So that was the little lad of whom her friend, the Abbé de Châteauneuf had spoken as the unusually intelligent child of nobly-born, but poor parents, who were great friends of his. “Bravo!” Ninon had said to him, as he departed with the fire in his hands, “you will be a clever man one of these days,”—and the sparks of that fire kindled to a flame of celebrity which is not likely to die out while the French language or any modern tongue finds expression.
“You will stifle me with roses,” said he, when, on the representation of his Irène in the winter-time, seventy-eight years later, the acclaiming crowds did him homage. The excitement was too great for him, and in the following May he died. A long life full of literary activity and of extremes of malice and generosity, stirred by the environment of the ferment of bigotry and philosophy seething in the society of the eighteenth century. Very early in his career the young pupil of Clermont, taking his family name of Voltaire, showed signs of being no model Jesuit. For the rest, it needs to recall only the memory of Ninon’s youthful protégé by his fatherly care of the grand-niece of Corneille, when he heard she was in dire need, or his defence of the unhappy Calvinist Calas, accused of the murder of his son, prompted by religious conviction, and judicially murdered by being broken on the wheel. In the face of this terrible injustice, Voltaire never rested till he had obtained such reparation for Calas’ afflicted family as money could bestow, from the public treasury of Toulouse, through the influence of the Duc de Choiseul.
The acquaintance begun in Ninon’s kitchen continued on a very pleasant footing, and in her will she bequeathed him two thousand francs with which to begin forming himself a library.
And so, in serenity and calm enjoyment of the society of the few friends time had left her of the old years, and of those the present had brought her, and in acts of generous charity among her poorer neighbours and to those who should live after, Ninon de L’Enclos passed away. “It is almost sweet to die,” she said, re-echoing the sentiment of those dear to her who had gone before, “for there in the other world we shall meet again those we have loved.”
And watching by her couch, they heard her murmur—“Adieu, my friends, adieu,” and the faint breath ceased.
“Qu’un vain espoir ne vienne pas s’offrir
Que puisse ébranler mon courage,
Je suis en age de mourir,
Que-ferais-je davantage!”