of degraded courtiers of every rank and profession. There were met
together there the vain and the ambitious, the designing and the
foolish, the humblest and the proudest of those who, whether proud or
humble, or ambitious, or vain, or crafty, were alike the devoted
servants of the monarch or the monarch's mistress--princes, cardinals,
bishops, dukes and every kind of nobility, excisemen and priests,
keepers of the royal conscience and necessary--all ministers of filth,
each in his degree, from the secretaries of state to the lowest
underlings in office--clerks of the ordnance, victualing, stamps,
customs, colonies, and postoffice, farmers and receivers general,
judges and cooks, confessors and every other caterer to the royal
appetite. This was the order of things that Ninon de l'Enclos was
contending against, and that she succeeded by methods that must be
considered saintly compared with the others, stands recorded in the
pages of history.

After Ninon had suffered from the indiscretion of the lover who made
public the story of the famous pledge given la Châtre, she lost her
fancy for the recreant, and though friendly, refused any closer tie.
He knew that he had done Ninon an injury and begged to be reinstated
in her favor. He was of charming manners and fascinating in his
pleading, but he made no impression on her heart. She agreed to pardon
him for his folly and declined to consider the matter further. Nor
would she return to the conversation, although he persisted in
referring to the matter as one he deeply regretted. When he was
departing after Ninon had assured him of her pardon, she ran after him
and called out as he was descending the stairs: "At least, Marquis,
we have not been reconciled."

Her good qualities were embalmed in the literature of the day, very