Ninon recounted this affair with great gusto to Madame Scarron. Françoise still kept up great intimacy with her friend, Madame Arnoul, a person for whom Mademoiselle de L’Enclos had an instinctive dislike. She was a great fortune-teller with the cards, and an arch-crafty intriguer, and by a series of manœuvres she wormed herself into the notice of Madame de Montespan, whose husband subsequently played a sorry part in the scandal occurring at St Cloud; since he permitted himself to be bribed to continue to countenance his wife’s connexion with the king. Madame Arnoul however, was laying her scheme, and played her cards so well for the amusement of Madame de Montespan, that she managed to acquaint herself with many secrets of the royal favourite; and in return, in order to do evil to gain what she considered good, she whispered to Madame de Montespan the truth about de Montespan’s box on the ear. The result was an order for Ninon’s conveyance to the convent-home for the _Filles Répenties_; and the guard who arrested her allowed her just twenty minutes for her preparations for leaving the rue des Tournelles. It was a terrible and humiliating blow for Ninon. All the consolations and representations of Madame Arnoul, who was permitted an interview with her, could not reconcile her. Yet they brought some comfort; for Ninon could see that the woman’s machinations promised to bring about the fall of the favourite, and in her place to set no less, no greater, a person than Françoise, the Widow Scarron. Rome was not, of course, built in a day; and Madame Arnoul, not forgetful of her own interests, hastened slowly. Indications were not wanting that the influence of Madame de Montespan was waning.