Montglat said that they "found it difficult to announce the Cardinal's death. No one was willing to take the first step. They spoke in whispers. It was as if they were afraid that his soul would come back to punish them for saying that he could die." It was said that "even the King had so respected the Cardinal when he was alive, that he feared him when he was dead."
Under such conditions it was difficult to make a change of any kind; nevertheless, after weeks had passed--when the King had accustomed himself to independent action--a few changes came about gradually and stealthily, one by one.
The thirteenth day of January, 1643, Monsieur was given permission to call at Saint Germain and pay his respects to the King. The 19th, Bassompierre and two other lords emerged from the Bastille.
In February the Vendômes returned from exile. Old Mme. de Guise also took the road to Paris, and when she arrived her granddaughter, La Grande Mademoiselle, received her with open arms, and gave her a ball and a comedy, and collations composed of confitures, and fruits trimmed with English ribands; and when the ball was over and the guests were departing in the grey fog of early morning, old Madame and young Mademoiselle laid their light heads upon the same pillow and dreamed that Cardinals were always dying and exiles joyfully returning to their own.
As time went on the King's clemency increased and he issued pardons freely. The reason was too plain to every one; the end was at hand. Paris had acquired a taste for her kindly sovereign. Louis knew that he was nearing the tideless sea,--he spoke constantly of his past; he exhibited his skeleton limbs covered with great white scars to his family and his familiar friends; he told the story of his wrongs. He told how he had been brought to the state that he was in by his "executioners of doctors" and by "the tyranny of the Cardinal." He said that the Cardinal had never permitted him to do things as he had wished to do them, and that he had compelled him to do things which had been repugnant to him, so that at last _even he_ "whom Heaven had endowed with all the endurances," had succumbed under the load that had been heaped upon him. His friends listened and were silent.