REUNITED AT LAST—STAR CROSSED LOVERS HELOISE AND ABELARD

Heloise and Abelard (Artist Unknown)

UNLUCKY IN LOVE

While wandering through Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris looking for the graves of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde I spotted the crypt of Heloise and Abelard. At the time I wasn't familiar with their tale of love gone wrong. I was simply fascinated by the dramatic tomb effigies—reclining figures of a man and woman laid atop a stone slab, hands pressed together in prayer.

Writes Medieval Histories, "Among the thousands of tombs in Pere-Lachaise, there is no man, no woman, no youth of either sex ever passes by without stopping to examine one crypt. This is the grave of Abelard and Heloise, a grave which has been more revered, more written and sung about and wept over for 700 years. But not one in 20,000 clearly remembers the story of that tomb and its romantic occupants. Visitors linger pensively about it and Parisian youths and maidens who are disappointed in love come here when they are full of tears. Go when you will, and you will find someone snuffling over that tomb; you will find it furnished with bouquets and immortelles."

The tomb of Heloise and Abelard, Pere-Lachaise

REUNITED IN DEATH

Theirs is a touching and immortal story of two people divided by circumstance who longed to be together. So moving was their love that in 1817, Napoleon's wife, Josephine Bonaparte, ordered the lovers' remains be entombed together in the famous cemetery centuries after their deaths in the 1100s. Ever since Josephine reunited them, their impressive tomb has been a pilgrimage spot visited by lovers from around the world who leave love notes at the crypt in the hope of finding undying love.

The fated love story went like this: In the 12th century, a niece of the canon of Notre Dame, Heloise, gifted in the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, wanted to study as young men were allowed to. Because of her precocious nature and high level of intelligence and her uncle's ability to pull strings, she would become the sole female student of the greatest living theologian and intellectual of that time, Peter Abelard. 

LOVE AND BETRAYAL

Abelard, 20 years her senior, fell in love with his student and the feeling was reciprocated. Soon afterwards they were found out and escaped to Brittany where Heloise, pregnant, gave birth to a son, Astrolabe. Her uncle, the canon, urged them to return to Paris where they were secretly married.

Not long after their vows, the canon betrayed them by disclosing their marriage. Heloise, at Abelard's suggestion, fled to a convent at Argenteuil. Her uncle, believing she was through with Abelard, had him beaten and castrated as an act of revenge for the family. On Abelard's urging, Heloise took her vows to the church and became a nun. She was forced to give up her child.

Relief of Heloise and Abelard, Paris

After the disastrous end to their affair and marriage, Abelard also turned to the church. He became a monk at the abbey of St. Denis where he continued his teachings and writings.

Their passion is known through love letters they exchanged over 20 years during which time Heloise became an abbess and Abelard continued his reign as the most prominent theologian of the time. The book, Stealing Heaven: The Love Story of Heloise and Abelard, by Marion Meade, tells the tale of their tragic love story.

Pere-Lachaise tomb of Heloise and Abelard

DIVIDED BY CIRCUMSTANCE

The story of Heloise and Abelard was well known in their lifetime: they were famous in their own rights prior to the affair. She, for her remarkable intelligence, and he for his stature as a philosopher, theologian, and teacher. A number of historians took note of them and great poets and dramatists found them fascinating, states author Meade. It's said that Shakespeare, in 1606, began work on Abelard and Elois, a Tragedie, a project that he would abandon for Antony and Cleopatra. If the bard had penned that play, their names would be as common to love as the names Romeo and Juliet.

Some accounts say the star-crossed lovers met once more at a chance meeting in Paris while others say they never met again. But through their letters, the story of their love has endured. It seems only fitting that they're buried side by side in Pere-Lachaise after long years of separation while in the flesh.

Abelard died in 1142 and Heloise in 1163 at the Paraclete, which means one who consoles, in Ferreux Quincey, on land owned by Abelard that he came upon in his wandering years.

Part 2 of Star Crossed Lovers will post February 14: The Tragic Romance of Alma Reed and Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Stay tuned.

Stealing Heave, by Marion Meade

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.