NINON DE L'ENCLOS

LIFE AND LETTERS


INTRODUCTION


The inner life of the most remarkable woman that ever lived is here
presented to American readers for the first time. Ninon, or
Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, as she was known, was the most beautiful
woman of the seventeenth century. For seventy years she held
undisputed sway over the hearts of the most distinguished men of
France; queens, princes, noblemen, renowned warriors, statesmen,
writers, and scientists bowing before her shrine and doing her homage,
even Louis XIV, when she was eighty-five years of age, declaring that
she was the marvel of his reign.

How she preserved her extraordinary beauty to so great an age, and
attracted to her side the greatest and most brilliant men of the
century, is told in her biography, which has been entirely re-written,
and new facts and incidents added that do not appear in the French
compilations.

Her celebrated "Letters to the Marquis de Sévigné," newly translated,
and appearing for the first time in the United States, constitute the