r determination. Ninon, heart broken, distracted and desolate, threw
herself bodily into an obscure convent in the suburbs of Paris,
accepting it, in the throes of her sorrow, as her only refuge and home
on earth.

Saint-Evremond, in a letter to the Duke d'Olonne, speaks of the
sentiment which is incentive to piety:

"There are some whom misfortunes have rendered devout through a
certain kind of pity for themselves, a secret piety, strong enough to
dispose men to lead more religious lives."

Scarron, one of Ninon's closest friends, in his Epistle to Sarrazin,
thus alludes to this conventual escapade:

"Puis j'aurais su * * *
* * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * *
Ce que l'on dit du bel et saint exemple
Que la Ninon donne a tous les mondains,
En se logeant avecque les nonais,
Combien de pleurs la pauvre jouvencelle
A repandus quand sa mere, sans elle,
Cierges brulants et portant ecussons,
Pretres chantant leurs funebres chanson,
Voulut aller de linge enveloppee
Servir aux vers d'une franche lippee."

Which, translated into reasonable English, is as much as saying:

But I might have known * * *
* * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * *
What they say of the example, so holy, so pure,
That Ninon gives to worldlings all,
By dwelling within a nunnery's wall.
How many tears the poor lorn maid
Shed, when her mother, alone, unafraid,
Mid flaming tapers with coats of arms,
Priests chanting their sad funereal alarms,
Went down to the tomb in her winding sheet
To serve for the worms a mouthful sweet.

But the most poignant sorrow of the human heart is assuaged by time.
Saint-Evremond and Marion de Lormes, Richelieu's "belle amie,"
expected to profit by the calm which they knew would not be long in
stealing over the heart of their friend. Marion, however, despaired of
succeeding through her own personal influence, and enlisted the
sympathies of Saint-Evremond, who knew Ninon's heart too well to
imagine for a moment that the mournful, monotonous life she had
embraced would satisfy her very long. It was something to be admitted
to her presence and talk over matters, a privilege they were accorded
after some demur. The first step toward ransoming their friend was
followed by others until they finally made great strides through her
resolution. They brought her back in triumph to the world she had
quitted through a species of "frivolity," so they called it, of which
she was never again guilty as long as she lived.

Th