This announcement not only secured the registration of the Edict, but brought about the liberation of the Princesse de Condé, since to recognize the rights of the son was to acknowledge the innocence of the mother; and now that the favour of the King appeared to be gained, the prisoner of Saint-Jean-d’Angely had no lack of supporters. A few weeks later (June, 1595), Henri, Duc de Montmorency,[135] after having taken at Dijon his oath as Constable of France, presented to Henri IV. a petition signed by Diane de France,[136] widow of François, Maréchal de Montmorency, Charles de Valois, Comte d’Auvergne,[137] the Duc de Thouars, the Duc de Bouillon, the Baron de Montmorency-Damville, and other relatives of the princess, praying him to direct that the accusations brought against her should be adjudicated upon. The King, by letters-patent, ordered the affair to be submitted to the Parlement of Paris, and that the minutes of the proceedings at Saint-Jean-d’Angely should be sent to the registrar of that body. At the same time, he ordered the princess to be set at liberty, on condition that the signatories to the petition should make themselves responsible for her appearance when called upon. In November, 1595, the princess and her son quitted Saint-Jean-d’Angely, in charge of Jean de Vivonne, Marquis de Pisani, whom the King had appointed the boy’s _gouverneur_. In the first days of December, they arrived at the Château of Saint-Germain, which had been provisionally assigned the little prince as a residence, and where, by Henri IV.’s desire, the Parlement of France came to salute him as first Prince of the Blood and heir-presumptive to the throne. In the following May, the trial of the princess--if such a name could be applied to an affair, the issue of which was a foregone conclusion--came on for hearing. The Prince de Conti and the Comte de Soissons had protested against everything that might be decided as illegal, on the ground that the judgment of the case belonged to the King alone, “holding his court garnished with peers, legitimately assembled.” The Parlement summoned the two princes to appear before it, and show cause why their sister-in-law should not be pronounced innocent of the death of her husband. They refused, whereupon the court declared all the proceedings in Saintonge null and void and of no effect, “as contrary to the authority of the King, and to the decrees of his Court of Parlement, and useful in no way whatsoever to the furtherance of justice.” Finally, on 24 July, it issued a decree declaring the princess “pure and innocent,” which, in accordance with letters-patent issued by the King, was registered by all the provincial Parlements. Thus terminated the mysterious affair of Charlotte Catherine de la Trémoille, Princesse de Condé.