L’esprit vous satisfait, ou du moins vous console: 
Mais on prefererait de vivre jeune et folle,
Et laisser aux vieillards exempts de passions
La triste gravite de leurs reflexions.

(Mental joys satisfy you, at least they console,
But a young jolly life we prefer on the whole,
And to old chaps, exempt from passion’s sharp stings,
Leave the sad recollections of former good things.)

Nobody can make more of youth than I, and as I am holding to it by memory, I am following your example, and fit in with the present as well as I know how.

Would to Heaven, Madame Mazarin had been of your opinion!  She would still be living, but she desired to die the beauty of the world.

Madame Sandwich is leaving for the country, and departs admired in London as she is in Paris.

Live, Ninon, life is joyous when it is without sorrow.

I pray you to forward this note to M. l’Abbe de Hautefeuille, who is with Madame la Duchesse de Bouillon.  I sometimes meet the friends of M. l’Abbe Dubois, who complain that they are forgotten.  Assure him of my humble regards.

Translator’s Note—­The above was the last letter Saint-Evremond ever wrote Mademoiselle de l’Enclos, and with the exception of one more letter to his friend, Count Magalotti, Councillor of State to His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany, he never wrote any other, dying shortly afterward at the age of about ninety.  His last letter ends with this peculiar Epicurean thought in poetry: 

Je vis eloigne de la France,
Sans besoins et sans abondance,
Content d’un vulgaire destin;
J’aime la vertu sans rudesse,
J’aime le plaisir sans mollesse,
J’aime la vie, et n’en crains pas la fin.

(I am living far away from France,
No wants, indeed, no abundance,
Content to dwell in humble sphere;
Virtue I love without roughness,
Pleasures I love without softness,
Life, too, whose end I do not fear.)

DOCTRINE OF EPICURUS

EXPLAINED BY

MARSHAL DE SAINT-EVREMOND

IN A LETTER TO

THE MODERN LEONTIUM

(Ninon de L’ENCLOS)

TO THE MODERN LEONTIUM

(Ninon de L’ENCLOS)

Being the moral doctrine of the philosopher Epicurus as applicable to modern times, it is an elucidation of the principles advocated by that philosopher, by Charles de Saint-Evremond, Marechal of France, a great philosopher, scholar, poet, warrior, and profound admirer of Mademoiselle de l’Enclos.  He died in exile in England, and his tomb may be found in Westminster Abbey, in a conspicuous part of the nave, where his remains were deposited by Englishmen, who regarded him as illustrious for his virtues, learning and philosophy.