The Court remained a fortnight at Vincennes, after which the King returned to the Louvre.  There, instead of endeavouring, according to the sage advice of his ministers, to render the absence of his mother unfelt by the adoption of measures calculated to prove that he was equal to the responsibility which he had been so eager to assume, he soon returned to the puerile amusements he had latterly affected to despise; and spent the day in colouring prints, beating a drum, blowing a bugle, or making jets d’eau with quills.[308] On one occasion when Bassompierre was complimenting him upon the facility with which he acquired everything that he desired to learn, he replied with great complacency:  “I must begin again with my hunting-horn, which I blow very well; and I will practise for a whole day.”

“Be careful, Sire,” was the reply of the courtier; “I would not advise your Majesty to indulge too much in such a diversion, as it is injurious to the chest; and I have even heard it asserted that the late King Charles IX burst a blood-vessel on the lungs from his abuse of that instrument; an accident which terminated his life.”

“You are wrong, Sir,” said Louis with one of his cold saturnine looks; “it was his quarrel with Catherine de Medicis which caused his death.  If he had not followed the bad advice of the Marechal de Retz, and resided with her subsequently at Monceaux, he would not have died so young.”

Bassompierre was silenced; and thenceforward resolved never again to mention the name of the Queen-mother in the presence of his royal master.[309]

Meanwhile it was universally anticipated that as all the other Princes had been restored to favour, M. de Conde would be liberated; but such a measure by no means accorded with the views of De Luynes, who, aware of the influence of the noble prisoner, felt himself too weak to cope openly with the first Prince of the Blood; and, consequently, the only benefit which Conde derived from the death of the Marechal d’Ancre was a mitigation of the extreme vigilance with which he had hitherto been guarded.  The conduct of the Princess his wife was at this juncture above all praise.  She had, from the first period of his imprisonment, been persevering in her efforts to accomplish his liberation; and having failed to do this, had solicited the permission of the King to share his captivity; but, by the advice of his favourite, Louis had hitherto resolutely refused to accede to such an arrangement; although he might justly have been struck by the heroism of a sacrifice which in her case was heightened tenfold by the fact that, despite the jealousy which he had constantly exhibited, M. de Conde had made no secret of his utter indifference to his wife, and would never forgive her relations with Henri IV.  After the departure of the Queen-mother, however, De Luynes judged it expedient to accept the offer of the Princess; and she was accordingly informed that she might proceed to the Louvre, where the King