Troublesome Huguenots—Madame de L’Enclos—An Escapade, and Nurse
Madeleine—Their Majesties—The Hôtel Bourgogne—The End of the
Adventure—St Vincent de Paul and his Charities—Dying Paternal
Counsel—Ninon’s New Home—Duelling—Richelieu and the Times.
The attack upon La Rochelle, and the incessant Huguenot disturbances
generally, detained Monsieur de L’Enclos almost entirely away from
Ninon, who remained at Loches in the care of her aunt. From time to
time he paid flying visits to Loches—one stay, however, lasting
many months, enforced by a severe wound he had received. This period
he spent in continuing the instruction of his daughter, on the plan
originally mapped out, of fitting her to shine in society. The course
included philosophy, languages, music, with his special objections to
the matrimonial state—engendered, or at least aggravated by his own
failure in the search after happiness along that path. Far better,
undesirable as he held the alternative, to be wedded to cloistered
seclusion than any man’s bride; and well knowing Ninon’s horror of a
nun’s life, he left her to argue out the rest for herself in her own
logical fashion; and there is no doubt that the whole of her future
was influenced by the views he then inculcated. A modest decorum
and sobriety of bearing were indeed indispensable to good breeding;
but _carpe diem_ was the motto of Monsieur de L’Enclos, as he
desired it to be hers; and every pleasure afforded by this one life,
certainly to be called ours, ought to be enjoyed while it lasted; and
unswervingly, to the final page of her long record, Ninon carried out
the comfortable doctrine.
At seventeen years of age, she was perfectly equipped. Beautiful
and highly accomplished, amiable and winning, and though always
well dressed, troubling vastly little over the petty fripperies and
vanities ordinarily engrossing the female mind, she appears to have
gained the commendation and affection of her aunt, who parted from
her with great regret, when the failing health of Madame de L’Enclos
necessitated Ninon’s departure from Loches, to go to Paris, where the
invalid was residing.
Monsieur de L’Enclos fetched Ninon himself from Loches, and in a day
or two she was by her mother’s couch. Madame de L’Enclos received
her with affection, and affectionately Ninon tended her, going
unmurmuringly through the old courses of religious reading and
observance, even to renewing acquaintance with the gouty canon in
Notre-Dame; but the invalid’s chamber was _triste_ and monotonous,
and now and again Ninon effected a few hours’ escape from it,
ostensibly for the purpose of attending Mass or Benediction, or some
service at one or other of the neighbouring churches. One of them,
St Germain l’Auxerrois, was of special interest to Ninon, by reason
of neighbouring the hotel of Madame de la Rochefoucauld; and she one
day interrogated the guardian of the _porte cochère_, in the hope
of learning some news of Marsillac, whom Time’s chances and changes
had entirely removed from her ken; but whose memory endured in her
heart; for she had been very sincerely attached to him. The Suisse
informing her that he very rarely came to Paris, the philosophical
mind of Ninon soon turned for consolation elsewhere. On this plea
of devout attendance at church, Ninon was freely permitted leave of
absence from the sick room, duennaed by her old nurse, Madeleine,
who, however, frequently permitted herself to be dropped by the way,
at a small house of public entertainment, above whose door ran the
following invitation to step inside:—
“If of dyspepsia you’ve a touch,
Ache of tooth, or head, or such,
There’s nothing like a nip, you see,
Of my delicious Eau de Vie.”
On one of these occasions, her charge went off in the company of
a fairly good-looking and agreeable young gentleman who addressed
her, as she halted for an instant at the corner of the Pont Neuf,
in terms of mingled respect and admiration. Under his escort, she
gathered some conception of the manners and mode of existence in the
gay city, and in the course of their first walk together, they ran
against two of her cavalier’s friends, who were to be associated
intimately with her future—Gondi, the future Cardinal de Retz, and
the young Abbé Scarron—Abbé by courtesy, since he never went beyond
the introductory degree of an ecclesiastical career. In the company
of these three merry companions, she visited the Hôtel Bourgogne, a
place which may be described as answering more to the music-halls,
than to the theatres of the present time. Its frequenters could dine
or sup at its tables, take a turn at _tarot_ or thimblerig, and enjoy
a variety entertainment carried out on lines mainly popular. It was a
vast edifice, built in the Renaissance style, by Francis I., on the
site of the gloomy, fortress-like mansion of Jean Sans Peur; and for
a time it had been devoted to the representation of the Passion and
Mystery plays, and the performances of the clerks of the Basoche, but
grown decadent in these days of Louis XIII. Ninon obtained on her way
a passing glimpse of His Majesty as he drove by, describing him “as a
man of twenty-five; but looking much older, on account of his morose
and taciturn expression, responding to the acclamations of the people
only by a cold and ceremonious acknowledgment; while Anne of Austria,
who followed in a coach preceded by other carriages, saluted the
crowd with gracious smiles and wavings of her white hand.”
Having partaken of a light collation at one of the tables, the
party gave attention for a while to the actors on the stage, whose
performances were coarse, and not much to Ninon’s taste. Then Gondi
and Scarron took leave of the two, and the sequel of the adventure
proved a warning to young women endowed with any measure of
self-respect, to refrain from making acquaintance with gallants in
the street. Fortunately she escaped the too ardent attentions of the
man, through the intervention and protection of one of more delicacy
and honour. Though this one was quickly equally enthralled, he went
about his wooing of the beautiful girl in more circumspect fashion, a
wooing nipped in the bud by his death from a wound received a short
time later.
In the sombre calm of the invalid’s room stands out the grand figure
of St Vincent de Paul, bringing to her, as to all the afflicted and
heavy-laden, the message of Divine love and pity, and impressing
Ninon with a lasting memory of reverence for the serene, pure face
and gentle utterances of a heart filled with devotion for the Master
he served. Never weary in well-doing, seeming ever to see God, his
life was one long self-sacrifice and work of charity. Moved to such
compassion for the poor convict of the galleys, who wept for the
thought of his wife and children, that the good priest took the
fetters from the man’s limbs, and bidding him go free and sin no
more, wound them upon his own wrists: a heart so thrilled with love
and sorrow for the lot of the miserable little forsaken children of
the great city, that he did not rest till he had effected the reforms
so sorely-needed for their protection.
Hitherto the small waifs and strays had been under the
superintendence of the Archbishop of Paris. The charge of them was,
however, delegated to venal nurses, who would frequently sell them
for twenty sous each. On fête and red-letter days, it had for long
been a custom to expose the little creatures on huge bedsteads
chained to the pavement of Notre-Dame, in order to excite the pity
of the people, and draw money for their maintenance. St Vincent
de Paul was stirred to the endeavour of putting a stop to these
scandals; and instituted a hospital for the foundlings. It was
situated by the Gate of St Victor, and the work of it was carried on
by charitable ladies. The Hospital of Jesus, for eighty poor old men,
was another of his good works; while he ministered to the lunatics of
the Salpétrière, and to the lepers of St Lazare, within whose church
walls he was laid to rest when at last he rendered up his life to the
Master he had served; until the all-destroying Terror disturbed his
remains: but “his works do follow him.” His compassion alone for the
little ones will keep his memory green for all time.
Kneeling at his feet, at her mother’s bidding, the good priest bade
Ninon rise, saying that to God alone the knee should be bent. Then
he laid his hand on her head, calling down a benediction on her, and
praying that she should be protected from the temptations of a sinful
world. His words thrilled her powerfully for the time being. She felt
moved to pour out all her heart to him, but “Satan,” she says, “held
me fast, and would not let me approach God,” and the spell of the
saintly man’s influence passed with his presence.
A few days later, Madame de L’Enclos died, calmly, and tended by her
husband and her child, leaving at least affectionate respect for her
memory. A year later, Monsieur de L’Enclos died. True to the last to
his rule of life, the dying words he addressed to his daughter were
these—
“My child, you see that all that remains to me in these last moments,
is but the sad memory of pleasures that are past; I have possessed
them but for a little while, and that is the one complaint I have
to make of Nature. But alas! how useless are my regrets! You, my
daughter, who will doubtless survive me for so many years, profit as
quickly as you may of the precious time, and be ever less scrupulous
in the number of your pleasures, than in your choice of them.”
The fortune of Mademoiselle de L’Enclos had been greatly diminished
by the reckless extravagances of her father; and conscious, probably,
of this error in himself, he was careful to protect her best
interests, by purchasing for her an annuity which brought her 8,000
livres annual income. His prodigality was, however, one of the few
of his characteristics she did not inherit. On the contrary, she
displayed through life a conspicuous power of regulating the business
sides of it with a prudence which enabled her to be generous to her
friends in need, while not stinting herself, or the ordering of
her households, and the entertainment of the company she delighted
in; for the _réunions_ and evenings of Mademoiselle de L’Enclos
were a proverb for all that was at once charming and intellectual;
varied as they were with sweet music, to which her own singing
contributed—more notably still, by her performances on the lute,
which were so skilful; though by these hangs the complaint that she
ordinarily needed a great deal of pressing before she would indulge
the company—a curious exception to the ruling of the ways of Ninon,
ordinarily so entirely innocent of affectation.
At this time her beauty and accomplishments, united with her fortune,
drew many suitors for her hand, and of these there would probably
have been many more, but for the certainty she made no secret of,
that marriage was not in the picture of the life she had sketched out
for herself. Her passion for liberty of thought and action in every
aspect, fostered ever by her father, was dominant in her, and not to
be sacrificed for the most brilliant matrimonial yoke.
One of her first proceedings was the establishment of a home for
herself. It consisted of a handsome suite of rooms in the rue des
Tournelles, in the quarter of the Marais, then one of the most
fashionable in Paris, and distinguished for the many intellectual
and gifted men and women congregating in the stately, red-bricked,
lofty-roofed houses surrounding the planted space in whose centre, a
little later, was to stand the equestrian statue of Louis XIII. The
square had been planned by Mansard, and Ninon’s home—Number 23—had
been occupied by the famous architect himself.
A few doors off was the residence of Cardinal Richelieu, and within
the convenient distance of a few houses—Number 6—lived Marion
Delorme. For years this Place Royale, as it is now called—at one
time Place des Vosges—had been, until Mansard transformed it, held
an accursed spot, and let go to ruin; for here it was stood the
palace of the Tournelles, a favourite residence of Henri II., and in
its courtyard took place the fatal encounter between him and the
Englishman Montgomery, whose lance pierced through the king’s eye, to
his brain, and caused his death. Catherine de Médicis, in her grief
and indignation at the tragic ending of that day’s tilt, caused the
palace to be razed to the ground; but the old associations clung
to the place, for it became the favourite spot for the countless
duels which the young bloods and others were constantly engaging in;
until Richelieu put an almost entire stop to them by his revival of
the summary law against the practice, whose penalty was death by
decapitation. The great cardinal’s ruling was not to be evaded, and
several men of rank suffered death upon the scaffold for disobeying
it.
Away beyond the St Antoine Gate at Picpus, Ninon established another
dwelling for herself, in which it was her custom to rusticate during
the autumn.
Beautiful—though in features not faultlessly so—she bore some
resemblance to Anne of Austria, the adored of Buckingham, a likeness
close enough to admit of the success of a freak played years later,
when she contrived to deceive Louis the Great into the notion that
the shade of his mother appeared to him, to chide him for certain
evil ways. Her nose, like the queen’s, was large, and her beautiful
teeth gleamed through lips somewhat full in their curves; her hair
was dark and luxuriant, while her intelligent and sympathetic eyes
expressed an indescribable mingling of reserve and voluptuous
languor, magnetising all, coupled as it was with the charm of her
gentle, courteous manner and conversation that sparkled with the
wit and sentiment of a mind enriched by careful training and study
of the literature of her own time, and of the past. It was her
crowning grace that she made no display of these really sterling
acquirements, and entertained a wholesome detestation of the pedantry
and _précieuse_ taint of the learned ladies mocked at so mercilessly
by that dear friend of hers, Molière. Few could boast a complexion so
delicately fresh as hers. She stands sponsor to this day to toilette
powders and cosmetics. Bloom and _poudre de Ninon_ boxes find place
on countless women’s dressing-tables to this hour; but in her own
case art rendered little assistance, possibly none at all; except
for one recipe she employed daily through her life. The secret of
it, sufficiently transparent, was equally in the possession of the
beautiful Diana of Poitiers, who also retained her beauty for such a
length of years.
For all who list to read, her letter-writing powers stand perpetuated
in her published correspondence, and while the theme is almost
unvarying—the philosophy of love and friendship—her wit and fancy
treat it in a thousand graceful ways. Fickle as she was in love,
she was constant in friendship, and the heat of the first, often
so startlingly transient, frequently settled down into life-long
_camaraderie_ rarely destroyed. While not ungenerous to her rivals
in the tender passion, she could be dangerously jealous; but gifted
with the saving grace of humour, of which women are said to be
destitute, the anger and malice were oftentimes allowed to die
down into forgiveness, and perhaps also, forgetfulness. Rearing
and temperament set Ninon de L’Enclos apart; even among those many
notable women whose intimate she was. Essentially a product of her
century, she lived her own life in its fulness. Following ever her
father’s counsel, she was at once as boundlessly unrestricted in
her observance of that perfect law of liberty to which she yielded
obedience, as she was scrupulous in selection. Says Monsieur de St
Evrémond of her—“Kindly and indulgent Nature has moulded the soul of
Ninon from the voluptuousness of Epicurus and the virtue of Cato.”
And at last, after an interval of six years, Ninon and Marsillac
met again. It was in the salon of the Hôtel de Rambouillet.
Mademoiselle de L’Enclos, beautiful, sought after, already the
centre of an admiring circle, the talk of Paris, and Monsieur le
Capitaine de la Rochefoucauld, already for two or three years a
gallant soldier, chivalrous, romantic, handsome with the beauty of
intellect, interesting from his air of gentle, cynical pensiveness,
ardent in the cause of the queen so mercilessly persecuted by
Richelieu, and therefore lacking the advancement his qualities
merited, still, however, finding opportunity to indulge in the
gallantries of the society he so adorned. Someone has said that
few ever less practically recognised the doctrines of Monsieur de
la Rochefoucauld’s maxims, than did Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld
himself, and the aphorisms have been criticised, and exception
has again and again been taken to them, not perhaps altogether
unreasonably; but in any case he justified himself of his dictum
that “love is the smallest part of gallantry”; for when at last—and
it took some time—Marsillac recognised his old scapegrace chum of
the Loches château, homage and admiration he yielded her indeed;
but it was far from undivided, and shared in conspicuously by her
rival, Marion Delorme, a woman of very different mould from Ninon.
Like her, beautiful exceedingly, but more impulsive, softer-natured,
more easily apt to give herself away and to regret later on.
Intellectually greatly Ninon’s inferior, she was yet often a thorn in
the side of the jealous Mademoiselle de L’Enclos.
[Illustration: ARMAND JEAN DU PLESSIS
_Cardinal Duc de Richelieu_
_Né à Paris le 5^e 7^{bre} 1585. Mort le 4 Décembre 1642._
_Paris chez Odieuvre M^d d’Estampes Quai de l’Ecole vis à vis la
Samarit^e à la belle Image; C.P.R._
_To face page 24._]
The times, as a great commentator has defined them, were indeed
peculiar. The air, full of intrigue, was maintained by Richelieu
at fever-heat, and wheel worked fast and furiously within wheel.
There was the king’s party, though the king was little of it, or
in it. The iron hand of the Cardinal Prime-Minister was upon the
helm. Richelieu, who never stayed in resistance to the encroaching
efforts of Spain—in his policy of crushing the feudal strength of
the nobility of the provinces—or in annihilating Huguenot power as
a political element in the State—saw in every man and woman not his
violent partisan, an enemy to France and to the Crown. How far he was
justified, how far he could have demanded “Is there not a cause?”
stands an open question; but the effect was terrible. The relentless
hounding down of the suspected, forms a page of history stained with
the blood of noble and gallant men. Richelieu’s crafty playing with
his marked victims, chills the soul. They were as ninepins in his
hands, lured to their destruction, sprung upon, crushed often when
most they believed themselves secure.
Sending de Thou to the scaffold for his supposed complicity in
the crime Richelieu fixed on Cinq-Mars, the handsome, insouciant,
brilliant young fellow he had himself provided for the king’s
amusement, and when the time was ripe, having done him to death by
the Lyons headsman upon a superficially-based accusation. Richelieu
was dying then. The consciousness of Death’s hand upon his harassed,
worn-out frame was fully with him; but no pity was in his heart for
Cinq-Mars. It might have been the old rankling jealousy that urged
him on, for the stern, inflexible Armand de Richelieu was a poor,
weak tool of a creature where women were concerned. “There is no
such word as fail,” he was wont to say; yet in his relations with
women, and in his gallantries he failed egregiously. No fear of
him held back Marion Delorme from the arms of Cinq-Mars, when she
yielded to his persuasions to fly with him; and self-love must have
been bitterly wounded, when Anne of Austria laughed his advances to
scorn. Richelieu was not a lady’s man. Nature had given him a brain
rarely equalled, a stupendous capacity and penetration, but she
had neglected him personally—meagre, sharp-featured, cadaverous,
scantily furnished as to beard and moustache, and lean as to those
red-stockinged legs. True, or the mere fruit of cruel scandal, that
saraband _pas seul_ he was said to have been duped into performing
for the delectation of the queen, will hang ever by the memory of the
great Lord Cardinal.