artillery, Te Deums, or such other demonstrations of joy as are
attendant upon the arrival on earth of princes and offspring of great
personages. Nevertheless, for the ninety years she occupied the stage
of life, she accomplished more in the way of shaping great national
policies, successful military movements and brilliant diplomatic
successes, than any man or body of men in the seventeenth century.

In addition to that, her genius left an impress upon music and the
fine arts, an impress so profound that the high standard of excellence
both have attained in our day is due to her efforts in establishing a
solid foundation upon which it was possible to erect a substantial
structure. Moreover, in her hands and under her auspices and guidance,
languages, belles lettres, and rhetoric received an impetus toward
perfection, and raised the French language and its literature,
fiction, poetry and drama, to so high a standard, that its productions
are the models of the twentieth century.

It was Ninon de l'Enclos whose brilliant mentality and intellectual
genius formed the minds, the souls, the genius, of such master minds
as Saint-Evremond, La Rouchefoucauld, Molière, Scarron, La Fontaine,
Fontenelle, and a host of others in literature and fine arts; the
Great Condé, de Grammont, de Sévigné, and the flower of the chivalry
of France, in war, politics, and diplomacy. Even Richelieu was not
unaffected by her influence.

Strange power exerted by one frail woman, a woman not of noble birth,
with only beauty, sweetness of disposition, amiability, goodness, and
brilliant accomplishments as her weapons! It was not a case of the
moth and the flame, but the operation of a wise philosophy, the
precepts of which were decently, moderately and carefully inculcated;