Ninon de l'Enclos and her century

by Mary C. Rowsell

The return of St Evrémond brought about the restoration of the old pleasant Monday and Friday réunions of the rue des Tournelles—whose regularity so many untoward events had greatly and for so long interfered with.

Ninon could afford to dispense with the less interesting society of the Louvre, where, except for Madame de Choisy’s friendship, no very cordial hand had ever been extended to her; while the cultured, refined Bohemianism of her salon was probably more acceptable to many of her distinguished friends. They at all events gathered there numerously. Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld, ever faithful to the beautiful Duchesse de Longueville; Condé; the brilliant society doctor of his day and memoir writer, Guy Patin; Monsieur de la Châtre, also a chronicler of his period; Monsieur de Villarceaux, Corneille, whose tragedy of Œdipus brought him back in high-heaped measure the success which had waned since the production of The Cid, so greatly that he had nearly lost heart for dramatic work; Molière—these two the brightest and best-beloved stars of Ninon’s firmament. Monsieur Voiture was now no more. His empty niche was filled by Boileau, who introduced to her his young friend, Racine. Occasionally, by kind permission only of Madame de la Sablière, came la Fontaine. Among the ladies of her company were Madame de la Fayette, the authoress of Zaïde and of the Princesse de Clèves; Madame Deshoulières, called “the French Calliope”; and, as healing Time’s wings now and again bring, it was Molière himself who effected pleasant relations once more with Julie de Rambouillet, now Duchesse de Montausier; Madeleine de Scudéri, the distinguished précieuse, held aloof.

On Wednesdays the Scarrons received their friends, most of those the same as Ninon’s. Françoise had now long been the wife of Scarron, and his wit and her beauty attracted a numerous company. The brother of Françoise had not mended his ways. He was still the ne’er-do-well result of his miserable bringing up; yet there was something not to dislike, even something of a soul of good in d’Aubigné’s evil. The poor crippled poet and his wife were happy in their union. Scarron had indeed but two faults to find in his Françoise—one of them to wit, that she devoted herself too closely to him, at the sacrifice of health and spirits. She had copied all his Roman Comique for him in her beautiful handwriting, and Scarron, noting that she looked pale and fatigued, begged Ninon to take her about a little with her into the gaieties of life.

Scarron’s chronic ailments had not affected his appetite; possibly amusement being necessarily very restricted for him, his naturally gourmand proclivities had increased. This was to such an extent, that his wife went ever in fear of his indigestions, and when he suggested that she would be so much better for occasional absences from home, Ninon did not ascribe it to pure and simple anxiety for Françoise, but also to his seizing a better chance for eating three times as much as was good for him. Her vigilance in this particular was the other defect he perceived in her. The desired opportunity, however, soon presented itself.

Monsieur Fouquet, the powerful superintendent of finance, was a friend of Ninon—that and nothing more—and one day he confided to her that he had fallen in love with the daughter of the maître d’hôtel of the Duc d’Orléans, and desired to ask her hand in marriage. He hoped, in fact believed, that she was not indifferent to him; but to make certain, he asked Ninon, such an adept in the tender passion, as he said, to watch her at the great fête he was about to give at his magnificent estate at Vaux. It was to be on a superb scale. All the Court, with all the Upper Ten, were invited guests. They were to appear in masquerade costume. Ninon, holding that the good turn Monsieur Fouquet sought of her, merited his ever generous consideration, asked him to allow her to bring a lady friend with her to the fête; this favour he accorded with great pleasure, and Ninon delightedly informed Madame Scarron that she was the chosen friend. Equally delighted, Madame Scarron selected her fancy costume; it was that of a Normandy shepherdess, and confectioned with all the good taste of Françoise. The tunic was of yellow cloth, with Venice point undersleeves, her collarette was of Flemish lace, and Ninon lent her some of her diamonds wherewith to adorn her ribbon-tied crook. Ninon’s costume was composed of pearl-grey satin, trimmed with silver lace stitched with rose-coloured silk, an apron of black velvet, and a cap plumed with crimson feathers.

With many instructions to Nanon Balbien, the maid-servant, to take good care of her master, and to keep a close eye on him at meal-time, Madame Scarron drove away in the coach with Ninon to Vaux, where they duly arrived.

Le Nôtre, the royal gardener, had received orders to construct a splendid ballroom in the middle of the park, and, in the depths of winter though it was, he achieved a triumph of gorgeous magnificence. Orange trees were massed within the huge tent, and flowers of every hue were brought together from every hothouse and possible quarter, to render the scene a veritable fairyland, glowing in the thousand lamps depending from the gilded chains winding amid the sheeny foliage.

But who has not heard of that fête, the ill-omened thing that brought its lavish giver disaster? Among the guests—named indeed first on the list of the invited—was she whom Fouquet sought to honour, perhaps even for whom he organised the entertainment—Louise de la Vallière; and among the male masquers dancing vis-à-vis to her, murmuring low as they met, was one habited as an old man in a dressing-gown, domino sort of cloak, who was, in sooth, but a young man, the king, Louis XIV. It was not the first dawning of their love that night at Vaux. Already, at a ball at the Louvre, Louis had given her a rose, one that was incomparable for sweet perfume and loveliness. Innocent or politically guilty, it was all one for the great superintendent of finance. He had dared to love the woman Louis loved, and the doom of Fouquet was sealed.

And the merry going out of Ninon and her friend also found a mournful coming in; for when they arrived in Paris next morning and Françoise alighted from the coach, Nanon hurried to the door to meet her. “Ah, mademoiselle—madame!” she cried, with a face wild with distress and terror, “he is dying! he is dying!—my poor master!”

“Bonte divine! how did it come about?” asked the two ladies in a breath.