l'avantage de pouvoir citer ses propres paroles, et de me pénétrer davantage de l'esprit de son temps. Du reste, je pense bien que j'ai dû faire des fautes; d'autant plus que je n'ai consulté personne sans exception, ni en entreprenant cet ouvrage, ni en l'écrivant; qu'on me permette donc de réclamer, dès à présent, toute l'indulgence du lecteur.-Mars, 1842.'-pp. 1, 2.

Even more singular than Lord Mahon's choice of the French language on this occasion is the fact that it was reserved for him to collect and combine into a clear continuous narrative the French materials for the personal history of one of the most illustrious of Frenchmen. The bulky work of Desormaux appeared before some of the most curious of these materials were accessible; and even if the author had written at a later period he would have disdained to use them. The Essai Historique of Conde's own great-grandson is rather an éloge than a history. We are not acquainted with any other separate work on the life of this great captain, and from neither of these could any adequate conception of his personal peculiarities be derived. The deeply-interesting character and history of his unfortunate wife are very slightly touched upon either by the painful investigator of his campaigns, or the elegant apologist who inherited his honours. Yet no great man ever owed more to a devoted woman than did Condé to Clémence de Maillé; nor was devotion ever more ungratefully repaid. By Lord Mahon the adventures of the princess are skilfully interwoven with those of her husband-and commented on with a generous warmth of feeling which constitutes to ourselves the liveliest charm of this delightful book.

The titles (rather Flemish than French) of Condé and Enghien were brought into the family of Bourbon by the marriage of Henry of Navarre's grandfather with Mary of Luxembourg. Louis, the first Prince of Condé, was one of the ablest chiefs of the Huguenots, and died in 1569 on the bloody field of Jarnac. Henry, his son, became head of his branch at seventeen years of age, and soon distinguished himself by his gallant zeal in the cause of his cousin-german Henry IV. He died in 1588, leaving his newly-wedded wife with child of Henry, the third princewho, unlike his father and grandfather, was bred up in Romanism. He married, in 1609, Charlotte de Montmorenci, the most beautiful woman in France.' Her charms, as she appeared at her bridal, captivated Henry IV., and though she was just sixteen years of age, and the king close upon sixty, she betrayed symptoms of satisfaction with her illustrious conquest, which induced the bridegroom to anticipate the fashion of wedding trips. He eloped with her to a distant chateau-the king pursued in disguise-and the pair proceeded to the Netherlands: but suspicion had taken

root

root-the prince soon quitted the fair lady's society, and she applied to the Pope to have her marriage cancelled, on the ground of non-adhesion, indulging a hope that if she were free the amorous king might contrive to divorce Mary of Medicis, and raise her to his throne. Henry, however, was murdered in the following year. The third Condé makes a prominent figure in every history of the stormy minority of Louis XIII., but never saw his wife again until 1616, when he was arrested and confined at Vincennes by order of the queen regent. The princess, upon hearing of this, at once stopped the suit for divorce, which had been creeping on for several years, and petitioned for leave to join her husband in his prison. It was granted on condition that she should be considered also as a prisoner-and her ready acceptance of these terms effected a reconciliation. Her first two children were born in the keep of Vincennes-which may thus be said to have saved the line of Condé, as well as witnessed its final extinction. After three years' confinement the prisoners were set at liberty; and Condé appears ever after to have been a most pliant courtier. Among other favours which he begged and obtained at the hands of his old enemy Richelieu, he had a grant of several estates of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Montmorenci, whom the Cardinal beheaded-including the three noble domains of St. Maur, Ecouen, and Chantilly-besides a new dukedom of Châteauroux, and the secularization of several abbeys. He more than once commanded the French armies, but never with much success, though his courage was worthy of his blood, and he was undoubtedly a man of talents.

The prince and princess had three sons, who all died in infancy, before the birth of Louis, who became the Great Condé, on the 7th of September, 1621. He received the title of Duc d'Enghien-but as the father, being first prince of the blood, was in court style simply Monsieur le Prince, so the heir, during the father's lifetime, was always talked of as Monsieur le Duc.* He was a frail and feeble child, and seemed likely to be as short-lived as those that preceded him. He was sent to the castle of Montrond, of which the picturesque and majestic ruins still overhang the town of St. Amand in Berry. The prince had good reason to select a spot celebrated for the salubrity of its air-but it was supposed that he also contemplated the chances of a new disgrace at court, and was desirous of placing the only hope of his race in a situation of safety. Here the boy outgrew his ailments, and soon gave augury of the man, being imperious, cruel, amenable to no authority but only his father's-whom he always dreaded, and seldom disobeyed-yet by craft or daring

* His signature through life was uniformly Louis de Bourbon.

converting

converting all the females about him into the slaves of his caprice. When the period of womanly rule was over, his father gave him for governor a worthy private gentleman, M. La Boussière, who seems to have discharged a difficult duty with exemplary firmness. The faithful friend and servant, Lenet, whose Memoirs alone give details of those early days, represents both the governor and the father as watching the rapid development of the boy's talents with equal wonder and care, and combining their efforts to check and eradicate the savageness of temper which every now and then revealed itself. There is a particular record (which may have afforded a hint to the first chapter in Zeluco) of a severe whipping, in the prince's presence, for tearing out the eyes of a pet sparrow.

In due time La Boussière and two learned priests accompanied him to Bourges, where he attended the Jesuits' College regularly during four or five years, being distinguished in the class-rooms by a balustrade round his chair, and by uniformly gaining the first prize for every species of exercise. His boyish letters to his father were printed in the Essai Historique, and they are evidently genuine productions, expressing feelings and thoughts of his own, in Latin which keeps improving as the time advances. We read of the precocious learning of princes with no disposition to credulity-but Condé was a real scholar, for his mind was eagerly curious and universally ambitious. He could no more brook to be second in the college than in the salle d'armes or the manège. He was the best fencer, rider, dancer of the place, as well as the best writer of themes, the quickest and most ingenious manufacturer of Sapphics and Alcaics. He studied history, especially the history of war and the history of France, with unbounded zeal and assiduity. He terminated a course of philosophy at twelve years of age, by publicly supporting two theses, according to the fashion of the time; and both were so good that his father had them printed. Like a dexterous courtier, he made the boy dedicate the first to the Cardinal, and the second to the King. He was thus already covered with honours of his own acquiring when he left Bourges. He had occupied during his residence there the fine hôtel built by Jacques Coeur, the famous goldsmith, i. e. financier, of Charles VII. It still exists, a superb monument of ancient art, and the open stone-work of the parapet exhibits the original inscription, on which the eyes of the youthful hero must have so often dwelt-à CŒUR vaillant rien impossible.

After leaving Bourges the duke remained for the most part at Montrond, pursuing his studies keenly, and hunting in the forest. His letters to his father indicate that his constant passion was the art of war; and Lenet tells us that the youth took comparatively

little pleasure in any society but that of old officers, whom he incessantly questioned about military facts and theories. Thus five or six years passed away, until Anne of Austria, after twenty years of sterility, produced a dauphin-afterwards Louis XIV.; and the Prince of Condé carried his son with him to participate in the rejoicings of the court. He was now in his eighteenth summer, and the court hailed him as the prime ornament of those great festivities. In stature he hardly passed the middle height, but his figure was perfect-a model of strength, agility, and youthful grace and though he made no pretensions to regular beauty of lineaments, his countenance was in the highest degree striking and majestic-the true eagle eye-large, dark, and bold,-the only serious defect being in the mouth, which, more than any other feature, expresses moral qualities. His moustachios were not yet grown enough to conceal the coarseness of a sensual lip, and teeth long and projecting, in which physiognomists of Albertus' school would have recognised the type of the wolf. But the court ladies were very willing to overlook these blemishes. Even his cousin, the famous daughter of Gaston of Orleans, though she abhorred the whole race of Condé, is lavish in her praises of his royal mien. He has,' she writes, the grandest head in the court, and entirely the air of a great prince.' Women seldom care much about a man who seems to think much of his own person. The young duke was, as he always continued to be, somewhat slovenly in his dress. He had not the least turn for any sort of finery, and, unless on occasions of ceremony, adhered to the plain black garb which he had become accustomed to at the Jesuits' College. His dancing, however, was inimitable; and his ready wit gave him the lead equally in all the petits jeux of the Palais Royal. It was on the same occasion also that Paris saw for the first time his too celebrated sister Anne-Geneviève, styled till her marriage Mademoiselle de Bourbon. A more consummate beauty never blazed upon the world. She was a year older than her brother, and seems to have greatly resembled him in character. Though her eye was soft, and her smile and blush angelic, she had inherited the pride, audacity, cruelty, and lasciviousness of the old Bourbons, as well as the captivating grace of the Montmorencies.†

After a few weeks of festivity, the court sank back into the dulness which had for many years characterized it. Louis XIII., whether or not he suspected his queen of having given him an heir but not a son,* withdrew from her society, and re

The King was jealous of his brother. See Bayle's article on Louis XIII. The epithet angelic is constantly applied to her by the memoir-writers. Whoever,' says the Spanish adage, would make a devil, must begin by catching an angel.' sumed

sumed his solitary existence at St. Germain. His health was already feeble, and he seemed to have no pleasure left but in the noble chace of badgers. He had ceased to interfere with his imperious minister; and Anne of Austria, disheartened and all but disgraced, presumed no longer to dream of intriguing against Richelieu. The Cardinal was king in all but the name, and exacted even from God's anointed the honours of royalty. The Prince of Condé, like Gaston of Orleans, was a supple courtier to the true monarch, who usually held his state at Ruel, guarded by his own guards, taking precedence of the princes of the blood, receiving the queen without rising from his chair, and only half rising when Louis himself entered his chamber. The Cardinal had hardly condescended to mix in the recent festivities-but what he had heard of the young D'Enghien excited his curiosity. He sent for and had a long conversation with him, and is said to have told Chavigné, the same evening, that he had spent two hours with a boy who could not fail to turn out the greatest man in France. The prophecy is not well authenticated-but when the Prince of Condé went in the following spring to command the army in Spain, Richelieu allowed him to make D'Enghien his deputy in the government of Burgundy. The youth would rather have accompanied his father to the camp, but submitted, as usual, to his wishes; and, though of course he had counsel and assistance, 'so conducted himself in this employment as to acquire esteem and respect in that great province.'

Next year (1640) 'D'Enghien was gratified by permission to make the campaign in Flanders under the Maréchal de la Meilleraie, and during the siege and capture of Arras distinguished himself by brilliant gallantry. On his return he had another private interview with Richelieu, who remained confirmed in his favourable opinion; and condescended to listen to the Prince his father's humble suit for a family alliance. As to this matter, the young man's own inclinations were not consulted, Allpowerful as Richelieu was, the heir of the Condés saw in him only a successful parvenu. To mix his royal blood with that of any but the very highest of the old noble houses in France seemed to him an inconceivable degradation. The father, however, was resolved, and the son submitted. He was married in February, 1641, to Clémence, the daughter of Richelieu's sister, the Duchess of Maillé-Brezé.

The bride was only entering her fourteenth year-and so mere a child, that two years afterwards she is said to have been found playing with a doll. She was treated from her wedding-hour with utter contempt, and when D'Enghien fell ill of a fever shortly after, the court agreed, nem. con., that it was a fever of

vexation