It was in the very presence of the dead Scarron that Ninon was informed of the danger threatening St Evrémond. A _lettre de cachet_ had been issued for conveying him to the Bastille, for the offence he had given in writing some satirical verses on the Peace of the Pyrenees. St Evrémond was very far from standing alone in his opinions on this treaty carried through by Mazarin; but he was unapproachable in the expression of them. Biting invective and caustic wit at the cardinal’s expense were graven in every line of his couplets, addressed to the Marquis de Créqui. Nor did the mockery cease at that point; it ridiculed the royal marriage itself, and the king was furious. This was the second time that St Evrémond had incurred the displeasure of Mazarin; on the first occasion, a reconciliation had been patched up, after a three months’ sojourn for St Evrémond in the Bastille, but this time he was past forgiveness—possibly, as it has been surmised, that in addition to the verses, he had given secret offence to the Court—and it was now but a matter of tracking St Evrémond to his hiding-place; for he had been warned of the letter of arrest for shutting him up in the Bastille, probably this time for the rest of his life. He had found refuge in the convent of the Capucins du Roule; but already his goods and money were confiscated, and it was Ninon who carried him, from her own resources, the necessary notes and gold for his getting away under cover of the night to Havre, where he arrived safely, and took ship for Dover, never to return to France. The Majesty of Louis XIV. was as a thing divine; and the faintest shadow could not be permitted to cross the glory of that sun he chose for his double-mottoed device. Cardinal Mazarin, now at the point of death, renewed his counsel to the young king never to let will thwart his, but ever to bear the sceptre in his hand—in his own hand alone. So Mazarin, dealing his parting thrust of revenge on the queen-regent, died in the castle of Vincennes, unregretted by any, tolerated of later years, but despised by all. Someone made his epitaph, whose concluding lines were to the effect that having cheated and deceived through life, he ended with cheating the devil himself, since, when he came to fetch away his soul, he found he had not one. Madame Scarron, after her husband’s death, decided to live in the same apartments, in preference to the home which Ninon offered her in her own house. The widow’s friends obtained for her a pension of two thousand livres, and she continued the old _réunions_, and soon recovered from the loss she had sustained; for Françoise d’Aubigné was ever distinguished by her calm, equable temperament.