On rue Chanoinesse, the cathedral school of Notre-Dame, forerunner of the Sorbonne, once flourished. Around the year 1200, one of the teachers was Peter Abélard. A philosophical whizz kid and cocker of snooks at the establishment intellectuals of his time, he was very popular with his students and not at all with the authorities, who thought they caught a distinct whiff of heresy. Forced to leave the cathedral school, he set up shop on the Left Bank with his disciples and, in effect, founded the University of Paris. Less successful, though much better known, is the story of his love life. While living near the rue Chanoinesse, behind the cathedral, he fell passionately in love with his landlord's niece, Héloïse, and she with him. She had a baby, her uncle had him castrated, and the story ended in convents, lifelong separation and lengthy correspondence. They were reunited in death and lie side by side in Père-Lachaise cemetery.
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