"Do you think the fact that the skeleton was in the mine is the reason my brothers-in-law want the property so badly?" she asked.
Realizing his folly he abdicated on the 6th of December 1796, and retired to Sardinia, That princess, in spite of her French origin, resisted the attempts of France, then dominated by Cardinal Richelieu, to govern Savoy, but her quarrels with her brothers-in-law led to civil war, in which the latter obtained the help of Spain, and Christina that of France.
His elder son, John III., who had married Margaret, a daughter of the emperor Charles IV., was frequently in the company of his brothers-in-law, the German kings Wenceslaus and Sigismund.
In 1640 Richelieu sent him to Savoy, where the regency of Christine, the duchess of Savoy, and sister of Louis XIII., was disputed by her brothers-in-law, the princes Maurice and Thomas of Savoy, and he succeeded not only in firmly establishing Christine but in winning over the princes to France.
To prevent brothers-in-law from extorting money from a widow as a price for releasing her from perpetual widowhood, Jewish law obliges all brothers at the time of a marriage to sign a document pledging themselves to submit to halisah without payment.