L--Some Women Are Very Cunning LI--The Parts Men and Women Play LII--Love Is a Traitor with Sharp Claws LIII--Old Age Not a Preventive Against Attack LIV--A Shrewd But Not an Unusual Scheme LV--A Happy Ending * * * * * CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN LORD SAINT-EVREMOND AND NINON DE L'ENCLOS I--Lovers and Gamblers Have Something in Common II--It Is Sweet to Remember Those We Have Loved III--Wrinkles Are a Mark of Wisdom IV--Near Hopes Are Worth as Much as Those Far Off V--On the Death of De Charleval VI--The Weariness of Monotony VII--After the Death of La Duchesse de Mazarin VIII--Love Banishes Old Age IX--Stomachs Demand More Attention Than Minds X--Why Does Love Diminish After Marriage? XI--Few People Resist Age XII--Age Has Some Consolations XIII--Some Good Taste Still Exists in France XIV--Superiority of the Pleasures of the Stomach XV--Let the Heart Speak Its Own Language XVI--The Memory of Youth XVII--I Should Have Hanged Myself XVIII--Life Is Joyous When It Is Without Sorrow Letter to the Modern Leontium NINON DE L'ENCLOS LIFE AND LETTERS INTRODUCTION The inner life of the most remarkable woman that ever lived is here presented to American readers for the first time. Ninon, or Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, as she was known, was the most beautiful woman of the seventeenth century. For seventy years she held undisputed sway over the hearts of the most distinguished men of France; queens, princes, noblemen, renowned warriors, statesmen, writers, and scientists bowing before her shrine and doing her homage, even Louis XIV, when she was eighty-five years of age, declaring that she was the marvel of his reign. How she preserved her extraordinary beauty to so great an age, and attracted to her side the greatest and most brilliant men of the century, is told in her biography, which has been entirely re-written, and new facts and incidents added that do not appear in the French compilations. Her celebrated "Letters to the Marquis de Sévigné," newly translated, and appearing for the first time in the United States, constitute the most remarkable pathology of the female heart, its motives, objects, and secret aspirations, ever penned. With unsparing hand she unmasks the human heart and unveils the most carefully hidden mysteries of femininity, and every one who reads these letters will see herself depicted as in a mirror.