few venturing to lampoon her. Those who did so were greeted with so
much derisive laughter that they were ashamed to appear in society
until the storm had blown over.

M. de Tourielle, a member of the French Academy, and a very learned
man, became enamored of her and his love-making assumed a curious
phase. To show her that he was worthy of her consideration, he deemed
it incumbent upon him to read her long dissertations on scientific
subjects, and bored her incessantly with a translation of the orations
of Demosthenes, which he intended dedicating to her in an elaborate
preface. This was more than Ninon could bear with equanimity--a lover
with so much erudition, and his prosy essays, appealed more to her
sense of humor than to her sentiments of love, and he was laughed out
of her social circle. This angered the Academician and he thought to
revenge himself by means of an epigram in which he charged Ninon with
admiring figures of rhetoric more than a sensible academic discourse
full of Greek and Latin quotations. It would have proved the ruin of
the poor man had Ninon not come to his rescue, and explained to him
the difference between learning and love. After which he became
sensible and wrote some very good books.

It should be understood that Ninon had no secrets in which her merry
and wise "Birds" did not share. She confided to them all her love
affairs, gave them the names of her suitors, in fact, every wooer was
turned over to this critical, select society, as a committee of
investigation into quality and merit both of mind and body. In this
way she was protected from the unworthy, and when she made a
selection, they respected her freedom of choice, carefully guarding
her lover and making him one of themselves after the fitful fever was
over. They were all graduates in her school, good fellows, and had