most remarkable pathology of the female heart, its motives, objects,
and secret aspirations, ever penned. With unsparing hand she unmasks
the human heart and unveils the most carefully hidden mysteries of
femininity, and every one who reads these letters will see herself
depicted as in a mirror.

At an early age she perceived the inequalities between the sexes, and
refused to submit to the injustice of an unfair distribution of human
qualities. After due deliberation, she suddenly announced to her
friends: "I notice that the most frivolous things are charged up to
the account of women, and that men have reserved to themselves the
right to all the essential qualities; from this moment I will be a
man." From that time--she was twenty years of age--until her death,
seventy years later, she maintained the character assumed by her,
exercised all the rights and privileges claimed by the male sex, and
created for herself, as the distinguished Abbé de Chateauneauf says,
"a place in the ranks of illustrious men, while preserving all the
grace of her own sex."




LIFE OF NINON DE L'ENCLOS



CHAPTER I

Ninon de l'Enclos as a Standard