Having decided upon her career, Ninon converted her property into prudent and safe securities, and purchased a city house in the Rue des Tournelles au Marais, a locality at that time the center of fashionable society, and another for a summer residence at Picpusse, in the environs of Paris.  A select society of wits and gallant chevaliers soon gathered around her, and it required influence as well as merit to gain an entrance into its ranks.  Among this elite were Count de Grammont, Saint-Evremond, Chapelle, Moliere, Fontenelle, and a host of other no less distinguished characters, most of them celebrated in literature, arts, sciences, and war.  Ninon christened the society “Oiseaux des Tournelles,” an appellation much coveted by the beaux and wits of Paris, and which distinguished the chosen company from the less favored gentlemen of the great metropolis.

Among those who longed for entrance into this charming society of choice spirits was the Count de Charleval, a polite and accomplished chevalier, indeed, but of no particular standing as a literary character.  Nothing would do, however, but a song of triumph as a test of his competency and he accomplished it after much labor and consumption of midnight oil.  Scarron has preserved the first stanza in his literary works, the others being lost to the literary world, perhaps with small regret.  The sentiments expressed in the first stanza rescued from oblivion will be sufficient to indicate the character of the others: 

“Je ne suis plus oiseau des champs,
Mais de ces oiseaux des Tournelles
Qui parlent d’amour en tout temps,
Et qui plaignent les tourterelles
De ne se baiser qu’au printemps.”

Which liberally translated into English will run substantially as follows: 

No more am I a wild bird on the wing,
But one of the birds of the Towers, who
The love in their hearts always sing,
And pity the poor Turtle Doves that coo
And never kiss only in spring.

Scarron alludes to the delicacy of the Count’s taste and the refinement of his wit, by saying of him:  “The muses brought him up on blanc mange and chicken broth.”

How Ninon kept together this remarkable coterie can best be understood by an incident unparalleled in female annals.  The Count de Fiesque, one of the most accomplished nobles of the French court, had it appears, grown tired of an attachment of long standing between Ninon and himself, before the passion of the former had subsided.  A letter, containing an account of his change of sentiments, with reasons therefor, was presented his mistress, while employed at her toilette in adjusting her hair, which was remarkable for its beauty and luxuriance, and which she regarded as the apple of her eye.  Afflicted by the unwelcome intelligence, she cut off half of her lovely tresses on the impulse of the moment, and sent them as her answer to the Count’s letter.  Struck by this unequivocal proof of the sincerity of her devotion to him, the Count returned to his allegiance to a mistress so devoted, and thenceforward retained it until she herself wearied of it and desired a change.