his remark is true-but bestowed them on those objects only who had gained her transient affection.

At no period, and amongst no description of English women, could we find a parallel example to that of Ninon de l'Enclos. It would be impossible to defend, and difficult to extenuate, her maxims and the conduct they induced her to pursue, in any state of English society. We know not whether we are moved by a mistaken leniency, but we can scarcely find it in us to extend the same rigid measure to the illustrious Ninon, which we should unhesitatingly apply to our less tempted and better guarded countrywomen. There is much to be urged in palliation, if nothing in defence, of the victim of the Cardinal de Richelieu. That minister had just succeeded in consolidating the usurpations of the prerogative on the rights of the noblesse and the people, which had been silently advancing during the preceding reigns, and was followed by the long period of unexampled misgovernment, which oppressed and impoverished and degraded every rank and every order of men in the French empire, and ceased only with the Revolution. It is somewhat pleasant, in the midst of a review of the Memoirs of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, to find ourselves thus suddenly immersed in a deep political disquisition. But this is not the only instance in which the inseparable connexion of public maxims of government with private morals, make it necessary to refer to state-affairs for an explanation of those of individuals. By the change we allude to, a change so well described and so feelingly lamented by Montesquieu, the whole body of the French nobility and the middle class of citizens were reduced to a servile attendance on the court, as the only means of advancement and reward. Every species of industry and merit in these classes was sedulously discouraged; and the motive of honourable competition for honourable things being withdrawn, no pursuit or occupation was left them, but the frivolous duties or the degrading pleasures of the palace. Next to the king, the women naturally became the first objects of their effeminate devotion; and it is difficult to say, which were soonest corrupted by courtiers consummate in the arts of adulation and unwearied in their exercise. The sovereign rapidly degenerated into an accomplished despot, and the women into intriguers and coquettes. Every thing known in England by the name of morals, as applied to the conduct of the state, or the manners and deportment of the sex, underwent a fatal degradation. We shall here, however, leave the king, and proceed with the women only-and we trust our readers are now satisfied of the use of our dissertation on the decline and fall of the ancient state of things in France. Whatever, then, may be alleged by serious

and professed moralists on this occasion, we are content to appeal to the manners and customs of the court of Louis the Thirteenth, or rather of the Cardinal de Richelieu, in extenuation of the conduct of Ninon. We are persuaded our appeal will be admitted, and shall urge our suit no farther.

To return to Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, we are now told, that having thus entered on her career, and disposed of her property in prudent and safe securities, she purchased a townhouse in the Rue des Tournelles au Marais, at that time the centre of fashionable company, and another for her summer residence at Picpusse, in the environs of the capital. Shortly after this establishment, we read of the only sentimental attachment in which Ninon seems to have indulged throughout her long career of pleasure and dissipation. It is scarce worth while to mention, that the object of her early regard was Gaspar, Comte de Coligny, afterwards Duc de Chatillon, who fell in the affair of Charenton, in 1649. It is not improbable, that her experience of the suffering attending the decay of such attachments-a suffering scarce adverted to by those who only contemplate the intercourse of the sexes, through the medium of poetry and sentiment-had considerable influence in determining her future conduct. She seems, at an early period, to have adopted the determination she adhered to during the rest of her life, of retaining so much only of the female character as was forced on her by nature and the insuperable laws of society. She would say to her friends: "I soon saw, that women were put off with the most frivolous and unreal privileges, while every solid advantage was retained by the stronger sex-from that moment I determined on abandoning my own, and assuming that of the men." Acting on this principle, her society was chiefly composed of persons of her adopted sex; of whom the most celebrated of their time made her house a constant place of meeting. It is useless to make a catalogue of these celebrated persons. As their chief claim to distinction was founded on their talents for society and their agreeable manners, their names are now almost as obscure as they were once notorious. Every reader, however, is acquainted with those of the Comte de Grammont, St. Evremont, Chapelle, Moliere, Fontenelle, and many others of the Oiseaux des Tournelles-an appellation then much coveted by the beaux and wits of Paris, and which distinguished the chosen visitors of Ninon, from the less favoured idlers of the metropolis.

"Je ne suis plus Oiseau des champs,
Mais de ces Oiseaux des Tournelles
Qui parlent d'amour en tout temps,

Et qui plaignent les Tourterelles

De ne se baiser qu'au printems."

Such is the first stanza of a song of triumph, composed on his admission into this illustrious corps, by the Comte de Charleval; of whom Scarron, speaking of the delicacy of his taste and the refinement of his wit, asserted-" Que les muses ne le nourissoient que de blanc manger et d'eau de poulet." With this description of the Count's genius, the stanza we have quoted, and which unfortunately is all that remains of M. de Charleval, sufficiently accords. It is just what we should look for from a petit-maître, extenuated by the antiphlogistic regimen of "blanc-manger and chicken-broth."

Among the members of Ninon's coterie, there were many whose lives abound with anecdotes which our limits compel us, somewhat reluctantly, to omit. We will not tell the story of the last of the thousand loves of the once famous Desyveteaux-but we cannot withhold an anecdote of a certain Monsieur d'Elbenc, to which we find nothing equal in the annals of the Salpetrière. The great object of enthusiasm with Monsieur d'Elbénc was epic poetry-and like most persons in similar conditions, Monsieur d'Elbénc was up to his ears in debt. We are gravely told of his calling one morning on Ménage, to request a special favour-which was, that he would write an epic poem. If he had asked him to pay his debts, we should scarcely have been so much surprised.

Numerous as were her acquaintance, a catalogue raisonnée of Ninon's lovers would scarcely be less extensive. For this and other reasons, we decline the task of presenting our readers with an accurate and complete account. Some of them, however, must be mentioned, and we may as well commence with Monsieur le Marquis de Villarceaux. According to the fashion of the day, M. de Villarceaux, who seems to have monopolized the favours of our heroine more undividedly, and for a greater period of time than any other of her aspirants, forsook his wife for a mistress. During the troubles of the Fronde, Ninon resided at his country-house for three successive years-a remarkable instance of constancy in so frail a lady. Of the indignation which this conduct excited in Madame de Villarceaux, a ludicrous instance is recorded. Intending one day, with the incautious partiality of a mother, to exhibit her son's attainments before a large company, she desired his tutor, who was an Italian, to examine him on some subject touching his studies. The pedagogue unhappily stumbled on the following ill-timed query-Quem habuit successorem Belus, rex Assyriorum? To which the boy replied, with more accuracy than usually attends such exhibitions, and with an

Italian tone of pronunciation, which heightened_the_resemblance of the sounds-Ninum. The enraged mother imagining, by a natural error, that the King of the Assyrians, and the successor of Belus, was no other than Ninon de l'Enclos, and persuaded that the question was intended to produce the answer, lavished her objurgations on the unlucky tutor, for teaching her son to laugh at the faults of his father.

That Ninon could inspire her admirers with the excess both of passion and esteem, is sufficiently evident from the following anecdotes. In the midst of a new attachment between Ninon, on the one part, and the Marquis de Châtres, on the other, the latter was ordered to his regiment by a command as peremptory as it was sudden. In spite of the known character of his mistress, this vain or foolish lover employed every species of entreaty to secure her fidelity in his absence. Amongst many expedients directed to this point, his clear-sighted passion suggested the fortunate idea of a bond of constancy fairly written, subscribed and sealed by the hand of his frail mistress. Whether this bond was sufficient to quiet his suspicions we are not informed. But we are told, as we should naturally expect, that Ninon was not long restrained by this legal document, from forming a fresh connexion.-Ah! le bon billet qu'a la Châtres-Only think of la Châtres' bond-said the consciencestricken delinquent, at a moment when the reflection came too late.

M. de Gourville, an intimate friend of Ninon's, adhered, in the wars of the Fronde, to the party of the Prince of Condé. Compelled to quit Paris, to avoid being hanged in person, as he was in effigy in 1661, he divided the care of a large sum of ready money, between Ninon de l'Enclos and the Grand Pénitencier of Nôtre Dame. The money was deposited in two caskets. On his return from exile, he applied to the priest for his property, and was not a little surprised, that instead of preserving it for the owner, the depositary had distributed it amongst the poor for the good of the owner's soul. Gourville, disgusted at this flagrant hypocrisy in one whose profession required the most scrupulous honesty and good faith, applied to Mademoiselle de l'Enclos with an apprehensive heart, little doubting that the contents of her casket had been employed, during his absence, in similar works of charity. His fears were by no means lessened, when she intreated his forgiveness for a great misfortune occasioned by his banishment. He was, however, somewhat relieved, when she continued, by observing, that during that period she had lost her taste for those very familiar attentions with which he had formerly honoured her; and as for the twenty thousand crowns he had entrusted to her keeping, he had better withdraw them from her hands, as she

should wish to see him, for the future, on no other footing than that of a friendly intimacy. Surprised at the contrast between her conduct and that of her reverend co-depositary, Gourville related the story of the latter without concealing his surprise at the different mode of action pursued by the clergyman and the professed woman of gallantry. Her reply is less delicate than witty; but the whole business has given her the name of la belle gardeuse de cassette. Voltaire, whose vigilant antipathy no anecdote of this nature could escape, has made it, with some variation, the subject of a comedy, well known to every admirer of the French drama, under the name of La Dépositaire.

In spite of her systematic fickleness in "affairs of the heart," Ninon is said to have been instigated, either by love or vanity, to a sacrifice almost unparalleled in the annals of female coquetry. The Comte de Fiesque, one of the most accomplished nobles of the French court, had, it seems, grown tired of an attachment of some standing between Ninon and himself, before the passion of the former had subsided. A letter, containing an account of the change of his sentiments, was presented to his mistress, while employed at her toilette in adjusting her hair, which was remarkable for its beauty and luxuriance. Afflicted by the unwelcome intelligence, she cut off half her tresses, and sent them as her answer to the Count. He was struck by this unequivocal proof of the sincerity of her passion, and restored his allegiance to a mistress so devoted and so faithful, who thenceforward retained it till she herself grew weary of his attentions.

Of the Marquis de Sévigné, son of the celebrated authoress of those charming letters, which every body has read, and the person to whom the putative Epistles of Ninon are addressed, we feel no great inclination to speak at length. The story of his double intrigue with Mademoiselle de l'Enclos and La Chammelé, or Champ-mêle, at that time an actress of great repute, is neither honourable to himself, nor would it be amusing to the reader. Amongst the letters of his mother, there are several relating to this affair.

We have a saying of Ninon's, that had she been consulted at the creation of our race, she would have advised the deity to have transferred the wrinkles of the forehead to the heel. In her own case, this would have been no advantage; for her wrinkles seem never to have diminished her power of pleasing. A singular and ludicrous adventure, and the last of this nature on the list, occurred to her at a period so late in life, that we are almost tempted to believe the story which was current amongst her less durable and attractive contemporaries, that in her youth a Noctambule, or a little black man had appeared to her, from whom she received a promise of perpetual beauty.