Superwomen Part 3

And he vanished.

To a generation that has subst.i.tuted science for superst.i.tion, this tale of the Man in Black reads like stark nonsense. Perhaps it is. But no one in the seventeenth century thought so. It was an age rife with demon legends; legends of favors granted to mortals in return for a residuary mortgage on their souls; and all that sort of thing. The tale of Faust was still almost brand-new. Compared with many of the traditions that then pa.s.sed for solid fact, the incident of Ninon and the Man in Black was almost commonplace.

We laugh at such things; probably with due justification. Yet was Ninon's adventure more inexplicable than some of the absolutely authenticated cases of Cagliostro's magic? As, for a single example, when on a certain date Cagliostro announced in Paris: "The Empress Maria Theresa of Austria died this morning." This was long before the time of telegraphy or even of railroads. It was a journey of several days from Paris to Vienna. Dispatches, reaching the French court a week later, announced the unforeseen death of Maria Theresa at the very hour named by Cagliostro.

Ninon may have invented the Man in Black. Or he may have been one of the many quacks who hung on the fringes of courts and made capital out of the superst.i.tious folly of the rich. Or perhaps----

At all events, seventy years later, Ninon had either a most remarkable encounter with the same man, or else, in her dying moments, she took odd trouble to substantiate a silly lie that was nearly three-quarters of a century old. Finish the story and then form your own theories.

Paris was alive in those days with t.i.tled women whose antecedents were doubtful and about whose characters there could unluckily be no doubt.

They moved in the best society--or, rather, in the highest. Most of them made a living by one form or another of graft. And always there was an exclusive cla.s.s of women who would not receive them.

Ninon quickly proved she had neither lot nor parcel with these t.i.tled adventuresses. From first to last she accepted not a sou, not a jewel, not a favor--political or otherwise--from the grands seigneurs who delighted to do her honor. From first to last, too, she accepted as her due the friendship of the most respectable and respected members of her own s.e.x.

She was never an adventuress, never a grafter, never a climber. She loved for love's own sake. And if the men to whom in lightning succession she gave her resilient heart chanced often to be among the foremost of the realm, it was only because the qualities that made them what they were made them also the type of man Ninon preferred.

She never benefited in any material way from their adoration. The nearest approach was when Richelieu, the grim old iron cardinal, bent his ecclesiastical and consumptive body before her altar. She used her power over Richelieu freely, but never for herself; always to soften the punishment of some luckless man or woman who had fallen under the rod of his eminence's displeasure.

Thereby, and through Richelieu's love for her, Ninon clashed with no less a personage than the Queen of France herself.

When Anne of Austria came from Spain to be the bride of Louis XIII of France, Richelieu fell in love with the pretty young queen. Anne had not wit enough to appreciate the cardinal's genius or to fear his possible hate. So--seeing in him only a homely and emaciated little man, whose pretensions she considered laughable--the queen hit on a scheme of ridding herself forever of Richelieu's love sighs.

She pretended to listen to his courtship, then told him coyly that his austerity and lack of human weakness and of humor made her afraid of him. The enamored Richelieu insisted that he could be as human and as fun loving as any other man. Anne bade him prove it by dressing as a circus clown and dancing a saraband for her. She said she would hide behind the curtains of a room in the palace and watch him do it. Then, were she convinced that he could really unbend and could she overcome her fear of his lofty dignity, she would come forth and tell him so.

The all-powerful Richelieu--the man of blood, whom even the haughtiest n.o.bles feared--so far lost every remnant of sanity as to do as the queen bade him. As a harlequin, he capered and leaped about the empty room, his eyes ever on the curtain at its far end.

Suddenly, in the midst of his idiotic performance, the curtain was dashed aside; a howl of laughter swept the room; and the queen stood revealed to his gaze. Cl.u.s.tered around her and reeling with mirth were a score of courtiers; men and women both.

From that day Richelieu was Anne's sworn foe. He wrecked her repute with the king, and for a long time managed to have her kept a prisoner in the palace. In a thousand ways he made her life a torment.

And now, through the grim cardinal's love for Ninon de L'Enclos, Anne thought she saw a way of striking back at her enemy. She sent for Ninon, chided her for her mode of living, and ended by ordering her sharply to retire at once to a convent. Ninon simply smiled at the command, curtsied to the queen, and said demurely:

"I will gladly go to any convent your majesty may designate--just as soon as I become as unattractive to men as is the woman who wants to send me there."

She left the royal presence. And so great was the power of the girl's beauty in the hearts of those in France's high places, Anne did not dare put her command into effect. The tale of the conversation spread like the prehistorically bromidic "wildfire," and Ninon won new laurels thereby.

The Duke of St. Evremond, at that time one of the greatest men in Europe, offered her his heart and his princely fortune. She replied that his heart was a precious gift which she would prize forever--or for a month or two at the very least; but that she had no use whatever for his fortune, as she had all the money she needed and more would be only a burden.

And the duke--veteran of many a love affair where fortunes had counted for far more than hearts--made the quaint, historic reply:

"~Mademoiselle, tu es un honnete homme!~" ("Mademoiselle, you are an honest man!")

Three generations of Sevignes--father, son, and grandson--in turn loved Ninon during her seventy-five years of heartbreaking. Love for her seemed a hereditary trait in the Sevigne family.

But it was the old Duke of St. Evremond, of all her numberless wooers, for whom Ninon cared most. Though their love was soon dead, they remained loyal and devoted friends to the day of the duke's death.

Their correspondence--prettily formal, yet with an undercurrent of true affection--is still extant. And through life Ninon ran always to the duke with every sorrow or perplexity; notably when, at the age of sixty, she discovered her first wrinkle, an all but invisible crease between her brows. In horror she related to St. Evremond the fearful tragedy. With a laugh he banished her dread.

"That is no wrinkle, ma pet.i.te," he rea.s.sured her. "Love placed it there to nestle in."

The mighty Prince de Conde, the left-handedly royal D'Estrees, La Rochefoucauld (the Machiavelli of France,) and many another of like rank and attainment were proud to count themselves Ninon's worshipers.

To no one did she show more favor than to another. King of France or Scarron, the humpback poet--so long as they could amuse her, Ninon gave no thought to their t.i.tles or wealth or name. To her, one was as good as another. To none did she give fidelity. Nearly all of them she treated outrageously. Yet of them all, only one was ever driven away by her caprices before she was fully ready to dismiss him.

That sole exception was the gallant Comte de Fiesque, who, for a brief s.p.a.ce of time, held her wandering heart and thoughts. Ninon as a rule was not quarrelsome. But she and De Fiesque were as flint and steel.

Their affair was one fierce series of spats and disputes that blazed out at last in a pyrotechnic row.

As a result of this climax quarrel, De Fiesque scuttled away in red wrath, vowing that he was forever and ever done with so ill-tempered and cranky a woman as Ninon de L'Enclos.

Ninon was aghast. Paris was aghast. France was aghast. The love world at large was aghast. For the first time in her whole hectic life, Ninon de L'Enclos had been deserted--actually deserted! And by a n.o.body like De Fiesque! She who had snubbed a king, had tired of Condez, had yawned daintily in the half-monarchical face of D'Estrees himself!

It was unbelievable. For an instant her fame as a peerless and all-conquering Wonder Woman threatened to go into partial eclipse. But only for an instant.

De Fiesque, placed during a little hour on a pinnacle of flaring originality, began to receive tenderly reproachful letters from Ninon, beseeching him to come back to her, saying she had been wrong in their dispute, begging his forgiveness--Ninon, to whom princes had knelt trembling!--promising all sorts of meek, womanly behavior if only he would cure her heartbreak by a word of love.

These letters of hers to her deserter would have moved an equestrian statute to maudlin tears. But De Fiesque's pride had been too deeply cut by that last quarrel, to let him relent. Besides, he was vastly enjoying his novel position as the only man on earth to whom Ninon de L'Enclos had made such an appeal. So while his fellow courtiers alternately envied him and longed to kick him, they wondered what might be the secret of his fascination over Ninon.

Thus, for a few days, matters stood. Then Ninon hit on a master stroke. The thing that had first attracted De Fiesque to her had been the glory of her red-gold hair. He had loved to bury his face in its shimmering, soft ma.s.ses, to run its silk strands through his fingers.

Incidentally, in the course of their epoch-marking quarrel, he had called Ninon supremely vain and selfish.

Now she cut off all her wonderful hair; cut it off, wrapped it up, and sent it, without a word of explanation, to De Fiesque. He understood.

She had made this supreme sacrifice for him--for the man who had deserted her. To him she was offering this chief beauty of hers.

De Fiesque's pride vanished. Through the streets he ran, bareheaded, to Ninon's house. Into her presence he dashed and flung himself at her feet, imploring forgiveness for his brutality and vowing that he loved her alone in all the world.

But the rest of the dialogue did not at all work out along any recognized lines of lovers' reconciliations. Ninon patiently heard to an end De Fiesque's blubbered protestations of devotion. Then, very calmly and triumphantly, she pointed to the door.

The interview was over. So was the affair. Ninon de L'Enclos was vindicated. No lover had ever permanently deserted her. There was no man so stubborn that she could not lure him back to her. The De Fiesque incident was closed. All that remained for Ninon to do was to introduce among Paris women a temporary fashion of wearing the hair short. Which she promptly did. And thus she suffered not at all by her ruse.

Some two centuries later, George Sand, who had read of the incident, tried the same trick to win back Alfred de Musset. In her case, it was a right dismal failure. De Musset, too, was entirely cognizant of the story of Ninon's shorn hair. And even without her hair, Ninon was lovely; while, even with hers, George Sand was hideous.

Queen Christina of Sweden came to France. Ninon delighted the eccentric Swede. Christina made a confidante and familiar friend of her. She begged Ninon to return with her to Sweden, promising her a t.i.tle and estates and a high place at court.

Ninon called unexpectedly at Christina's Paris apartments one morning to talk over the plan. She entered the queen's drawing-room unannounced. There on the floor lay a man, one of the Swedish officials in Christina's suite. He was dead--murdered--and was lying as he had fallen when he had been stricken down.

Above him stood Christina, at her side the a.s.sa.s.sin who had struck the blow. The queen turned to Ninon and explained. The official had displeased her majesty by some undiplomatic act; and taking justice into her own hands, Christina had ordered another member of her suite to murder the offender. She was as unconcerned over the killing as if she had ordered a rabid dog to be shot.

Ninon fled in panic fear from the apartment. Nor ever again could she be induced to come into the presence of the royal murderess. Thus ended the Swedish project.

Though the confidential friendship of one queen was thus taken forcibly from Ninon, she had later the satisfaction of helping on the cause of another and uncrowned queen. It is her one recorded experience in dabbling with politics, and the role she played therein is interesting.

King Louis XIV.--son of that Anne of Austria who had hated Ninon--had reached the age when life began at times to drag. The "~Grand Monarque~" had still fewer reasons than those of Ninon's father to deplore the missing of any good times. But youth had fled from him at last. He found himself, in middle age, a sour-faced, undersized man, with a huge periwig, a huger outjutting beak of a nose, and wearing egregiously high boot heels to eke out his height. People--a very few of them and at a safe distance--were beginning to laugh at his pretensions as a lady-killer. Nature, too, was proving herself less a tender mother than a Gorgonlike stepmother, by racking him with dyspepsia, bad nerves, and gout.

These causes led him to turn temporarily to what he termed "the higher life." In other words, by his whim, the court took to wearing somber garments, changing its scandalous conversation for pious reflections and its unprintable novels for works on philosophy. Whereat, yawns of boredom a.s.sailed high Heaven.

In the course of his brief penitence, Louis frowned majestically upon his tempest-tempered favorite, Madame de Montespan. And she--tactless or over-sure of her position--scowled back, harshly derided the new order of affairs, and waxed more evil-tempered than ever.

In Madame de Montespan's household was a certain Madame de Maintenon, widow of the humpbacked little Scarron, who had once sued for Ninon de L'Enclos' favor. Strangely enough, his widow and Ninon were close friends. And at this court crisis. Ninon made the term "friendship"

mean something.

She herself had plainly shown that she had no interest in the king.