In August 1544, Enghien added to the laurels he had gained at Rocroi in three days’ sanguinary fighting before Freiburg, and a year later gained the victory of Nördlingen over the Imperialists. In the latter engagement he was wounded, and an attack of fever which supervened nearly cost him his life. In the autumn he returned to Paris, in a very weak state of health, when, as a general rule, man is particularly susceptible to feminine blandishments. The astonishment of his friends and the despair of poor Mlle. du Vigean may, therefore, be imagined, when it was perceived that he seemed to regard the girl whom he had once so passionately loved with as much indifference “as if he had never heard her voice.” To what are we to attribute so sudden a revulsion of feeling? The ingenuous Désormeaux ascribes it to the fact that “his love had vanished with the prodigious quantity of blood that had been taken from him”; others to the effect of the paternal remonstrances. But the most probable reason is that, with increasing years and experience of life, common-sense had at last asserted itself, and that, in despair either of obtaining the dissolution of his marriage or of overcoming the virtuous scruples of his inamorata, he had decided no longer to abandon himself to a passion which could have no other result than that of troubling his peace of mind. It is possible, however, that he may have been prompted by a more worthy motive. Finding that his equivocal attentions had somewhat compromised the lady, while, on the other hand, her devotion to himself had caused her to reject the honourable advances of more than one highly eligible suitor, he may at length have awakened to a sense of the selfishness of his conduct and have determined to yield his place to some one with a better right. If such were the reason of his withdrawal, the sacrifice was a vain one. Marthe du Vigean, though she permitted no complaint to escape her, remained inconsolable. She turned a deaf ear to Saint-Mesgrin and other suitors, who crowded round her as soon as the brusque retreat of Enghien was known, and resolved to become the bride of the Church. Lest, however, the resolution which she meditated should be deemed by the world the “outcome of grief or of mortification,” she took no immediate steps to carry it out, and for some time continued to receive the visits of her friends, even of those who had been the witnesses of her passion. But, at length, in the summer of 1647, ignoring the counsels and entreaties of her relatives, she quitted her father’s house and took refuge with the Carmelites of the Rue Saint-Jacques, whither the poor little Duchesse d’Enghien had been accustomed to repair, on account of her, to appease her jealousy and find resignation. Anne du Vigean, the future Duchesse de Richelieu, in a letter to her brother, the Marquis de Fors, gives an interesting picture of her sister’s last days in the world: