genius or tact, and her lack of discrimination is apparent in the fact
that none of her protégés ever reached any distinction. Moreover, her
virtues must have been of an appalling character since they were not
strong enough to save her husband and son from falling into the
clutches of "That horrid woman," referring to Ninon.

Ninon certainly understood men; she divined them at the first glance
and provided for their bodily and intellectual wants. If they were
deemed worthy of her favors, she bestowed them freely, and out of one
animal desire gratified, there were created a thousand intellectual
aspirations. She understood clearly that man can not be all animal or
all spiritual, and that the attempt to divert nature from its duality
of being was to wreck humanity and make of man neither fish, flesh nor
fowl. Her constant prayer in her younger days, for the truth of which
Voltaire vouches, was:

"Mon Dieu, faîtes de moi un honnête homme, et n'en faîtes jamais une
honnête femme." (My God, make me an honest man, but never an honest
woman).

Count Segur, in his book already referred to, has this to say further
concerning Ninon:

"Ninon shone under the reign of Louis XIV like a graceful plant in its
proper soil. Splendor seemed to be her element. That Ninon might
appear in the sphere that became her, it was necessary that Turenne
and Condé should sigh at her feet, that Voltaire should receive from
her his first lessons, in a word, that in her illustrious cabinet,
glory and genius should be seen sporting with love and the graces."