Love and logic

Two lovers who endured adversity and separation in life would become united in Paris after death, discovers Eileen Reid

- Eileen Reid

THE cemetery of Père Lachaise in Paris holds the tomb of two extraordinary 12th-century thinkers renowned for their calamitous love affair: Héloïse et Abélard. Distinct from the others, in a corner close to the perimeter of the city’s largest necropolis, the sarcophagus is shaded by a High Gothic-style structure with Corinthian capitals, pointed arches and sculptural orna- mentation. Iron railings defend the crypt, probably from illicit lovers cavorting in flagrante at the shrine of tragic love.

Designed by the 19th-century painter Alexandre Lenoir, the shrine had its critics. Some see a ghastly hotch-potch of medieval ornamentation unrelated to the bones of the inhabitants. For others, it is a great artistic interpretation of the romance of the ill-fated couple; flowers and candles are still placed there by those who know of their anguish. It tells the story of a scandalous love affair between intellectually brilliant Héloïse d’Argenteuil and her outstanding teacher, the logician Pierre Abélard, brought to life by their famous letters written in the height of their passion and again after years of forced separation.