But the Duke of Anjou would not allow the young King's feelings to be moved; and it was the Duke who as they passed the belfry bade "Rouvel" to be taken down, because he had rung out the signal for revolt. Yet the cries of "Noël, Noël!" continued every step of the progress through the town, until they gave way to a silence that had an even greater effect upon the impressionable boy. For he was welcomed at the great western gate of the Cathedral by the Archbishop Guillaume de Lestrange, and by him was led before the sepulchre in which the heart of Charles V. lay buried, bearing testimony for ever to his love for Rouen. Then the King remembered how his father, each holy week, had signed many pardons, in memory of the God who had pardoned in those days the sins of the whole world. So he spoke the words of deliverance to Lestrange beside him, while the population crowded, still terror-stricken and uncertain of their fate, into the Cathedral, and filled its aisles with anxious faces, and climbed upon the pillars to try and get some view of the little King near the altar, upon whose will so many lives depended. Then at last appeared the Archbishop, standing high where all might see him, and as he read the words of pardon which had just received the royal signature, you may imagine how the roof rang with a greater "Noël," a louder "Vive le Roi" than ever had sounded in the Cathedral before.
From every prison and jail in the city the prisoners were hurried to the Mother-church; with their fetters still upon them they fell on their knees and thanked God and the King for their deliverance, while their families hung round their necks and sobbed for joy to see them again alive. It was that moment on the eve of the great festival when all the bells of Rouen began to herald the coming of Easter. The great paschal candle had been lit in the Cathedral, and as the Archbishop turned from the joyful throng before him to the King still standing by the altar-steps, he welcomed the beginning of a reign that was blessed by the giving of such happiness. And as the people crowded noisily out into the Parvis, and each wife took her husband home again, few thought of the misery, and the madness worse than death, that was coming upon the young King who had set the prisoners free.