Heloise! a ce nom, qui ne doit s'attendrir?
Comme elle sut aimer! comme elle sut souffrir!
At the entrance of the grotto are engraved these lines, nearly effaced
by the hand of time.
Heloise peut-etre erra sur ce rivage,
Quand, aux yeux des jaloux derobant son sejour,
Dans les murs du Palet elle vint mettre au jour
Un fils, cher et malheureux gage
De ses plaisirs furtifs et de son tendre amour.
Peut-etre en ce reduit sauvage,
Seule, plus d'une fois, elle vint soupirer,
Et gouter librement la douceur de pleurer;
Peut-etre sur ce roc assise
Elle revait a son malheur.
J'y veux rever aussi; j'y veux remplir mon coeur
Du doux souvenir d'Heloise.
I had but a few weeks before seen the tomb of Abelard and Heloise in
the Cemetery of Pere la Chaise at Paris, whither it had been recently
removed from the Convent of the Augustins, at which latter place I
had formerly made the annexed drawing of it. I had likewise been very
lately at Argenteuil, once the place of her asylum described by Pope:
In these deep solitudes and awful cells--
and had the same day witnessed the ruins of the house in which Abelard
was born, and in which Heloise resided and became a mother, and from
whence she used to make frequent visits to this spot: all these
circumstances combined, gave the scene before me a most powerful
interest. I rose early the next day, anxious to revisit a place which
had afforded me such delight the previous evening.
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