She dominated
the intellectual geniuses of the long period during which she lived,
and reigned over them as their absolute queen, through the sheer force
of her personal charms, which she never hesitated to bestow upon those
whom she found worthy, and who expressed a desire to possess them,
studiously regulated, however, by the precepts and principles of the
philosophy of Epicurus, which today is rapidly gaining ground in our
social relations through its better understanding and appreciation.
Her life bears a great resemblance to the histories in which we read
about the most celebrated women of ancient times, who occupied a
middle station between the condition of marriage and prostitution--a
class of women whose Greek name is familiarized to our ears in
translations of Aristophanes. Ninon de l'Enclos was of the order of
the French "hetaerae," and, as by her beauty and her talents, she
attained the first rank in the social class, her name has come down to
posterity with those of Aspasia and Leontium, while the less
distinguished favorites of less celebrated men have shared the common
oblivion, which hides from the memory of men, every degree of
mediocrity, whether of virtue or vice.
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