CHAPTER XV

Her Bohemian Environments

The daily and nightly doings at Ninon’s house in the Rue des Tournelles, if there is anything of a similar character in modern society that can be compared to them, might be faintly represented by our Bohemian circles, where good cheer, good fellowship, and freedom from restraint are supposed to reign.  There are, indeed, numerous clubs at the present day styled “Bohemian,” but except so far as the tendency to relaxation appears upon the surface, they possess very few of the characteristics of that society of “Birds” that assembled around Mademoiselle de l’Enclos.  They put aside all conventional restraint, and the mental metal of those choice spirits clashed and evolved brilliant sparks, bright rays of light, the luster of which still glitters after a lapse of more than two centuries.

Personally, Ninon was an enemy of pedantry in every form, demanding of her followers originality at all times on penalty of banishment from her circle.  The great writer, Mynard, once related with tears in his eyes that his daughter, who afterward became the Countess de Feuquieres, had no memory.  Whereat Ninon laughed him out of his sorrow: 

“You are too happy in having a daughter who has no memory; she will not be able to make citations.”

That her society was sought by very good men is evidenced by the grave theologians who found her companionship pleasant, perhaps salutary.  A celebrated Jesuit who did not scruple to find entertainment in her social circle, undertook to combat her philosophy and show her the truth from his point of view, but she came so near converting him to her tenets that he abandoned the contest remarking with a laugh: 

“Well, well, Mademoiselle, while waiting to be convinced that you are in error, offer up to God your unbelief.”  Rousseau has converted this incident into an epigram.

The grave and learned clergy of Port Royal also undertook the labor of converting her, but their labor was in vain.

“You know,” she told Fontenelle, “what use I make of my body?  Well, then, it would be easier for me to obtain a good price for my soul, for the Jansenists and Molinists are engaged in a competition of bidding for it.”

She was not bigoted in the least, as the following incident will show:  One of her friends refused to send for a priest when in extremis, but Ninon brought one to his bedside, and as the clergyman, knowing the scepticism of the dying sinner, hesitated to exercise his functions, she encouraged him to do his duty: 

“Do your duty, sir,” she said, “I assure you that although our friend can argue, he knows no more about the truth than you and I.”