Enghien had just received the command of the Army of Flanders, which had been promised him by Richelieu, in recognition of his fidelity to the Cardinal during the conspiracy of Cinq-Mars and of the submission to which ambition had lately prompted him. The Spaniards were laying siege to Rocroi, a town at the head of the Forest of Ardennes, poorly fortified and garrisoned, and of considerable strategic importance, since its fall would leave France open to invasion. Contrary to the advice of the Maréchal de l’Hôpital, who had been sent to restrain the fiery ardour of the youthful commander, and counselled him to be content with throwing reinforcements into the beleaguered town, he determined to give them battle without delay. The armies met in the plain before Rocroi in the early morning of 19 May, the same day and almost at the same hour as Louis XIII., who had died on the 16th, was laid to rest at Saint-Denis, and, mainly owing to a brilliant cavalry charge delivered by Enghien at a critical moment, the French gained a complete victory. The loss of the Spaniards was very great, while the whole of their baggage and artillery fell into the hands of the victors.
The news of the victory of Rocroi was received with frantic delight in Paris. On all sides nothing was heard but praises of the Duc d’Enghien: of his bravery, his military genius, his humanity towards the wounded, both victors and vanquished, and his magnanimity in demanding for his lieutenants all the rewards of victory, since he himself desired nothing but the glory. In a single day, he had become a popular hero. The enthusiasm abated only to burst forth again three months later, when intelligence arrived that Thionville had surrendered to the young general, and that the entrance to Germany, by way of the Moselle, lay open to the French.
A few days before Thionville fell, on the evening of 30 July, the little Duchesse d’Enghien gave birth to a very fine boy. “The size of this child is a marvel, in view of the smallness of the mother,” writes Perrault to Girard, secretary to the Duc d’Enghien, “and the doctors who have assisted her wonder at it, and are not less astonished at the facility of the accouchement, which has been such that one would suppose that this little one has never done anything else.”[186]
Monsieur le Prince at once sent off one of his gentlemen, named La Roussière, to announce the glad tidings to the duke; but Enghien showed no eagerness to express his paternal joy, and, instead of sending the messenger back, kept him to assist at the reduction of Thionville. Nor was it until after the town had capitulated, and Condé had despatched another messenger, informing him that the boy “resembled him and was the most beautiful in the world,” that he finally condescended to write a few lines to the young mother.
About the middle of November, the duke returned to Paris to receive the felicitations of his family and friends, and to resume his “chaste amours” with Mlle. du Vigean. His eulogistic historian Désormeaux declares that, on arriving at the Hôtel de Condé and perceiving his son, “his tender and magnanimous soul enjoyed a pleasure more dear and more pure than that of victory”; while the Gazette asserts that “to express the pleasure which his [Enghien’s] presence had occasioned the Prince de Condé and all his family would be as difficult as to represent the joy which the duke experienced at the sight of the son born to him in the midst of so many laurels and popular acclamations.”
It is, however, unnecessary to see in such testimony anything except the blind respect of a protégé of the Condés and the optimism of the editor of an official publication. For the family correspondence proves that, at this time, Enghien certainly gave no indication of the intense affection which he was to bestow upon his son in later years, and he took advantage of the fact that the Court was still in mourning for the late king to have him baptized without the customary rejoicings. The child, to whom Mazarin and Madame la Princesse stood sponsors, received the name of Henri Jules and took the title of Duc d’Albret.
If the poor Duchesse d’Enghien had anticipated that the birth of her son would prove a link between herself and her husband, she was doomed to disappointment, for she found herself more neglected than ever. Soon after her confinement, she had fallen so seriously ill that the duke had been able for a moment to count upon her death and to look forward to a honeymoon with Mlle. du Vigean; and it is to be feared that he received the news of her convalescence with very mixed feelings. Disappointed in the hope of receiving any assistance from Nature, he appealed to his mother to use her influence with the Regent to obtain the dissolution of his marriage, and found in her a willing ally.
Madame la Princesse, although she had never forgiven Richelieu the execution of her brother, Henri de Montmorency, whom all her prayers and tears had not sufficed to save, had raised no objection to her son’s marriage with his niece, and had, so long as the Cardinal lived, shown the girl every consideration. But, since the death of Richelieu, she seemed to have transferred to her innocent daughter-in-law the hatred she had vowed against the Minister, and sought to atone for the hypocritical attitude she had been forced to assume by treating her with the coldest disdain. The prospect of humiliating the family of the man whom she had regarded as her brother’s murderer naturally appealed to her, and she lost no time in approaching Anne of Austria on the subject.
The prestige of Enghien was just then so great that it was difficult for the Regent and Mazarin to refuse him anything, and, though Anne expressed her disapproval of the project in unmistakable terms, and Mazarin was anxious to protect the niece of his benefactor, it is quite probable that they would eventually have yielded to pressure, and that the young duchess would have been repudiated by her unscrupulous husband, if the Prince de Condé had not intervened in her favour.
To his honour, be it said, Monsieur le Prince had never wavered in his loyalty to the compact which he had made with Richelieu over the Cardinal’s niece. If it were not in his nature to show the girl much affection, he understood, at least, how to constitute himself her protector, and had not ceased to employ every means to bring back his son to a wife who was so worthy of his affection. Informed by his daughter, the Duchesse de Longueville—who, though she had hitherto been the sympathetic confidante of her brother and Mlle. du Vigean, had declined to be a party to so discreditable an intrigue—of the projects which were being discussed in his family, he showed the utmost indignation. Sending for Enghien and Mlle. du Vigean, “he said a thousand cruel things to both lover and mistress,” after which he advised the duke to return to his military duties as speedily as possible. The latter obeyed, and, shortly afterwards, bade a touching farewell to his lady-love[187] and set out for the army.