After her husband’s unforeseen imprisonment, Claire-Clemence was permitted to join the Dowager Princesse de Condé at Chantilly, since Mazarin looked upon her as harmless. It was rather Condé’s sister, Madame de Longueville, whom he feared, and whom he had intended to arrest with her husband. She, however, escaped in time, braving by night a terrible storm at sea, and joined Turenne, who helped her in her attempts to liberate the prisoners.
Nor did Claire-Clemence remain inactive. She consulted with Lenet, a great friend of the Condé family, who had come to Chantilly, on what course to adopt to set her husband at liberty. Rumours reached her that she would be separated from her son, at which she was greatly alarmed. Taking Lenet aside, she declared to him emphatically that she would never be separated from her only child; but that she intended, on the contrary, to conduct him at the head of an army to deliver his father. This indomitable courage on the part of Condé’s spouse was to be the first step in a course of action which later on contributed much to his eventual deliverance.
Meanwhile spring had come, and, in spite of the great misfortune which had befallen the Grand Condé, Chantilly became the resort of a crowd of visitors, who flocked round its brilliant châtelaine, Charlotte de Montmorency, Dowager Princesse de Condé. The young Duc d’Enghien took his morning rides on his pony, anglers with rod and line repaired to the ponds, gay parties of pleasure-seekers roamed over the lawns and along the avenues, and the woods resounded with the winding of the huntsman’s horn. In the evening the guests assembled in the splendid apartments of the castle to hear music, or listen to the many interesting tales related by the Dowager Princess, who loved above all else to dilate upon the attentions shown to her by Henri IV.
Plate XIII.
CHANTILLY BEFORE 1687.