Which, translated into reasonable English, is as much as saying: 

But I might have known * * *
* * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * *
What they say of the example, so holy, so pure,
That Ninon gives to worldlings all,
By dwelling within a nunnery’s wall. 
How many tears the poor lorn maid
Shed, when her mother, alone, unafraid,
Mid flaming tapers with coats of arms,
Priests chanting their sad funereal alarms,
Went down to the tomb in her winding sheet
To serve for the worms a mouthful sweet.

But the most poignant sorrow of the human heart is assuaged by time.  Saint-Evremond and Marion de Lormes, Richelieu’s “belle amie,” expected to profit by the calm which they knew would not be long in stealing over the heart of their friend.  Marion, however, despaired of succeeding through her own personal influence, and enlisted the sympathies of Saint-Evremond, who knew Ninon’s heart too well to imagine for a moment that the mournful, monotonous life she had embraced would satisfy her very long.  It was something to be admitted to her presence and talk over matters, a privilege they were accorded after some demur.  The first step toward ransoming their friend was followed by others until they finally made great strides through her resolution.  They brought her back in triumph to the world she had quitted through a species of “frivolity,” so they called it, of which she was never again guilty as long as she lived.

This episode in Ninon’s life is in direct contrast with one which occurred when the Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, listening to the complaints of her jealous maids of honor, attempted to dispose of Ninon’s future by immuring her in a convent.  Ninon’s celebrity attained such a summit, and her drawing rooms became so popular among the elite of the French nobility and desirable youth, that sad inroads were made in the entourage of the Court, nothing but the culls of humanity being left for the ladies who patronized the royal functions.  In addition to this, she excited the envy and jealousy of a certain class of women, whom Ninon called “Jansensists of love,” because they practiced in public the puritanic virtues which they did not even have tact enough to render agreeable.  It is conceivable that Ninon’s brilliant attractions, not to say seductive charms, and her unparalleled power to attract to her society the brightest and best men of the nation, engendered the most violent jealousy and hatred of those whose feebler charms were ignored and relegated to the background.  The most bitter complaints and accusations were made against her to the Queen Regent, who was beset on all sides by loud outcries against the conduct of a woman whom they were powerless to imitate, until, to quiet their clamors, she deemed it her duty to act.

Anne of Austria accordingly sent Ninon, by special messenger, a peremptory order to withdraw to a convent, giving her the power of selection.  At first Anne intended to send her to the convent of Repentant Girls (Filles Repenties), but the celebrated Bauton, one of the Oiseaux des Tournelles, who loved a good joke as well as he did Ninon, told her that such a course would excite ridicule because Ninon was neither a girl nor a repentant (ni fille, ni repentie), for which reason, the order was changed leaving Ninon to her own choice of a prison.