Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. Valentine's Day is just around the corner, so
Speaker 1: we thought we'd have a love story for today's classic
Speaker 1: sort of. It's actually the tragic story, but even before
Speaker 1: it turns tragic, one of its protagonists comes off as
Speaker 1: a little bit of a creeper. Uh. This is the
Speaker 1: story of Abalard and Heloise, which first came out on
Speaker 1: the podcast in We got a number of notes after
Speaker 1: this podcast was first published about whether eloise should be
Speaker 1: pronounced with or without an H, and we basically had
Speaker 1: pronounced it the way my medieval literature professor pronounced it.
Speaker 1: So let's listen in Welcome to Stuff you missed in
Speaker 1: History Class from how Stuffworks dot com. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast Tracy Wilson. And today we have something
Speaker 1: that has been request of listeners was also something I
Speaker 1: planned to do, and that is uh, the story of
Speaker 1: Abelard and Heloise. So. Abillard was a poet, of philosopher
Speaker 1: and a theologian, and he was born uh in Brittany,
Speaker 1: which is in northwest France today, in ten seventy nine.
Speaker 1: And in the words of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Speaker 1: he was quote the pre eminent philosopher and theologian of
Speaker 1: the twelfth century. Heloise was one of his students, and
Speaker 1: she was born right around the turn of the twelfth century,
Speaker 1: and she was a respected abbess of a prominent community
Speaker 1: of nuns. Uh So they sort of had their own
Speaker 1: lives there. But they are best known today for their
Speaker 1: very tragic love story. It's been commemorated in poems, songs, novels,
Speaker 1: and films. If you've ever seen Being John Malkovich, you
Speaker 1: may even remember the Avalard and Heloise puppet show that
Speaker 1: features in that film. Um, this is a tragic love story.
Speaker 1: It's one. I described the plot of it to the
Speaker 1: boyfriend over the weekend, and every time I would sort
Speaker 1: of get to a turning point, he would go and
Speaker 1: then everyone's okay with that? Right? No, Um, that's so hopeful,
Speaker 1: And no, honey, they were not okay with that. It's
Speaker 1: complete with lovers who were forced to part, a secret marriage,
Speaker 1: a castration, and repeated exhumations, which is why we're talking
Speaker 1: about it right before Valentine's Day. What's more romantic than
Speaker 1: an exhumation? Really, I know, well, the exhumations actually are
Speaker 1: kind of romantic in a way. So we we will
Speaker 1: get to that towards the end of the episode. I'm
Speaker 1: laughing that awkward, silent laugh where no noise comes out.
Speaker 1: My face is just frozen in this odd scowl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as as is often the case, we're talking about this
Speaker 1: story because I kind of love it, but it is
Speaker 1: very sad and and disturbing in many ways. So yes,
Speaker 1: so we'll kick it off with sort of the background
Speaker 1: of the whole thing, and we should at the front.
Speaker 1: We don't really know very much about Heloise's life before
Speaker 1: she met Abillard. We do not even know the identity
Speaker 1: of her parents. On the other hand, Abillard had really
Speaker 1: made a name for himself before Heloise was even born,
Speaker 1: and he wrote his life story down in a letter
Speaker 1: which is known as Historia Calamitatum, or the Story of
Speaker 1: My Misfortunes. So Pierre Abillard, also known as Peter Abillard,
Speaker 1: was the son of a knight, and his family was
Speaker 1: on the lower wrongs of the nobility. His father was
Speaker 1: an educated man and took pains to make sure that
Speaker 1: all of his children were educated too, But as the
Speaker 1: eldest son, Abelard was really meant to follow in his
Speaker 1: father's knightly footsteps, and in doing so he would also
Speaker 1: be receiving a sizeable inheritance. However, what Abillard really loved
Speaker 1: was letters and learning, and he gave up all of
Speaker 1: this potential knighthood to become a philosopher. And as he
Speaker 1: described it, quote, I fled utterly from the court of
Speaker 1: Mars that I might win learning in the bosom of Minerva,
Speaker 1: which is a lovely sentiment. This quite lovely. There are
Speaker 1: many lovely sentiments in this story to go with the
Speaker 1: parts that are horrifying. Um. He became an inherent of Aristotle,
Speaker 1: also known as a peripatetic, and the peripatetics purportedly got
Speaker 1: their name from Aristotle's habit of pacing around while he
Speaker 1: was teaching, but it also came to just generally described
Speaker 1: people who moved around a lot, which applied to abial
Speaker 1: Art as well. By the time he met Heloise, he'd
Speaker 1: spent years studying and teaching Aristotelian philosophy and large logic
Speaker 1: all over what is now France, and he had developed
Speaker 1: his own philosophy of language, and along the way he
Speaker 1: studied in Paris under William of Shampoo, who was another
Speaker 1: prominent theologian and logician at the time, and it became
Speaker 1: the first of many conflicts between Abialard and another public figure.
Speaker 1: Allard really picked apart and debated William's teachings, and when
Speaker 1: he Abillard was judged to be the winner, he was
Speaker 1: quite boastful about it and unfortunately tried to shame and
Speaker 1: embarrass William. Not the most noble behavior. Uh and this
Speaker 1: simultaneously increased Abelard's reputation and it cost him some understandable
Speaker 1: problems in the intellectual community. This was kind of his
Speaker 1: standard way of relating to people. He had a similar
Speaker 1: experience not long after with another teacher, and Salm of Leone,
Speaker 1: who he'd sought out to learn from before later becoming
Speaker 1: his arrival. After leaving Leon, Abillard went to Paris again
Speaker 1: and became scholar and residence at Notre Dame. And that's
Speaker 1: when Heloise. His uncle Fulbear sent Heloise to Abillard for tutoring.
Speaker 1: Fullbear was a cannon, which is a type of clergyman,
Speaker 1: so at this point in the story, Abillard would have
Speaker 1: been about thirty eight years old. Heloise's age is kind
Speaker 1: of subject to debate because we don't know exactly when
Speaker 1: she was born. It's cited as anywhere between seventeen and
Speaker 1: twenty five. And here's how Abelard dis gribed Heloise in
Speaker 1: his Historia Calamitatum. Quote of no mean beauty, she stood
Speaker 1: out above all by reason of her abundant knowledge of letters.
Speaker 1: Now this virtue is rare among women, and for that
Speaker 1: very reason it doubly graced the maiden and made her
Speaker 1: the most worthy of renown in the entire kingdom. It
Speaker 1: was this young girl whom I, after carefully considering all
Speaker 1: those qualities which are wont to attract lovers, determined to
Speaker 1: unite with myself in the bonds of love. And indeed
Speaker 1: the thing seemed to me very easy to be done. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: he described himself as quote possessed of such advantages of
Speaker 1: youth and comeliness, that no matter what woman I might
Speaker 1: favor with my love, I dreaded rejection of none. Not
Speaker 1: really uh short on confidence. So the pair started out
Speaker 1: with a written courtship, and eventually they wanted to have
Speaker 1: more face to face conversations with one another. So Abillard
Speaker 1: convinced Heloise's uncle to offer him lodgings in his house,
Speaker 1: which was also near the school where he taught, and
Speaker 1: Filbert basically gave Albillard free reign over Heloise's education. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: the man's simplicity was nothing short of astounding to me.
Speaker 1: I should not have been more smitten with wonder if
Speaker 1: he had entrusted a tender lamb to the care of
Speaker 1: a ravenous wolf. So that to me sounds a little alarming,
Speaker 1: but it's less romantic and more like, Yeah, he seems
Speaker 1: a little creepy. But his description of their developing relationship
Speaker 1: sounds a little bit less predatory because he says we
Speaker 1: were united first in the dwelling that sheltered our love,
Speaker 1: and then in the hearts that burned with it. Under
Speaker 1: the pretext of study, we spent our hours and the
Speaker 1: happiness of love. Heloise's point of view at the very
Speaker 1: start of their relationship, really his was not documented. Some
Speaker 1: scholars argue that she was a willing participant, but others
Speaker 1: point out passages from letters in which Abelard says that
Speaker 1: he was sort of cool, worse even demanding, but in
Speaker 1: the end she insisted that she loved him passionately and completely,
Speaker 1: and their time together became so consuming and so extensive
Speaker 1: that Abelarde started to shirk his other duties, both of
Speaker 1: her education and of the school where he was supposed
Speaker 1: to be teaching, and Heloise's uncle seemed blind to all
Speaker 1: of this. So even as people gossiped and dropped hints
Speaker 1: to the to him that something was up with his
Speaker 1: niece and her teacher, uh, he didn't seem to catch on,
Speaker 1: and when he inevitably did wise up to it, after
Speaker 1: several months, Heloise's uncle, as one would anticipate, separated them.
Speaker 1: Abelard is quite poetic about this too. He says, each
Speaker 1: grieved most not for himself, but for the other. Each
Speaker 1: sought to allay not his own sufferings, but those of
Speaker 1: the one he loved. The very sundering of our bodies
Speaker 1: served but to link our souls closer together, the plenitude
Speaker 1: of the love which was denied to us, and flamed
Speaker 1: us more than ever. Sometime after her uncle found them out,
Speaker 1: Helloise realized she was pregnant, and she told Abillard that
Speaker 1: she was so. One night, while her uncle was away,
Speaker 1: Abelard spirited her out of the house and sent her
Speaker 1: to live with his sister in Brittany until the baby
Speaker 1: was born. Hallowise Is uncle, no surprise, was outraged. Abillard
Speaker 1: went to him and begged for forgiveness, insisting that he
Speaker 1: and Heloise truly loved one another. He offered to marry
Speaker 1: Heloise in secret, and Fulbert agreed, but neither one of
Speaker 1: them really wanted to get married. They both sort of
Speaker 1: looked at marriage as this morally weak way to get
Speaker 1: away with having physical lust. Getting married would also have
Speaker 1: been a huge blow to Abalard's reputation, and it would
Speaker 1: have put a cap on how far he could advance
Speaker 1: in the church, since the highest levels of the clergy
Speaker 1: couldn't really marry, and since church was really the only
Speaker 1: path for somebody who had Abelard's education at that point,
Speaker 1: this was a problem. If he married her, he was
Speaker 1: going to be stalling his career permanently, but he was
Speaker 1: willing to do it because it seemed like the only
Speaker 1: way to appease her uncle's fury. Abelard went back to
Speaker 1: Brittany to retrieve Heloise and to marry her, but she
Speaker 1: actually refused him. She said that the plan was too dangerous,
Speaker 1: that she was not willing to sacrifice his potential in
Speaker 1: his reputation, and that there was no way her uncle
Speaker 1: was really going to forgive Abelard anyway just because he
Speaker 1: married her. According to Avlard. After going on just at
Speaker 1: length about how damaging marriage and children were to the
Speaker 1: study of philosophy, Eloise said this, if layman and gentiles
Speaker 1: bound by no profession of religion lived after this fashion,
Speaker 1: what ought you a cleric and a cannon do, in
Speaker 1: order not to prefer base voluptuousness to your sacred duties,
Speaker 1: to prevent this charibdis from sucking you down headlong, and
Speaker 1: to save yourself from being plunged shamelessly and irrevocably into
Speaker 1: such filth as this not a favorite of the idea
Speaker 1: of marriage at all? Yeah, what a pity. She went
Speaker 1: on to say how much sweeter and romantic it would
Speaker 1: be for her to be his mistress rather than his wife,
Speaker 1: because love would be a stronger bond between them than
Speaker 1: marriage could ever be. And in doing this, Heloise was
Speaker 1: basically saying she would sacrifice herself entirely for Abialard's sake
Speaker 1: to allow him to have her without standing in the
Speaker 1: way of his life and career, while she would endure
Speaker 1: basically all the consequences. Abillard could not be convinced, though,
Speaker 1: and she finally gave up, saying, then there is no
Speaker 1: more left but this that in our doom. The sorrow
Speaker 1: yet to come shall be no less than the love
Speaker 1: we two have already known, which is some foreshadowing. When
Speaker 1: the baby was born, she named it Astrolabe, and they
Speaker 1: left him with Abelard's sister and returned to Paris to
Speaker 1: be married in secret. Very early one morning, in the
Speaker 1: presence of Heloise's uncle and some of Abellard's friends, and Heloise,
Speaker 1: being an intelligent woman, was definitely right about her uncle.
Speaker 1: Even though their marriage was supposed to be a secret
Speaker 1: Fulbeart told other people that they had gotten married, so
Speaker 1: Heloise publicly insisted that her uncle was lying, which infuriated him, and,
Speaker 1: fearing for her safety, Abillard sent her to the convent
Speaker 1: where she had been educated when she was younger, a
Speaker 1: place outside of Paris called Argentoya. They continued to see
Speaker 1: one another. There's a passage in one of Heloise's letters
Speaker 1: and which she talks about making love in a corner
Speaker 1: of the convent itself. But Heloise's uncle interpreted her entry
Speaker 1: into the convent as a ploy by Abillard to get
Speaker 1: rid of her, so he bribed the servants in the
Speaker 1: house where Abelard was staying so they could it access
Speaker 1: to his rooms. And he sent his own servants to
Speaker 1: break into Abelard's room in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: where they actually castrated him. So, according to Abelard, the
Speaker 1: next morning there was an enormous crowd who came out.
Speaker 1: It reads as though he's saying that they were mourning
Speaker 1: the loss of his man parts. Probably it was, this
Speaker 1: is the mark of the translation, that it was really
Speaker 1: that people were extremely upset at the uh the physical
Speaker 1: disfigurement he had undergone. And it's not so much just
Speaker 1: the loss of physical sexual prowess. Right, So he says,
Speaker 1: it is difficult, nay impossible, for words of mine to
Speaker 1: describe the amazement which bewildered them, the lamentations they uttered,
Speaker 1: the uproar with which they harassed me, or the grief
Speaker 1: with which they increased my own suffering. He simultaneously bemoaned
Speaker 1: his fate and saw it as a fitting punishment. So
Speaker 1: that had removed from him the part of his body
Speaker 1: with which he had sinned, Abillard retreated to the monastery
Speaker 1: at San Denis. At first, this was more to hide
Speaker 1: from what had happened to him than out of any
Speaker 1: newfound religious devotion. He became a monk and Heloise who
Speaker 1: at this point was already sheltering at a convent, took
Speaker 1: vows and became a benedicting nun. While at Sandoni, Abillard
Speaker 1: tried to continue with his life of study and teaching,
Speaker 1: but to turn his attention to faith instead of philosophy.
Speaker 1: But the monastery at Sandony was in Abalard's were words quote,
Speaker 1: utterly worldly, and its abbot was corrupt. Ablard became popular
Speaker 1: as a teacher, even as he criticized the monastery and
Speaker 1: tried very hard to reform it. His constant and criticism
Speaker 1: naturally drew the ire of the other teachers and monks
Speaker 1: at the monastery, who all rallied against him and complained
Speaker 1: about him to bishops, archbishops, and any other church official
Speaker 1: who would listen. He also, while he was there, w
Speaker 1: books that were deemed to be heretical, and his previous
Speaker 1: feuds with other philosophical and religious thinkers, which we referenced
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the podcast, kind of came back
Speaker 1: to haunt him. Abillard fled to Champagne and became a hermit.
Speaker 1: Students of philosophy continued to seek him out to try
Speaker 1: to get him to return to teaching, but he did
Speaker 1: but He was constantly criticized and scrutinized for applying logic
Speaker 1: to matters of faith, and that was a practice that
Speaker 1: was viewed as very threatening to the medieval church. After
Speaker 1: a while, he and his students created this community of
Speaker 1: teaching and learning that they called La Perriclet. Eventually he
Speaker 1: handed law Paraclete over to Heloise and the nuns from
Speaker 1: the convent where she'd been staying because their convent had
Speaker 1: been disbanded after some internal church feuding. She became the
Speaker 1: abbess at La Perriclet, and Hallowe's became highly respected in
Speaker 1: her own right at this point. Being an abbess required
Speaker 1: skill in both administrative and religious work, and she drew
Speaker 1: praise from Peter the Venerable and other prominent religious figures.
Speaker 1: She was also fluent in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and
Speaker 1: she taught these languages to the other nuns as well.
Speaker 1: Abel Iron continued to teach and to serve as an abbot,
Speaker 1: although his skeptical manner of approaching religious thought continued to
Speaker 1: draw fire. Eventually he wound up because of this, being
Speaker 1: accused of heresy, and he was condemned at a council
Speaker 1: at Fans in eleven forty, his sentence was lifted only
Speaker 1: after Peter the Venerable intervened. Evelard's health started to really fail,
Speaker 1: and he died in eleven forty two. Peter the Venerable
Speaker 1: built a tomb for him and Saint Marcel, but Heloise
Speaker 1: had him moved and reburied at La Periclete so that
Speaker 1: she could watch over him. She lived another twenty years
Speaker 1: before dying sometime in eleven sixty three or eleven sixty four.
Speaker 1: La Periclet also became a highly respected convent under under
Speaker 1: her leadership, with six daughter houses as well, and there's
Speaker 1: a story that she was actually buried in Abalard's grave,
Speaker 1: but there's no substantiation of that in the record. She
Speaker 1: was buried next to him, and their burial place was
Speaker 1: moved to a drier location in four In sixteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: the letters that she and Abelard had exchanged between each
Speaker 1: other were published for the first time, and in sixteen
Speaker 1: twenty one the nuns at La peric Let moved their
Speaker 1: bodies to a new and more impressive tomb to satisfy
Speaker 1: curious visitors. They repeated this whole exhumation and reburial a
Speaker 1: few more times in conjunction most of the time, with
Speaker 1: new translations of the letters coming out and the sort
Speaker 1: of influx of Abelard and Heloise letter tourists had to
Speaker 1: constantly um upgrade the setting for the additional crowds. I
Speaker 1: presume yes. In the early nineteenth century, Abelard and Heloise
Speaker 1: were moved to the cemetery Peer Laches in Paris, where
Speaker 1: they are today. They lie together in a stone sarcophagus
Speaker 1: carved with both of their was umblence is and it's
Speaker 1: under a roof supported by pillars and arches. The tomb
Speaker 1: in peir l Ches was designed by Alexandra Marie Lenoir,
Speaker 1: who was the director of the muse de monument Francaise
Speaker 1: between seventeen ninety and eighteen sixteen. Lenoir actually obtained their
Speaker 1: remains from La Paraclete in eighteen hundred and then created
Speaker 1: this tomb that had sort of a faux medieval look
Speaker 1: and feel, and he incorporated some pieces from what was
Speaker 1: reported to be some of the earlier tombs that had
Speaker 1: existed at La Peraclet. The tomb itself is more about
Speaker 1: being evocative of their lives and their love story than
Speaker 1: authentic to the art and architecture of the period in
Speaker 1: which they lived. We believe that the real remains are
Speaker 1: probably buried there because they were measured and authenticated when
Speaker 1: Lenoir acquired them. So anytime bodies get moved that many
Speaker 1: times there's always a question markup. Is that really who
Speaker 1: we think it is? They were verified, especially since the
Speaker 1: remains started out in its twelfth century. And now to
Speaker 1: return to Abelard and Heloise, they both wrote extensively. Heloise's
Speaker 1: writings primarily included letters to Abelard and to other religious figures,
Speaker 1: and then Abelard's writings also include works on theology, metaphysics, logic,
Speaker 1: the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. He
Speaker 1: also wrote poetry and songs, and some of these were
Speaker 1: about Heloise. He never explicitly credited her, but modern scholars
Speaker 1: contend that Heloise really was quite influential when it came
Speaker 1: to Abelard's thoughts in the area of ethics. This is
Speaker 1: a reversal of older scholarship, which claimed that Heloise's thoughts
Speaker 1: were borrowed in their entirety from abial art. Yea has
Speaker 1: to do with how focused she was on the idea
Speaker 1: of hypocrisy and how the life you're living outward lea
Speaker 1: should match up with the life that you're living inwardly,
Speaker 1: which she herself was very distressed by that idea, given
Speaker 1: the fact that she had got into a convent for
Speaker 1: reasons other than a spiritual devotion. Ye. So they're in
Speaker 1: addition to all this, they are the letters that Avalard
Speaker 1: and Heloise wrote to each other after their relationship had ended.
Speaker 1: The first one was to Abillard from Helloise after she
Speaker 1: had read his Historia calumtatam. He wrote this about fifteen
Speaker 1: years after their relationship had ended, and when Heloise got
Speaker 1: it and read it, she was deeply distressed and very
Speaker 1: worried by what she read there about his mental state
Speaker 1: and how they had depicted their relationship, and like she
Speaker 1: was also quite angry that in twelve years he had
Speaker 1: not once expressed concern or gratitude for her joining the convent,
Speaker 1: which she had not really wanted to do, and she
Speaker 1: had done entirely as like a sacrifice for his sake.
Speaker 1: Her personal letters are very passionate and very pained. She
Speaker 1: wrote of how upset she is that, as we referenced
Speaker 1: a moment ago, she took thous and because she loved Abillard,
Speaker 1: not because she loved God. She also wrote of how
Speaker 1: much she loved Ablard, saying things like my heart was
Speaker 1: not in me but with you, And now even more,
Speaker 1: if it is not with you, it is nowhere. Truly
Speaker 1: without you, it cannot exist. She also wrote of her
Speaker 1: sexual frustration, quote, even during the celebration of Mass, when
Speaker 1: our prayers should be purer, lewed, visions of these pleasures
Speaker 1: take such a hold upon my unhappy soul that my
Speaker 1: thoughts are on their wantonness instead of on our prayers.
Speaker 1: I should be groaning over the sins I have committed,
Speaker 1: but I can only sigh for what I have lost.
Speaker 1: At one point in her letters, she accused Abillard of
Speaker 1: feeling only lust for her and not love, and in
Speaker 1: a reply he agreed with her, that's not what you
Speaker 1: want to hear back. Abillard's letters are reserved, they're a
Speaker 1: bit luxury, and they're really lacking in romance. So some
Speaker 1: people frame this as Abalard being rational while Helloise is emotional.
Speaker 1: But a lot of Avalard's writing really is quite emotional too.
Speaker 1: It's just that all of his emotion is directed toward
Speaker 1: religious matters and his sort of personal torment uh and
Speaker 1: what his life has become. While Helloise emotion is all
Speaker 1: directed at Avalard, and they also exchanged letters of direction
Speaker 1: about how to establish a rule for her community of nuns,
Speaker 1: and they discussed matters of faith in scripture. So not
Speaker 1: all of their correspondence was just I loved you, I
Speaker 1: loved you, I loved you so much and you kind
Speaker 1: of dropped the ball and him say. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: when you find collections of them, they're they're divided into
Speaker 1: like the more personal letters and the more spiritual letters
Speaker 1: where they address questions about scriptures and how La peric
Speaker 1: Let should operate and that kind of thing. There is
Speaker 1: some debate about the authenticity of these letters. You know,
Speaker 1: their relationship happened during the eleven eleven hundreds, but the
Speaker 1: oldest copies of these letters are from the thirteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: So naturally this has led to speculation about whether they
Speaker 1: each really wrote everything that was attributed to them. And
Speaker 1: the three schools of thought are that they're exactly what
Speaker 1: they're said to be that and then there's another that
Speaker 1: is that abial Ard in fact wrote all of the letters,
Speaker 1: And then there's another that some other unrelated person wrote
Speaker 1: them later on as a bit of medieval fanfic. Uh
Speaker 1: the overall, but you know, definitely not a hundred percent
Speaker 1: unanimous consensus is that they are what they say they are.
Speaker 1: That their letters from Abillard to Helloween's and vice versa.
Speaker 1: Because they are so old, you can read many of
Speaker 1: them on the internet for free, should you be so inclined. Yes,
Speaker 1: Happy Valentine's Valentine's. They castration and we don't really or
Speaker 1: at least I couldn't find what happened to baby aster Labe,
Speaker 1: like we know this, Yeah, I don't remember ever hearing
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, baby aster Labe stayed in Brittany with
Speaker 1: Abelard's sister, but otherwise, like, don't really have any sense
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, and it's interesting to me that they
Speaker 1: have been uh buried many times together when it seems like,
Speaker 1: at least from a romantic point of view, things had
Speaker 1: kind of fizzled out. Yeah, well they're the time they
Speaker 1: were both deceased. Yeah, they're they're I think they're there.
Speaker 1: Romantic relationship with one another seems to have come to
Speaker 1: a complete halt, uh from the time that he was castrated.
Speaker 1: I think had he not been castrated, they probably would
Speaker 1: have continued to have some kind of u secret relationship
Speaker 1: with one another. But that then once that happened, it
Speaker 1: wasn't just because he did not have the physical parts anymore,
Speaker 1: but because that was such a hugely devastating experience for him.
Speaker 1: He felt completely shamed by the whole thing. He had
Speaker 1: sort of become this public figure who had been literally
Speaker 1: disfigured because of this whole thing. Like he was like, no,
Speaker 1: now I'm going to devote my whole life to this
Speaker 1: other thing. I think allows though, continued to for the
Speaker 1: rest of her life, even after their correspondent stopped being
Speaker 1: about how much she missed him and how much she
Speaker 1: loved him. I think she really cared that forever. It
Speaker 1: certainly seems that way. Thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: us for this Saturday classic. Since this is out of
Speaker 1: the archive, if you heard an email address or a
Speaker 1: Facebook U r L or something similar during the course
Speaker 1: of the show, that may be obsolete. Now, so here's
Speaker 1: our current contact information. We are at History Podcast at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com, and then we're at Missed
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