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Mazarin; and the dexterous Cardinal seized with zeal the opportunity of cherishing a grand feud among the high nobility, whose recent appearance of united intelligence constituted the principal obstacle to the full revival and carrying forth of the leading policy of Richelieu. He chose to take the part of the Condés against the Lorraines-and we cannot doubt that the power which young D'Enghien had already acquired with the army was what mainly decided him. On reaching Paris, the victor embraced his beautiful sister's quarrel, and gratefully avowed himself the most zealous partizan of the queen and her cardinal. It must be observed that at this time the hero's own chance of ultimately ascending the French throne was considerable. Louis XIV. was a solitary child. Gaston of Orleans had no son. The branch of Condé was next in the succession. Whether D'Enghien took up on grounds of ambitious calculation the side favourable to the predominance of the crown, rather than seek to mend so serious a breach in the party of the high nobility with which his actual position identified him-or whether he obeyed merely the impulses of domestic affection and pride-it may be rash to determine. But through life his political movements seem almost uniformly to have been dictated by pique and passion-rarely by sober forecast even of his own interests-never, it may be safely said, on any principle of patriotism.

In 1644, Gaston of Orleans, 'a soldier in spite of Mars, a statesman in spite of Minerva,' claimed the command in Flanders, and his position as chief of the council of regency made it impossible to refuse his absurd demand. D'Enghien handsomely offered to serve under him, and his presence at least prevented disaster, though it could not command victory-but ere the campaign of that quarter was ended, the French force on the Rhine sustained a severe check, and though Turenne was there, ten years D'Enghien's senior, his superior therefore in experience, and certainly his equal in military genius, the reputation of the young prince was so splendid that he was desired to proceed to the scene of difficulty with the rank of generalissimo. The soul of Turenne was as yet above jealousy; and the two rivals exerted their consummate talents in hearty unison. The cool calm intellect of Turenne submitted to adopt the scheme of attack, suggested, on one rapid glance of the ground, to the brilliant audacity of D'Enghien. The first assault of the infantry was met so obstinately that the event seemed very hazardous. D'Enghien galloped to the spot-dismounted, and tossed his baton among the Imperialists. 'Jeter ainsi son bâton de général,' says Lord Mahon, 'est bien prouver qu'on le mérite." The furia francesca became

became irresistible. But De Mercy was no common antagonist. This great battle of Fribourg lasted, like that of Arcola in our own time, for three days.* In the end the victory was completethe Bavarian army was utterly destroyed and Fribourg fell.

In the campaign of 1645 D'Enghien was again opposed to the same excellent general, at the head of another powerful army, and the battle of Nordlingen was as gallantly contested as that of Fribourg, and as splendidly terminated for the French. The aged De Mercy was found dead on the bed of honour. His conquerors buried him where he lay, and erected a pillar over his remains with these words: Sta, viator, heroem calcas.' Rousseau, in his Emile,' criticises this as a piece of modern grandiloquence, presenting a melancholy contrast to the modest epigraph of Simonides for the mound at Thermopyla. Lord Mahon rejects this censure, but oddly omits what seems to us the principal point on his own side of the question. What might have been thought pompous in the brief inscription had a German pen traced it, is surely redeemed from any such imputation when we know that its author was the young conqueror of the Bavarian veteran-the Latinist of Bourges.

In this battle D'Enghien had three horses wounded under him and two killed. He received a severe contusion on the thigh, a pistol-shot through his left arm, and his cuirass bore twenty marks of blows and bullets. Though shattered severely in every part, and deprived of the use of his bridle-hand, he instantly formed the siege of Heilbron, and was indefatigable in superintending the labours of the trench. But pain and fatigue brought on an access of fever he became violently delirious, and for several days his life was despaired of. He was carried on a litter to Philipsburg, where he found skilful physicians sent on purpose from Paris; and by their direction lost a prodigious quantity of blood, which bold practice or his youthful vigour saved him. But this bleeding has the credit of having cured more maladies than one. When he left Paris for that campaign the court talked of nothing but his ardent love for Mdlle. de Vigean-the second fair lady (at the least) on whom he had lavished the tenderness which he denied to his unhappy wife. On his return from Philipsburg it was found that this passion had been entirely carried off with the blood so furiously inflamed at Nordlingen. He did not meet his poor duchess with greater coldness than her rival experienced—

* Pendant trois jours les Français restèrent en présence des ennemis dans un camp couvert de morts et de mourans. Le cœur compatissant de Turenne s'attendrit à ce spectacle funeste, mais on attribue à Enghien une saillie qu'on cherche en vain à excuser par sa jeunesse et par la vivacité de son imagination; il faut avouer qu'elle paraît indigne de l'héroïsme ou même de l'humanité:-" Une seule nuit de Paris suffira pour réparer nos pertes!"'-p. 52.

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Et celle-ci, qui avait été touchée de ses soins, fut tellement blessée par son indifférence, qu'elle renonça pour toujours au monde en prenant les vœux de Carmelite. Ce fut une autre La Valière,' says our author, avec la vertu de plus-and the last phrase is in accordance with the report of Mdlle. de Montpensier, who eulogises la bonne et sage conduite que Mdlle. de V. avait tenue envers M. le Duc.' The truth is that D'Enghien had seriously planned to have his marriage cancelled on the ground of compulsion-and it would appear that Mazarin was not at all unwilling to assist him in this worthy project-but his father for once felt and acted justly. He observed that Cardinal Richelieu had consulted his niece's inclinations as little as he his son's-that she had discharged all her duties blamelessly-and insisted on the instant abandonment of the scheme. D'Enghien submitted-but fainted on the spot. It would seem that, however sage et bonne,' Mdlle. de Vigean had not anticipated the total cessation of her admirer's soins.' Another flame of this period was excited by Mdlle. de Bouteville, a Montmorency nearly related to his mother. This damsel also was 'touchée de ses soins'-but a familiar companion of his, the young Duke de Chatillon, was in love with her in a more laudable fashion, and he had faith enough in D'Enghien's generosity to appeal to him on the subject. The married swain behaved as the bachelor had ventured to hope. Though not supposed, says Lord Mahon, to be very susceptible of the feeling of friendship, he protested that he would not interfere with the honourable establishment of Mdlle, de Bouteville, and pledged himself not to renew his addresses to her as Duchess of Chatillon. According to the chroniclers he kept his word—and she never again engaged his 'soins' until she became a widow.

These affairs gave unspeakable torment to the Duchess D'Enghien, who, though treated with uniform neglect and thus braved and outraged by a succession of criminal intrigues, had conceived a most enthusiastic love for her husband. She bore everything in patient silence no reproach ever escaped her lips -she hung over her child, and clung to the hope that, as her hero seemed to share her parental fondness, he would sooner or later open his heart to her conjugal devotion. She heard of his battles and victories only from the gazettes-no familiar note ever reached her during his glorious months of absence. It was at a full court that she received the first tidings of Nordlingen. Various little incidents had ere then revealed the fact that neither Mazarin nor the Queen listened with unmixed joy to the news of their champion's successes. They were alarmed at such a rapid accumulation of victories they trembled secretly at the thought of the influence

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he must be consolidating among his officers as well as his soldiery. On this occasion the Queen expressed her regret that the General should have been wounded. The young duchess, with tears in her eyes, could not for once repress her feelings: I doubt,' she exclaimed, if some here think he has been wounded enough.' In 1646 Turenne commanded on the Rhine-where the war had now begun to languish. Old Gaston once more took the Flemish frontier, and D'Enghien once more had the generosity to serve under him. Nothing great could be done where Gaston of Orleans presided; two or three towns fell, and perhaps there would have been a battle, but the Spanish army, which had been on the advance in the direction of Dunkirk, suddenly began a retreat. Our hero in a skirmish disarmed an officer who was not acquainted with his person, and who, as they rode off the ground together, told him with simplicity that the retrograde movement had been determined on as soon as it was known at head-quarters that the Duke had arrived from Paris. The satirical wit, Bussy Rabutin, served in this campaign, and furnishes some characteristic sketches of it in his Memoirs. For example:

'Rabutin fait une peinture frappante d'une sortie que la garnison de Mardyck dirigea sur la tranchée du Duc d'Enghien. A cette nouvelle, Enghien, qui après les travaux de la matinée était allé dîner, réunit en toute hâte ses meilleurs officiers, se jeta sur les ennemis, et les mit en fuite, lui encore en pourpoint et l'épée à la main. "Non jamais," s'écrie Bussy, qui le rencontra au milieu du feu, "jamais l'imagination d'un peintre ne saurait représenter Mars dans la chaleur du combat avec autant de force et d'énergie !" Le Duc était couvert de sueur, de poussière, et de fumée, le feu jaillissait de ses yeux, et le bras dont il tenait son épée était ensanglanté jusqu'au coude. "Vous êtes blessé, Monseigneur?" lui demanda Bussy. "Non, non," répondit Enghien; "c'est le sang de ces coquins!" Il voulait parler des ennemis.'-pp. 60, 61.

Gaston finally quitted his post, and D'Enghien ended the campaign by a very important conquest-that of Dunkirk. This was so great a service that he did not think it unbecoming to ask a magnificent reward. Just before his wife's brother fell in battle in Italy; and D'Enghien claimed the proud office with which Richelieu had some years before invested his nephew that of Grand Amiral de France. D'Enghien's reiterated letters from the army were backed by the strenuous personal exertions of his father. But the Prince of Condé was Governor of both Burgundy and Berry, Grand Maître, and President of the Council. D'Enghien was Governor of Champagne, and of the great fortress of Stenay, and to add to all these acquisitions, and above all to the hero's influence with the army,

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and with the young nobility as a class, the supreme power over the whole marine of France would, in Mazarin's opinion, have made the House of Condé independent of the crown. He ingeniously cloaked his refusal by pretending that the Regent coveted the post herself-and the royal Dowager became Lady High Admiral under the new title of Surintendante des Mers.' Condé abruptly quitted the Court, and retired to Burgundy-and D'Enghien took as little pains to conceal his mortified resentment. But he had hardly returned from the camp before he was called on to witness the closing scene of his father's life. He died after three days' illness in December, 1646-died chrétiennement et en bon Catholique.'

In regard of fortune, this Prince had done a great deal for his family. He found the house of Condé poor-and he left it with a million of landed revenue-40,000l. per annum in France in 1646!

The new Prince of Condé was appointed at once to the governments which his father had held in addition to his own, and it might have been thought that he would now consider himself as sufficiently indemnified for his disappointment as to the Admiralty. But his ambition had contemplated a much higher flight. He accepted all that was offered, and instantly produced a new and totally unexpected demand. It was no less than for permission to undertake the conquest of Franche Comté at his own expense-the said territory when subdued to be erected into an independent sovereignty for himself. He urged the advantage that would result to France from such a dismemberment of the Spanish monarchy: but Mazarin answered with a smile, that a Duke of Burgundy had sometimes been as bad a neighbour as a King of Spain. Condé retired in deep disgust, and openly threatened to withdraw his support from the government. But he thought better, and soon appeared in his father's place as one of the Council of the Regency. He meant to bide his time. The war seemed likely not to be much longer protracted. Both parties showed signs of desiring its end. What if the last campaign should be one of great splendour for France, and not for himself but for Turenne?

He signified his desire to be employed again; but it seems doubtful whether he himself preferred Spain to Germany as a new field, or Mazarin pressed that service on him, from the wish to keep up a counterpoise by allotting the more promising theatre

*On donnait alors à ses partisans le nom de PETITS MAITRES, à cause de leur ton altier, en imitation de Condé, sobriquet qui depuis a changé de sens pour marquer un soin affecté de la toilette. Le changement de ce mot indique assez bien celui des mœurs entre les règnes de Louis XIII, et de Louis XV.'

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