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- Etching by Antoine-Jean-Baptiste Coupé
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- Ninon de l’Enclos
by Koren Whipp
Ninon de l’Enclos 1620-1705 was a French courtesan and author. She was born in Paris on 9 January 1623.[1] When l’Enclos was fourteen her father, Henri de Lenclos, deserted the family home due to legal problems. Her mother, Marie Barbe Abra de Raconis, prostituted the young Ninon to help support them.[2]
As a courtesan, she took a succession of prominent and wealthy lovers including Gaspard IV de Coligny, and François, duc de La Rochefoucauld.She had two children with Monsieur de Villarceaux, Louis de Mornay, although only one, Louis, chevalier de la Boissière, has been confirmed as he was legitimated by his father and l’Enclos took care of him throughout her life.[4]
L’Enclos became a popular figure in the salons; her own drawing room became a center for the discussion of the literary arts. But her unconventional life and opinions on organized religion created social difficulties for her and she was confined from March 1656 to the spring of 1657, first in the Madelonnettes Convent in Paris for six months, then in another convent in Lagny, on the outskirts of Paris.[5] She was visited by Christina, former queen of Sweden who was so impressed by her that she wrote to Cardinal Mazarin on Ninon’s behalf and arranged for her release. Her career as a prostitute effectively ended after 1657 following the end of the Fronde rebellion and her own confinement in the convents.[6]
In La coquette vengée (The Flirt Avenged) published in 1659, l’Enclos defended the possibility of living a good life without organized religion. She was also a patron to other artists; upon her death, she bequeathed 1000 livres to nine-year-old François-Marie Arouet, also known as Voltaire, the son of her lawyer, François Arouet.[7]
[1] Roger Duchêne, Ninon de Lenclos, la courtisane du Grand Siècle, (Paris: Fayard, 1984), 18-19.
[2] Duchêne, Ninon de Lenclos, la courtisane du Grand Siècle, 33-4; 40.
[3] Veronique Larcade, “Ninon de l’Enclos,” Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries (1803). Chawton House Library Series: Women’s Memoirs, ed. Gina Luria Walker, Memoirs of Women Writers Part II (Pickering & Chatto: London, 2013), vol. 8, 300-15, editorial notes, 559-65, on 561; 562.
[4] Larcade, “Ninon de l’Enclos,” vol. 8, 300-15, editorial notes, 559-65, on 561.
[5] Larcade, “Ninon de l’Enclos,” vol. 8, 300-15, editorial notes, 559-65, on 563.
[6] Larcade, “Ninon de l’Enclos,” vol. 8, 300-15, editorial notes, 559-65, on 563.
[7] Ann Thicknesse, Sketches of the lives and writings of the ladies of France. Addressed to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter (London: printed for W. Brown; and sold by J. Dodsley; E. and C. Dilly; and R. Cruttwell, and T. Shrimpton, in Bath, 1778), 140.
Bibliography:
Bret, A. Mémoires sur la vie de Melle de Lenclos. Amsterdam: F. Joly, 1751.
Douxménil, Ninon de Lenclos, and et al. The memoirs of Ninon de L’Enclos: with her letters to Monsr. de St. Evremond, and to the Marquis de Sevigné. London: J. Dodsley, 1761.
Duchêne, Roger. Ninon de Lenclos, la courtisane du Grand Siècle. Paris: Fayard, 1984.
Hardy, M. ‘Ninon de Lenclos (1623–1705), le parcours d’une libertine au XVIIe siècle.’ PhD dissertation, Université de Montréal, 2012.
Hays, Mary. “Ninon de l’Enclos.” Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of all Ages and Countries (6 volumes). London: R. Phillips, 1803, vol. 4, 298-313.
Keys, A. C. ‘The Vicissitudes of the Mémoires of Ninon de Lanclos.’ Studies on Voltaire, 18 (1961), 129–39.
Larcade, Veronique. “Ninon de l’Enclos.” Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries (1803). Chawton House Library Series: Women’s Memoirs, ed. Gina Luria Walker, Memoirs of Women Writers Part II. Pickering & Chatto: London, 2013, vol. 8, 300-15, editorial notes, 559-65.
Lenclos, Ninon de, Life, Letters and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L’Enclos, ed. by Charles Henry Robinson and William Hassell Overton, also contrib. by Louis Damours. Project Gutenberg, digital book, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=10665
Magne, E. Ninon de Lanclos. Paris: Émile-Paul frères, 1925.
Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, Mélanges littéraires, ed. L. Thiessé, ‘Sur Mademoiselle de Lenclos à M***’, 25 vols. vol. 2. Paris: Pourrat frères, 1831 (1751).
Robinson, Charles Henry, Ninon de Lenclos, et. al. Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L’Enclos, the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004.
Rowsell, Mary Catherine. Ninon de L’Enclos and her century New-York, Brentano, 1910.
Tallemant des Réaux, G. Historiettes, ed. A. Adam, 2 vols. vol. 2, Paris: Gallimard, 1961.
Thicknesse, Ann. Sketches of the lives and writings of the ladies of France. Addressed to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. London: printed for W. Brown; and sold by J. Dodsley; E. and C. Dilly; and R. Cruttwell, and T. Shrimpton, in Bath, 1778.
Resources:
Brooklyn Museum
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor: Ninon de l’Enclos
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/ninon_de_l_enclos.php
Works by Ninon de L’Enclos at Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/l#a4624
Page citation:
Koren Whipp. “Ninon de l’Enclos.” Project Continua (April 8, 2015): Ver. 1, (date accessed), http://www.projectcontinua.org/ninon-de-lenclos/
Tags: Age of Discovery, Baroque, Europe, Religious Thinkers, Writers
