Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos Part 26

M. de Clerambault often asks me if he resembles his father in mental attainments. "No," I always answer him, but I hope from his presumption that he believes this "no" to be of advantage to him, and perhaps there are some who would have so considered it. What a comparison between the present epoch and that through which we have pa.s.sed!

You are going to write Madame Sandwich, but I believe she has gone to the country. She knows all about your sentiment for her. She will tell you more news about this country than I, having gauged and comprehended everything. She knows all my haunts and has found means of making herself perfectly at home.

XVIII

Saint-Evremond to Ninon de l'Enclos

Life Is Joyous When It Is Without Sorrow

The very last letter I receive from Mademoiselle de l'Enclos always seems to me to be better than the preceding ones. It is not because the sentiment of present pleasure dims the memory of the past, but the true reason is, your mind is becoming stronger and more fortified every day.

If it were the same with the body as with the mind, I should badly sustain this stomach combat of which you speak. I wanted to make a trial of mine against that of Madame Sandwich, at a banquet given by Lord Jersey. I was not the vanquished.

Everybody knows the spirit of Madame Sandwich; I see her good taste in the extraordinary esteem she has for you. I was not overcome by the praises she showered upon you, any more than I was by my appet.i.te. You belong to every nation, esteemed alike in London as in Paris. You belong to every age of the world, and when I say that you are an honor to mine, youth will immediately name you to give l.u.s.ter to theirs.

There you are, mistress of the present and of the past. May you have your share of the right to be so considered in the future! I have not reputation in view, for that is a.s.sured to all time, the one thing I regard as the most essential is life, of which eight days are worth more than centuries of post mortem glory.

If any one had formerly proposed to you to live as you are now living, you would have hanged yourself! (The expression pleases me.) However, you are satisfied with ease and comfort after having enjoyed the liveliest emotions.

L'esprit vous satisfait, ou du moins vous console: Mais on prefererait de vivre jeune et folle, Et laisser aux vieillards exempts de pa.s.sions La triste gravite de leurs reflexions.

(Mental joys satisfy you, at least they console, But a young jolly life we prefer on the whole, And to old chaps, exempt from pa.s.sion's sharp stings, Leave the sad recollections of former good things.)

n.o.body can make more of youth than I, and as I am holding to it by memory, I am following your example, and fit in with the present as well as I know how.

Would to Heaven, Madame Mazarin had been of your opinion! She would still be living, but she desired to die the beauty of the world.

Madame Sandwich is leaving for the country, and departs admired in London as she is in Paris.

Live, Ninon, life is joyous when it is without sorrow.

I pray you to forward this note to M. l'Abbe de Hautefeuille, who is with Madame la d.u.c.h.esse de Bouillon. I sometimes meet the friends of M. l'Abbe Dubois, who complain that they are forgotten. a.s.sure him of my humble regards.

Translator's Note--The above was the last letter Saint-Evremond ever wrote Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, and with the exception of one more letter to his friend, Count Magalotti, Councillor of State to His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, he never wrote any other, dying shortly afterward at the age of about ninety. His last letter ends with this peculiar Epicurean thought in poetry:

Je vis eloigne de la France, Sans besoins et sans abondance, Content d'un vulgaire destin; J'aime la vertu sans rudesse, J'aime le plaisir sans mollesse, J'aime la vie, et n'en crains pas la fin.

(I am living far away from France, No wants, indeed, no abundance, Content to dwell in humble sphere; Virtue I love without roughness, Pleasures I love without softness, Life, too, whose end I do not fear.)

DOCTRINE OF EPICURUS

EXPLAINED BY

MARSHAL DE SAINT-EVREMOND

IN A LETTER TO

THE MODERN LEONTIUM

(NINON DE L'ENCLOS)

TO THE MODERN LEONTIUM

(NINON DE L'ENCLOS)

Being the moral doctrine of the philosopher Epicurus as applicable to modern times, it is an elucidation of the principles advocated by that philosopher, by Charles de Saint-Evremond, Marechal of France, a great philosopher, scholar, poet, warrior, and profound admirer of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos. He died in exile in England, and his tomb may be found in Westminster Abbey, in a conspicuous part of the nave, where his remains were deposited by Englishmen, who regarded him as ill.u.s.trious for his virtues, learning and philosophy.

He gave the name "Leontium" to Mademoiselle de L'Enclos, and the letter was written to her under that sobriquet. The reasoning in it will enable the reader to understand the life and character of Ninon, inasmuch as it was the foundation of her education, and formed her character during an extraordinarily long career. It was intended to bring down to its date, the true philosophical principles of Epicurus, who appears to have been grossly misunderstood and his doctrines foully misinterpreted.

Leontium was an Athenian woman who became celebrated for her taste for philosophy, particularly for that of Epicurus, and for her close intimacy with the great men of Athens. She lived during the third century before the Christian era, and her mode of life was similar to that of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos. She added to great personal beauty, intellectual brilliancy of the highest degree, and dared to write, a learned treatise against the eloquent Theophrastus, thereby incurring the dislike of Cicero, the distinguished orator, and Pliny, the philosopher, the latter intimating that it might be well for her "to select a tree upon which to hang herself." Pliny and other philosophers heaped abuse upon her for daring, as a woman, to do such an unheard of thing as to write a treatise on philosophy, and particularly for having the a.s.surance to contradict Theophrastus.

The Letter.

You wish to know whether I have fully considered the doctrines of Epicurus which are attributed to me?

I can claim the honor of having done so, but I do not care to claim a merit I do not possess, and which you will say, ingenuously, does not belong to me. I labor under a great disadvantage on account of the numerous spurious treatises which are printed in my name, as though I were the author of them. Some, though well written, I do not claim, because they are not of my writing, moreover, among the things I have written, there are many stupidities. I do not care to take the trouble of repudiating such things, for the reason that at my age, one hour of well regulated life, is of more interest and benefit to me than a mediocre reputation. How difficult it is, you see, to rid one's self of amour propre! I quit it as an author, and rea.s.sume it as a philosopher, feeling a secret pleasure in manipulating what others are anxious about.

The word "pleasure" recalls to mind the name of Epicurus, and I confess, that of all the opinions of the philosophers concerning the supreme good, there are none which appear to me to be so reasonable as his.

It would be useless to urge reasons, a hundred times repeated by the Epicureans, that the love of pleasure and the extinction of pain, are the first and most natural inclinations remarked in all men; that riches, power, honor, and virtue, contribute to our happiness, but that the enjoyment of pleasure, let us say, voluptuousness, to include everything in a word, is the veritable aim and end whither tend all human acts. This is very clear to me, in fact, self-evident, and I am fully persuaded of its truth.

However, I do not know very well in what the pleasure, or voluptuousness of Epicurus consisted, for I never saw so many different opinions of any one as those of the morals of this philosopher. Philosophers, and even his own disciples, have condemned him as sensual and indolent; magistrates have regarded his doctrines as pernicious to the public; Cicero, so just and so wise in his opinions, Plutarch, so much esteemed for his fair judgments, were not favorable to him, and so far as Christianity is concerned, the Fathers have represented him to be the greatest and the most dangerous of all impious men. So much for his enemies; now for his partisans:

Metrodorus, Hermachus, Meneceus, and numerous others, who philosophize according to his school, have as much veneration as friends.h.i.+p for him personally. Diogenes Laertes could not have written his life to better advantage for his reputation. Lucretius adored him.

Seneca, as much of an enemy of the sect as he was, spoke of him in the highest terms. If some cities held him in horror, others erected statues in his honor, and if, among the Christians, the Fathers have condemned him, Ga.s.sendi and Bernier approve his principles.

In view of all these contrary authorities, how can the question be decided? Shall I say that Epicurus was a corruptor of good morals, on the faith of a jealous philosopher, of a disgruntled disciple, who would have been delighted, in his resentment, to go to the length of inflicting a personal injury? Moreover, had Epicurus intended to destroy the idea of Providence and the immortality of the soul, is it not reasonable to suppose that the world would have revolted against so scandalous a doctrine, and that the life of the philosopher would have been attacked to discredit his opinions more easily?

If, therefore, I find it difficult to believe what his enemies and the envious have published against him, I should also easily credit what his partisans have urged in his defence.

I do not believe that Epicurus desired to broach a voluptuousness harsher than the virtue of the Stoics. Such a jealousy of austerity would appear to me extraordinary in a voluptuary philosopher, from whatever point of view that word may be considered. A fine secret that, to declaim against a virtue which destroys sentiment in a sage, and establishes one that admits of no operation.

The sage, according to the Stoics, is a man of insensible virtue; that of the Epicureans, an immovable voluptuary. The former suffers pain without having any pain; the latter enjoys voluptuousness without being voluptuous--a pleasure without pleasure. With what object in view, could a philosopher who denied the immortality of the soul, mortify the senses? Why divorce the two parties composed of the same elements, whose sole advantage is in a concert of union for their mutual pleasure? I pardon our religious devotees, who diet on herbs, in the hope that they will obtain an eternal felicity, but that a philosopher, who knows no other good than that to be found in this world, that a doctor of voluptuousness should diet on bread and water, to reach sovereign happiness in this life, is something my intelligence refuses to contemplate.

I am surprised that the voluptuousness of such an Epicurean is not founded upon the idea of death, for, considering the miseries of life, his sovereign good must be at the end of it. Believe me, if Horace and Petronius had viewed it as painted, they would never have accepted Epicurus as their master in the science of pleasure. The piety for the G.o.ds attributed to him, is no less ridiculous than the mortification of the senses. These slothful G.o.ds, of whom there was nothing to be hoped or feared; these impotent G.o.ds who did not deserve the labor and fatigue attendant upon their wors.h.i.+p!

Let no one say that wors.h.i.+pers went to the temple through fear of displeasing the magistrates, and of scandalizing the people, for they would have scandalized them less by refusing to a.s.sist in their wors.h.i.+p, than shocked them by writings which destroyed the established G.o.ds, or at least ruined the confidence of the people in their protection.