Overweening ambition was the bane of this undoubtedly clever woman. In the murder at Fontainebleau, it is thought that vanity and the love of power tempted her to display what she was pleased to regard as a full length of it. Exactly the nature of Monaldeschi’s offence remains unexplained. Christina said he had grossly betrayed her, and some assert that it was politically he had done so; but it seems more probable that he was a traitor in love. She defended herself by saying that she had reserved every right of life and death over all who were in her service. The atrocious deed caused a sensation in Paris; especially among those of whom the ex-queen had been a guest, and Anne of Austria sent for Ninon to relate all the details of her fearful experience at Fontainebleau. The chief topic of conversation and speculation now was the marriage of the young king. It was well known that Mazarin hoped to crown his successful ambitions, by marrying his niece, Marie Mancini, to Louis, and that Anne of Austria was as strongly opposed to any such alliance was equally well-known. It was her wish and her will that Louis should wed the Infanta Maria Théresa. Any thwarting of this project, the queen vowed, should bring about the setting aside of Louis, and placing her second son on the throne of France in his stead—“_La reine le veut_.” Mazarin had to bite the dust. The preliminaries for the Spanish marriage were set on foot. The French and Spanish emissaries met on the Isle of Pheasants. Poor Marie Mancini, who had a sincere affection for her young royal admirer, was sent out of the way for a month into the convent of the Daughters of Calvary, which was hard by Ninon’s house. Louis whispered in her ear at parting, that if the king was separated from her, the man would never cease to think of her. Then he whistled to his dogs, and with his courtly train went hunting in the woods of Chambord. So ended the love-story of Mazarin’s niece, Marie Mancini. So much “for the snows of yester year”; but there had been warm affection between Ninon and the young girl, and they parted with many tears. CHAPTER XIV _Les Précieuses Ridicules_—Sappho and _Le Grand Cyrus_—The Poets of the Latin Quarter—The Satire which Kills—A Lost Child—Periwigs and New Modes—The Royal Marriage and a Grand Entry.