of men,” and was guilty of the most flagrant crimes such as judicial bribery and political corruption.  We read that Aspasia had some great and many amiable qualities; so too had Ninon de l’Enclos; and it is worthy of consideration, how far we judge candidly or wisely in condemning such characters in gross, and treating their virtues as Saint Austin was wont to deal with those of his heathen adversaries, as no better than “splendid vices,” so unparalleled in their magnitude as to become virtues by the operation of the law of extremes.  There was no law permitting a man to marry his sister, and there was no law forbidding King Cambyses to do as he liked.

Another grave point to be considered is this:  The world, as it now stands, its laws, systems of government, manners and customs, and social conditions, have been built up on these same “splendid vices,” and whenever they have been tamed into subjection to mediocrity—­let us say to clerical, or ecclesiastical domination;—­government, society and morals have retrograded.  The social condition in France during Ninon de l’Enclos’ time, and in England during the reign of Charles II, is startling evidence of this accusation.  Moreover, it is fast becoming the condition to-day, a fact indicated by the almost universal demand for a revolution in social ethics, the foundation to which, for some reason, has become awry, threatening to topple down the structure erected upon it.  Society can see nothing to originate, an incalculable number of attempts to better human conditions always proving failures, and worsening the human status.  It is dawning upon the minds of the true lovers of humanity, that there is nothing else to be done, but to revert to the past to find the key to any possible reform, and to that past we are edging rapidly, though, it must be said unwillingly, in the hope and expectation that the old foundations are possessed of sufficient solidity to support a new or re-modeled structure.

The life of Ninon de l’Enclos, upon this very point, furnishes food for profitable reflection, inasmuch as it gives an insight into the great results to be obtained by the following of the precepts of an ancient philosophy which seems to have survived the clash of ages of intellectual and moral warfare, and to have demonstrated its capacity to supply defects in segregated dogmatic systems wholly incapable of any syncretic tendencies.

CHAPTER III

Youth of Ninon de l’Enclos

Anne de l’Enclos, or “Ninon,” as she has always been familiarly called by the world at large, was born at Paris in 1615.  What her parents were, or what her family, is a matter of little consequence.  To all persons who have attained celebrity over the route pursued by her, original rank and station are not of the least moment.  By force of his genius in hewing for himself a niche in history, Napoleon was truly his own ancestor, as it is said he loved to remark pleasantly.  So with Ninon de l’Enclos, the novelty of the career she laid out for herself to follow, and did follow until the end with unwavering constancy, justifies us in regarding her as the head of a new line, or dynasty.