A few weeks later (4 December, 1642), Richelieu succumbed to the one enemy whom he was unable to subjugate, in full possession of all the power and splendour for which he had laboured so unceasingly. Save to his family and his immediate followers, his death brought little regret, for all classes had felt his iron hand; and Enghien, who, since his marriage, had been subjected to such galling restraints, must have felt very much like a boy emancipated from the control of some stern and unbending preceptor. Now, at last, he was free to order his life as he pleased, to follow his taste for pleasure, and to indulge his passion for Mlle. du Vigean. When the will which the Cardinal had executed some months before at Narbonne was opened, it was found that the Duchesse d’Enghien’s brother, Armand de Maillé-Brézé, had been left the duchies of Fronsac and Caumont, but that the duchess’s hopes--or rather the Condés’--were extinguished by the following clause: “I make no mention in this will of my niece, the Duchesse d’Enghien, inasmuch as, by her marriage-contract, she has renounced her claim to my property, in consideration of the dowry I have bestowed upon her, and with which I desire her to be content.” [Illustration: _Tres-haulte & Tres puissante princesse CLAIRE-Clemence de Maillé femme de Mouseigneur Louis de Bourbon Prince De Condé & Danguien par son tres humble serviteur Moncornet._ CLAIRE CLÉMENCE DE MAILLÉ-BRÉZÉ, PRINCESSE DE CONDÉ FROM AN ENGRAVING BY MONCORNET] Great was the indignation of the haughty and greedy family into which poor little Claire-Clémence had entered on discovering that the Cardinal had strictly adhered to the conditions which he had imposed at the time of her marriage; and the Prince de Condé lost no time in embarking on a lawsuit against the Duchesse d’Aiguillon, in whose presence the will had been drawn up, and who had benefited largely under it, while her nephew, Armand de Vignerot, was the principal legatee. He pretended that the will had been dictated by the duchess and executed by the Cardinal under the influence of an incestuous passion, and ought, therefore, to be declared void; and counsel on both sides fairly surpassed themselves in the violence of their harangues. A first decision of the Court condemned the Duchesse d’Aiguillon to restore 400,000 livres; but there were so many points to be debated, and the gentlemen of the long robe found the business so very profitable, that it was not until the case had dragged its weary length along for more than thirty years, and _Monsieur le Prince_ had been more than a quarter of a century in his grave, that the parties, weary of the interminable litigation, arrived at a settlement (May, 1674).