He quitted Tours and withdrew to Flanders, writing to the king to complain of the duke's execution, saying that the life of the latter had been the tacit condition of his agreement, and that, his promise being thus not binding, he was about to seek a secure retreat out of the kingdom.

"Everybody knows in what plight you were, brother, and whether you could have done anything else," replied the king.
"What think you, gentlemen, was it that lost the Duke of Montmorency his head ?" said Cardinal Zapata to Bautru and Barrault, envoys of France, whom he met in the antechamber of the King of Spain.

"His crimes," replied Bautru.

"No," said the cardinal, "but the clemency of his Majesty's predecessors." Louis XIII.

and Cardinal Richelieu have assuredly not merited that, reproach in history.
So many and such terrible examples were at last to win the all-powerful minister some years of repose.