author
Ninon de Lenclos
1620–1705
A sharp-witted figure of 17th-century Paris, she became famous for her independence, lively conversation, and lasting influence on salon culture. Her life has been remembered as a mix of letters, philosophy, and social daring that kept writers and nobles in her orbit.
2 Audiobooks
Life, letters, and Epicurean philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, the celebrated beauty of the seventeenth century
by Ninon de Lenclos
Lettres de Mmes. de Villars, de Coulanges et de La Fayette, de Ninon de L'Enclos et de Mademoiselle Aïssé accompagnées de notices bibliographiques, de notes explicatives par Louis-Simon Auger
by marquise de Marie Gigault de Bellefonds Villars, C. E. (Charlotte Elisabeth) Aïssé, Marie-Angélique Du Gué Bagnoles Coulanges, Madame de (Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne) La Fayette, Ninon de Lenclos
About the author
Born in Paris in 1620, Ninon de Lenclos was known as a writer, salon hostess, and patron of the arts. Sources consistently describe her as an unusually independent woman for her time, admired not just for beauty and charm but for intelligence, musical ability, and a strong interest in philosophy.
She became a central presence in Parisian society through the salon she hosted, where leading thinkers, nobles, and writers gathered. Her reputation endured because she combined wit and social freedom with serious literary and philosophical interests, and later generations remembered her as one of the most distinctive women of the French Grand Siècle.
Although she is often introduced through the scandals of her era, the fuller picture is richer: a cultivated and self-directed woman whose letters and example helped shape the legend around her long after her death in Paris in 1705.