HELOISE AND ABELARD VOL. 1

PHILIPPE, the Canon’s brother, was among the first to enlist in the army that Raymond assembled to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Infidel. He was leaving behind him Jeanne, his wife, and his daughter, a child of ten; to both he was devotedly attached, to his wife by memories of a romantic marriage (and to these were added memories of months of care bestowed upon her, for her health was now failing), and to his daughter, Heloise, he was not less attached, a child so unusually intelligent that he had begun to dream of a great future for her (a father’s hope takes wing quickly), and he was also leaving his career, for Philippe was a physician of no small repute. He was leaving all that he loved and all those that claimed him, and in the belief that he would not return. But he did not mention his forebodings to the Canon when he repaired to his house in the rue des Chantres to bid him good-bye. For why, he asked himself, should he speak of things that would be painful for his brother to hear, wounds and death and burial, things of which he had no certain knowledge, only a vague premonition?