Noble Blood - The Coquette Avenged

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Most women in 17th century France were faced with a choice: marriage, or a convent. Ninon de l'Enclos chose her own path. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon— Noble Blood merch— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Get thee to a nunnery, go, farewell. These are Hamlet's famous words to Ophelia, as the play's titular character begins, to succumb to madness and paranoia. There are probably plenty of Shakespeare podcasts you could listen to for a more in-depth analysis, and we could spend hours debating whether Hamlet is actually mad or just pretending.

But on a surface level, the 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 17th 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 last, of freedom. But what about the women who defied that choice? Ninone de L'Anclo was one such woman, and an incredibly unique one at that. Ninnon, 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 cortisanne, 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 Ninoon, Ninnon was determined to continue on. And unlike the story of Ophelia, you'll find that Ninnon's life was no tragedy.

I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Anne Dillon Clough was born in Paris on November 10, 1620. 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 Ninnon, a traditional French diminutive of Anne, was given to her by her father. Henry Delancel was an accomplished luteist and composer, and he taught his daughter to play the lute from a young age.

In addition to her father's music lessons, Nenon also inherited his philosophical ideas. He was a Neo-Epecurean. Taking a brief detour to Philosophy 101 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-Epecurean that you'll hear today came about during the philosophy's 17th century revival. That was Ninnon's father's outlook,

But given how unconventional Ninone's life ended up, what was her mother's perspective? While her father had turned to the Greeks, Nenone's 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 Ninnon 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 Ninnon ultimately took after.

In addition to embracing her father's libertinism and rejection of religion, Ninone 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 Ninon in her teenage years that embodies the way she would challenge convention and authority. As the story goes, Nenon informed her friend. 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 Nanon, 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 Ninnon 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 cortisanne.

I find the word cortisans interesting because as a culture, we have found no shortage of both euphemisms and derogatory terms for sex workers. But to me, Cortizan conveys something specific. There's some sophistication there, in my opinion, a little glamour. Miriam Webster describes Cortizan as, quote, a female sex worker with a quarterly, wealthy, or upper-class clientele. The word first appears in the mid-1500s, driving from the Middle French cortisans, literally meaning woman of the court. Many courtisans came from poorer backgrounds and began their careers as more lower-class prostitutes, while others came from more well-off backgrounds and became courtisans to improve their social and political currency.

courtisans 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. Ninon was neither wealthy nor poor, and she likely saw a cortisans 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, Nanon 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 street in the fashionable quarter of the Marais. 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 Nanon had charmed Parisian society with her loot 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 Ninnon's French biographer, Roger Duchin put it, roughly translated into English, Ninault 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 Ninnon seems to have reached that point quicker than most. As the famed memoirist San Simone wrote of her, quote, Nenon always had crowds of adorers, but never more than one lover at a time. And when she tired of the present occupier, 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 II de Bourbon, otherwise known as as Le Grand Conde, as well as Francois, Duke de la Roche Foucault, 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 XVIth, 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 Rishilu's advances, but we can probably imagine that Ninoon might be. 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, Nenone found herself facing a new and different sort of relationship. In 1652, when she would have been in her early 30s, she was pursued by a well-known nobleman, Louis de Mournay. D'Amorne gets a mention in San Simone's memoirs as well, where he's simply described as making, quote, a lot of noise with women, end quote. I'm not sure if that's literal or metaphorical, but it's no surprise then that he was married when he and Ninon 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 Ninon studied and the nobleman hunted while they both cared for their son. However, Ninoin wasn't suited for the quiet country life, and she ultimately wasn't suited for D'Amourne, a man with ultimately boring, fairly conventional, and low-brow interests. Ninoin returned to Paris in 1655, and her son seems to have stayed at court. We don't know for sure what kind of relationship Ninole 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. Nenone was used to ending relationships on her terms, but D'Mornais 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 Nino. Eventually, like all of her other former lovers, D'Mornais forgave Nino. And they settled into a friendship. It wasn't just hairstyles that were changing in Paris. The fronde, the two short wars between the French. nobility and Louis XIV's Regency Government, further asserted the power of the monarchy

and Cardinal Mazarin, young Louis's minister and Rishulu'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 Ninnon's return to the city in 1656 that the queen mother of France and of Austria was petitioned by a group of Nenon'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 Ninnon's imprisonment in a convent, home to many, quote, wayward women of the 17th century. While there were those who joined the convent voluntarily, the French convent primarily functioned as an alternative to prison for rebellious women. Ninole 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 Nenon's 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, Nenon was not fated 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's convictions. Christina often wore masculine clothing. She barely combed her hair and cared far more about her studies than she, she did running a country. She was, just a reminder, it's 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 20s 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 Ninon'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 Nenon was set free. In 1659, 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 Nanon, 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, Nanon returned to being a courtesan, but in the 1660s, she would ultimately say goodbye to that part of her life and dedicate herself to her literary circle. While Nanon had attended and hosted numerous salons in her time, in 1667, she established her regular salon at the Hotel de Sagin 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, Moliere, the iconic.

playwright, and the woman known as Madame Scaron, who actually secretly married Louis XIV, following the death of Queen Maria Teresa. Ninnon's surviving philosophical work comes from her letters to another attendee of her salons, a man named Charles de Savenier, an aristocrat and the son of Madame de Savenier, who's remembered to this day as a 17th century literary icon for her own letter writing. Nanon appears to have taken Charles, 28 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 millennity 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 confidant. 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." And quote.

Charles, in his youthful ignorance, had found himself struggling to find a woman that returned his affections. Nenom became something of his dating guru. As you can probably guess, her advice to him wasn't the kind of soundbite 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 embraced with outstretch 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, Nanone argues, cannot work when a man is expected to only be the head and the woman only the heart.

What is love without reciprocity? While Nanone 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, Ninnon was approaching her 80s. 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 Nenon'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, shone far brighter than beauty. Nenon Deloncloat died of natural causes in Paris in 1705 at 84 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 Ninone de L'unclo. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about her lasting literary legacy. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodom.

My next guest, you know from Stepbrothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice. ever. I went and had lunch with them one day and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely

on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay. to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Yeah. Listen to Thanks Dad on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers, anchorman, Saturday Night Live and The Big Big.

Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place they come look for up-and-coming talent.

He said if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah,

it would not be. Right. It wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. 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 Nenone was just trying to be nice. The boy, whose name was Francois Marie Arouet, would use the money to buy books. If that name does, he would be doesn't sound familiar, it's probably because he's far better known today by his pen name,

Voltaire. Noble Blood is a production of I-Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Melani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Rima Il Kali and executive producers Aaron Manky, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Everyone, I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're, You're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore. It's okay to quit.

If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.