Almost as soon as he re-entered France, Condé began to occupy himself with matrimonial projects on behalf of his son. If we are to believe la Grand Mademoiselle, overtures were made to her, and the Duc d’Enghien was “ardently desirous for this marriage, and very assiduous in his attentions to her.” The princess, however, excused herself, “on the ground of the great disparity of age between herself and the duke,” though she informs us, in her “Mémoires,” that it was her suitor’s “want of merit,” and his “base mind,” to which she objected.
No difficulty would, however, have presented itself had Condé been willing for his son to marry Mademoiselle’s half-sister, Mlle. d’Alençon. Madame la Princesse was very anxious for this alliance, as were several of the prince’s counsellors; but Condé had other views for his heir, and had determined to marry him to Anne of Bavaria, second daughter of Edward of Bavaria, Prince Palatine, and of Anne de Gonzague, sister of the Queen of Poland.[208]
His reason for preferring an alliance with a foreign princess of the second rank and of little fortune to one which would have strengthened the position of the Condés, by uniting them to the younger branch of the Royal Family with its great possessions, was the belief that his son’s marriage with a niece of the King and Queen of Poland would be of material assistance to him in the realization of an ambition which he had for some time cherished.
This ambition was nothing less than Enghien’s succession to the elective crown of Poland, which the reigning sovereign, the childless John Casimir, was prepared to abdicate so soon as a candidate likely to be acceptable to the great majority of his subjects could be found. This idea seems to have originated with the Queen of Poland, one of Condé’s most intimate friends, who was using all her influence to secure the support of her husband and the Polish nobles, who in that State were masters of the throne, for the Duc d’Enghien.
Louis XIV. was not ill-disposed towards the Polish project, and, on 10 December, 1663, the marriage of the Duc d’Enghien and Anne of Bavaria was celebrated in the King’s chapel at the Louvre. A clause in the marriage contract stated that the King and Queen of Poland adopted the bride “as their only daughter.” Meanwhile, however, it was becoming apparent that Condé himself was likely to be far more acceptable to the Poles than his son, and the French Court seemed to approve of this solution. At the beginning of 1665, John Casimir decided to abdicate, and Condé was preparing to start for Warsaw with Enghien—whether it was his intention to get himself or his son elected is a moot point—when Louis XIV., fearing to offend the Duke of Neuburg, a rival competitor, whose possessions of Berg and Jülich commanded the passages of the Rhine and covered the Spanish Netherlands on the North-East, ordered him to renounce his candidature. “My cousin,” said he, “think no more of the Crown of Poland; the interest of my State is concerned in it.” Condé reluctantly obeyed, and when, in June 1669, John Casimir, who had been persuaded by the prince’s friends in Poland to retain the crown until then, in the hope that circumstances might permit him to renew his candidature, Michael Wisnowiecki was elected.
Condé received some compensation for the mortification which the Polish affair must have occasioned him in a brilliantly successful reappearance in command of a French army. On the outbreak of the Devolution War in 1667, the command of the forces which invaded the Spanish Netherlands was given to Turenne, and his great rival was left to languish in inaction at Chantilly. Without allowing himself to be discouraged, Condé secretly applied himself to drawing up a plan for the conquest of Franche-Comté. This plan he submitted to Louvois, the Minister for War, who persuaded the King to approve it, and to entrust its execution to the prince himself. On 4 February, 1668, Condé crossed the frontier, and so skilfully had his measures been taken and so rapid were his movements, that in little more than a fortnight the whole province was at his feet. Louis XIV. immediately gave to the prince the government of the conquered territory; but the Triple Alliance between England, Sweden and Holland was already forming, and the King was soon obliged to consent to peace, retaining his conquests in the Netherlands, but restoring Franche-Comté to Spain.
The Princesse de Condé had figured at the marriage of her son and at the subsequent festivities, but, after the young couple had established themselves at Chantilly, where a portion of the château had been placed at their disposal, she gradually disappeared from the Court and Society, and was never seen except at great official functions, where her rank necessitated her presence. Often she was ill and invisible for months at a time, and Condé and Enghien appeared very embarrassed when people inquired after the princess’s health, and hastened to change the subject. A few notes preserved in the archives of Chantilly serve to explain what seems to have remained an enigma, even to the best-informed of contemporary chroniclers. In the autumn of 1664, we find Condé writing to his secretary Caillet as follows:
“Make yourself acquainted with everything that my wife does at Saint-Maur; inform me of everything that she does or says, and whether she still persists in her transports (emportements).... M. Perrault writes me that she spoke to him with moderation. I am a little dubious about that, for I hear from others that she is anything but moderate.... Endeavour, at any rate, to discover what has become of Duval, and if my wife has not seen him at Saint-Maur.... I will inform you of what will have to be done in this matter. Show my letter to the Abbé Roquette and to Père Bergier (the two spiritual directors of the family).”[209]
From these letters, it is very evident that Madame la Princesse’s mind was affected, a fact which is not surprising, when we consider that her mother, Nicole du Plessis, had always been eccentric, and, in her later years, quite insane; that her father had been noted for his morose disposition and violent temper, and that she herself had passed through so many agitations, hardships, and deceptions. It is, indeed, sad to reflect that the reason of this truly noble woman, who in war and exile had shown such admirable courage and fortitude, should have given way at the very moment when she should have been enjoying the repose and happiness which she had so well earned. For this calamity the neglect and indifference of her ungrateful husband and her unnatural son were undoubtedly largely responsible.
Abandoned by those who should have lavished upon her the most tender care, the unhappy Claire-Clémence became the prey of greedy and unscrupulous attendants. The man Duval mentioned by Condé in one of his letters to Caillet was a footman of the princess, a person of some education and “de bonne conversation,” to whom the lonely woman had attached herself. She gave him expensive presents and promised him a pension; and Condé, warned of the influence which he was beginning to exercise over his wife, insisted on her dismissing him from her service.