The year which saw the marriage of the Duc de Bourbon marks a very important event in the life of his grandfather. The religious instruction of Condé had been as thorough as the other branches of his education, and, in early youth, he appears to have been as orthodox a Catholic as any one could desire, and even to have shown some degree of fervour. However, his life of war and pleasures soon brought indifference, and the society of fashionable freethinkers, like Saint-Évremond and the celebrated Princess Palatine, combined with the difficulty he experienced in reconciling the doctrines of the philosophers whose works he was fond of studying with the theological teaching of the time, raised doubts in his mind which eventually led to a very pronounced form of unbelief. At the same time, he declared himself to be always open to conviction of his errors, and one of his favourite occupations in his later years was to engage in theological discussions with Bossuet, the Oratorian Malbranche, and other eminent divines.
The death of his beloved sister, Madame de Longueville, who, in April, 1679, crowned twenty-seven years of penitence and good works by a truly Christian death, at which Condé was himself present, made a profound impression upon him, and he was even more impressed by that of his old friend, the Princess Palatine, who, after declaring that the greatest of all miracles would be her conversion to Christianity, had for the last twelve years been leading a life of almost equal devotion. From that time, the discussions between Condé and Bossuet became more frequent, and little by little the prince began to surmount the obstacles which barred his return to the fold.
It was, however, a Jesuit, Père des Champs, formerly a fellow-pupil of Condé at Bourges, who was to finish the work which the great bishop had begun. At the beginning of Holy Week, 1685, the prince summoned him to Chantilly; for several days they remained closeted together, after which Condé descended to the chapel and received the Sacrament, in the presence of all his Household. Some weeks later, he communicated publicly at the Church of Saint-Sulpice, in which parish the Hôtel de Condé was situated.
For some time past Condé’s health had been such as to occasion grave anxiety; his attacks of gout were becoming more frequent and more severe, and he was often so feeble that he was unable to walk without assistance. When, at the end of May, 1686, although in great pain, he insisted on coming to Versailles to attend a Chapter of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit, at which the cordon bleu was to be bestowed on the Duc de Bourbon and the Prince de Conti, the fatigue which the journey and the ceremony entailed exhausted him to such a degree that, according to Sourches, those present “expected every moment to see him die.”
Towards the middle of the following November, news reached Chantilly that the little Duchesse de Bourbon had been taken seriously ill with small-pox at Fontainebleau, where the Court was then in residence. Notwithstanding that he was again suffering from the gout, Monsieur le Prince at once ordered his coach and set off for Fontainebleau. On the road he met the Duc de Bourbon and his eldest sister, Mlle. de Condé, whom the King had sent to Paris, so that they should not be exposed to the contagion. Alarmed at their grandfather’s appearance, they endeavoured to persuade him to turn back, but he insisted on continuing the journey. Arrived at Fontainebleau, he shut himself up with the Duchesse de Bourbon and “rendered her all the cares not only of a tender father, but of a zealous guardian.”[239] The girl, however, grew worse, and Louis XIV., on learning of his daughter’s danger, wished to come and see her. “Monsieur le Prince,” writes Madame de Caylus, “placed himself at the door to prevent him entering, and there ensued a great struggle between parental love and the zeal of a courtier, very glorious for Madame la Duchesse.” The writer adds that the King, being the stronger, went in, notwithstanding Condé’s resistance, but, according to other chroniclers, his Majesty was so touched by his cousin’s zeal for his safety that he ended by allowing him to have his way.
Soon after this incident, the Duchesse de Bourbon’s illness took a turn for the better, and at the end of a fortnight she was pronounced convalescent. Condé’s presence was no longer necessary; but the change in his manner of life, the sleepless nights, the fatigue and the anxiety he had endured, had been too much for an old man whose constitution was already so shattered, and it was evident that his days were numbered. He had expressed a wish to die at Chantilly, and it was hoped that it might be possible to gratify it. But, on the morning of 10 December he became much weaker, and was warned that it was time to think of the Sacraments. He desired that Père des Champs should be summoned from Paris, and, turning to Gourville, observed: “Ah well! my friend, I believe my journey will be a longer one than we thought. But I wish to write to the King.” And, after a vain attempt to write himself, he dictated to his confessor, Père Bergier, a letter to Louis XIV., to implore his pardon for the Prince de Conti, who had been for some time in disgrace and seemed likely to remain there.
In the middle of the night, feeling worse, he made his confession and received absolution from Père Bergier, Père des Champs not having yet arrived, and at daybreak the curé of Fontainebleau brought him the Viaticum. Shortly afterwards, Monsieur le Duc arrived with the news that the King had, on his own initiative, pardoned the Prince de Conti, for the letter which Monsieur le Prince had dictated the previous day had not yet been despatched. This intelligence was a great relief to Condé, who caused a few lines to be added to the letter, thanking his Majesty for his kindness and assuring him that he should now die content.
Conti and Père des Champs arrived a little later, and, with the Duc and Duchesse d’Enghien, remained with him to the end, which came very peacefully between seven and eight o’clock in the evening. “No one,” wrote the British Ambassador, the Earl of Arran, to his Government, “ever died with less concern, and he preserved his senses to the last minute.”
After lying for some days in the mortuary chapel at Fontainebleau, which had been transformed into a chapelle ardente, the body of Condé was conveyed to Valery and interred in the family vault. His heart was deposited in the Jesuit church in the Rue Saint-Antoine. “In carrying to the same place the heart of my uncle, the Comte de Clermont,” writes his great-grandson, “I had an opportunity of seeing all the hearts of our ancestors, which were deposited there, enclosed in silver-gilt cases; and I remarked (as did also those who accompanied me) that the heart of the Great Condé was nearly double the size of all the others.”[240]
On 10 March, 1687, a solemn service was held at Notre-Dame. The funeral oration, pronounced by Bossuet, is generally considered the masterpiece of that famous preacher, and is the greatest of all the tributes rendered to the memory of Condé.