men and women, but even if women did not
flock to her side, she could console herself for having had men in her
young days to please."

The celebrated English geometrician, Huygens, visited Ninon during a
sojourn at Paris in the capacity of ambassador. He was so charmed
with the attractions of her person, and with her singing, that he fell
into poetry to express his admiration. French verses from an
Englishman who was a geometrician and not a poet, were as surprising
to Ninon and her friends as they will be to the reader. They are not
literature but express what was in the mind of the famous scientist:

"Elle a cinq instruments dont je suis amoureux,
Les deux premiers, ses mains, les deux autres, ses yeux;
Pour le dernier de tous, et cinquieme qui reste,
Il faut etre galant et leste."

In the year 1696, when Ninon had reached eighty, she had several
attacks of illness which worried her friends exceedingly. The Marquis
de Coulanges writes: "Our amiable l'Enclos has a cold which does not
please me." A short time afterward he again wrote: "Our poor l'Enclos
has a low fever which redoubles in the evening, and a sore throat
which worries her friends." These trifling ailments were nothing to
Ninon, who, though growing feeble, maintained her philosophy, as she
said: "I am contenting myself with what happens from day to day;
forgetting to-day what occurred yesterday, and holding on to a used up
body as one that has been very agreeable." She saw the term of her
life coming to an end without any qualms or fear. "If I could only
believe with Madame de Chevreuse, that by dying we can go and talk
with all our friends in the other world, it would be a sweet thought."

Madame de Maintenon, then in the height of her power and influence,
had never forgotten the friend of her youth, and now, she offered her
lodgings at Versailles. It is said that her intention was to enable
the king to profit by an intimacy with a woman of eighty-five years
who, in spite of bodily infirmities, possessed the same vivacity of
mind and delicacy of taste which had contributed to her great renown,
much more than her personal charms and frailties. But Ninon was born
for liberty, and had never been willing to sacrifice her philosophical
tranquility for the hope of greater fortune and position in the world.
Accordingly, she thanked her old friend, and as the only concession
she would grant, consented to stand in the chapel of Versailles where
Louis the Grea