CHAPTER XIX
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.
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.”