Monsieur de L’Enclos had survived his wife only by one year. He died of a wound received in an encounter arising from a private quarrel. Had he recovered, it would probably have been to lose his head by the axe, paying the penalty of the law for some years past rigorously enforced against duelling. The scene of such encounter being most frequently the open space of the Place Royale, the locality of the cardinal’s own house—as it was of Ninon and of Marion Delorme—so that his stern eyes were constantly reminded of the murderous conflicts. The law, having been enacted by Henri IV., had fallen into abeyance, until the specially sanguinary duel between the Comte de Bussy and the Comte de Bouteville, in 1622, when de Bouteville mortally wounded de Bussy, and Richelieu inflicted the penalty of decapitation on de Bouteville and on Rosmadec his second, as he did on others who disobeyed; so that the evil was scotched almost to stamping out. It was in this fashion that Richelieu made his power felt among the nobility and wealthier classes, and let it be understood that the law was the law for all.
Almost immediately following on the death of Monsieur de L’Enclos, came that of Ninon’s old nurse, Madeleine—whose kind soul and devoted attachment were in no wise ill-affected by the small nips of eau de vie she inclined to—and just about the same time died Madame de Montaigu, her aunt at Loches; and thus within six months she had lost the few of her nearest and dearest from childhood, and she felt so saddened and desolate and heart-broken, that she formed the resolution of giving up the world and being a nun after all—yearning for the consolation which religion promises of reunion, and a fulness of sympathy not to be found in ordinary and everyday environments! Scarcely as yet with her foot on womanhood’s bank of the river of life, the warm kindly nature of Ninon was chilled and dulled by sorrow and regret; and one evening, at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, in her ardent desire to find some peace and rest of spirit, she entered into conversation with the Père d’Orléans, a renowned Jesuit, on the subject of religious belief—but his best eloquence failed in convincing her of its efficacy.
The right of private judgment, ever one of her strongest characteristics, asserted itself, and she declared herself unconvinced. “Then, mademoiselle,” said the ecclesiastic, “until you find conviction, offer Heaven your incredulity.”
But while words failed, her heart still impelled her to the idea of the cloistered life, and she went to seek it in Lorraine, at a convent of Recollettes sisters near Nancy. There were many houses of this Order in the duchy. The one sought entrance to by Ninon, was under the patronage of St Francis, and she was received with effusion by the Reverend Mother, a charming lady, herself still youthful. She had not, however, been there many days, relegated to a small cell, whose diminutive casement looked upon some immediately-facing houses, before she became impressed with the idea that, great as the desire might be to snatch in her a brand from the consuming of the wicked world, it was greater still for the little fortune she was known to possess; and with the passing of time, the gentle assuager of more poignant grief, she was beginning to feel less attracted towards the conventual mode of existence, and to wonder whether she really had the vocation for it. Meantime, the old spirit of adventure was strongly stirring her to defer the recital of a formidable list of Aves and penitential psalms, in favour of watching a window facing her loophole of a lattice, through which she could see a man busily engaged with burin and etching implements. While this in itself was not uninteresting, the interest was increased tenfold, when she contrived to discover that he was the already famous Jacques Callot, the engraver; and very little time was lost before the two had established means of communication by the aid of a long pole, to which they tied their manuscript interchange of messages and ideas—which culminated in Ninon’s descent by a ladder of ropes from the lattice, and flight from the convent.
More sober chronicles relate of Jacques Callot, that through all the curious vicissitudes and adventures of his earlier life, he remained blameless and of uncorrupted morality. It appears certain that his real inclination was ever for such paths, and the romantic love-affair which ended in his union with the woman he adored, was calculated to keep him in them; in which case the attributed version of his liaison with Ninon must be accepted with something over and above its grain of salt, and allowed to lie by. That he was a fearless, high-minded man, as well as a great artist, stands by his honoured name in a golden record; for when the imbroglio occurred between Louis XIII. and the Duke of Lorraine—in which, under the all-conquering cardinal prime-minister, France was the victor—Callot was commanded to commemorate the siege with his pencil—he refused. Callot was a Lorrainer, and the duke was his patron and liege-lord, and Callot refused to turn traitor, and prostitute his gift by recording the defeat of the duke, preferring to run the very close chance of death for high treason sooner than comply. If, as it is asserted, Ninon obtained for him the pardon of Richelieu, by virtue of some former favour or service she had done the cardinal, leaving him as yet in her debt for it, all was well that so well ended; and it adds one more to the list of Ninon’s generous acts, never neglected where she had the power to perform them for those she loved.
Whether it is an undoubted fact that the fascination of Ninon—so absolutely all-potent as she herself claims for it—did tempt Callot temporarily even from his allegiance to the love of the woman he won under such romantic circumstances, it is certain that she mercifully decided to leave him in tranquillity with his wife in Lorraine, returning to Paris in company with a little contingent of her old friends and admirers who had been engaged in fighting for their king along the north-eastern borderlands. Paris was so rich in convents, that the question irresistibly suggests itself why she should have travelled that hundred or so of miles to Nancy to take the veil. Possibly, knowing that Coligny, Scarron, Gondi, de la Rochefoucauld, St Evrémond, and other bons camarades were all in that direction, she was prompted to go thither to take final farewells of them before she stepped over the threshold masculine foot must not desecrate; but in this instance it was the propositions of man that triumphed in the face of every spiritual consideration, and all idea of the contemplative life was flung to the four winds in the delight of the old companionships and renewal of the joie de vivre. The reunion was celebrated in an impromptu feast, of reason and recherché dishes, and flow of sparkling wine, and unrestrained merriment and sallies of wit; for where Scarron and St Evrémond and de la Rochefoucauld were, wit could but abound. Next day they all started for Paris, transported thither by matchlessly swift-footed post-horses, Ninon choosing for her travelling companion en tête-à-tête, Coligny; and when the two arrived at rue des Tournelles, they did not part company; but arranged to retire to the rus in urbe of her Picpus dwelling, away by Charenton, where they established ménage in the small but beautiful old house, once the dwelling of Henri Quatre and the fair Gabrielle, with one maid-servant, and one man servitor Ninon called Perrote, who had been the faithful valet of Monsieur de L’Enclos. Here the two passed an idyllic life, where more material enjoyments were diversified by intellectual conversation, sometimes profane, but more often taking a turn so far sacred, as to include the points of doctrine upon which Catholic and Protestant differed. Coligny, as a descendant of the great murdered Huguenot leader, was a Protestant; and while Richelieu treated the Huguenots socially with indulgence, he would not tolerate them as a political party, and to be of the Reformed, was utterly to lose chance of advancement—and Ninon was ambitious for her lover, and hence the religious discussions and her endeavours to inoculate him with clear conceptions of Catholic teaching. Coligny, however, was apt to show signs of boredom on these occasions, and to yawn so portentously, that she had to desist, leaving him heretical still, when one morning the Picpus maisonette was invaded by messengers from Richelieu, accompanied by halberdiers from the Bastille, who demanded the delivering up of the young man’s sword, and bore him off a prisoner to the horrible old prison, on the charge of neglect of military duty. Once again Ninon’s intercessions with Richelieu procured release and restoration; but Coligny was ungrateful and jealous of the red-robed priest, and would-be galant homme, and passing away from Ninon’s presence, he never entered it again, and in a very few weeks was married to the sister of the Duc de Luxembourg, an alliance possibly already entered upon at an earlier date, and the real ground of his rupture with Ninon.
She soon found balm for the inflicted wounds of Coligny’s ingratitude, in the ardent admiration of the son of the Marquise de Rambouillet, seeing in him only the one absurd defect of desiring unchanging constancy, and on this point he was so tiresome that she was driven to promise fidelity for three months—“An eternity,” said Ninon, ever mocking at love, which she ranked far below friendship.
FRANÇOIS VIDUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Né en M·DC·XIII M en M·DC·LXXX