Divine Madness (30 page)

This is a last message supposedly in the hand of Ninon de Lenclos, left in the book after much debate.

Byron,
mon cher,
I have let Miguel tell this story for me. His words are so colorful and he paints a flattering portrait,
oui?
But I must add this postscript in my own hand so you know that it is true. We have seen nothing of Saint Germain since returning to the States, but I do not believe that our troubles are over. Whoever it was who died that day in Lara Vieja, it was not our nemesis. I know the Dark Man’s son, and this doppelgänger was not he. So write soon and we will make a plan. Miguel has an e-mail address under his nom de plume:
[email protected].
We will check it often.

Adieu, Ninon

Yes, Marquis, I will keep my word with you, and upon all occasions shall speak the truth, though I sometimes tell it at my own expense. I have more firmness of mind than perhaps you may imagine, and ’tis very probable that in the course of this correspondence, you will think I push this quality too far, even to severity. But then, please to remember that I have only the outside of a woman, and that my heart and mind are wholly masculine…

Shall I tell you what makes love so dangerous? ’Tis the too high idea we are apt to form of it. But to speak the truth, love, considered as passion, is merely a blind instinct, that we should rate accordingly. It is an appetite, which inclines us to one object, rather than another, without our being able to account for our taste. Considered as a bond of friendship, where reason presides, it is no longer a passion and loses the very name of love. It becomes esteem which is indeed a very pleasing appetite, but too tranquil and therefore incapable of rousing you from your present lethargy.

If you madly trace the footsteps of our ancient heroes of romance, adopting their extravagant sentiments, you will soon experience, that such false chivalry metamorphoses this charming passion into a melancholy folly nay, often a tragical one: a perfect frenzy! But divest it of all the borrowed pomp and opinion, and you will then perceive how much it will contribute both to your happiness and pleasure. Be assured that if either reason or knight errantry should be permitted to form the union of our hearts, love would become a state of apathy and madness.

The only way to avoid these extremes, is to pursue the course I pointed out to you. At present you have no occasion for anything more than mere amusement, and believe
me, you will not meet it except among women of the character I speak of. Your heart wants occupation; and they are framed to supply the void. At least give my prescription a fair trial, and I will be answerable for the success.

I promised to reason with you, and I think I have kept my word. Farewell.

Tomorrow the Abbé Châteauneuf and perhaps Molière are to be with me. We are to read over the Tartuffe together, in order to make some necessary alterations. Depend upon it, Marquis, that whoever denies the maxims I have here laid down, partakes a little of that character in his play.

—
A letter from Ninon de Lenclos to the Marquis de Sévigné

Welcome to the second book of what I call my Not-sodead Poet Society stories. Let’s talk a bit, if you have time. Come closer, so my computer-weary eyes can see you. My battered fingers are reaching the end of their endurance, but I want to share a few more things with you before you go.

First of all, let me thank you again for climbing aboard my runaway literary train and taking a wild journey with me. I hope you enjoyed this visit to the modern Ninon’s world—this
Dangerous Liaisons
of the Underworld where she lives, at least in my imagination. I pray her shade is comfortable with what I have done in her name. If you meet her in dreams some night, please say a kind word for me.

The historic Ninon de Lenclos has always fascinated me, not simply because she was one of the great minds of the seventeenth century, but because of her lifelong moral convictions about the rights of women in an era when they were still burning uppity females at the stake for disagreeing with the clergy or king.

Some may find the notion of Ninon as being moral an odd one. After all, she rejected the standards of her time that equated all female virtue with chastity, which was to be traded in for a husband. But one must recall that she had been raised as a man, trained to think and reason as men did in that era—and believe me, the nobles of seventeenth-century France weren’t saving themselves for marriage. They were not looking at any mathematical or philosophical equation that said nobility or virtue in a male equaled virginity. Ninon likewise scorned the idea that penetration by a man was the same as moral ruin. The generic penis simply did not have that much power over her.

She also saw that once a woman was sold into marriage, her property, her fortune, her body—and those of all children she bore—were owned by the man who purchased her with an “I do.” Men of the upper classes—probably the lower ones too—were faithless and often cruel, and women had almost no legal recourse for any abuse perpetrated on them. Ninon refused this churchsanctioned slavery, though her mother’s simple and sincere faith moved her. Faith was not what she quarreled with; It was the liars and scoundrels (like Cardinal Richelieu) who used the Church to pursue political and personal power agendas.

But though rejecting the institution of marriage, and clear in her own mind that the first rush of romantic love could not last, she nevertheless knew that one could die of loneliness if one never loved. So she chose lovers and friends. And not indiscriminately. Indeed, not even rank, fortune, fame, or beauty were passports to her bed or drawing room. She gave her favors only where she found pleasure and joy, and for only so long as pleasure and joy lasted. This is all very clear in her letters, which are a genuine version of the novel,
Dangerous Liaisons
(a side fact, the seducer Valmont in
Dangerous Liaisons
is based on a real person, the Duc de Richelieu).

And, oh yes, in additional to all this, Ninon also managed to write a treatise on male-female relationships that is as relevant today as it was in hers. She edited the plays of Molière; was influential in the evolution of St. Evremond’s philosophies and remained his lifelong friend even when he was exiled; defended Descartes when the Faculty of Theology brought him up on charges of blasphemy; paid for Voltaire’s education (that ungrateful bastard); moderated the harsh policies of the infamous and manipulative Cardinal Richelieu, as well as indirectly advising a very silly king; was admired and consulted by the Queen of Sweden; ran a nightly salon where all the finest minds in Europe gathered in spite of Church disapproval. She was a gifted musician, spoke several languages…and she ran an informal school of lovemaking where she taught Frenchmen that foreplay begins with the mind and not the breasts. In fact, the reputation the French have of being great lovers can be traced straight back to Ninon’s education. She was loved by men and women alike, and when the French queen tried to have her locked up in a convent, Paris rioted.

Of course, many of the stories about her are apocryphal. I doubt very much that she ever sold her soul to the Devil for eternal beauty. Just as with Byron, when she died friends rushed in to canonize her. Then enemies tried to vilify her. And, to a certain extent, they both succeeded. It remains for history to pass verdict on who and what she really was. Sadly, I have never found a journal or diary. The ones quoted in this book are made up.

The villain of this story is cut from equally grand cloth, and a part of me hated to cast him as a bad guy. But if you accept that he was his father’s son (that is, the son of the Dark Man from
Divine Fire
), then madness and corruption would eventually come upon him and therein lay the seeds of ruin.

The historic Saint Germain remains a mystery. This prophet and alchemist—and artist and musician and
metallurgist—seems to have been born in 1712 and many think he died in 1784. But there were reports of him turning up, meddling in the politics of Europe as late as 1822. (One would think this an easy matter to verify—after all, all one need do is check his tombstone. However, there seem to have been at least three graves scattered about Europe, and none have the same date of departure.) In all this time, he was never seen to age, nor did he ever eat in public, so his youth-preserving diet remains a mystery. He admitted to traveling into other lands with his mind and talking to the dead. Many think he is a vampire, and who am I to say no? Especially when it makes for such a good story.

If you have curiosity about these two amazing figures, I have listed some reference books that are a good starting place for getting to know these charismatic seducers. And that is what they were: master seducers and puppeteers both personally and at a societal level. We don’t think of them as we do Don Juan or Casanova or other great lovers, though they were every bit as charming and sirenlike. But their larger accomplishments overshadow their personal love lives. They could seduce without sex and they belong on the list of great charismatics like Joan of Arc, Rasputin, Lenin, Kennedy, Malcolm X…even Elvis Presley. People who could topple governments, begin and end wars, move people to faith and riot. Had they been English instead of French (or Hungarian—the jury is still out about Saint Germain’s real nationality) we would have read about them in high school history classes.

As for Miguel—well, I let you make up your own mind about him. I like heroes with some edge to them, men who come with a bit of a twist.

If in your reading you happened to feel like you were actually experiencing high noon at the OK Corral—with ghouls—you were. I tried to banish it, but the soundtrack to every spaghetti western I ever saw kept playing in my head. Except at Lara Vieja. That was really the sunken
city of Guerrero Viejo. I wanted it in the story but liked it too well to burn it down in the end, so I changed it for the book. It’s so great to have that power.

If you enjoyed this story and haven’t read
Divine Fire,
try to find it. That book is about another of the world’s great lovers and original thinkers, Lord Byron.

There! The exorcism is complete. This story is done and Ninon no longer haunts me. I can rest.

Thank you again and—as ever—your company has been lovely. Please write—to Melanie or Miguel—at:

Melanie Jackson

www.melaniejackson.com

PO Box 574

Sonora, CA, 95370-0574

Life, Letters and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L’Enclos, The Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century
by Charles Henry Robinson

Nymphos and Other Maniacs
by Irving Wallace

The Technique of the Love Affair
by Doris Langley Moore

The Immortal Ninon
by Phyllis Tholin

Ninon de L’Enclos and Her Century
by Mary C. Rowsell

Ninon de Lanclos
by Emile Magne

The Comte de St. Germain: The Secret of Kings
by Cooper-Oakley

The Art of Seduction
by Robert Greene, Joost Elffers

A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits
by Carol K. Mack, Dinah Mack

Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels
by Gustav Davidson

Two Pleasant Hours in the National Museum, The Most Important Monuments and Relics
by Jose Jimmenez Gomez

Daily Life of the Aztecs
by Jacques Soustelle

The Zombie Survival Guide
by Max Brooks

THE SAINT

THE MASTER