It was a very striking-looking, as well as a very learned, young man who, one fine April morning, took his seat in the Parlement of Dijon, “with every honour and testimony of affection possible.” “His eyes,” writes a contemporary, “were blue and full of vivacity, his nose was aquiline, his mouth very disagreeable, from being very large, and his teeth too prominent. But in his countenance generally there was something great and haughty, somewhat resembling an eagle. He was not very tall, but his figure was admirably well-proportioned. He danced well, had a pleasant expression, a noble air, and a very fine head.”[173]
Unhappily for the Duc d’Enghien and for France, his father and his teachers, while sparing no pains to develop his talents and to strengthen his body, had not succeeded in correcting certain grave defects of character, which, as he grew older, were to become more pronounced and to end by tarnishing his fame. The lad was fearlessly brave, open-handed, quick-witted, and full of energy and determination. But he was haughty and overbearing, thoroughly selfish, and supremely indifferent to the sufferings or susceptibilities of others, when he had ends of his own to serve.
When the Prince de Condé had married Charlotte de Montmorency, he was, for his rank, a poor man; but during the last few years the family had become one of the wealthiest in France. The prince himself held the rich governments of Berry and Burgundy, and several other offices, and had received, at different times, immense sums from the Crown; while, after the execution of the unfortunate Henri II., Duc de Montmorency, for high treason, in 1632, the princess and her two elder sisters, the Duchesses d’Angoulême and de Ventadour, had divided between them the vast fortune of the Montmorencies.[174] To Madame la Princesse fell the largest share of the landed property, including the estates of Écouen, Mello, Châteauroux, Méru, and La Versine; while, some time afterwards, Chantilly and Dammartin were also bestowed upon her, though she appears to have been granted merely the enjoyment of them for life; and it was not until the autumn of 1643 that they became the absolute property of the Condés, in recognition of the military services of the Duc d’Enghien.
Although the Princesse de Condé paid occasional visits to her country seats of Mello, Méru, and La Versine, the greater part of the summer was always passed by her at Chantilly, whither she came with a little party composed of the most intimate friends of her children, and a sprinkling of wits and men of letters. Monsieur le Prince, who did not care for country pleasures, usually remained in Paris, and, in his absence, etiquette was laid aside, and the guests permitted to amuse themselves as they pleased. Lenet, in his “Mémoires,” has left us an interesting account of how the company at Chantilly passed their time:
“The excursions were the most agreeable possible to imagine. The evenings were not less amusing. After the usual prayers had been read in the chapel, which were attended by every one, all the ladies retired to the apartments of the princess, where they played at various games and sang. There were often fine voices and very agreeable conversations, stories of Court intrigue and gallantry, which made life pass as pleasantly as possible.... Rhymes and riddles were composed, which occupied the time in spare hours. Some were to be seen walking on the edge of the ponds, and some in the alleys of the park or gardens, on the terrace or on the lawn, alone or in parties, according to the state of mind in which they were; while others sang airs, or recited verses, or read romances on a balcony, or as they walked or reposed on the grass. Never was there seen so beautiful a place in such a beautiful season.”[175]
Lenet wrote of the spring of 1650, when the Princes (Condé, Conti and Longueville) were in prison, and Madame de Longueville an exile, and when, as he admits, the amusements of the young people were often disturbed by bad news. But before the Fronde, which divided all French society, Chantilly was an even more delightful resort. The young Duc d’Enghien came there, bringing with him many of the young nobles who had been his friends at Benjamin’s Academy, and who were to fight by his side on many a fiercely-contested field; the two sons of the Maréchal Duc de Châtillon, Maurice, Comte de Coligny, and Gaspard, Marquis d’Andelot; Guy de Laval, son of the Marquis de Sablé; Léon d’Angennes, Marquis de Pisani; Louis and Charles Amédée de Savoie, who successively bore the title of Duc de Nemours; La Moussaye, the hero of the battle of La Marfée; the two du Vigeans, Nangis, Tavannes, and others, amongst whom grew up a little hump-backed boy, who was one day to be known to fame as the Maréchal de Luxembourg.
And there also was Enghien’s lovely sister, Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, who, in 1642, was to marry the Duc de Longueville, and with her a bevy of young beauties, light-hearted, laughter-loving damsels, bandying jests with the wits, rallying the more serious, and exercising, under the indulgent eyes of Madame la Princesse, their precocious coquetry upon the Duc d’Enghien and his comrades. Among them may be mentioned Marie Antoinette de Brienne, daughter of the Minister of that name, afterwards the Marquise de Gamaches; the two sisters of the future Maréchal de Luxembourg, Marie Louise and Isabelle de Boutteville; the celebrated Julie d’Angennes, afterwards Duchesse de Montausier; and Anne and Marthe du Vigean, the former of whom married the Marquis de Pons, and en secondes noces the young Duc de Richelieu, the Cardinal’s heir.
Of these nymphs, two—Isabelle de Boutteville and Marthe du Vigean—were destined to figure very prominently in the life of the Great Condé. They presented a singular contrast. Isabelle de Boutteville, who, under the name of the Duchesse de Châtillon, was to achieve celebrity as the most finished coquette of her time, was an imperious young beauty, who already appreciated to the full the power of her own attractions. Insatiable for admiration, she disdained no conquests, encouraging and rebuffing by turns the troop of adorers who gathered about her, and rehearsing thus early with the Duc d’Enghien and the younger of the two boys who were to bear the title of Duc de Nemours the part she was one day to play with them on another stage. None of the young beauties of Chantilly, with the exception of Mlle. de Bourbon, inspired the poets who foregathered there to celebrate their charms and deplore their coldness more often than she. Among a multitude of verses of more or less merit, composed in her honour, may be mentioned those of the poet Charpy, wherein he draws an ingenious comparison between the destruction wrought by the sword of his father, the notorious duellist, and the havoc created by the beaux yeux of Isabelle:
“Quand je vois de rapport de votre père à vous,
Divinité mortelle, adorable Sylvie!