(Paris, 1621 - Fontainebleau, 1686.) Fourth Prince of Condé. Duke of Enghien until the death of his father, Henri II de Condé. One of the greatest warriors in our history.
After being initiated into the administration of a province by assisting his father in the government of Burgundy, he distinguished himself for the first time at the age of 19 in a cavalry battle in front of Arras, during the Picardy campaign, in 1640. On his return to Paris, he married a niece of Richelieu, Clémence de Maillé-Brézé (February 1641), against his will. Very quickly, moreover, he continued his romance with Marthe du Vigean, whom he had already met before his marriage, at the house of his sister, the Duchess of Longueville.
After Richelieu's death, but on his advice, he was given command of the Army of Picardy, charged with repelling the Spaniards from the northern French borders. With 15,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, he came to the aid of the besieged Rocroi and defeated, in 1643, 27,000 Spaniards in open country, including the famous regiments of tercios.
The youth of Condé and the dramatic circumstances that France is experiencing (Louis XIII has just died) make this victory even more impressive, which puts an end to one hundred and thirty years of military supremacy of Spain. The Duke of Enghien consolidates his success by taking Thionville. The following year, he joined Turenne in the army of Germany, facing Mercy who was beaten at the difficult battle of Friborg in 1644. Victory which was followed by the occupation of the entire left bank of the Rhine, of Switzerland in Mayence.
In 1645, with Turenne, he forced the passage of the Neckar at Wimpfen and defeated the Bavarians, the best supporters of the empire, at Nôrdlingen. In 1646, Enghien succeeded Gaston d'Orléans in command of the Army of Flanders and, leading a victorious campaign there too, received the capitulation of Dunkirk.
He became the same year Prince of Condé on the death of his father, who left him a considerable fortune. His power began to worry Mazarin who, partly to keep him away from the Court, appointed him to command in Catalonia. Condé failed at the siege of Lérida in 1647.
Called back to Flanders in 1648, he took Ypres and crushed the remnants of "the formidable infantry of the King of Spain" at Lens. Following this decisive victory, the empire signed the treaties of. Westphalia.
But the war continues with Spain and it is complicated by a civil war in France, the Fronde. Condé will throw himself into his intrigues with the ardor and passion of his temperament. Against the parliamentary Fronde, he first offered his services to the queen and to Mazarin, laid siege to Paris (battle of Charenton) and forced the parliamentarians to sign the Peace of Rueil. But, posing as the savior of the Court, he makes himself odious by his pretensions and his insults to Mazarin.
The queen and Mazarin ended up having him arrested at the same time as Conti and Longueville, on January 18, 1650. The three princes were locked up in Vincennes, then in Le Havre. But Paris rose up for the freedom of the princes while certain provinces also entered into open revolt. Faced with this union of the parliamentary Fronde and the Fronde des princes, Mazarin gave in. He himself goes to Le Havre to free his prisoners. He is actually convinced that the alliance between the lords and the robins is not lasting.
Indeed, the "young Fronde des princes", of which Condé took the lead, wasted no time in falling out with the Vieille Fronde of the parliament. Advised by Mazarin, the queen allied herself with the Vieille Fronde against Condé, who dissented and united with Spain. He established himself in his government of Bordeaux and, from there, set the South on fire. He overthrew the royal troops commanded by Turenne at Bléneau, near Orléans (April 7, 1652), and the two armies clashed again in front of Paris.
About to be crushed at the battle of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine (July 2), Condé owes his salvation only to the Grande Mademoiselle who had the king's troops cannonaded from Paris and opened the gates of the capital to him.
But, by his confused and proud policy, Condé quickly lost the support of the bourgeois and the parliamentarians tired of the war. He could only maintain his authority through terror (the July 4 massacre at the Hôtel de Ville) and ended up fleeing on October 13, eight days before Louis XIV returned to Paris. He joined the Spanish armies at Ablon. While a royal declaration ordered the parliament to begin his trial, he accepted, out of hatred for Mazarin, a command in the Spanish army (1653) and, forgetting Rocroi, went to fight in the Spanish ranks until the peace of the Pyrenees. .
He devastates the northern French provinces and responds to his death sentence by leading the Spanish army from the Netherlands to Arras, despite the hostility of the Spanish high command to this maneuver . But luck seems to have abandoned him. Turenne forced him to lift the siege and, after various engagements, ended up defeating him, in 1658, at the Battle of the Dunes.
The amnesty of Condé is the subject of bitter discussions during the negotiations which precede the peace of the Pyrenees. Mazarin ends up agreeing to restore him to his property and his dignities. Returning to Paris in 1660, Condé now behaved like a perfect courtier. He will only play supporting roles. With the consent of the king, who still had some distrust of him, he applied for the throne of Poland, but the negotiations he pursued for eight years (1660-1668) failed. He is happiest in his military undertakings. During the War of Devolution*, he seized all of Franche-Comté in three weeks (February 1668) and during that of Holland, covered himself with glory at the crossing of the Rhine, made Wesel and several other places capitulate and crushed the prince from Orange to Senef (1674). After the death of Turenne, he is responsible for defending Alsace against Montecuccolli. This is his last campaign, also victorious. Overwhelmed with gout, he retired to Chantilly, which Mansard and Le Nôtre embellished for him and where, as an enlightened patron, he received and protected the greatest writers:Bossuet, Racine, Boileau, Molière, La Bruyère...
This great libertine lord, whose ugliness was to become legendary, had always displayed the greatest skepticism during his long and turbulent life. But, at the end of his life, Bossuet succeeded in converting him. He pronounced at his death a funeral oration which has remained famous in which the character traits of this great warrior are strangely idealized.