[4] Returning to Paris, she became a popular figure in the salons, and her own drawing room became a centre for the discussion and consumption of the literary arts.

In her early thirties she was responsible for encouraging the young Molière, and when she died she left money for the son of her notary, a nine-year-old named François-Marie Arouet, later to become known as Voltaire, so he could buy books.

[5] This life (less acceptable in her time than it would become in later years) and her opinions on organised religion caused her some trouble, and she was imprisoned in the Madelonnettes Convent in 1656 at the behest of Anne of Austria, Queen of France and regent for her son Louis XIV.

In response, as an author she defended the possibility of living a good life in the absence of religion, notably in 1659's La coquette vengée (The Flirt Avenged).

[6] Starting in the late 1660s she retired from her courtesan lifestyle and concentrated more on her literary friends – from 1667, she hosted her gatherings at l'hôtel Sagonne, which was considered "the" location of the salon of Ninon de l'Enclos despite other locales in the past.

Later she would become a close friend with the devout Françoise d'Aubigné, better known as Madame de Maintenon, the lady-in-waiting who would later become the second wife of Louis XIV.

Ninon de l'Enclos is a relatively obscure figure in the English-speaking world, but is much better known in France where her name is synonymous with wit and beauty.