great Cardinal withdraw his hand for a single moment there would not
be any more throne. When the human hornets around him became annoying
he was accustomed to pretend to withdraw his sustaining hand, then the
throne would tremble and totter, but he always came to the rescue;
indeed, there was no other man who could rescue it. Cabals, plots, and
conspiracies became so thick around Ninon at one period that she was
frightened. Scarron's house became a rendezvous for the factious and
turbulent. Madame Scarron was aiming at the throne, that is, she was
opening the way to capture the heart of the king. This was too much
for Ninon, who was more modest in her ambitions, and she fled
frightened.

The Marquis de Villarceaux received her with open arms at his château
some distance from Paris, and that was her home for three years. There
were loud protests at this desertion from her coterie of friends, and
numerous dark threats were uttered against the gallant Marquis who had
thus captured the queen of the "Birds," but Ninon explained her
reason in such a plausible manner that their complaints subsided into
good-natured growls. She hoped to prevent a political conflagration
emanating from her social circle by scattering the firebrands, and she
succeeded admirably. The Marquis was constantly with her, permitting
nobody to intervene between them, and provided her with a perpetual
round of amusements that made the time pass very quickly. Moreover,
she was faithful to the Marquis, so wonderful a circumstance that her
friend and admirer wrote an elegy upon that circumstance, in which he
draws a picture of the pleasures of the ancients in ruralizing, but
reproaches Ninon for indulging in a passion for so long a period to
the detriment of her other friends and admirers. But Ninon was happy
in attaining the summit of her desire, which was to defeat Madame
Scarron, her rival in the affections of the Marquis, keeping the