Saint-Evremond to Ninon de l'Enclos

Love Banishes Old Age


Your life, my well beloved, has been too illustrious not to be lived
in the same manner until the end. Do not permit M. de la
Rochefoucauld's "hell" to frighten you; it was a devised hell he
desired to construct into a maxim. Pronounce the word "love" boldly,
and that of "old age" will never pass your lips.

There is so much spirit in your letters, that you do not leave me even
to imagine a decline of life in you. What ingratitude to be ashamed to
mention love, to which we owe all our merit, all our pleasures! For,
my lovely keeper of the casket, the reputation of your probity is
established particularly upon the fact that you have resisted lovers,
who would willingly have made free with the money of their friends.

Confess all your passions to make your virtues of greater worth;
however, you do not expose but the one-half of your character; there
is nothing better than what regards your friends, nothing more
unsatisfactory than what you have bestowed upon your lovers.

In a few verses, I will draw your entire character. Here they are,
giving you the qualities you now have and those you have had:

Dans vos amours on vous trouvait legère,
En amitié toujours sûre et sincère;
Pour vos amants, les humeurs de Vénus,
Pour vos amis les solides vertus: