The charms of the young princess naturally drew around her many adorers; but, though she had neither affection nor esteem for her husband, and was far from insensible to the homage which was paid her, her conduct would not appear to have merited any very severe censure until some years after her marriage, when a soupirant presented himself whom it would have been difficult for any woman to resist. This was Louis François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, the young man for whose pardon, it will be remembered, the Great Condé had petitioned Louis XIV. on his death-bed. This pardon had unfortunately been a merely formal one, for the prince had far too much of his famous uncle’s temperament, that is to say, the temperament of the Condé of the Regency and the Fronde, ever to secure the favour of le Grand Monarque, who always regarded with suspicion those who showed any independence of character, particularly if they happened to belong to the Royal House. In consequence, though he possessed a natural instinct for war, combined with the most superb courage, and appeared destined for a brilliant military career, nothing would induce the King to allow him to hold high command, and he had the mortification of seeing himself passed over in favour of generals who were manifestly his inferiors.
LOUISE FRANÇOISE, DUCHESSE DE BOURBON (CALLED MADAME LA DUCHESSE)
FROM A CONTEMPORARY PRINT
Conti was a tall and rather awkward-looking man, with irregular but pleasing features, and the most charming manners which made him a universal favourite. He was married to Marie Thérèse de Bourbon, the eldest daughter of Monsieur le Prince, who adored him and of whom he appears to have been fond; but this did not prevent him from falling in love with Madame la Duchesse, who returned his passion with equal fervour. Monsieur le Duc was furious, but he did not dare to quarrel openly with his brother-in-law, and, besides, thanks to the complaisance of the Dauphin, who was much attached both to his half-sister and to Conti, and gave the lovers many opportunities of meeting at his country-house at Meudon, “the affair was conducted with such admirable discretion that they never gave any one any hold over them.”[248]
It has sometimes been asserted that the prince’s infatuation for Madame la Duchesse lost him the throne of Poland, to which, through the skilful intrigues of the Abbé de Polignac, the French envoy at Warsaw, he had been elected, by a majority in the Diet, on the death of John Sobieski, in 1697. But, although it is true that he was exceedingly loth to leave France and his mistress, and employed every possible pretext to delay his departure for Poland, it is very doubtful whether, without far stronger support than Louis XIV. was prepared to give him, an earlier arrival upon the scene would have enabled him to triumph over so formidable a competitor as Augustus of Saxony.
At the beginning of 1709, Louis XIV.’s dislike of Conti at length yielded to the danger of the country, and the prince was informed that he had been selected to command the Army of the North in the approaching campaign. This tardy recognition of his undoubted merits came, however, too late. For some time past he had been in very bad health, and on 21 February he died, at the early age of forty-five.
His death, which was regarded as a public calamity, so great had been his popularity and so high the opinion formed of his military talents, was a terrible blow to Madame la Duchesse. “He was the only one to whom she had been faithful,” writes Saint-Simon; “she was the only one to whom he had not been fickle; his greatness would have done homage to her, and she would have shone with his lustre.” “She had need of all the command which she had naturally over herself,” observes Madame de Caylus, “to conceal her grief from Monsieur le Duc. She succeeded, the more easily, I believe, because he was so relieved at no longer having such a rival that he cared neither to investigate the past nor the depths of the heart.”
The untimely death of the Prince de Conti was followed, at an interval of a few weeks, by that of Monsieur le Prince, who had long been in failing health.