Biography of Anne de Lenclos Teacher of Love Part 3

About the famous teacher of love Anne de Lenclos, history and biography of the famous French woman.

THE TEACHER OF LOVE

And yet, her lectures on what might be called "The Treatment of a Woman" seemed to indicate that she professed the emancipation of women only in cases like her own. "It is all very well to keep food for another day," she said, "but pleasure should be taken as it comes. . . . Talk to your woman continually about herself, and seldom about yourself. Take for granted that she is a hundred times more interested in the charms of her own person than in the whole gamut of your emotions. . . . Remember, there are moments when women would rather be treated a little roughly than with too much consideration; men are often defeated because of their own clumsiness than because of a woman's virtue. . . . Should you be the one who ceases to love 1st, let the woman have the advantage of making the break and appearing cruel. . . . A woman who is through with a man will give him up for anything except another woman."

Once, tragedy struck. At 65, Ninon was pursued by her natural son, the Chevalier de Villiers. She agreed to see him only if the father kept their true relationship secret. The boy fell so deeply in love with his mother that she decided to tell him the truth, embracing him maternally. Staggering into the garden, he cried, "Mother," and killed himself with his sword.

Ninon lived to be almost 90. The fastidious voluptuary La Fare wrote what could well be her epitaph: "I never saw Ninon in her beauty; but at the age of 50, and even till she was over 60 she had lovers who adored her, and the most honorable men in France for friends. Until she was 90 she was sought by the best society of her time. She died with all her senses, and with the charms of her mind, which was the best and most lovable I have ever known in a woman."

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