, the Napoleon Column, the Madeleine, that wonder

of wonders the tomb of Napoleon, all the great churches and museums,

libraries, imperial palaces, and sculpture and picture galleries, the

Pantheon, Jardin des Plantes, the opera, the circus, the legislative

body, the billiard rooms, the barbers, the grisettes--

Ah, the grisettes! I had almost forgotten. They are another romantic

fraud. They were (if you let the books of travel tell it) always so

beautiful--so neat and trim, so graceful--so naive and trusting--so

gentle, so winning--so faithful to their shop duties, so irresistible

to buyers in their prattling importunity--so devoted to their

poverty-stricken students of the Latin Quarter--so lighthearted and

happy on their Sunday picnics in the suburbs--and oh, so charmingly,

so delightfully immoral!

Stuff! For three or four days I was constantly saying:

"Quick, Ferguson! Is that a grisette?"

And he always said, "No."

He comprehended at last that I wanted to see a grisette. Then he showed

me dozens of them. They were like nearly all the Frenchwomen I ever saw

--homely. They had large hands, large feet, large mouths; they had pug

noses as a general thing, and moustaches that not even good breeding

could overlook; they combed their hair straight back without parting;

they were ill-shaped, they were not winning, they were not graceful; I

knew by their looks that they ate garlic and onions; and lastly and

finally, to my thinking it would be base flattery to call them immoral.

Aroint thee, wench! I sorrow for the vagabond student of the Latin

Quarter now, even more than formerly I envied him. Thus topples to earth

another idol of my infancy.

We have seen every thing, and tomorrow we go to Versailles. We shall see

Paris only for a little while as we come back to take up our line of

march for the ship, and so I may as well bid the beautiful city a

regretful farewell. We shall travel many thousands of miles after we

leave here and visit many great cities, but we shall find none so

enchanting as this.

Some of our party have gone to England, intending to take a roundabout

course and rejoin the vessel at Leghorn or Naples several weeks hence.

We came near going to Geneva, but have concluded to return to Marseilles

and go up through Italy from Genoa.

I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I am sincerely proud to

be able to make--and glad, as well, that my comrades cordially endorse

it, to wit: by far the handsomest women we have seen in France were born

and reared in America.

I feel now like a man who has redeemed a failing reputation and shed

luster upon a dimmed escutcheon, by a single just deed done at the

eleventh hour.

Let the curtain fall, to slow music.