WEBVTT - The Coquette Avenged 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:10.680 and Mild from Aaron Manky listener Discretion advised, get thee 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:15.480 to a nunnery, go farewell. These are Hamlet's famous words 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:19.960 to Ophelia, as the play's titular character begins to succumb 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:24.639 to madness and paranoia. There are probably plenty of Shakespeare 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.520 podcasts you could listen to for a more in depth analysis, 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.400 and we could spend hours debating whether Hamlet is actually 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:37.000 mad or just pretending. But on a surface level, the 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.440 meaning of Hamlet's orders to Ophelia is clear. A convent 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.880 is a place where a woman can go to absolve 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:50.800 her sins to conveniently disappear. Joining a convent by force 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.800 or coercion or choice, is a hand that fate dealt 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:59.560 many women, both real and fictional, throughout the ages. In 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:04.720 seven seventeenth century France, most upper class women generally had 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:09.080 two choices upon coming of age, become a wife or 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:14.280 become a nun Both would require following rigorous sets of 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:19.679 social rules and accepting a fundamental lack of freedom. But 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:25.000 what about the women who defied that choice. Ninon de 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:30.080 Lanclo was one such woman, and an incredibly unique one 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.639 at that. Ninon, a student of philosophy from a young age, 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:38.920 saw both marriage and the convent as a loss of 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:43.120 freedom and resolved to forge a different path for herself. 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:49.040 She became Paris's most celebrated courtesan, all while sharing her 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:54.920 radical ideas in the city's intellectual circles. But as we know, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.320 the consequences of going against the grain are often great 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:04.760 for women, both then and now. Nenon's lifestyle landed her 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.960 imprisoned in a convent, and the order to quote get 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:13.160 thee to a nunnery had come from the very top. 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.280 For many women, that would be the end of their story, 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:22.880 but Neinon was determined to continue on, and unlike the 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:28.160 story of Ophelia, you'll find that Ninon's life was no tragedy. 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:37.920 I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. Anne Delenchloe 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.160 was born in Paris on November tenth, sixteen twenty. Some 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.000 sources proposed that her family were minor nobles, while some 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.600 other historians insist that they had no noble ties. But 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:54.600 no matter their origin, they were probably not particularly wealthy, 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.239 but they were certainly involved in Parisian high society. The 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:04.160 nickname Renan, a traditional French diminutive of Anne, was given 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.480 to her by her father, Henri de Lancloux, was an 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:11.880 accomplished lutist and composer, and he taught his daughter to 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.360 play the lute from a young age. In addition to 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:21.560 her father's music lessons, Ninon also inherited his philosophical ideas. 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:25.960 He was a neo Epicurean, taking a brief detour to 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:31.000 philosophy one oh one before we continue. Epicureanism, derived from 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:35.360 the teachings of the Greek sage Epicurus, focuses on a 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:41.240 secular pursuit to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. The term 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.120 neo Epicurean that you'll hear today came about during the 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:51.280 philosophy's seventeenth century revival. That was Ninon's father's outlook. But 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:55.040 given how unconventional Ninon's life ended up, what was her 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:59.360 mother's perspective? While her father had turned to the Greeks 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:04.000 den d mother was actually a devout Catholic and wished 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:09.520 to impart the strict moral standards of counter reformational Catholicism 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.800 on her daughter. Some historians believe her mother's greatest goal 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.880 was for her daughter to become a nun, and there 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.960 was even a brief period during which a young Ninon 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:24.560 was educated in a convent. Her parents' marriage was one 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.000 of convenience, as you might have been able to guess, 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.599 given that husband and wife could not have been more 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:37.679 opposed ideologically, you can probably guess whom Ninon ultimately took after. 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:43.560 In addition to embracing her father's libertinism and rejection of religion, 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.440 Ninon became something of a musical prodigy in her youth 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:52.400 and performed the lute and clavichord for charmed audiences that 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.719 gathered in Parisian salons. At the same time, she also 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:02.200 mastered Spanish and Italian and became an avid reader. There's 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:06.080 an anecdotal account about Nenan in her teenage years that 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:10.880 embodies the way she would challenge convention and authority. As 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.839 the story goes, Nenon informed her friends that since women 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.480 are tasked with frivolities and men are allotted freedoms they 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.320 take for granted. Quote from this moment, I will be 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:27.240 a man for Nonon. It wasn't a declaration about gender identity. 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.360 It was a statement about the role she wished to 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:34.360 play in society about her interests and the freedoms she 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:39.480 intended to preserve for herself. Society was only allowing women 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.800 at the time to occupy an incredibly narrow space, and 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:47.400 so Nenon would chart a course for herself, attempting to 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.080 live with the freedoms that a man would have. It 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:55.119 was Nenon's determination to quote live as a man would 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.800 that drove her to find another avenue besides the convent 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.400 or marriage, and it was at this time that she 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:08.920 began her famed career, taking a third option, a courtizan. 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.400 I find the word courtizan interesting because as a culture 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:18.760 we have found no shortage of both euphemisms and derogatory 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:23.960 terms for sex workers. But to me, courtesan conveys something specific. 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:28.839 There's some sophistication there, in my opinion. A little Glamour 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:34.160 Miriam Webster describes courtesan as quote a female sex worker 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:39.159 with a courtly, wealthy or upper class clientele. The word 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.320 first appears in the mid fifteen hundreds, driving from the 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:48.359 Middle French courtisan, literally meaning woman of the court. Many 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:53.000 courtesans came from poorer backgrounds and began their careers as 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.599 more lower class prostitutes. While others came from more well 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:01.880 off backgrounds and became courtesan's too improve their social and 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:07.039 political currency. Courtesans were expected to be artistically and or 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:12.640 intellectually engaging. Their primary job was, of course, companionship and 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:17.280 usually sexual pleasure for their benefactors, but it was nearly 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:23.040 equally important that they entertained through other avenues. Nenon was 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.240 neither wealthy nor poor, and she likely saw a courtizan 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:32.480 as a path to both financial and social independence. Her 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.880 personal philosophy also must have contributed to her decision. Unlike 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.960 the vast majority of her contemporaries, Nonon did not see 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:45.679 sex as an immoral act, as she would later write, quote, 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.560 oh you mortals who rely so much on the power 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.280 of your virtue. No matter how great your strength may be, 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.560 there are moments when the most virtuous person becomes the weakest. 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.520 The reason for this strange fact is that nature is 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:06.040 always pursuing us. It is always aiming to achieve its ends. 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:09.760 The desire for love in a woman is a substantial 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.720 part of her natural constitution. Her virtue has only been 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:18.000 patched on. This outlook goes hand in hand with her 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:22.920 rejection of the Christian Church's teachings. If desire is not 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.960 inherently sinful, then repentance is not the point of existence. 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.480 Nenon's first step to begin her new life was to 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.720 acquire her own residence in Paris, which she likely did 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:40.760 using inheritance from the recent death of her father. She 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.360 settled on a straight in the fashionable quarter of the Marae. 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.600 The neighborhood was the heart of many of Paris's most 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:53.440 esteemed intellectual circles, where men and women would gather to 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:58.839 engage with new, often bohemian ideas. Just as Nenon had 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:04.040 charmed parias society with her lute years earlier, she soon 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.880 captivated its attention. Yet again. She gained a reputation for 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.320 being different from other courtesans at the time because of 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:18.160 her openly independent nature. As Ninon's French biographer, Roger Duchamp 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:22.160 put it roughly translated into English, Nana earned her living 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:26.400 by having sex. Having sex was not her life. She 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.560 was known for her strict boundaries. She would be the 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.800 one to determine when a relationship started and ended. It 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.680 wasn't unusual for a courtesan to gain enough social currency 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.079 that she could afford to exert that control choosing which 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.080 lover she took instead of the other way around. But 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.600 Nenon seems to have reached that point quicker than most, 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.880 As the famed memoirrist San Simon wrote of her quote, 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.600 Neno always had crowds of adorers, but never more than 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.959 one lover at a time, And when she tired of 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:03.080 the present occu, she said so frankly, and took another. 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.000 Yet such was the authority of this wanton that no 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.240 man dared fall out with his successful rival. He was 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.520 only too happy to be allowed to visit as a 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:19.520 familiar friend. We don't have a clear timeline of when 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:23.960 her relationships with her various benefactors started or ended, but 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.880 we do know their names. Her most famous lovers included 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.000 the king's cousin, the General Louis the second de Bourbon, 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:35.880 otherwise known as Legrand Conde, as well as Francois duc 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.160 de la Roche Fouquet, member of one of the most 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:43.720 illustrious French noble families and a published writer and frequent 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:50.240 salon fixture himself. Among her spurned petitioners was Cardinal Richelieu, 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:55.079 the chief minister to Louis the thirteenth, known for accumulating 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.640 an enormous amount of power and influence in both the 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:03.200 Catholic Church and French monarchy. His rejection speaks to the 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.880 weight of Nenon's social currency as well as her goals. 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.200 If she simply sought to acquire wealth and power, why 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.880 would she have refused one of France's most powerful figures. 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.040 We don't know her specific reasons for refusing where she 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:23.240 lose advances, but we can probably imagine that Nenon might 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.240 have taken issue with his censorship of the press and 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.920 his consolidation of power away from the nobility her clientele, 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:37.040 family and friends. Years into her career, Nenon found herself 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:41.959 facing a new and different sort of relationship. In sixteen 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.520 fifty two, when she would have been in her early thirties, 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.760 she was pursued by a well known nobleman, Louis de Mornay. 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:54.000 De Mournay gets a mention in sin Simon's memoirs as well, 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.080 where he's simply described as making quote a lot of 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:03.160 noise with women. Quote. I'm not sure if that's literal 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:07.040 or metaphorical, but it's no surprise then that he was 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:11.640 married when he and Nenon began a relationship. The couple 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:16.160 actually had a son together Louise, and for three years 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.440 the three of them lived together in the country, where 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:23.440 Nenon studied and the nobleman hunted while they both cared 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:28.080 for their son. However, Nenon wasn't suited for the quiet 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:32.439 country life, and she ultimately wasn't suited for de Mornay, 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:38.360 a man with ultimately boring, fairly conventional, and low brow interests. 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:43.200 Nenon returned to Paris in sixteen fifty five, and her 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:47.200 son seems to have stayed at court. We don't know 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.480 for sure what kind of relationship Neinon had with him 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:54.439 throughout the rest of her life. Returning to her previous career, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.040 as it turned out, wouldn't be as smooth as she 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:03.320 might have hoped. Was used to ending relationships on her terms, 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.520 but de Mournay appears not to have gotten that message 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.640 when she refused to return to him despite his pleas 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:16.520 he fell into a fever. To console his distress, she 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.160 cut off her hair and sent the curled locks to 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:24.120 his bedside. It didn't do much to appease her scorned 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:29.000 ex lover, but it did evidently start a trend. Women 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:35.120 across Paris began to sport bobbed hair. A la Neinont. Eventually, 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.400 like all of her other former lovers, de Mournay forgave 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:46.600 Nenon and they settled into a friendship. It wasn't just 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.960 hairstyles that were changing in Paris the Frond. The two 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.200 short wars between the French nobility and Louis the Fourteenth's 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:59.920 regency government further asserted the power of the monarchy, and 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:06.400 Cardinal Mazarin Young Louise Minister and Richilieu's successor. With this 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:12.880 assertion came a wave of conservatism, and conservatives famously don't 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:18.600 favor openly atheist courtesans. It was only a year after 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:23.000 Ninon's return to the city in sixteen fifty six that 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:27.520 the Queen Mother of France, Anne of Austria, was petitioned 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:31.960 by a group of Ninon's detractors aka those who might 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.600 have been jealous of her status, wary of her philosophy, 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:40.520 or both to silence her. The petition ultimately led to 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:45.960 Nenon's imprisonment in a convent home to many quote wayward 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.920 women of the seventeenth century. While there were those who 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:55.120 joined the convent voluntarily, the French convent primarily functioned as 0:14:55.200 --> 0:15:00.520 an alternative to prison for rebellious women. Minon had designed 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:04.720 a life for herself, specifically to circumvent the choice between 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:08.280 marriage or convent, but in the end she was still 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:12.640 sentenced to the latter. The writing of Ninons that has 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:17.720 survived is philosophical, not diaristic, so we're left to imagine 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:23.000 how she must have felt confined to those walls. As 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.800 we know, Ninana was not faded to stay at the 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.360 convent for long. The story goes that her savior was 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:32.480 actually not, as you might have been expecting, one of 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:37.680 her many powerful lovers, but a kindred spirit, Christina, the 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:41.280 exiled Queen of Sweden, who we actually discussed in the 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:46.520 early podcast episode Queen Christina removed her own crown. You 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.120 can see why the monarch who described herself as having 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:54.880 quote an insurmountable distaste for marriage as well as quote 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.960 for all the things that females talked about and did, 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:04.080 would be impressed by ninon convictions. Christina often woren't masculine clothing, 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.280 she barely combed her hair, and cared far more about 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.880 her studies than she did running a country. She was 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.640 just a reminder at been a while since the episode. 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.400 Ultimately forced to abdicate her throne for her refusal to 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:22.480 marry and intend to convert to Catholicism. Christina was only 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:25.680 in her twenties when she abdicated, and so much of 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:29.560 her life after the throne was spent traveling Europe. During 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.720 her time in Parisian society, she likely heard much about 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.680 Nina's rise and fall and decided to visit her in 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:42.320 the convent. Their conversation must have made an impact and 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.960 sounds like an off Broadway play waiting to happen. Christina 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:52.760 swiftly intervened and Ninon was set free. In sixteen fifty nine, 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:57.520 a pamphlet began to circulate around Paris, wonderfully entitled The 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:01.680 Coquette Avenged. It was a short work, but it boldly 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:06.440 described the possibility of living a good, fulfilling life outside 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:10.800 the constraints of religion. While it's not a certainty, the 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:15.160 work has long been attributed to Nenan, and it's believed 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:17.920 to have been written during her time in the convent, 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:26.200 proving that her imprisonment only further cemented her beliefs and convictions. 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:30.119 After her brief stay with the nuns, Nenon returned to 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.800 being a courtesan, but in the sixteen sixties, she would 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.800 ultimately say goodbye to that part of her life and 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:41.600 dedicate herself to her literary circle. While Nonon had attended 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:46.280 and hosted numerous salons in her time, in sixteen sixty 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.399 seven she established her regular salon at the Hotel de 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.959 Sagon in Paris, which would continue to meet for the 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:57.040 rest of her life. Her guests were some of the 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:02.480 city's most prominent intellectuals, artists, and political thinkers. The most 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.480 famous names among her friends include Saint Simon, the memoirist 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:11.040 we've quoted several times now, Mollieri, the iconic playwright, and 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:15.360 the woman known as Madame Scarone, who actually secretly married 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:19.440 Louis the fourteenth following the death of Queen Maria. Theresa. 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:24.919 Nenan's surviving philosophical work comes from her letters to another 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.879 attendee of her salons, a man named Charles de Sevigner, 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:33.280 an aristocrat and the son of Madame de Sevigner, who's 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:37.120 remembered to this day as a seventeenth century literary icon. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:42.440 For her own letter writing, Nenon appears to have taken Charles, 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.720 twenty eight years her junior, under her wing, or, in 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.600 her own words, quote you ought to be aware of 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.679 the fact that when a woman has lost the freshness 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.639 of her first youth and takes a special interest in 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:59.320 a young man, everybody says she desires to make a 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.399 worldling of him. You know the malignity of this expression. 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.200 I do not care to expose myself to its application. 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.640 All the service I am willing to render you is 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.040 to become your confidante. You will tell me your troubles, 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.119 and I will tell you what is in my mind. 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.479 Likewise aid you to know your own heart and that 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:24.040 of a woman. End quote. Charles, in his youthful ignorance, 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.320 had found himself struggling to find a woman that returned 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:32.600 his affections. Ninon became something of his dating guru. As 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:35.359 you can probably guess, her advice to him wasn't the 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.480 kind of sound bites you can hear on TikTok from 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:43.040 dating experts, but rather a reflection of her philosophical beliefs 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:47.879 regarding sex, gender, and the nature of humans themselves. In 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:51.399 one letter, she writes, quote, it is not because you, 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:55.960 referring to both Charles and men at large quote, possess 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.679 superior qualities that you are an agreeable companion to be 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:03.400 in I raced with outstretched arms. You must be sympathetic, 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.679 amusing important to the pleasure of others. I warn you 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.600 that you cannot succeed in any other manner, especially with women. 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.840 Now tell me what would you like me to do 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.560 with your learning, with the geometry of your mind, and 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:22.280 with the exactitude of your memory, Dear marquise, if you 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:26.199 have such advantages, if you have no personal charm to 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:30.639 balance your austerity, you will not please women. I can 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:34.040 vouch for that, far from pleasing them, you will seem 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:38.560 to them like an intimidating critic. You will so constrain 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.480 them that any pleasure they might have enjoyed in your 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:46.600 presence will be banished. In other words, don't be all 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:52.920 head and no heart. While this is surely a bit 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:57.040 of tough love, it's also a blatant disavowal of conventional 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:01.760 gender roles. Relationships, then, On argue, cannot work when a 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.959 man is expected to only be the head and the 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:10.480 woman only the heart. What is love without reciprocity. While 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.520 Nanon encouraged men to work on their charm, she began 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:18.520 to further encourage fellow women to work on their minds. 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:23.160 Her Salon began hosting lectures, and at each one men 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:27.320 paid a fee, while women were admitted for free the 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:31.240 original Ladies Night. By this point in her life, Nenon 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.800 was approaching her eighties. I am of your opinion, she 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:39.159 wrote in a letter that wrinkles are a mark of wisdom. 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.280 That series of letters, the last written works we have 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.440 of Ninon's, add a new face to her philosophy, which 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:50.880 is her thoughts on aging and mortality. While she complained 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:55.520 of physical discomforts and transformations, she was not dismayed by 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.800 changes in her appearance. The soul and the mind, she believed, 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:05.119 shown far brighter than beauty. Ninon de L'encloude died of 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:09.040 natural causes in Paris in seventeen o five, at eighty 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.280 four years old. In a letter to a friend written 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:15.680 not long before her death, she wrote, quote, your life 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.040 has been too illustrious not to be lived in the 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:21.760 same manner until the end. Do not permit hell to 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:26.480 frighten you. Pronounce the word love boldly, and that of 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:32.240 old age will never pass your lips. That's the story 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.359 of the life of Ninon de l'ancloux. But keep listening. 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.120 After a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:50.679 more about her lasting literary legacy. Nenon's legacy in the 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.960 literary world might have been far greater than she would 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:57.480 ever be able to know. After her death, she still 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:01.040 sought to encourage education, and she gave some money in 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:04.520 her will to the promising nine year old godson of 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:08.879 a friend. The boy seemed like he had potential. Maybe 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.480 he had something dazzling about him, or maybe Nanon was 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.639 just trying to be nice. The boy, whose name was 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:18.959 Francois Marie ar Away, would use the money to buy books. 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.080 If that name doesn't sound familiar, it's probably because he's 0:23:23.200 --> 0:23:36.080 far better known today by his pen name Voltaire. Nobel 0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:40.080 Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:44.400 from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:49.760 with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender, 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:53.760 Amy Hit and Julia Milani. The show is edited and 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:59.120 produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima il Kaali 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:03.680 and Exis executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:09.800 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, 0:24:10.080 --> 0:24:12.159 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.