He gave the name “Leontium” to Mademoiselle de L’Enclos, and the letter was written to her under that sobriquet.  The reasoning in it will enable the reader to understand the life and character of Ninon, inasmuch as it was the foundation of her education, and formed her character during an extraordinarily long career.  It was intended to bring down to its date, the true philosophical principles of Epicurus, who appears to have been grossly misunderstood and his doctrines foully misinterpreted.

Leontium was an Athenian woman who became celebrated for her taste for philosophy, particularly for that of Epicurus, and for her close intimacy with the great men of Athens.  She lived during the third century before the Christian era, and her mode of life was similar to that of Mademoiselle de l’Enclos.  She added to great personal beauty, intellectual brilliancy of the highest degree, and dared to write, a learned treatise against the eloquent Theophrastus, thereby incurring the dislike of Cicero, the distinguished orator, and Pliny, the philosopher, the latter intimating that it might be well for her “to select a tree upon which to hang herself.”  Pliny and other philosophers heaped abuse upon her for daring, as a woman, to do such an unheard of thing as to write a treatise on philosophy, and particularly for having the assurance to contradict Theophrastus.

The Letter.

You wish to know whether I have fully considered the doctrines of
Epicurus which are attributed to me?

I can claim the honor of having done so, but I do not care to claim a merit I do not possess, and which you will say, ingenuously, does not belong to me.  I labor under a great disadvantage on account of the numerous spurious treatises which are printed in my name, as though I were the author of them.  Some, though well written, I do not claim, because they are not of my writing, moreover, among the things I have written, there are many stupidities.  I do not care to take the trouble of repudiating such things, for the reason that at my age, one hour of well regulated life, is of more interest and benefit to me than a mediocre reputation.  How difficult it is, you see, to rid one’s self of amour propre!  I quit it as an author, and reassume it as a philosopher, feeling a secret pleasure in manipulating what others are anxious about.

The word “pleasure” recalls to mind the name of Epicurus, and I confess, that of all the opinions of the philosophers concerning the supreme good, there are none which appear to me to be so reasonable as his.

It would be useless to urge reasons, a hundred times repeated by the Epicureans, that the love of pleasure and the extinction of pain, are the first and most natural inclinations remarked in all men; that riches, power, honor, and virtue, contribute to our happiness, but that the enjoyment of pleasure, let us say, voluptuousness, to include everything in a word, is the veritable aim and end whither tend all human acts.  This is very clear to me, in fact, self-evident, and I am fully persuaded of its truth.