nor caused the slightest flurry in her peaceful life. She
was too philosophical to regret the loss of what she did not esteem of
any value, and saw Chapelle slipping away from her with tranquillity
of mind. It was only during moments of gayety when she abandoned
herself to the play of an imagination always laughing and fertile,
that she repeated the sacrilegious wish of the pious king of Aragon,
who wished that he had been present at the moment of creation, when,
among the suggestions he could have given Providence, he would have
advised him to put the wrinkles of old age where the gods of Pagandom
had located the feeble spot in Achilles.

If Ninon ever felt a pang on account of the ungenerous conduct of
Chapelle, his disciple, the illustrious Abbe de Chaulieu, the Anacreon
of the age, who was called, when he made his entree into the world of
letters "the poet of good fellowship," more than compensated her for
the injury done by his pastor. The Abbe was the Prior of Fontenay,
whither Ninon frequently accompanied Madame the Duchess de Bouillon
and the Chevalier d'Orleans. The Duchess loved to joke at the expense
of the Abbe, and twit him about his wasted talents, which were more
adapted to love than to his present situation. It may be that the
worthy Abbe, after thinking over seriously what was intended to be a
mere pleasantry, concluded that Madame the Duchess was right, and that
he possessed some talent in the direction of love. However that might,
have been, it is certain that he had cast an observant and critical
eye on Ninon, and he now openly paid her court, not unsuccessfully it
should be known.

The Abbe Gedoyn was her last lover so far as there is any account of
her amours. The story is related by Remond, surnamed "The Greek," and
must be taken with a grain of salt as Ninon was at that time
seventy-nine years of age. This Remond, notwithstanding her age, had
made violent love to Ninon without meeting with any success. Perhaps
he was trying an experiment, being a learned man, anxious to ascertain
when the fire of passion became extinct in the human breast. Ninon
evidently suspected his ardent professions for she refused to listen
to him and forbade his visits altogether.

"I was the dupe of his Greek erudition," she explained, "so I banished
him from my school. He was always wrong in his philosophy of the
world, and was unworthy of as sensible a society as mine." She often
added to this: "After God had made m