Henri-Jules de Bourbon, fifth Prince de Condé--His affection for
Chantilly--Improvements which he executes there--The “_Galerie
des Batailles_”--His business capacity--His relations with
his son, the Duc de Bourbon (_Monsieur le Duc_)--Character of
this prince--His ungovernable temper and vindictiveness--His
intrigue with Madame de Mussy--She betrays him for the Comte
d’Albert--A violent scene--Madame de Mussy follows her new
lover to Spain--Her sad fate--Other amours of _Monsieur le
Duc_--Character of _Madame la Duchesse_--Her intrigue with
the Prince de Conti--Her grief at his premature death--Last
years of the Prince de Condé--His eccentricity becomes hardly
distinguishable from madness--Anecdotes concerning him--His
death--His last instructions to his son--The Duc de Bourbon
retains his title, instead of assuming that of Prince de
Condé--His sudden death, eleven months after that of his father.
The son and grandson of the Great Condé have left but few traces in
history, and the little which is recorded of them does not, as a rule,
redound to their credit.
Succeeding to the offices as well as to the titles of his father,
Henri-Jules de Bourbon was appointed colonel of the infantry Regiment
of Condé and _mestre de camp_ of the cavalry corps of the same
name, and took part in several campaigns, being present at the capture
of Mons in 1691, and of Namur in the following year. During the latter
part of the campaign of 1692, he was nominally second in command of
the Army of Flanders, but no opportunity for distinction seems to have
come his way, and soon afterwards ill-health obliged him to retire from
active service. Henceforth, he divided his time between the Court,
Paris, and Chantilly, though, as he grew older, the Court appears to
have lost the attraction it had once had for him, and, when there, he
remained most of the day in his apartments, only emerging to attend the
King at his _lever_ and _coucher_, or to visit the Ministers,
whom, when he happened to want anything from them, it was his habit to
importune to the verge of distraction.
Chantilly was “his delight.” When he walked in the gardens, he was
followed by four secretaries, to whom he dictated any ideas which
occurred to him for the improvement of the château or the estate. He
spent immense sums upon them, and with the happiest results, for he
possessed the most exquisite taste. It was he who finished the parish
church, erected upon land which had been given by his father to the
inhabitants of the town, completed the Ménagerie, and built the gallery
in the _Petit Château_, the _Galerie des Batailles_. In the
pictures representing the history of the Great Condé which by his
orders were painted for it, he was very reluctant to omit the actions
which Condé had performed when in command of the armies of Spain. At
the same time, he felt that he could not venture to expose to the eyes
of Frenchmen the exploits which had been directed against themselves.
The painter professed himself unable to suggest any means of
reconciling his patron’s wishes with his scruples, but, at length, the
prince bethought himself of a most ingenious way out of the difficulty.
He caused a picture to be painted in which the Muse of History was
represented tearing with indignation, and flinging far away from her,
the pages of a book which she held in her hands. On these pages were
inscribed: “The Relief of Cambrai”; “The Relief of Valenciennes”; “The
Retreat from before Arras”; while in the centre of the picture stood
the Great Condé, endeavouring to impose silence on Fame, who, with
trumpet in hand, was proclaiming his exploits against France.[243]
The prince could well afford to indulge his taste for the embellishment
of Chantilly, since he had inherited the business acumen of his
grandfather and amassed a great fortune, though, according to
Saint-Simon, he was “a beggar in comparison with those who came after
him.” He does not appear to have been over scrupulous in his methods
of acquiring wealth, and made a practice of lending large sums to the
members of the Parlement of Paris, in order to ensure their support in
the lawsuits in which he was perpetually engaged, in view of which it
is not surprising to learn that it was very rarely that a verdict was
given against him.
With his son, who, on the death of the Great Condé, had retained the
title of Duc de Bourbon, instead of assuming that of Enghien, which
both his grandfather and father had borne, but was now officially
styled _Monsieur le Duc_, he appears to have been on anything but
cordial terms, though the harshness with which he sometimes treated him
was tempered by a wholesome fear of the King, whose son-in-law he was.
It must be admitted, however, that the Duc de Bourbon was scarcely the
kind of son to inspire affection, even in a parent with an infinitely
greater capacity for it than _Monsieur le Prince_ possessed. Not
only was he almost repulsive in appearance, but he was cursed with so
violent a temper that it was positively dangerous to contradict him.
One evening, when entertaining some friends at Saint-Maur, he had an
argument with the Comte de Fiesque over some historical incident. When
the count refused to admit that he was wrong, _Monsieur le Duc_
sprang to his feet in a violent rage, and, snatching up a plate, hurled
it at his guest’s head, and then turned him out of the house, although,
having been invited to stay the night, he had sent away his coach. The
unfortunate Fiesque was obliged to make his way to the house of the
curé of the parish and beg a bed from him.
He was, moreover, exceedingly vindictive, and any one whom he even
suspected of doing him an ill turn speedily had cause to rue it. Thus,
on one occasion, having reason to believe that a certain escapade of
his in Paris, which had earned him a severe reprimand from his royal
father-in-law, had been brought to the King’s notice by the Marquis
de Termes, one of his Majesty’s _premiers valets de chambre_, he
despatched several of his servants, armed with stout canes, to lie in
wait for the supposed informer. They ambushed him successfully and
administered so unmerciful a castigation that he was obliged to keep
his bed for several days.
Saint-Simon accuses him of a love of brutal practical jokes, and
asserts that the death of the Latin poet Santeuil, at Dijon, in 1694,
was due to his having given him a glass of champagne into which he had
emptied the contents of his snuff-box. But we can find no confirmation
of this story, and probably there is no more truth in it than in a good
many other of Saint-Simon’s anecdotes.
Notwithstanding the indolence which in his youth had been the despair
of his tutors, the pains bestowed upon his education had been by no
means wasted, and even his enemy Saint-Simon is fain to admit that
he was a well-read and intelligent man. In war his abilities were
infinitely superior to those of his father, and had he enjoyed, like
him, the advantage of the Great Condé’s training, it is quite probable
that he would have made a name for himself, that is to say, if Louis
XIV., who had little liking for his son-in-law, could ever have been
persuaded to entrust him with an independent command. Between 1688 and
the Peace of Ryswick he served in several campaigns, and proved himself
a very capable officer, as well as displaying brilliant courage,
notably at the siege of Namur and in the battles of Steenkirke and
Neerwinden. In the campaigns of the War of the Spanish Succession he
took no part, and it would seem that, in spite of his military talents,
or perhaps because of them, Louis XIV. did not desire to employ him.
With his wife _Monsieur le Duc_ lived on good terms, though, in
common with most aristocratic husbands of the time, he unfortunately
found it impossible to concentrate his affections upon their lawful
object. Of his mistresses the most noted was the beautiful Madame de
Mussy. She was a little woman, but exquisitely shaped, “with a dazzling
complexion and ravishing arms and bosom.” The wife of a counsellor
to the Parlement of Dijon, “who was too much in love with the wine
of Beaune to guard a treasure so difficult to defend,” _Monsieur
le Duc_ had met her when he was presiding over the Estates of
Burgundy in place of his father, and, profiting by her husband’s
addiction to the bottle, had paid her a court which was soon crowned
with success. When, at length, the bibulous counsellor learned what
had been going on under his very nose, he was furious, and “carried
his resentment even so far as to give his wife several blows.” His
violence furnished the lady with a pretext for leaving him which she
was not slow to seize, and, while M. de Mussy was petitioning the
Parlement of Dijon for a decree empowering him to have her shut up in
a convent, she effected her escape, followed her lover to Paris, and
threw herself upon his protection. This the prince readily promised,
and, shortly afterwards, Madame de Mussy found herself the occupant of
a luxuriously-furnished house in the precincts of the Temple, where
she was soon surrounded by a little Court, which was composed not only
of the Marquis de la Fare, the Abbé Chaulieu, the Comte de Fiesque and
other friends of _Monsieur le Duc_, but also of several ladies
of the Court, such as the Duchesse de Bouillon and the Marquise de
Bellefonds, who were not too particular what company they kept, so long
as it was sufficiently amusing.
_La petite_ Mussy, if she had been prudent, might have continued
to live a life of luxury and pleasure for many years, for the passion
which she had inspired in the heart of _Monsieur le Duc_ was no
ephemeral one. But, unfortunately for her, she happened to meet, one
night at the Opera, that notorious lady-killer, the Comte d’Albert,
who, after being banished from France, on account of his intrigue
with Madame de Luxembourg, had recently been expelled from Brussels,
for making himself too agreeable to the Mlle. Maupin--the heroine of
Théophile Gauthier’s romance--then mistress of the Elector of Bavaria.
The count, having no other amorous engagement on hand just then,
decided to make a conquest of Madame de Mussy. The task was, of course,
easy enough for a gentleman who, we are assured, had only to show
himself to ensure an immediate capitulation, and soon Madame de Mussy
had become as indifferent to her titular lover as she had formerly
been to her husband. _Monsieur le Duc_, “finding that she no
longer responded to his caresses with her accustomed ardour,” had her
watched, and ere long discovered the truth. His wrath was terrible,
though, happily, he contented himself by venting it upon the furniture,
mirrors, and porcelain of his perfidious mistress, among which he raged
with such fury that in a few moments the apartment was strewn with the
wreckage of what had represented a comfortable little fortune.
Madame de Mussy, whom love for her fascinating count had inspired with
a courage of which she might not have otherwise been capable, boldly
faced the storm, and informed the infuriated prince that “she was not
his wife, that he had nothing wherewith to reproach her, and that she
was in love with the Comte d’Albert, who was far more amiable than his
Highness, as he might judge for himself by taking the trouble to look
in a mirror.”
_Monsieur le Duc_, beside himself with passion, swore that he
would hand her over to her husband, who would take good care to have
her shut up in a convent for the rest of her days, and took his
departure, vowing vengeance.
Knowing enough of the vindictive character of the prince to be aware
that this threat was no idle one, Madame de Mussy recognized that
she ought not to lose a moment in placing herself beyond his reach.
The Comte d’Albert, now reinstated in the good graces of the Elector
of Bavaria, had recently set out for Madrid, where he had been
appointed that prince’s envoy, and she at once resolved to follow him
thither. That same night, accompanied by her confidential _femme de
chambre_ and subsequent historian, Mlle. Valdory, she left Paris,
disguised in masculine attire, and, after many adventures, for the War
of the Succession was then raging in Spain, reached Madrid in safety.
She had expected to find there the Comte d’Albert and consolation
for her hardships and misfortunes in his arms; but not only was she
deceived in this hope, but she learned that her lover was false to
her, and that he had recently consented, doubtless for a substantial
consideration, to make an honest woman of Mlle. de Montigny, a cast-off
mistress of the Elector of Bavaria. Worn out by the fatigues and
privations she had suffered during her journey from Paris, devoured by
jealousy, and tortured by remorse, the unhappy Madame de Mussy fell
into a decline and died six months later.[244]
As for _Monsieur le Duc_, he consoled himself for his mistress’s
perfidy by a _liaison_ with Madame de Rupelmonde--the wife of a
Flemish gentleman in the Spanish service--whom Saint-Simon describes
as “brown as a cow and possessed of unparalleled impudence.” To this
lady succeeded a certain Madame Locmaria, who was soon replaced, in
her turn, by the pretty daughter of an upholsterer in the Rue des
Fossés-Monsieur-le-Prince.[245]
_Madame la Duchesse_, however, had certainly no right to take
exception to her husband’s little affairs, for, though Madame de Caylus
assures us that she “lived with him like an angel,” it would seem that
her marriage vows sat very lightly upon her. This daughter of Madame de
Montespan was an exceedingly pretty, accomplished, and charming young
woman; but, if she had inherited her mother’s beauty, intelligence, and
fascination, she had also her full share of that too celebrated lady’s
less agreeable qualities, being selfish, extravagant, and deceitful,
while her mordant wit made her universally dreaded. “Her wit shines
in her eyes,” writes _Madame_; “but there is some malignity in
them also. I always say that she reminds me of a pretty cat which,
while you play with it, lets you feel its claws.” “Although she was
slightly deformed,” says Saint-Simon, “her face was formed by the most
tender loves and her nature made to dally with them.... She possessed
the art of placing every one at their ease; there was nothing about
her which did not tend naturally to please, with a grace unparalleled,
even in her slightest actions. She made captive even those who had
the most cause to fear her, and those who had the best of reasons to
hate her required often to recall the fact to resist her charms....
Sportive, gay, and merry, she passed her youth in frivolity and in
pleasures of all kinds,[246] and, whenever the opportunity presented
itself, they extended even to debauchery. With these qualities, she
possessed much intelligence and much capacity for intrigue and affairs,
with a suppleness which cost her nothing. She was scornful, mocking,
bitterly sarcastic, incapable of friendship and very capable of hatred;
mischievous, haughty, implacable, prolific in base artifices and in the
most cruel _chansons_, with which she gaily assailed persons whom
she pretended to love and who passed their lives with her.[247] She was
the siren of the poets; she had all their charms and all their perils.”
The charms of the young princess naturally drew around her many
adorers; but, though she had neither affection nor esteem for her
husband, and was far from insensible to the homage which was paid her,
her conduct would not appear to have merited any very severe censure
until some years after her marriage, when a _soupirant_ presented
himself whom it would have been difficult for any woman to resist.
This was Louis François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, the young man for
whose pardon, it will be remembered, the Great Condé had petitioned
Louis XIV. on his death-bed. This pardon had unfortunately been a
merely formal one, for the prince had far too much of his famous
uncle’s temperament, that is to say, the temperament of the Condé of
the Regency and the Fronde, ever to secure the favour of _le Grand
Monarque_, who always regarded with suspicion those who showed any
independence of character, particularly if they happened to belong to
the Royal House. In consequence, though he possessed a natural instinct
for war, combined with the most superb courage, and appeared destined
for a brilliant military career, nothing would induce the King to
allow him to hold high command, and he had the mortification of seeing
himself passed over in favour of generals who were manifestly his
inferiors.
[Illustration: LOUISE FRANÇOISE, DUCHESSE DE BOURBON (CALLED
MADAME LA DUCHESSE)
FROM A CONTEMPORARY PRINT]
Conti was a tall and rather awkward-looking man, with irregular but
pleasing features, and the most charming manners which made him a
universal favourite. He was married to Marie Thérèse de Bourbon, the
eldest daughter of _Monsieur le Prince_, who adored him and of
whom he appears to have been fond; but this did not prevent him from
falling in love with _Madame la Duchesse_, who returned his
passion with equal fervour. _Monsieur le Duc_ was furious, but he
did not dare to quarrel openly with his brother-in-law, and, besides,
thanks to the complaisance of the Dauphin, who was much attached both
to his half-sister and to Conti, and gave the lovers many opportunities
of meeting at his country-house at Meudon, “the affair was conducted
with such admirable discretion that they never gave any one any hold
over them.”[248]
It has sometimes been asserted that the prince’s infatuation for
_Madame la Duchesse_ lost him the throne of Poland, to which,
through the skilful intrigues of the Abbé de Polignac, the French envoy
at Warsaw, he had been elected, by a majority in the Diet, on the
death of John Sobieski, in 1697. But, although it is true that he was
exceedingly loth to leave France and his mistress, and employed every
possible pretext to delay his departure for Poland, it is very doubtful
whether, without far stronger support than Louis XIV. was prepared to
give him, an earlier arrival upon the scene would have enabled him to
triumph over so formidable a competitor as Augustus of Saxony.
At the beginning of 1709, Louis XIV.’s dislike of Conti at length
yielded to the danger of the country, and the prince was informed
that he had been selected to command the Army of the North in the
approaching campaign. This tardy recognition of his undoubted merits
came, however, too late. For some time past he had been in very bad
health, and on 21 February he died, at the early age of forty-five.
His death, which was regarded as a public calamity, so great had been
his popularity and so high the opinion formed of his military talents,
was a terrible blow to _Madame la Duchesse_. “He was the only
one to whom she had been faithful,” writes Saint-Simon; “she was the
only one to whom he had not been fickle; his greatness would have done
homage to her, and she would have shone with his lustre.” “She had need
of all the command which she had naturally over herself,” observes
Madame de Caylus, “to conceal her grief from _Monsieur le Duc_.
She succeeded, the more easily, I believe, because he was so relieved
at no longer having such a rival that he cared neither to investigate
the past nor the depths of the heart.”
* * * * *
The untimely death of the Prince de Conti was followed, at an interval
of a few weeks, by that of _Monsieur le Prince_, who had long been
in failing health.
During the latter years of his life the eccentricity for which he
had always been noted had become more and more pronounced, until at
last, if Saint-Simon is to be believed, it was hardly distinguishable
from madness. Calling one morning on the Maréchale de Noailles, at
the moment when her bed was being made, and there only remained the
counterpane to be put on, he paused for a moment at the door, and then,
crying out in a transport of delight: “_Oh! le beau lit, le beau
lit, qu’il est appétisant!_” he took a flying leap on to the bed
and rolled over several times. Then he got down and made his excuses
to the astonished old lady, saying that her bed looked so clean and so
beautifully made that he had been unable to resist the temptation to
roll in it.
It was whispered that there were times when he imagined himself a dog
or some other animal, and Saint-Simon declares that “people very worthy
of belief had assured him that they had seen the prince at the King’s
_coucher_ suddenly throw his head into the air several times
running and open his mouth quite wide, like a dog while barking, yet
without making a noise.”
He also began attending in a ridiculously minute manner to his diet,
and insisted that everything he ate should first be carefully weighed.
In the course of his last illness, which was a very protracted one,
he suddenly announced that he was dead, and refused all nourishment,
on the ground that dead men did not eat. The doctors were in despair,
but, at length, they decided to humour him in his delusion that he had
ceased to exist, but to maintain that dead men did occasionally eat.
They offered to produce examples of their contention, and several men
unknown to their illustrious patient were accordingly brought in, who
pretended to be dead, but ate nevertheless. This trick succeeded, and
for the remaining weeks of his life the prince consented to take food,
but only in the presence of the doctors and his fellow-corpses.
As _Monsieur le Prince_ grew worse, his wife summoned up
sufficient courage to beg him to think of his conscience and to
see a confessor. He angrily refused, and persisted in his refusal,
notwithstanding her tears and supplications. As a matter of fact, he
had been seeing Père de la Tour of the Oratory for some months past,
though in the strictest secrecy. He had at first demanded that the
reverend father should come to him by night, and in disguise. Père de
la Tour replied that he would be quite willing to visit _Monsieur le
Prince_ under cover of darkness, but that the respect he owed to the
cloth would not permit him to masquerade in the attire of a layman.
After some hesitation, the penitent consented to waive this condition;
but he caused the most elaborate precautions to be taken to prevent
his visitor being recognized. He was admitted, at dead of night, by a
little back door, where a confidential servant of the prince, with a
lantern in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other, was waiting to
receive him, and conducted to the sick-room along dark passages and
through many doors, which were unlocked and locked again after him
as he passed. Having at length reached his destination, he confessed
_Monsieur le Prince_, and was then conducted out of the house
by the same way and in the same manner as he had entered it. Similar
precautions were observed on each of his subsequent visits.
Henri Jules de Bourbon, fifth Prince de Condé, died on 1 April, 1709,
at the age of sixty-six. His last instructions to his son were to carry
out all the improvements which he had projected at Chantilly, and to
take care that none of the honours due to his rank were omitted at his
funeral.
And so he passed away, “regretted by no one, neither by servants nor
friends, neither by child nor wife. Indeed, _Madame la Princesse_
was so ashamed of her tears that she made excuses for them.”[249]
The Duc de Bourbon, for he preferred to retain his old title, instead
of assuming that which his grandfather had rendered so illustrious--an
example which was followed by his son, and, a century later, by
the last head of his House--did not live to carry out his father’s
projects at Chantilly, since he survived him less than a year. He had
been suffering for some time from continual pains in the head, “which
tempered the joy he felt at being delivered from his troublesome father
and brother-in-law.”[250] His mother, much alarmed, had besought him
to think of his soul, and this he had promised to do, as soon as the
Carnival and its pleasures were over and the fashionable season for
penitence had arrived. On the evening of Shrove Monday (3 March, 1710),
as he was driving home over the Pont-Royal from the Hôtel de Coislin,
he was seized with a fit and carried in an unconscious condition to the
Hôtel de Condé. Priests and doctors were speedily in attendance, but
he never recovered consciousness, and died about four o’clock in the
morning.
“_Madame la Duchesse_,” writes Madame de Caylus, “appeared
infinitely afflicted by his death, and I believe she was sincere.”
But the chronicler is careful to explain that this affliction was
not caused by any love for the departed prince, but “because, since
the death of the Prince de Conti, her mind and heart were occupied
by nothing but ambition,[251] and _Monsieur le Duc_ possessed
all the qualities necessary to make her conceive great hopes in that
direction.”