Ill-fortune seemed to pursue both husband and wife. On 5 September, 1618, the princess gave birth to twin sons, neither of whom survived, and, in the following March, Condé fell dangerously ill, and for some days his life was despaired of. The physicians who attended him attributed his illness to the state of profound melancholy into which his captivity and the death of his children had thrown him, and, when this was known, the prince became the object of universal sympathy, and Louis XIII. was strongly urged to consent to his release. His Majesty promised to set the prisoner at liberty, “so soon as he had placed his (Condé’s) affairs in order,” but several months passed, and Condé still remained at Vincennes, though granted every indulgence consistent with a due regard to his security. However, at the end of August, another domestic event, which, happily, had a different termination from the others, came to relieve the monotony of his captivity, Madame la Princesse giving birth to a daughter, Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, the future Duchesse de Longueville, the heroine of the Fronde.
The birth of this little girl was the turning-point of her parents’ fortunes, for on 20 October Condé was at length set at liberty, and five weeks later the Parlement of Paris solemnly registered “the declaration of innocence of Monsieur le Prince,[170] who was restored to all his honours and offices.”
His three years’ captivity, which cannot be said to have been altogether undeserved, had worked a great change in the character of Condé. Like so many others, he had learned wisdom from adversity. Until then he had struggled against the royal authority with almost as much zeal as his father and grandfather, though, since the death of Henri IV., without their justification. But the lesson he had received had been a severe one, and henceforth the King had no more loyal servant, his Ministers no stauncher supporter, than the first Prince of the Blood. His enemies have accused him, and with only too much reason, of servility towards those in power and of an excessive regard for his own interests; but, on the whole, the line of conduct he pursued seems to have been patriotic as well as prudent.
Two years after Condé’s release from Vincennes, on 8 September, 1621, his wife bore him a son, Louis, Duc d’Enghien, who was to confer so much lustre on the name of Condé; and in 1629 a second son was born to them, Armand, Prince de Conti.
CHAPTER XIII
Birth of Louis de Bourbon, Duc d’Enghien (the Great Condé)—His early years at the Château of Montrond—His education—His personal appearance and character—Wealth of the Condés—Life at Chantilly—Isabelle de Boutteville and Marthe du Vigean—Tender attachment of the Duc d’Enghien and Mlle. du Vigean—Subserviency of the Prince de Condé towards Richelieu—He solicits for Enghien the hand of the Cardinal’s niece, Claire-Clémence de Maillé-Brézé—The young prince protests against the sacrifice demanded of him, but eventually consents—He is presented to Mlle. de Maillé-Brézé—First campaign of the Great Condé—He denies the rumour that he has “no taste for his fiancée”—Fête at the Palais-Cardinal: a ludicrous incident—Marriage of the Duc d’Enghien.
Voltaire has observed that the sole claim of the third Prince de Condé to remembrance is that he begat one of France’s most famous generals. To be just, he should have added that the claim is a twofold one, inasmuch as not only was he the father of the Great Condé, but gave him one of the most thorough military educations that prince ever received, and but for which, though his fiery valour would doubtless have gained him some distinction in the field, it is scarcely probable that he would ever have earned the title of “le Grand.”
The birth of this shoot of the royal race was an event of importance, for, after five years, the union of Louis XIII. with Anne of Austria still remained without result, and the Duc d’Orléans, the King’s younger brother, did not seem inclined to take a wife; but, at the moment when it occurred, the attention of the Parisians was occupied by the arrival of a Carmelite monk, Père Dominique de Jésus-Maria, to whom miraculous powers were ascribed, and it passed almost unnoticed.
Condé was in his government of Berry when the news that he had a son reached him, and, as soon as she was able to travel, Madame la Princesse set out for Bourges, to take the boy to his father. The latter had already made up his mind as to the way in which his heir was to be brought up. As the little prince was fragile and sickly, and he dreaded for him the air of Paris, the cares of an over-indulgent mother, and the influence of the fashionable ladies by whom the princess was always surrounded, he had decided to break with tradition and to establish him at the Château of Montrond, a fortified castle belonging to him, situated at the confluence of the Marmande and the Cher, overlooking the little town of Saint-Amand, where he would be placed under the care of some intelligent women of the middle class, who could be trusted to carry out his instructions with unquestioning obedience.
Such an arrangement was naturally but little to the taste of Madame la Princesse, who was indignant at being thus separated from her son, but it was amply justified by the results. In the pure country air the boy’s health steadily improved, while his intelligence was quickly perceived to be far in advance of his age. No sooner did he begin to speak than he displayed a remarkable strength of will, which resisted, as far as a child can resist, the orders of his nurses; and they found it no easy task to persuade him to rise, take his meals, or go to bed at the hours which they considered good for him. He feared no one but his father, and, when the latter was not at hand to correct him, it was difficult to restrain him in anything.