Considered as a Parallel
The birth of Ninon de l'Enclos was not heralded by salvoes of
artillery, Te Deums, or such other demonstrations of joy as are
attendant upon the arrival on earth of princes and offspring of great
personages. Nevertheless, for the ninety years she occupied the stage
of life, she accomplished more in the way of shaping great national
policies, successful military movements and brilliant diplomatic
successes, than any man or body of men in the seventeenth century.
In addition to that, her genius left an impress upon music and the
fine arts, an impress so profound that the high standard of excellence
both have attained in our day is due to her efforts in establishing a
solid foundation upon which it was possible to erect a substantial
structure. Moreover, in her hands and under her auspices and guidance,
languages, belles lettres, and rhetoric received an impetus toward
perfection, and raised the French language and its literature,
fiction, poetry and drama, to so high a standard, that its productions
are the models of the twentieth century.
It was Ninon de l'Enclos whose brilliant mentality and intellectual
genius formed the minds, the souls, the genius, of such master minds
as Saint-Evremond, La Rouchefoucauld, Molière, Scarron, La Fontaine,
Fontenelle, and a host of others in literature and fine arts; the
Great Condé, de Grammont, de Sévigné, and the flower of the chivalry
of France, in war, politics, and diplomacy. Even Richelieu was not
unaffected by her influence.
Strange power exerted by one frail woman, a woman not of noble birth,
with only beauty, sweetness of disposition, amiability, goodness, and
brilliant accomplishments as her weapons! It was not a case of the
moth and the flame, but the operation of a wise philosophy, the
precepts of which were decently, moderately and carefully inculcated;
a philosophy upon the very edge of which modern society is hanging,
afraid to accept openly, through too much attachment to ancient
doctrines which have drawn man away from happiness and comfort, and
converted him into a bitter pessimism that often leads to despair.
As has already been suggested, had Ninon de l'Enclos sat upon a
throne, or commanded an army, the pages of history would teem with the
renown of her exploits, and great victories be awarded to her instead
of to those who would have met with defeat without her inspiration.
Pompey, in his vanity, declared that he could raise an army by
stamping his foot upon the ground, but the raising of Ninon de
l'Enclos' finger could bring all the chivalry of Europe around a
single standard, or at the same gentle signal, cause them to put aside
their arms and forget everything but peace and amity. She dominated
the intellectual geniuses of the long period during which she lived,
and reigned over them as their absolute queen, through the sheer force
of her personal charms, which she never hesitated to bestow upon those
whom she found worthy, and who expressed a desire to possess them,
studiously regulated, however, by the precepts and principles of the
philosophy of Epicurus, which today is rapidly gaining ground in our
social relations through its better understanding and appreciation.
Her life bears a great resemblance to the histories in which we read
about the most celebrated women of ancient times, who occupied a
middle station between the condition of marriage and prostitution--a
class of women whose Greek name is familiarized to our ears in
translations of Aristophanes. Ninon de l'Enclos was of the order of
the French "hetaerae," and, as by her beauty and her talents, she
attained the first rank in the social class, her name has come down to
posterity with those of Aspasia and Leontium, while the less
distinguished favorites of less celebrated men have shared the common
oblivion, which hides from the memory of men, every degree of
mediocrity, whether of virtue or vice.
A class of this kind, a status of this singular nature existing
amongst accomplished women, who inspired distinguished men with lofty
ideals, and developed the genius of men who, otherwise, would have
remained in obscurity, can never be uninteresting or uninstructive;
indeed, it must afford matter for serious study. They are prefigures,
or prototypes of the influence that aims to sway mankind at the
present day in government, politics, literature, and the fine arts.
As a distinguished example of such a class, the most prominent in the
world, in fact, apart from a throne, Ninon de l'Enclos will peculiarly
engage the attention of all who, whether for knowledge or amusement,
are observers of human nature under all its varieties and
circumstances.
It would be idle to enter upon a historical digression on the state of
female manners in ancient Athens, or in Europe during the last three
centuries. The reader should discard them from his mind when he
peruses the life of Ninon de l'Enclos, and examine her character and
environments from every point of view as a type toward which is
trending modern social conditions.
At first blush, and to a narrow intellect, an individual woman of the
character of Ninon de l'Enclos would seem hopelessly lost to all
virtue, abandoned by every sense of shame, and irreclaimable to any
feeling of social or private duty. But only at first blush, and to the
most circumscribed of narrow minds, who, fortunately, do not control
the policy of mankind, although occasional disorders here and there
indicate that they are endeavouring to do so.
A large majority of mankind are of the settled opinion that every
virtue is bound up in that of chastity. Our manners and customs, our
laws, most of our various kinds of religions, our national sentiments
and feelings--all our most serious opinions, as well as our dearest
and best rooted prejudices, forbid the dissevering, in the minds of
women of any class, the ideas of virtue and female honor. That is,
our public opinion is along that line. To raise openly a doubt on this
head, or to disturb, on a point considered so vital, the settled
notions of society, is equally inconsistent with common prudence and
the policy of common honesty; and as tending to such an end, we are
apt to consider all discussion on the subject as at least officiously
incurring danger, without an opportunity of inculcating good.
But, however strongly we insist upon this opinion for such purposes,
there are others in which it is not useless to relax that severity for
a moment, and to view the question, not through the medium of
sentiment, but with an eye of philosophic impartiality. We are
gradually nearing the point, where it is conceded that in certain
conditions of society, one failing is not wholly incompatible with a
general practice of virtue--a remark to be met with in every homily
since homilies were written, notwithstanding that rigid rule already
alluded to in the previous chapter.
It is surprising that it has never occurred to any moralist of the
common order, who deals chiefly with such general reflections, to
apply this particular maxim to this particular social status. We
follow the wise precepts of honesty found in Cicero, although we know
that he was, at the time he was writing them, plundering his fellow
men at every opportunity. Our admiration for Bacon's philosophy and
wisdom reaches adulation although he was the "meanest of men," and was
guilty of the most flagrant crimes such as judicial bribery and
political corruption. We read that Aspasia had some great and many
amiable qualities; so too had Ninon de l'Enclos; and it is worthy of
consideration, how far we judge candidly or wisely in condemning such
characters in gross, and treating their virtues as Saint Austin was
wont to deal with those of his heathen adversaries, as no better than
"splendid vices," so unparalleled in their magnitude as to become
virtues by the operation of the law of extremes. There was no law
permitting a man to marry his sister, and there was no law forbidding
King Cambyses to do as he liked.
Another grave point to be considered is this: The world, as it now
stands, its laws, systems of government, manners and customs, and
social conditions, have been built up on these same "splendid vices,"
and whenever they have been tamed into subjection to mediocrity--let
us say to clerical, or ecclesiastical domination;--government, society
and morals have retrograded. The social condition in France during
Ninon de l'Enclos' time, and in England during the reign of Charles
II, is startling evidence of this accusation. Moreover, it is fast
becoming the condition to-day, a fact indicated by the almost
universal demand for a revolution in social ethics, the foundation to
which, for some reason, has become awry, threatening to topple down
the structure erected upon it. Society can see nothing to originate,
an incalculable number of attempts to better human conditions always
proving failures, and worsening the human status. It is dawning upon
the minds of the true lovers of humanity, that there is nothing else
to be done, but to revert to the past to find the key to any possible
reform, and to that past we are edging rapidly, though, it must be
said unwillingly, in the hope and expectation that the old foundations
are possessed of sufficient solidity to support a new or re-modeled
structure.
The life of Ninon de l'Enclos, upon this very point, furnishes food
for profitable reflection, inasmuch as it gives an insight into the
great results to be obtained by the following of the precepts of an
ancient philosophy which seems to have survived the clash of ages of
intellectual and moral warfare, and to have demonstrated its capacity
to supply defects in segregated dogmatic systems wholly incapable of
any syncretic tendencies.