It is the tomb of Abelard and
Heloise. The history of these unfortunate lovers is too well known to need
recapitulation; but perhaps it is not so well known how often their ashes
were disturbed in the slumber of the grave. Abelard died in the monastery
of Saint Marcel, and was buried in the vaults of the church. His body was
afterward removed to the convent of the Paraclet, at the request of
Heloise, and at her death her body was deposited in the same tomb. Three
centuries they reposed together; after which they were separated to
different sides of the church, to calm the delicate scruples of the lady-
abbess of the convent. More than a century afterward, they were again
united in the same tomb; and when at length the Paraclet was destroyed,
their moldering remains were transported to the church of Nogent-sur-
Seine. They were next deposited in an ancient cloister at Paris; and now
repose near the gateway of the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. What a singular
destiny was theirs! that, after a life of such passionate and disastrous
love,--such sorrows, and tears, and penitence--their very dust should not
be suffered to rest quietly in the grave!--that their death should so much
resemble their life in its changes and vicissitudes, its partings and its
meetings, its inquietudes and its persecutions!--that mistaken zeal should
follow them down to the very tomb--as if earthly passion could glimmer,
like a funeral lamp, amid the damps of the charnel-house, and "even in
their ashes bum their wonted fires!".
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