Prince de Condé

For more information on Louis II de Bourbon, 4th prince de Condé, visit Britannica.com.

Condé, Louis II de Bourbon (Duc d'Enghien) (1621-86). Born Duc d'Enghien and later Prince de Condé, he represents the apogee of the French aristocrat's approach to war, in that he was a bold, even rash, commander whose lust for glory brought him spectacular success, as at Rocroi in 1643, and not a few disasters. A French military historian considers him a ‘military intellectual, the very pattern of the military prince of the baroque, gifted and independent’.

A prince of the blood, he was educated by Jesuits at Bourges before going to Paris in 1637 to study the military art, after which he entered the army in 1640. Both Richelieu and Mazarin were convinced that he was a man of some considerable talent. Even at the age of 17, as governor of Burgundy, he took an interest in the training and recruitment of troops. In 1638 he commanded the French army at the siege of Fuentarrabia, but was defeated by a relieving army. Undeterred, he joined the army of Picardy as a volunteer and took part in the siege of Arras in 1640.

At the tender age of 22 he was given command of the French army facing the Spanish in the Netherlands in April 1643. Shortly before his death, King Louis XIII told Enghien's father that he had dreamed of a great victory won by the young duke which proved prophetic. On 17 May 1643 Enghien moved to the relief of Rocroi, despite doubts in Paris over the succession of the infant Louis XIV. The veteran Spanish army faced his force and although slightly outnumbered it was still a formidable force and disposed of the toughest infantry in Europe. Enghien led a devastating charge on the Spanish left and broke it and wheeled onto the rear of the enemy's advancing right flank, relieving pressure on the French horse on that wing, who were in some distress. This left the Spanish tercios isolated and they were ground down by combined artillery, cavalry, and infantry attacks. Not many were able to have their surrender accepted, and many of the survivors owed their lives to the personal intervention of Enghien himself. It was a historic victory over a military formation that had dominated warfare in Europe for over a century.

The duke went on to take over command from Turenne during the Rhineland campaign of 1644, and conducted a fine campaign in the Low Countries. By this time considered arrogant and overweening by Mazarin, he was posted to the military quicksand of Spain again, where he enjoyed only moderate success. In 1648 he was again victorious over a Habsburg army under Archduke Leopold Wilhelm at Lens.

The same year he was not only one of the leaders of the rebellion against the young king's entourage known as the Fronde (1648-53), but he also enlisted with the Spanish Habsburgs until 1659. Thus the two great contemporaries, Enghien and Turenne, fought against each other at the Dunes near Dunkirk in 1658, and the duke was roundly defeated. Although rehabilitated in 1659, he was never again fully trusted by his cousin Louis XIV, although he held military commands during the War of Devolution (1667-8) and the Dutch war of 1672-8. At Seneffe in 1674 he defeated a Dutch army of 67, 000 with a much smaller force. Thereafter, in bad health, he took little part in military or civil affairs of state.

He is not generally viewed as the equal of Turenne. His style consisted of audacity, a headstrong rush, and aggressive assault full of panache, whereas Turenne was the exponent of subtle and careful manoeuvre, patient, and calculating. On the other hand, Enghien's tactical ideas are known to have been studied by Napoleon, in particular the ‘pinning’ of the enemy to the front while exploring for a weak point elsewhere, either for a breakthrough and encirclement by cavalry or to reposition his artillery to enfilade the pinned force. While admittedly these were tactical principles as old as Alexander ‘the Great’, their application in the combined arms assault on the redoubtable tercios at Rocroi makes it one of the undisputed turning points in military history.

— Toby McLeod

The French general Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (1621-1686), became known as the "great Condé" because of his victories in the Low Countries. As the principal French nobleman, he was important in politics but egotistical, imprudent, and stubborn.

Louis de Bourbon was born in Paris on Sept. 8, 1621, to Henri de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, second cousin of Louis XIII, and Charlotte de Montmorency. He was entitled Duc d'Enghien until his father's death in 1646. From 1630 to 1636 he attended the Jesuit school in Bourges, studying Latin classics, Aristotelian philosophy, mathematics, the Institutes of Justinian, and political history. He retained intellectual tastes all his life and was long a freethinker on religious matters. His education was completed at the royal military school in Paris.

In accordance with his father's wishes, in 1641 Enghien married Claire-Clémence de Maillé-Brézé, daughter of Cardinal Richelieu's younger sister. He lived with his wife infrequently for brief periods. They had a son in late 1643 and a daughter in 1656.

Enghien's military ability was discernible in his first three campaigns (1640-1642). In the spring of 1643 he was put in command of the army in Picardy, and on May 18 he won an overwhelming victory at Rocroy northwest of Sedan. His cavalry turned the flank of the Flemish cavalry and scattered the enemy's rear regiments; he rallied the French infantry and finally overcame the immobile firepower of the veteran Spanish infantry, then the most feared in Europe.

Other victories followed. With his cousin the Vicomte de Turenne, Enghien took the west bank of the Rhine in 1644 and defeated the Bavarian army in 1645. He captured Dunkerque and other northern towns in 1646. Commanding the French forces in Spain in 1647, Condé was unable to take Lerida in Catalonia. But in 1648 he returned north to Hainaut and routed the cavalry of Lorraine and the Spanish infantry at Lens on August 20, a victory that finally brought about the Treaty of Münster.

In the ensuing period of sporadic revolt in France, Louis, now Prince de Condé, aided the queen regent and Cardinal Mazarin by organizing a blockade around rebellious Paris in early 1649. But the queen regent eventually found Condé intolerable and had him arrested with his brother and brother-in-law on Jan. 18, 1650. Finally a realignment of factions in Paris persuaded Mazarin that the princes were more dangerous in prison than at large. He freed them on Feb. 13, 1651. Yet Condé was increasingly dissatisfied.

In September, Condé went to Bordeaux to organize an independent base in the southwest. In 1652, his position there crumbling, he returned to Paris but found his forces locked out of the city. Turenne, now in command of a royal army, tried to pin Condé against the eastern walls of Paris on July 2, 1652. Condé's forces were suddenly let into the city, and cannon were fired from the Bastille on Turenne's troops. Condé's popularity in Paris, however, rapidly declined. He soon departed northward, was named commanding general for Spain, and proceeded to Brussels in March 1653.

While Condé opposed Turenne in a series of inconclusive campaigns in the Low Countries, one of Condé's agents attempted to establish friendly relations with Oliver Cromwell in England. But Cromwell formed an alliance instead with the French king, and in 1658 the allies defeated Condé decisively in the Battle of the Dunes outside Dunkerque. The Spanish negotiators made amnesty for Condé a condition of the peace settlement of 1659 and he returned to France. In 1667 he was again given command of a French army. During February 1668 he captured all the principal towns of Franche-Comté. The province was restored to Spain 3 months later.

In the summer of 1673 the young stadtholder William III was eager to use the imperial, Spanish, and Dutch armies against Condé. On Aug. 11, 1674, they fought an all-day battle near Seneffe south of Brussels, with heavy losses on both sides but no victor.

After 1675 Condé lived at Chantilly. He was reconverted to Catholicism the year before his death in 1686.

Further Reading

The most extensive work on Condé is by King Louis Philippe's second son, Henri d'Orléans, Duc d'Aumale, Histoire des princes de Condé pendant les XVI et XVII siècles, vols. 3-7 (1863-1896). It includes hundreds of letters from, to, and about Condé and is generally sympathetic. Material on Condé is also in John B. Wolf, Louis XV (1968).

Condé, Louis II de Bourbon, prince de (‘le grand Condé’, known after his father's death in 1646 as ‘Monsieur le Prince’) (1621-86). He attained heroic status (echoed in Corneille's tragedies) as the victor of the Battle of Rocroi against the Spaniards (1643), but came into conflict with the royal party during the Fronde. In his retirement at Chantilly, he was a major patron of artists and writers (Boileau, Racine, La Bruyère). A noted free-thinker for much of his life, he was the subject of a magnificent funeral oration by Bossuet.

[Peter France]