Although not in the first rank of the French nobility, the Du Vigeans were high in favour at Court, and Madame du Vigean was one of _Madame la Princesse’s_ most intimate friends. She was very rich and gave magnificent fêtes at her country-seat of La Barre, and Marthe was a considerable heiress. In ordinary circumstances, therefore, the Duc d’Enghien might not have despaired of obtaining his father’s and the King’s--that is to say, Richelieu’s--consent to the match, for the princes of the House of Bourbon had often sought their wives among the daughters of noble and wealthy French families. But, unhappily for the lovers, _Monsieur le Prince_ had other views for his son, and had long since selected a wife for him. Among the courtiers who so eagerly sought the favour of Richelieu no one was more obsequious than the Prince de Condé, who had not only willingly consented, contrary to all ancient usage, that the Princes of the Blood should yield precedence to cardinals, but had even, it is asserted, carried his servility to such a point as to raise the tapestry and hold it when the all-powerful Minister passed through a door. Omnipotent though Richelieu was, he could hardly have flattered himself with the hope of an alliance with the Princes of the Blood; and it must therefore have been with feelings of astonishment and contempt mingling with gratification that “he beheld M. de Condé ask of him almost on his knees the hand of his niece, and plead for this object as eagerly as though he had in view for his son the sovereignty of the world.”[176] The niece in question was Claire-Clémence de Maillé-Brézé, daughter of the Maréchal Duc de Brézé, who had married “solely for her beauty,” as he was never tired of reminding the Cardinal, Richelieu’s pretty but eccentric sister, Nicole du Plessis. Born on 28 February, 1628, Claire-Clémence’s infancy was passed with her parents at the Château of Milly, in Anjou. But when the unfortunate Nicole’s eccentricity turned to madness,[177] and the marshal began to console himself openly with the widow of one of his _valets de chambre_, the Cardinal decided that it was time to remove his niece; and, in 1633, took advantage of an epidemic which was then ravaging Anjou to send her to the Château des Caves, near Nogent-sur-Seine, to the Bouthilliers, whose fortune he had made, and who were entirely devoted to him. It is probable that Richelieu would not have shown himself so solicitous for the welfare of the little girl had he not already foreseen that she would become an instrument of his policy. In point of fact, most flattering proposals for her hand had already been made him. The first was from the Duc de la Trémoille, on behalf of his eldest son, afterwards the Prince de Tarente; and the Cardinal appears to have been on the point of returning a favourable answer, when the Prince de Condé intervened and solicited the hand of this child of four for the Duc d’Enghien, then twelve years of age.