Ninon de l'Enclos and her century

by Mary C. Rowsell

Mademoiselle de Scudéri in everyday life was, however, amiable and charming in manner and conversation—so that her personal appearance, which was far from prepossessing, hardly detracted from her fascination. She was plain of feature, and of masculine build, but this had not come in the way of the idolatrous admiration, in former days, of Conrard, the Secretary of the Académie Française; and Pelisson, the advocate and faithful friend of the ill-fated Fouquet, remained true as ever to his ardent worship of her. The years of Madeleine de Scudéri ran even to a length beyond those of her friend Ninon. She died in her ninety-fourth year.

Among the brilliant company assembling almost nightly in the salon of the rue des Tournelles, one day came, unbidden and unwelcomed, the Abbé Dubois, he who at a later time was to acquire such a prominent position at the Court of the Regency, and die a cardinal. For this man, more notorious than celebrated, Ninon conceived an instinctive dislike. The ferret face repelled her, but she did not refuse him the letter of introduction he sought of her to Monsieur de St Evrémond in London, whither he was bound.

The “French Calliope,” Madame Deshoulières, was an intimate friend of Mademoiselle de L’Enclos. Her career was romantic and even heroic. Her maiden name was Anne Antoinette Ligier de la Garde, she was a goddaughter of Anne of Austria, who held her at the font when she was christened. She was the daughter of the queen’s maître d’hôtel, and was born in one of the little apartments of the Louvre. Beauty and grace and high talent distinguished her as she grew up. Her father caused her to be very strictly reared, and no books were permitted her except philosophical and religious works. One day, however, she detected her maid reading one of the pastoral romances of d’Urfé. She was immediately fired with desire, as a true daughter of Eve, to taste of the delightful fruit of the vice of romantic fiction, and said she would ask her father’s permission for it. This frightened the bonne so much, that, to purchase her charge’s silence, she offered to lend her the interesting history of The Shepherds of Lignon, in which she had been so surreptitiously absorbed; and upon these followed the novels of Calprenède and of Madeleine de Scudéri. But if these books sufficed for all the intellectual needs of the run of the young ladies of the period, Antoinette was a girl of brains, and soon returned to her first love of more healthy and solid literature, and of poetry; and she studied for some time the art of versification under Hesnaut, whose fame is best remembered by the gifts of his pupil.

At eighteen she became the wife of Monsieur de Boisguerry, Seigneur Deshoulières, a gentleman of Poitou, in the service of the Prince de Condé. The queen had been displeased at this marriage, whereat Monsieur de la Garde explained that his child had to be provided for, and his emolument in Her Majesty’s service had not been so great that it could be forthcoming from that source. This offended the queen, and the offence was aggravated by the suspicion of Frondeur leanings hanging about him, so that Antoinette’s dowry from her royal godmother was but a small one.

Three months after their marriage, Monsieur Deshoulières was summoned to follow Condé to Spain, and his wife returned to her old home, which was, however, no longer at the Louvre, but in a small house at Auteuil.

Here she spent the time in study, finding her chief delight in the philosophical works of Gassendi, now for some years a professor of the College of France. On the return of her husband to the frontier, she hastened to meet him, and the two repaired to Brussels, where the Court received her with high distinction; but in addition to her acquirements, her grace and beauty won her admiration so marked, that it became aggressive, and she was forced to repulse the unwelcome attentions thrust upon her. This turned friends into enemies, who satisfied their revenge by representing her as a spy of Mazarin and of the queen—a far-fetched accusation enough, which, however, obtained wide credence.

The State payments to her husband were now withheld, and on seeking redress from the minister she was decreed an arrest, and sent for imprisonment to Vilvorde, where she was doomed to spend fourteen months in complete solitude, and kept from all means of communication with her friends. But Antoinette’s girlhood had been passed in the days when natural feminine weakness had been fortified by stirring public events, and Madame Deshoulières consoled herself with theological study during the time of her imprisonment, mainly of the Fathers, from Origen to St Augustine.

Only after a length of time Monsieur Deshoulières discovered the prison in which his wife was immured. Having ascertained this, he formed the bold project of carrying her off. To this end he engaged forty men, armed them to the teeth, and in the dead of a dark night, he led them to the edge of the moat of the Castle of Vilvorde, at its narrowest and shallowest part, stationing his men in the water, which they had previously filled with branches and mud, so as to form a human bridge. Arrived at the base of the wall, he fixed a ladder to the ramparts, and mounting, followed by his guard with stealthy caution, overpowered the two sentinels and gagged them. Then they hastened on to the governor’s bedroom, and putting a cord round his neck while he was in profound sleep, and a musket to his face, they detained him in durance till he had yielded up the keys of his captive’s apartments, and of the doors of the fortress. The garrison was then forced to lay down arms, and entering a waiting berline, Monsieur Deshoulières and his rescued wife gained in a few hours the ground of France.

The tidings of this intrepid act travelled as fast as they did, and Le Tellier, the Secretary of State, presented the pair to the queen and Mazarin. Anne of Austria embraced her goddaughter warmly, a general amnesty was proclaimed, and all was forgotten—so much forgotten, that Mazarin and the queen omitted to award Deshoulières the promised arrears of pay, and the pension which was to reward the two. The debts and liabilities of Deshoulières became formidable, and he had no alternative but to obtain a division of maintenance, pay up from his own small resources all he could, and retire with his wife to live on the slender dowry Anne had bestowed on her goddaughter. It did not nearly suffice for their rank and position. In order to meet their requirements, Madame Deshoulières devoted herself to her pen, and her verses, first published in the Mercure Galant, won universal admiration, but no money reward. Left to itself, the nature of the editor ever inclines to the view that kudos is enough for the author, and this particular editor gave his contributor to understand that she ought to consider herself only too fortunate to have made an appearance in his pages.

Once again the admirers looked askance and grew scornful and sarcastic, and the humour of Madame Deshoulières’ pen acquiring the sombre tints of her cruel fortunes, she was nicknamed the “Mendicant Muse.” So, with the addition of three children to maintain, the poor woman remained until the death of Monsieur Deshoulières, forsaken by her old troops of friends and admirers. Then she penned the immortal trifle beginning—