id with a cry of agony: "I
am lost!"

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
res