CHAPTER I. Condé's Ancestry.-His Birth and Education.-His Title as Duke d'Enghien. -His Marriage to Claire Clémence de Maillé.-His first Campaigns.- Death of Cardinal Richelieu, the Prime Minister.-Enghien is sent to command in Champagne and Picardy.-His bold Designs.-Death of Louis XIII.-Great Victory over the Spaniards at Rocroy.-Remarks of Paul Louis Courier on Military Reputation.—Siege and Reduction of Thionville.-Close of the Campaign. ANTHONY DE BOURBON, King of Navarre, and father of Henry IV., had two brothers, Francis Count d'Enghien, and Louis, first Prince of Condé. These titles, rather Flemish than French, had been brought into their family by the marriage of their grandfather with Marie, Lady of Enghien and Condé, only daughter of Peter of Luxembourg. Francis Count d'Enghien, having scarcely attained his twenty-fifth year, gained the battle of Cérisoles over the Spaniards in 1544, but died in the following year from the fall of a chest, which crushed his head. His brother, the Prince of Condé, became one of the heads of Cal- vinism. He played a great part in the religious wars of France, and was killed, in 1569, at the bloody battle of Jarnac. His son Henry, the second Prince of Condé, became, at the age of seventeen, the head of his branch, and formed an intimate friend- ship with his first cousin the King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. Like him he was excommunicated by the Pope, Sixtus V. At the battle of Coutras, in 1587, he behaved himself “like a good junior to King Henry," as he had promised him before. the onset. The following year the young Prince died at St. Jean d'Angely, leaving his wife with child. She was delivered. of a son, who was Henry, third Prince of Condé. In those rancorous times a false rumor was circulated of the illegitimacy of his birth, asserting that he was born thirteen months after the death of his father. But without having recourse to mental griefs-the effect of which has been sometimes alleged for similar delays, to the satisfaction of more than one respectable family*— there exist authentic documents to prove that the Prince Henry died on the 5th of March, and that Henry II. was born on the 1st of September of the same year. The third Prince of Condé, unlike the example of his father and grandfather, was bred in the Roman Catholic faith. In 1609 he married Charlotte Margaret de Montmorency, the handsomest woman, it was said, in Europe. Unfortunately Henry IV., already nearly sixty, but still gay and amorous, did not see her with indifference; and it was to be feared that a young woman of sixteen, not disinclined to coquetry, would be touched by the attentions of so great a King. The Prince, her husband, justly irritated, withdrew with her, first to one of his countryhouses in Picardy; and observing that the King did not relax. in his pursuit, he eloped, as it were, with his own wife. He set off on horseback, accompanied only by two servants, one of whom conveyed. the Princess on a pillion, and the other one of her women, and the party arrived that same day at Landrecies, the first town in the Low Countries.† Condé, however, soon separated himself from the Princess, who expressed regret at her flight, and was even at that time presenting a petition for her divorce to the Pope. It appears that she flattered herself with the hope that she could soon become Queen, as if another divorce could remove Mary de Medicis from the throne. But the death of the King in the following year entirely changed the aspect of affairs. Condé returned to France, and distinguished himself during the stormy *The reader may remember the widow of Regnard "Le cœur tout gonflé d'amertume Deux ans encore après j'accouchai d'un posthume!" Le Légataire, Act III., Scene 8. † Memoirs of Bassompierre, p. 421; and Sismondi, vol. xxii. p. 172. 1621.] HIS FATHER AND MOTHER. 3 minority of Louis XIII. To obtain grants of estates and money was his principal ambition; for he had inherited very little. In 1612, therefore, he acquired the town, the château, and the dependencies of Châteauroux. Later he had them raised to a ducal peerage, and later still he increased them by secularising several abbeys.* After a long series of Court intrigues and little civil wars, he had returned to Paris in 1616, and was paying his respects at the Louvre when the Queen Regent gave orders to the Marquis de Themines to arrest him. He was conveyed to the Bastille, and from thence to the Donjon of Vincennes. Up to this time he had never been reconciled to the Princess, and the trial for their divorce was proceeding; but as soon as she found that he was unhappy, she generously devoted herself to his interests. The King having only given her permission to visit her husband on the condition that she also should remain a prisoner, and only leave the prison whenever he did, she consented to this with noble courage. Thus it was that in the Donjon of Vincennes a complete reconciliation took place between them, and the Princess there became the mother of two children.† After three years of imprisonment, another revolution at Court restored them to liberty, and even to favor. In the ensuing years Condé several times commanded the King's armies in Picardy and on the frontiers of Spain, but always with more zeal than success. His favorite abode was at Bourges, in the centre of his domains of Berry and of the Bour. bonnais, which he applied himself with care to increase. He did not, however, neglect to pay long and frequent visits to the Court, whenever he thought he saw any ray of hope to his obtaining new favors. Never did he allow an opportunity to escape him of either asking or taking. On this principle he profited by the punishment of his brother-in-law, the Duke de Montmorency (who was beheaded by order of Richelieu in 1632), in order to confiscate his estates. It was thus that the fine domains of Chantilly, Ecouen, and St. Maur came into the possession of the House of Condé. * Boulainvilliers, State of France, vol. ii., p. 213, ed. 1727. † Memoirs of Pontchartrain, p. 237; and Sismondi, vol. xxii., p. 402. The Prince and the Princess had three sons, whom they lost in their infancy. Their fourth was Louis, who received the title of Duke d'Enghien, and became afterwards the great Condé. He was born at Paris on the 7th of September, 1621. His constitution was frail and delicate; he showed few signs of a long life, and appeared likely to follow the example of his elder brothers; but his father, uneasy at the losses he had already sustained, redoubled his care for the preservation of this last hope of his house. Soon after his birth he had him conveyed to Montrond, a strongly fortified castle which he possessed in Berry, and whose lofty ruins still command the little town of St. Amand. There the young Duke not only enjoyed a purer and more salutary air, but was also secure from danger in case the Prince his father should fall again into disgrace at Court. From the same care of his health, his father, instead of selecting some lady of high rank for his governess, confided him to the care of skilful, experienced nurses. The young Prince was seen with pleasure to improve gradually in strength. Scarcely had he been set free from his swaddling-clothes ere he showed a quickness beyond his years; and when he began first to speak, he displayed a singular degree of haughtiness, which resisted, as far as a child can resist, the orders of the women who had the charge of him. They did not find it an easy task to make him either go to bed, get up, or eat, at the hours which they considered right for him. He feared no one but his father, and when this latter was absent it was difficult to restrain him in anything. He soon acquired cunning enough to obtain by flattery whatever he wished to have; and as he was always rewarded for the pains he took at his lessons, he hastened to learn all they wished to teach him to arrive at his own ends-namely, toys. When he was of an age to be taken from the care of women, the Prince of Condé did not consult established custom, and confide him to the care of some great nobleman, but selected La Boussière, a plain gentleman. According to the testimony of Lenet, a faithful servant of the House of Condé, of whom we shall hereafter often have occasion to speak, this tutor was a good, worthy man, faithful and well-intentioned, and who acted to the letter according to the instructions given him by the 1633.] HIS STUDIES AT BOURGES. 5 Prince of Condé. Joined to him in the education of the young Prince were two Jesuits-Father Pelletier and Father Goutier the former very austere, the latter very gentle. Thus accompanied, the young Duke went to pursue his studies at Bourges. He lived in the finest house in the town, built by Jacques Cœur, the celebrated minister of finance to King Charles VII. This house, a superb monument of ancient times, remains to this day. In a stone balustrade, carved in open work, may still be read the motto of Cœur in large characters: "A CŒUR VAILLANT RIEN IMPOSSIBLE. It is pleasing to think how often the eyes of the young hero must have rested upon these words, which only a few years later he confirmed by his actions. At the time of which I am speaking, the house of Jacques Cœur was close to the Jesuits' College, where the Duke d'Enghien went every morning and evening, like the other students. The only distinction which was made between him and the rest was a balustrade which surrounded his chair; and the heads of the college instructed him in concert with the Fathers who were his domestic teachers. He was made to recite and declaim. He always gained the first prize in his class, which generally happens to all princes, if the professors have only common good breeding; but in the case of the great Condé, it may easily be believed that no unusual favor had been shown him. In his exercises as in his studies he surpassed all the young gentlemen who had the honor of being his companions. His father positively forbade that his young comrades should give up to him, either in his class or at play; and when he was at Bourges he watched and directed himself the education of his son. He not only questioned him and examined his compositions, but he also made him dance before him (an accomplishment in which the young Prince excelled), and saw him play at tennis and at cards, to judge of his address and of his disposition. At twelve years of age the Duke d'Enghien finished his course of philosophy, and sustained some public disputations at his college. His father, like a good courtier, made him dedicate his * Guide Pittoresque en France, vol. iv., Dépt. du Cher., p. 8. |