ofty trees at the back; on the sides were shrubs of
every description intermingled with fruit trees, and the river having
several falls and little rocky islets, gave an air of delightful
enchantment to this most romantic scene.

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. Wandering by the
beautiful banks of the river, along its green meadows, in a woody
recess, I observed the following lines beneath an urn, cut in the rock
on which it rested:

Consacrer dans l'obscurite,
Ses loisirs a l'etude, a l'amitie sa vie,
Sont des plaisirs dignes d'envie;
Etre cheri vaut mieux qu'etre vante!

[Illustration: RUINS OF ABELARD'S HOUSE.]

A little further on, is a stone pillar, with a venerable accacia tree
spreading its leaves over it. It has the following Latin inscription:

VII

IM CAESAR
AVGVSTVS
PONTIFEX MAX
VIAM. OLIM
A CONIVINCO
AD LIMONEM

IMP. CAESAR. TRAJ.
ADRIANVS AVG
PM. TRIB. POT.
VIAM AB AVGVSTO
STATAM REFICIT.[8]

[Footnote 8: Auguste etendit jusqu'a La Loire La Gau