Here he married as his second wife Marie Catherine de Brignole, the widowed Princess of Monaco, who had long been his constant and faithful friend, especially during his exile. She shared with him his literary and artistic interests, and she put her whole fortune at his disposition when he was in need. His daughter, Louise de Condé, after many vicissitudes, at last found quiet and rest in a Benedictine convent, where she took the veil. In 1807 she received a terrible shock when the news reached her of the tragic death of her beloved nephew, the Duc d’Enghien, and she felt it to be her duty to leave her seclusion and proceed at once to condole with her father and brother in their overwhelming sorrow. She started immediately for England, where she was received on landing with Royal honours: Pitt, Lord Moore, and the two surviving Condé Princes coming to meet her.
The execution of the Duc d’Enghien has left a stain on Napoleon’s character; it was not only a crime, but what was worse, it was a blunder; for d’Enghien at the time of his arrest was living in strictest seclusion at Ettenheim in Baden with the Princesse Charlotte de Rohan, to whom he was deeply attached, and, it was said, had married. He was therefore absolutely innocent of the conspiracy against the Republic, of which he was accused; and it is affirmed that it was only because Bonaparte could not get hold of the legitimate Princes—Artois and Berry—whose claims to the throne of France he grudged and feared, that he took his revenge upon the Duc d’Enghien. He had tried in vain to entrap these Princes, and failing committed this act of personal revenge on the eve of proclaiming himself Emperor, in order to frighten the Royalists, who, as he declared, were continually conspiring against him. When this dastardly murder became known there was a cry of indignation all over Europe. The Russian Court went into mourning, and Napoleon found it necessary to lay the blame upon Talleyrand and Murat. The grief of the unhappy father at the loss of his only son and the last scion of his race was so great that he became a prey to chronic melancholy; but Louis Joseph, the grandfather, strove bravely to live down his anguish.
More than twelve years had still to elapse before their exile was ended, and then, for a brief period, on the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire, the Bourbon Monarchy was restored in France. At last, in 1815, the two Condés returned to Chantilly from England and found the old place, with the exception of the Petit Château, which they henceforth made their chief abode, a pile of ruins, and themselves almost strangers. The Princess of Monaco had died in England; and the Duc d’Enghien, upon whom all hope had centred, had been ruthlessly slain. In spite of all these misfortunes Louis Joseph remained faithful to the old home and began to repurchase his former possessions acre by acre. Some portions of the property had passed into alien hands; as, for instance, the site of the great waterfall, which had been separated from the original grounds by a wall. One of the alterations made at this time was the filling in of the moat, which hitherto had divided the smaller from the larger Château; and later the present Entrance-Hall was built on that site, whilst two new rooms decorated in the style of the period were added where the covered bridges had formerly stood. These new buildings gave access to the rooms formerly occupied by the Grand Condé, which, by a strange piece of luck, the Revolutionists had not demolished. The old Prince held these apartments in high honour; and they were the first to be redecorated and exquisitely panelled. During the four remaining years of his life he was continually occupied in restoring his ancestral palace to that dignity which he remembered so well in the past. He also succeeded in recovering the larger number of the works of art which the Montmorencys and the Condés had accumulated, not only at Chantilly but also at Ecouen and the Palais Bourbon in Paris. Most of these treasures had fortunately fallen into good hands, for during the worst horrors of the Revolution there had been men in France who had succeeded in preserving the art treasures belonging to the old family mansions which their proprietors had been compelled to abandon. Alexander Lenoir was one of these faithful guardians, and it is certainly due to his efforts that so many of these monuments and works of art in France were not destroyed. Conspicuous amongst them were the valuable collections at Chantilly.
But after the long exile of the owners no more entertainments were held at Chantilly such as had been given so lavishly in happier days. After the great reverses which Louis Joseph and his son had undergone they seemed to indulge in one pleasure only, namely, that of the chase—the single luxury which they allowed themselves. They kept a splendid pack of hounds—the descendants of which still survive and are lodged in a corner of the great stables—and in spite of his great age the Prince himself appeared on horseback almost daily; often alone, but sometimes accompanied by his son, and hunted until quite late in the afternoon. Though past his eightieth year, he still had vigour enough, even on his return from a day’s hunting, to shoot the wild duck which abounded in the moats. He died at Chantilly in his eighty-second year during the absence of both his son and his daughter, and was buried at Saint-Denis. As a true Condé he was very imperious and held strong opinions of his own: but he was tenaciously faithful in his friendships; and it was, no doubt, this fidelity to the Royal cause which characterised his conduct during the Revolution, and made him sacrifice everything rather than give up his Royalist principles.
His son, the Duc de Bourbon, had not the iron nature of his father. He refused to take the title of Prince de Condé on his father’s death, since he knew that this title must die with him. He, who had begun life under such happy auspices, long before his death became a broken man. His wife, the Duchesse de Bourbon, Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde of Orléans to whom he became reconciled after a long separation, died suddenly whilst attending a patronal festival at Saint-Geneviève. She fainted whilst at her devotions, and on being transported to the Sorbonne died before her husband could be summoned. Her favourite nephew, the Duc d’Orléans—afterwards King Louis Philippe—was the only member of her family present when she expired.
It was at about that time that Louis Philippe’s fifth son was born—a child who eventually became the last Seigneur of Chantilly. He was held at the baptismal font by the last Condé, who from this time formed a great affection for his godson. He used to walk with him in the grounds of Chantilly and narrate to him all the memorable events which had taken place in this ancestral abode; and Henri d’Orléans, then but seven years old, would listen with the greatest attention, and long after remembered the colloquies held with his princely sponsor and benefactor—the last of the line of Condé. He thus refers to him: “When recalling my childhood, I picture to myself M. le Duc de Bourbon, dressed in his habitual grey coat, white silk stockings, and light shoes, walking about in the grounds of Chantilly on cold December days. Leaning on his stick he would sometimes stand still and relate to me what had happened in years gone by at the old place; how he had known it in its splendour during his youth; and how all these sad changes had come upon it. He loved to recall also the grand festivities given by his father to King Louis XV, to Marie Antoinette, and to the Emperor and Empress Paul of Russia.”
Plate XVIII.
