“Unfortunate,” cried Ninon submitting to his embraces, “there are destinies beyond human prudence to direct.  What have I not attempted to do to calm your agitated spirit?  What mystery do you force me to unfold?”

“Ah, you are about to deceive me again,” interrupted the Chevalier, “I do not perceive in your eyes the love I had the right to expect.  I recognize in your obscure language an injustice you are about to commit; you hope to cure me of my love, but disabuse yourself of that fancy; the cruel triumph you seek to win is beyond the united strength of both of us, above any imaginable skill, beyond the power of reason itself.  It seems to listen to nothing but its own intoxication, and at the same time rush to the last extremity.”

“Stop,” exclaimed Ninon, indignant at this unreasoning folly, “this horrible love shall not reach beyond the most sacred duties.  Stop, I tell you, monster that you are, and shudder with dismay.  Can love flourish where horror fills the soul?  Do you know who you are and who I am?  The lover you are pursuing—­”

“Well!  That lover?” demanded the Chevalier.

“Is your mother,” replied Ninon; “you owe me your birth.  It is my son who sighs at my feet, who talks to me of love.  What sentiments do you think you have inspired me with?  Monsieur de Gersay, your father, through an excess of affection for you, wished you to remain ignorant of your birth.  Ah, my son, by what fatality have you compelled me to reveal this secret?  You know to what degree of opprobrium the prejudiced have put one of your birth, wherefore it was necessary to conceal it from your delicacy of mind, but you would not have it so.  Know me as your mother, oh, my son, and pardon me for having given you life.”

Ninon burst into a flood of tears and pressed her son to her heart, but he seemed to be crushed by the revelations he heard.  Pale, trembling, nerveless, he dared not pronounce the sweet name of mother, for his soul was filled with horror at his inability to realize the relationship sufficiently to destroy the burning passion he felt for her person.  He cast one long look into her eyes, bent them upon the ground, arose with a deep sigh and fled.  A garden offered him a refuge, and there, in a thick clump of bushes, he drew his sword and without a moment’s hesitation fell upon it, to sink down dying.

Ninon had followed him dreading some awful calamity, and there, in the dim light of the stars, she found her son weltering in his blood, shed by his own hand for love of her.  His dying eyes which he turned toward her still spoke ardent love, and he expired while endeavoring to utter words of endearment.

Le Sage in the romance of Gil Blas has painted this horrible catastrophe of Ninon de l’Enclos in the characters of the old woman Inisilla de Cantarilla, and the youth Don Valerio de Luna.  The incident is similar to that which happened to Oedipus, the Theban who tore out his eyes after discovering that in marrying Jocasta, the queen, he had married his own mother.  Le Sage’s hero, however, mourns because he had not been able to commit the crime, which gives the case of Ninon’s son a similar tinge, his self-immolation being due, not to the horror of having indulged in criminal love for his own mother, but to the regret at not having been able to accomplish his purpose.