Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos Part 21

If you could only restrain yourself and pay me fewer compliments it is not to be doubted that I would prefer to have you come and enliven my serious occupations rather than any one else. But you are such an unmanageable man, so wicked, that I am afraid to invite you to come and sup with me to-morrow. I am mistaken, for it is now two hours after midnight, and I recollect that my letter will not be handed you before noon. So it is to-day I shall expect you. Have you any fault to find? It is a formal rendezvous, to be sure, but let the fearlessness in appointing it be a proof that I am not very much afraid of you, and that I shall believe in as much of your soft talk as I deem proper.

You understand that it will not be I who can be imposed upon by that.

I know men so well----

LIV

A Shrewd But Not an Unusual Scheme

This is not the time, Marquis, to hide from you the true sentiments of the Countess in your regard. However much I have been able to keep her secret without betraying her friends.h.i.+p, and I have always done so, if I conceal from you what I am going to communicate, you may one day justly reproach me.

Whatever infidelities you may have been guilty of, whatever care I have been able to take to persuade her that you have been entirely forgotten, she has never ceased to love you tenderly. Although she has sought to punish you by an a.s.sumed indifference, she has never thought of depriving herself of the pleasure of seeing you, and it has been through the complaisance of the Countess that I have sometimes worried you; it was to goad you into visiting me more frequently. But all these schemes have not been able to satisfy a heart so deeply wounded, and she is on the point of executing a design I have all along been opposed to. You will learn all about it by reading the letter she wrote me yesterday, and which I inclose in this.

FROM THE COUNTESS TO MADEMOISELLE DE L'ENCLOS.

"If you wish to remain my friend, my dear Ninon, cease to combat my resolution; you know it is not the inspiration of the moment. It is not the fruit of a momentary mortification, an imprudent vexation, nor despair. I have never concealed it from you. The possession of the heart of the Marquis de Sevigne might have been my supreme felicity if I could have flattered myself with having it forever. I was certain of losing it if I had granted him the favors he exacted of me. His inconstancy has taught me that a different conduct would not be a sure means of retaining a lover. I must renounce love forever, since men are incapable of having a liaison with a woman, as tender, but as pure as that of simple friends.h.i.+p.

"You, yourself, well know that I am not sufficiently cured to see the Marquis without always suffering. Flight is the only remedy for my malady, and that is what I am about to take. I do not fear, moreover, what the world may say about my withdrawal to the country. I have cautioned those who might be surprised. It is known that I have won in a considerable action against the heirs of my late husband. I have given out that I am going to take possession of the estate awarded me.

I will thus deprive the public of the satisfaction of misinterpreting my taste for solitude, and the Marquis of all suspicion that he is in any manner to blame for it. I inclose his letters and his portrait.

"Good Heaven! How weak I am! Why should it cost my heart so much to get rid of an evil so fatal to my repose? But it is done, and my determination can not be shaken. Pity me, however, and remember, my dear friend, the promise you gave me to make him understand that I have for him the most profound indifference. Whoever breaks off relations with a lover in too public a manner, suggests resentment and regret at being forced to do so; it is an honest way of saying that one would ask nothing better than to be appeased. As I have no desire to resume my relations with the Marquis, return him what I send, but in the manner agreed upon, and pray him to make a similar rest.i.tution.

You may tell him that the management of my property obliges me to leave Paris for a time, but do not speak of me first.

"I should be inconsolable at leaving you, my dear Ninon, if I did not hope that you would visit me in my solitude. You write willingly to your friends, if you judge them by the tenderness and esteem they have for you. In that case, you have none more worthy of that t.i.tle than I.

I rely, therefore, upon your letters until you come to share my retreat. You know my sentiments for you."

I have no advice to give you, Marquis, on what you have just read, the sole favor I expect from you is never to compromise me for the indiscretion I commit, and that the Countess shall never have any reason for not forgiving me. All I can say to justify myself in my own eyes is, that you have loved the Countess too much for her resolution to be a matter of absolute indifference to you. Had I been just, I would have betrayed both by leaving you in ignorance of her design.

LV

A Happy Ending

I am delighted with everything you have done, and you are charming. Do not doubt it, your behavior, my entreaties, and better than all, love will overcome the resistance of the Countess. Everything should conspire to determine her to accept the offer you have made of your hand. I could even, from this time on, a.s.sure you that pride alone will resist our efforts and her own inclination.

This morning I pressed her earnestly to decide in your favor. Her last entrenchment was the fear of new infidelities on your part.

"Rea.s.sure yourself," said I, "in proof that the Marquis will be faithful to you, is the fact that he has been undeceived about the other women, by comparing them with her he was leaving. Honest people permit themselves only a certain number of caprices, and the Marquis has had those which his age and position in society seemed to justify.

He yielded to them at a time when they were pardonable. He paid tribute to the fas.h.i.+on by tasting of all the ridiculous things going.

Henceforth, he can be reasonable with impunity. A man can not be expected to be amorous of his wife, but should he be, it will be pardoned him as soon as people see you. You risk nothing, therefore, Countess; you yourself have put on the airs of a society woman, but you were too sensible not to abandon such a role; you renounced it; the Marquis imitates you. Wherefore forget his mistakes. Could you bear the reproach of having caused the death of so amiable a man? It would be an act that would cry out for vengeance."

In a word, I besought and pressed her, but she is still irresolute.

Still, I do not doubt that you will finish by overcoming a resistance which she, herself, already deems very embarra.s.sing.

Well, Marquis, if the anxiety all this has caused you, gives you the time to review what I have been saying to you for several days past, might you not be tempted to believe that I have contradicted myself?

At first I advised you to treat love lightly and to take only so much of it as might amuse you. You were to be nothing but a gallant, and have no relations with women except those in which you could easily break the ties. I then spoke to you in a general way, and relative to ordinary women. Could I imagine that you would be so fortunate as to meet a woman like the Countess, who would unite the charms of her s.e.x to the qualities of honest men? What must be your felicity? You are going to possess in one and the same person, the most estimable friend and a most charming mistress. Deign to admit me to share a third portion of your friends.h.i.+p and my happiness will equal your own. Can one be happier than in sharing the happiness of friends?

CORRESPONDENCE

BETWEEN

LORD SAINT-EVREMOND

AND

NINON DE L'ENCLOS

WHEN OVER EIGHTY YEARS OF AGE

INTRODUCTION

Charles de Saint Denis, Lord of Saint-Evremond, Marshal of France, was one of the few distinguished Frenchmen, exiled by Louis XIV, whose distinguished abilities as a warrior and philosopher awarded him a last resting place in Westminster Abbey. His tomb, surmounted by a marble bust, is situated in the nave near the cloister, located among those of Barrow, Chaucer, Spenser, Cowley and other renowned Englishmen.

His epitaph, written by the hand of a Briton, is singularly replete with the most eminent qualities, which the great men of his period recognized in him, though his life was extraordinarily long and stormy. He was moreover, a profound admirer of Ninon de l'Enclos during his long career, and he did much toward shaping her philosophy, and enabling her to understand the human heart in all its eccentricities, and how to regulate properly the pa.s.sion of love.

During his long exile in England, the two corresponded at times, and the letters here given are the fragments of a voluminous correspondence, the greater part of which has been lost. They are to be found in the untranslated collated works of Saint-Evremond, and are very curious, inasmuch as they were written when Ninon and Saint-Evremond were in their "eighties."

Saint-Evremond always claimed, that his extremely long and vigorous life was due to the same causes which Ninon de l'Enclos attributed to her great age, that is, to an unflagging zeal in observing the doctrines of the Epicurean philosophy. These ideas appear in his letter to Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, written to her under the sobriquet of "Leontium," and which is translated and appended to this correspondence.

As an evidence of Saint-Evremond's unimpaired faculties at a great age, the charms of his person attracted the attention of the d.u.c.h.ess of Sandwich, one of the beauties of the English Court, and she became so enamored of him, that a liaison was the result, which lasted until the time of Saint-Evremond's death. They were like two young lovers just beginning their career, instead of a youth over eighty years of age, and a maiden who had pa.s.sed forty. Such attachments were not uncommon among persons who lived calm, philosophical lives, their very manner of living inspiring tender regard, as was the case of the great affection of the Marquis de Sevigne, who although quite young, and his rank an attraction to the great beauties of the Court, nevertheless aspired to capture the heart of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, who was over sixty years of age. What Ninon thought about the matter, appears in her letters on the preceding pages.

Correspondence Between Lord Saint-Evremond and Ninon de L'Enclos When Over Eighty Years of Age

I

Saint-Evremond to Ninon de l'Enclos