The Coquette Avenged

meaning of Hamlet's orders to Ophelia is clear. A convent is a place where a woman can go to absolve her sins to conveniently disappear. Joining a convent by force or coercion or choice, is a hand that fate dealt many women, both real and fictional, throughout the ages. In seven seventeenth century France, most upper class women generally had two choices upon coming of age, become a wife or become a nun Both would require following rigorous sets of

social rules and accepting a fundamental lack of freedom. But what about the women who defied that choice. Ninon de Lanclo was one such woman, and an incredibly unique one at that. Ninon, a student of philosophy from a young age, saw both marriage and the convent as a loss of freedom and resolved to forge a different path for herself. She became Paris's most celebrated courtesan, all while sharing her

radical ideas in the city's intellectual circles. But as we know, the consequences of going against the grain are often great for women, both then and now. Nenon's lifestyle landed her imprisoned in a convent, and the order to quote get thee to a nunnery had come from the very top. For many women, that would be the end of their story, but Neinon was determined to continue on, and unlike the story of Ophelia, you'll find that Ninon's life was no tragedy.

I'm Danish Schwartz and this is noble blood. Anne Delenchloe was born in Paris on November tenth, sixteen twenty. Some sources proposed that her family were minor nobles, while some other historians insist that they had no noble ties. But no matter their origin, they were probably not particularly wealthy,

but they were certainly involved in Parisian high society. The nickname Renan, a traditional French diminutive of Anne, was given to her by her father, Henri de Lancloux, was an accomplished lutist and composer, and he taught his daughter to play the lute from a young age. In addition to her father's music lessons, Ninon also inherited his philosophical ideas. He was a neo Epicurean, taking a brief detour to

philosophy one oh one before we continue. Epicureanism, derived from the teachings of the Greek sage Epicurus, focuses on a secular pursuit to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. The term neo Epicurean that you'll hear today came about during the philosophy's seventeenth century revival. That was Ninon's father's outlook. But given how unconventional Ninon's life ended up, what was her

mother's perspective? While her father had turned to the Greeks den d mother was actually a devout Catholic and wished to impart the strict moral standards of counter reformational Catholicism on her daughter. Some historians believe her mother's greatest goal was for her daughter to become a nun, and there was even a brief period during which a young Ninon

was educated in a convent. Her parents' marriage was one of convenience, as you might have been able to guess, given that husband and wife could not have been more opposed ideologically, you can probably guess whom Ninon ultimately took after. In addition to embracing her father's libertinism and rejection of religion, Ninon became something of a musical prodigy in her youth and performed the lute and clavichord for charmed audiences that gathered in Parisian salons. At the same time, she also

mastered Spanish and Italian and became an avid reader. There's an anecdotal account about Nenan in her teenage years that embodies the way she would challenge convention and authority. As the story goes, Nenon informed her friends that since women are tasked with frivolities and men are allotted freedoms they take for granted. Quote from this moment, I will be a man for Nonon. It wasn't a declaration about gender identity.

It was a statement about the role she wished to play in society about her interests and the freedoms she intended to preserve for herself. Society was only allowing women at the time to occupy an incredibly narrow space, and so Nenon would chart a course for herself, attempting to

live with the freedoms that a man would have. It was Nenon's determination to quote live as a man would that drove her to find another avenue besides the convent or marriage, and it was at this time that she began her famed career, taking a third option, a courtizan. I find the word courtizan interesting because as a culture we have found no shortage of both euphemisms and derogatory terms for sex workers. But to me, courtesan conveys something specific.

There's some sophistication there, in my opinion. A little Glamour Miriam Webster describes courtesan as quote a female sex worker with a courtly, wealthy or upper class clientele. The word first appears in the mid fifteen hundreds, driving from the Middle French courtisan, literally meaning woman of the court. Many courtesans came from poorer backgrounds and began their careers as

more lower class prostitutes. While others came from more well off backgrounds and became courtesan's too improve their social and political currency. Courtesans were expected to be artistically and or intellectually engaging. Their primary job was, of course, companionship and usually sexual pleasure for their benefactors, but it was nearly equally important that they entertained through other avenues. Nenon was neither wealthy nor poor, and she likely saw a courtizan

as a path to both financial and social independence. Her personal philosophy also must have contributed to her decision. Unlike the vast majority of her contemporaries, Nonon did not see sex as an immoral act, as she would later write, quote, oh you mortals who rely so much on the power of your virtue. No matter how great your strength may be, there are moments when the most virtuous person becomes the weakest. The reason for this strange fact is that nature is

always pursuing us. It is always aiming to achieve its ends. The desire for love in a woman is a substantial part of her natural constitution. Her virtue has only been patched on. This outlook goes hand in hand with her rejection of the Christian Church's teachings. If desire is not inherently sinful, then repentance is not the point of existence. Nenon's first step to begin her new life was to acquire her own residence in Paris, which she likely did

using inheritance from the recent death of her father. She settled on a straight in the fashionable quarter of the Marae. The neighborhood was the heart of many of Paris's most esteemed intellectual circles, where men and women would gather to engage with new, often bohemian ideas. Just as Nenon had charmed parias society with her lute years earlier, she soon captivated its attention. Yet again. She gained a reputation for being different from other courtesans at the time because of

her openly independent nature. As Ninon's French biographer, Roger Duchamp put it roughly translated into English, Nana earned her living by having sex. Having sex was not her life. She was known for her strict boundaries. She would be the one to determine when a relationship started and ended. It wasn't unusual for a courtesan to gain enough social currency that she could afford to exert that control choosing which

lover she took instead of the other way around. But Nenon seems to have reached that point quicker than most, As the famed memoirrist San Simon wrote of her quote, Neno always had crowds of adorers, but never more than one lover at a time, And when she tired of the present occu, she said so frankly, and took another. Yet such was the authority of this wanton that no man dared fall out with his successful rival. He was only too happy to be allowed to visit as a

familiar friend. We don't have a clear timeline of when her relationships with her various benefactors started or ended, but we do know their names. Her most famous lovers included the king's cousin, the General Louis the second de Bourbon, otherwise known as Legrand Conde, as well as Francois duc de la Roche Fouquet, member of one of the most illustrious French noble families and a published writer and frequent

salon fixture himself. Among her spurned petitioners was Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to Louis the thirteenth, known for accumulating an enormous amount of power and influence in both the Catholic Church and French monarchy. His rejection speaks to the weight of Nenon's social currency as well as her goals. If she simply sought to acquire wealth and power, why would she have refused one of France's most powerful figures.

We don't know her specific reasons for refusing where she lose advances, but we can probably imagine that Nenon might have taken issue with his censorship of the press and his consolidation of power away from the nobility her clientele, family and friends. Years into her career, Nenon found herself facing a new and different sort of relationship. In sixteen fifty two, when she would have been in her early thirties, she was pursued by a well known nobleman, Louis de Mornay.

De Mournay gets a mention in sin Simon's memoirs as well, where he's simply described as making quote a lot of noise with women. Quote. I'm not sure if that's literal or metaphorical, but it's no surprise then that he was married when he and Nenon began a relationship. The couple actually had a son together Louise, and for three years the three of them lived together in the country, where Nenon studied and the nobleman hunted while they both cared

for their son. However, Nenon wasn't suited for the quiet country life, and she ultimately wasn't suited for de Mornay, a man with ultimately boring, fairly conventional, and low brow interests. Nenon returned to Paris in sixteen fifty five, and her son seems to have stayed at court. We don't know for sure what kind of relationship Neinon had with him throughout the rest of her life. Returning to her previous career, as it turned out, wouldn't be as smooth as she

might have hoped. Was used to ending relationships on her terms, but de Mournay appears not to have gotten that message when she refused to return to him despite his pleas he fell into a fever. To console his distress, she cut off her hair and sent the curled locks to his bedside. It didn't do much to appease her scorned ex lover, but it did evidently start a trend. Women across Paris began to sport bobbed hair. A la Neinont. Eventually, like all of her other former lovers, de Mournay forgave

Nenon and they settled into a friendship. It wasn't just hairstyles that were changing in Paris the Frond. The two short wars between the French nobility and Louis the Fourteenth's regency government further asserted the power of the monarchy, and Cardinal Mazarin Young Louise Minister and Richilieu's successor. With this assertion came a wave of conservatism, and conservatives famously don't

favor openly atheist courtesans. It was only a year after Ninon's return to the city in sixteen fifty six that the Queen Mother of France, Anne of Austria, was petitioned by a group of Ninon's detractors aka those who might have been jealous of her status, wary of her philosophy, or both to silence her. The petition ultimately led to Nenon's imprisonment in a convent home to many quote wayward

women of the seventeenth century. While there were those who joined the convent voluntarily, the French convent primarily functioned as an alternative to prison for rebellious women. Minon had designed a life for herself, specifically to circumvent the choice between marriage or convent, but in the end she was still sentenced to the latter. The writing of Ninons that has survived is philosophical, not diaristic, so we're left to imagine

how she must have felt confined to those walls. As we know, Ninana was not faded to stay at the convent for long. The story goes that her savior was actually not, as you might have been expecting, one of her many powerful lovers, but a kindred spirit, Christina, the exiled Queen of Sweden, who we actually discussed in the

early podcast episode Queen Christina removed her own crown. You can see why the monarch who described herself as having quote an insurmountable distaste for marriage as well as quote for all the things that females talked about and did, would be impressed by ninon convictions. Christina often woren't masculine clothing, she barely combed her hair, and cared far more about her studies than she did running a country. She was just a reminder at been a while since the episode.

Ultimately forced to abdicate her throne for her refusal to marry and intend to convert to Catholicism. Christina was only in her twenties when she abdicated, and so much of her life after the throne was spent traveling Europe. During her time in Parisian society, she likely heard much about Nina's rise and fall and decided to visit her in the convent. Their conversation must have made an impact and sounds like an off Broadway play waiting to happen. Christina

swiftly intervened and Ninon was set free. In sixteen fifty nine, a pamphlet began to circulate around Paris, wonderfully entitled The Coquette Avenged. It was a short work, but it boldly described the possibility of living a good, fulfilling life outside

the constraints of religion. While it's not a certainty, the work has long been attributed to Nenan, and it's believed to have been written during her time in the convent, proving that her imprisonment only further cemented her beliefs and convictions. After her brief stay with the nuns, Nenon returned to being a courtesan, but in the sixteen sixties, she would ultimately say goodbye to that part of her life and

dedicate herself to her literary circle. While Nonon had attended and hosted numerous salons in her time, in sixteen sixty seven she established her regular salon at the Hotel de Sagon in Paris, which would continue to meet for the rest of her life. Her guests were some of the

city's most prominent intellectuals, artists, and political thinkers. The most famous names among her friends include Saint Simon, the memoirist we've quoted several times now, Mollieri, the iconic playwright, and the woman known as Madame Scarone, who actually secretly married Louis the fourteenth following the death of Queen Maria. Theresa.

Nenan's surviving philosophical work comes from her letters to another attendee of her salons, a man named Charles de Sevigner, an aristocrat and the son of Madame de Sevigner, who's remembered to this day as a seventeenth century literary icon.

For her own letter writing, Nenon appears to have taken Charles, twenty eight years her junior, under her wing, or, in her own words, quote you ought to be aware of the fact that when a woman has lost the freshness of her first youth and takes a special interest in a young man, everybody says she desires to make a worldling of him. You know the malignity of this expression. I do not care to expose myself to its application. All the service I am willing to render you is

to become your confidante. You will tell me your troubles, and I will tell you what is in my mind. Likewise aid you to know your own heart and that of a woman. End quote. Charles, in his youthful ignorance, had found himself struggling to find a woman that returned his affections. Ninon became something of his dating guru. As you can probably guess, her advice to him wasn't the kind of sound bites you can hear on TikTok from dating experts, but rather a reflection of her philosophical beliefs

regarding sex, gender, and the nature of humans themselves. In one letter, she writes, quote, it is not because you, referring to both Charles and men at large quote, possess superior qualities that you are an agreeable companion to be in I raced with outstretched arms. You must be sympathetic, amusing important to the pleasure of others. I warn you that you cannot succeed in any other manner, especially with women.

Now tell me what would you like me to do with your learning, with the geometry of your mind, and with the exactitude of your memory, Dear marquise, if you have such advantages, if you have no personal charm to balance your austerity, you will not please women. I can vouch for that, far from pleasing them, you will seem to them like an intimidating critic. You will so constrain them that any pleasure they might have enjoyed in your presence will be banished. In other words, don't be all

head and no heart. While this is surely a bit of tough love, it's also a blatant disavowal of conventional gender roles. Relationships, then, On argue, cannot work when a man is expected to only be the head and the woman only the heart. What is love without reciprocity. While Nanon encouraged men to work on their charm, she began to further encourage fellow women to work on their minds. Her Salon began hosting lectures, and at each one men paid a fee, while women were admitted for free the

original Ladies Night. By this point in her life, Nenon was approaching her eighties. I am of your opinion, she wrote in a letter that wrinkles are a mark of wisdom. That series of letters, the last written works we have of Ninon's, add a new face to her philosophy, which is her thoughts on aging and mortality. While she complained of physical discomforts and transformations, she was not dismayed by changes in her appearance. The soul and the mind, she believed,

shown far brighter than beauty. Ninon de L'encloude died of natural causes in Paris in seventeen o five, at eighty four years old. In a letter to a friend written not long before her death, she wrote, quote, your life has been too illustrious not to be lived in the same manner until the end. Do not permit hell to frighten you. Pronounce the word love boldly, and that of old age will never pass your lips. That's the story of the life of Ninon de l'ancloux. But keep listening.

After a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her lasting literary legacy. Nenon's legacy in the literary world might have been far greater than she would ever be able to know. After her death, she still sought to encourage education, and she gave some money in her will to the promising nine year old godson of a friend. The boy seemed like he had potential. Maybe he had something dazzling about him, or maybe Nanon was

just trying to be nice. The boy, whose name was Francois Marie ar Away, would use the money to buy books. If that name doesn't sound familiar, it's probably because he's far better known today by his pen name Voltaire. Nobel Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender,

Amy Hit and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer rima il Kaali and Exis executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.