harming Ninon.

Under such circumstances each was compelled to have a separate social
circle, the Marquis entertaining his friends with the adorable Ninon
as the center of attraction, and Madame la Marquise doing her best to
offer counter attractions. Somehow, Ninon drew around her all the most
desirable partis among the flower of the nobility and wits, leaving
the social circle managed by la Marquise to languish for want of
stamina. It was a constant source of annoyance to the Marquise to see
her rival's entertainments so much in repute and her own so poorly
attended, and she was at her wits' end to devise something that would
give them eclat. One of her methods, and an impromptu scene at one of
her drawing-rooms, will serve to show the reason why Madame la
Marquise was not in good repute and why she could not attract the
elite of Paris to her entertainments.

La Marquise was a very vain, moreover, a very ignorant woman, a
"nouvelle riche" in fact, or what might be termed in modern parlance
"shoddy," without tact, sense, or savoir faire. One day at a grand
reception, some of her guests desired to see her young son, of whom
she was very proud, and of whose talents and virtues she was always
boasting. He was sent for and came into the presence accompanied by
his tutor, an Italian savant who never left his side. From praising
his beauty of person, they passed to his mental qualities. Madame la
Marquise, enchanted at the caresses her son was receiving and aiming
to create a sensation by showing off his learning, took it into her
head to have his tutor put him through an examination in history.

"Interrogate my son upon some of his recent lessons in history," said
she to the tutor, who was not at all loth to show his own attainments
by the brilliancy of his pupil.

"Come, now, Monsieur le Marquis," said the tutor with alacrity, "Quem
habuit successorem Belus rex Assiriorum?" (Whom did Belus, king of the
Assyrians, have for successor?)

It so happened that the tutor had taught the boy to pronounce the
Latin language after the Italian fashion. Wherefore, when the lad
answered "Ninum," who was really the successor of Belus, king of the
Assyrians, he pronounced the last two letters "um" like the French
nasal "on," which gave the name of the Assyrian king the same sound as
that of Ninon de l'Enclos, the terrible bete noir of the jealous
Marquise. This was enough to set her off into a spasm of fury against
the luckless tuto