Finally de Jars obtained his release, and spent his later life in peace and happiness, but not before he had been made to mount the scaffold itself. As he was about to lay his head upon the block, calmly defiant, Laffemas, who had got up the scene to terrify de Jars into a confession, approached and besought him, in consideration of the pardon he had brought him, to disclose all he knew; but he received scant satisfaction on the point, since de Jars, according to some authorities, persisted in his refusal and defiance of the monster. According to another account, the suffering and tension of mind he had endured temporarily deprived him of consciousness, and for some days he lay in a state of exhaustion, from which he only gradually recovered. And those were but instances of the cardinal’s tyranny, and there was so little his red robe had not covered, sufficiently at all events for him to die in his bed. And the magnificent tomb, joint work of two great artists, that covers the spot where he was laid in the church of the Sorbonne, bears the recumbent statue of the cardinal, sustained by Religion and weeping angels. Whether Louis, the king, shed any tears, is not specially recorded. They could hardly, in any case, have been more than of the crocodile kind; since he was so very visibly seen to smile more than once during the passing away of his great minister. In the days when Vitry relieved him of Concini by assassination, Louis thanked him warmly for the service. “Now I am king, Vitry,” he said. But it had not been for long, except in name; for he had only been free to become the slave of Richelieu, and now his own life was ebbing fast away, not, apparently, to his very great regret. Those last days were sorely troubled at the thought of his mother, who had died in exile at Cologne. He put the blame of this on Richelieu, and made all the reparation now possible, by ordering prayers throughout the kingdom for the repose of her soul. This seemed to bring him some tranquillity, of mind. He loved music, and he composed for himself a _De Profundis_ to be chanted when his last hour should arrive. Seated one day at the window of the Château of St Germains, he pointed out the route which was best for the funeral cortège to follow, to reach St Denis, and reminded of a turn of the road which was awkward to pass, bidding care be taken to keep the hearse well in hand. The death of Richelieu in no way softened the strained relations and conjugal coldness between the king and queen. On the day of the child’s birth, Louis was about to leave the queen without bestowing the embrace customary on such occasions, until he was reminded of his omission, which only a stretch of courtesy might call forgetfulness.