Those who did so were greeted with so
much derisive laughter that they were ashamed to appear in society
until the storm had blown over.
M. de Tourielle, a member of the French Academy, and a very learned
man, became enamored of her and his love-making assumed a curious
phase. To show her that he was worthy of her consideration, he deemed
it incumbent upon him to read her long dissertations on scientific
subjects, and bored her incessantly with a translation of the orations
of Demosthenes, which he intended dedicating to her in an elaborate
preface. This was more than Ninon could bear with equanimity--a lover
with so much erudition, and his prosy essays, appealed more to her
sense of humor than to her sentiments of love, and he was laughed out
of her social circle. This angered the Academician and he thought to
revenge himself by means of an epigram in which he charged Ninon with
admiring figures of rhetoric more than a sensible academic discourse
full of Greek and Latin quotations. It would have proved the ruin of
the poor man had Ninon not come to his rescue, and explained to him
the difference between learning and love.
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