l'Enclos in this de Sévigné matter. It all grew out of the dislike of
Madame de Sévigné for a woman who attracted even her own husband and
son from her side and heart, and for whom her dearest friends
professed the most intimate attachment. Madame de Grignan, the proud,
haughty daughter of the house of de Sévigné, did not scruple to array
herself on the side of Mademoiselle de l'Enclos with Madame de
Coulanges, another bright star among the noble and respectable
families of France.

"Women have the privilege of being weak," says Madame de Sévigné, "and
they make use of that privilege without scruple."

Women had never, before the time of Ninon, exercised their rights of
weakness to such an unlimited extent. There was neither honor nor
honesty to be found among them. They were common to every man who
attracted their fancy without regard to fidelity to any one in
particular. The seed sown by the infamous Catherine de Medici, the
utter depravity of the court of Charles IX, and the profligacy of
Henry IV, bore an astonishing supply of bitter fruit. The love of
pleasure had, so to speak, carried every woman off her feet, and there
was no limit to their abuses. Mademoiselle de l'Enclos, while devoting
herself to a life of pleasure, followed certain philosophical rules
and regulations which removed from the unrestrained freedom of the
times the stigma of commonness and conferred something of
respectability upon practices that nowadays would be considered
horribly immoral, but which then were regarded as nothing uncommon,
nay, were legitimate and proper. The cavaliers cut one another's
throats for the love of God and in the cause of religion, and the
women encouraged the arts, sciences, literature, and the drama, by
conferring upon talent, wit, genius and merit favors which were deemed