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