Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc d'Enghien

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Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc d'Enghien (August 2, 1772 – March 21, 1804) was a relative of the Bourbon monarchs of France. More famous for his death than for his life, he was executed on trumped-up charges during the French Consulate.

The Duke was the only son of Louis Henry II, Prince of Condé, and of Louise Marie Thérèse Mathilde, sister of the duke of Orléans (Philippe Egalité), and was born at Chantilly.

He was educated privately by the abbé Millot, and in military matters by Commodore de Vinieux. He early showed the warlike spirit of the house of Condé, and began his military career in 1788. On the outbreak of the French Revolution he emigrated with very many of the nobles a few days after the fall of the Bastille, and remained in exile, seeking to raise forces for the invasion of France and the restoration of the old monarchy. In 1792, on the outbreak of war, he held a command in the force of émigrés (styled the French Royal Army ) which shared in the duke of Brunswick's unsuccessful invasion of France.

He continued to serve under his father and grandfather in what was known as the Condé army, and on several occasions distinguished himself by his bravery and ardour in the vanguard. On the dissolution of that force after the peace of Lunéville (February 1801) he married privately the princess Charlotte, niece of Cardinal de Rohan, and took up his residence at Ettenheim in Baden, near the Rhine.

Early in 1804, Napoleon, then First Consul of France, heard news which seemed to connect the young duke with the Cadoudal-Pichegru conspiracy then being tracked by the French police. The news ran that the duke was in company with Charles François Dumouriez and made secret journeys into France. This was false; the acquaintance was Thumry, a harmless old man, and the duke had no dealings with Cadoudal or Pichegru. Napoleon gave orders for the seizure of the duke. French mounted gendarmes crossed the Rhine secretly, surrounded his house and brought him to Strasbourg (March 15, 1804), and thence to the Château de Vincennes, near Paris. There a commission of French colonels was hastily gathered to try him.

Meanwhile Napoleon had found out the true facts of the case, and the ground of the accusation was hastily changed. The duke was now charged chiefly with bearing arms against France in the late war, and with intending to take part in the new coalition then proposed against France —these latter charges were more accurate than the originals and given his history of raising arms against his own nation it would be difficult to argue that he was wholly innocent—rather the argument is whether or not his actions were sufficiently severe to merit execution. Claims that he presented a threat to the life of the First Consul are probably exaggerated. The colonels hastily and most informally drew up the act of condemnation, being incited thereto by orders from Anne Jean Marie René Savary, who had come charged with instructions. Savary intervened to prevent all chance of an interview between the condemned and the First Consul; and the duke was shot in the moat of the castle, near a grave which had already been prepared.

He was the last descendent of the House of Condé; his grandfather and father died after him, but without producing further heirs. In 1816 the bones were exhumed and placed in the chapel of the castle. It is now known that Joséphine and Madame de Rémusat had begged Napoleon for mercy towards the duke; but nothing would bend his will. The blame which the apologists of the emperor have thrown on Talleyrand or Savary is undeserved. On his way to St. Helena and at Longwood he asserted that, in the same circumstances, he would do the same again; he inserted a similar declaration in his will.

About this execution, the great diplomat Talleyrand made his most famous quip: "That was worse than a crime; it was a mistake".

[edit] Tolstoy reference

The killing of the Duc d'Enghien is the main subject in the opening chapter of Tolstoy's famous "War and Peace", which is set in early 1805 - when the news have just reached Russia and it is the hottest subject of conversation among the St. Petersburg high society. The Vicomte de Mortemart, a French emigre who supposedly knew the duc personally, is the focus of attention of the gathered Russian aristocrats:

The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the murder of the Duc d'Enghien. "After the murder of the Duc, even the most partial ceased to regard him [Buonaparte] as a hero. If to some people, he ever was a hero, after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on earth." The vicomte said that the Duc d'Enghien had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular reasons for Buonaparte's hatred of him.(...)

It was an anecdote, then current, to the effect that the Duc d'Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to visit Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon Bonaparte, who also enjoyed the famous actress' favors, and that in his presence Napoleon happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was subject, and was thus at the Duc's mercy. The latter spared him, and this magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death. The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point where the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies looked agitated.

The actress Marguerite-Joséphine Wiemer, known as "Mademoiselle George", was indeed Napoleon's mistress, but there is no evidence that the Duc d'Enghien had anything to do with her, or that the story preserved to posterity by inclusion in Tolstoy's masterpiece was anything more than one of the pieces of gossip and conspiracy theories current around Europe at the time.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article "ENGHIEN, LOUIS ANTOINE HENRI DE BOURBON CONDE", a publication now in the public domain. The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, in turn, gives the following references:
• H Welschinger, Le Duc d'Enghien 1772-1804 (Paris, 1888)
• A Nougarède de Fayet, Recherches historiques sur le procès et la condamnation du duc d'Enghien, 2 vols. (Paris, 1844)
• Comte A Boulay de la Meurthe, Les Dernières Années du duc d'Enghien 1801-1804 (Paris, 1886)
• For documents see La Catastrophe du duc d'Enghien in the edition of Mémoires edited by MF Barrière, also the edition of the duke's letters, etc., by Count Boulay de la Meurthe (tome i., Paris, 1904; tome ii., 1908).