| Louis Antoine de Bourbon | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duke of Enghien | |||||
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| Born | (1772-08-02)2 August 1772 Château de Chantilly, France | ||||
| Died | 21 March 1804(1804-03-21) (aged 31) Château de Vincennes, France | ||||
| Burial | |||||
| Spouse | |||||
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| House | Bourbon-Condé | ||||
| Father | Louis Henri de Bourbon, Prince de Condė | ||||
| Mother | Bathilde d'Orléans | ||||
| Signature |  | ||||
Louis Antoine de Bourbon,Duke of Enghien (duc d'Enghien pronounced[dɑ̃ɡɛ̃]) (Louis Antoine Henri; 2 August 1772 – 21 March 1804) was a member of theHouse of Bourbon of France. More famous for his death than his life, he was executed by order ofNapoleon Bonaparte, who brought charges against him of aiding Britain and plotting against Napoleon.
The Duke of Enghien was the only son ofLouis Henri de Bourbon andBathilde d'Orléans.[1] As a member of the reigningHouse of Bourbon, he was aprince du sang. He was born at theChâteau de Chantilly, the country residence of the Princes of Condé – a title he was born to inherit. He was given the titleduc d'Enghien from birth, his father already being the Duke of Bourbon and the heir of thePrince of Condé, the Duke of Bourbon being theHeir apparent of Condé.
His mother's full name was Louise Marie ThérèseBathilde d'Orléans; she was the only surviving daughter ofLouis Philippe d'Orléans (grandson of theRegentPhilippe d'Orléans) andLouise Henriette de Bourbon. His uncle was the futurePhilippe Égalité and he was thus a first cousin of the futureLouis-Philippe I, King of the French. He was also doubly descended fromLouis XIV through his legitimated daughters,Mademoiselle de Blois andMademoiselle de Nantes.
He was an only child, his parents separating in 1778 after his father's romantic involvement with oneMarguerite Catherine Michelot, aParis Opera singer, was discovered; it was his mother who was blamed for her husband's infidelity. Michelot was the mother of Enghien's two illegitimate sisters.
He was educated privately by the Abbé Millot, and in military matters by Commodore de Vinieux. He early on showed the warlike spirit of theHouse of Condé, and began his military career in 1788. At the outbreak of theFrench Revolution, he emigrated with his father and grandfather a few days after theStorming of the Bastille, and in exile he would seek to raise forces for the invasion of France and restoration of the monarchy to its pre-revolutionary status.
In 1792, at the outbreak ofFrench Revolutionary Wars, he held a command in the corps ofémigrés organized and commanded by his grandfather, thePrince of Condé.[citation needed] ThisArmy of Condé shared in theDuke of Brunswick's unsuccessful invasion of France.[2]
After this, the young duke continued to serve under his father and grandfather in the Condé army, and, on several occasions, distinguished himself by his bravery and ardour in the vanguard. On the dissolution of that force after thepeace of Lunéville (February 1801), he privately married PrincessCharlotte de Rohan, niece of theCardinal de Rohan, and took up his residence atEttenheim inBaden, near theRhine.
Early in 1804,Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul of France, heard news which seemed to connect the young duke with theCadoudal Affair, a conspiracy which was being tracked by the French police at the time. It involved royalistsJean-Charles Pichegru andGeorges Cadoudal who wished to overthrow Bonaparte's regime and reinstate the monarchy.[3] The news ran that the duke was in company withCharles François Dumouriez and had made secret journeys into France. This was false; there is no evidence that the duke had dealings with either Cadoudal or Pichegru. However, the duke had previously been condemned in absentia for having fought against the French Republic in theArmée des Émigrés. Napoleon gave orders for the seizure of the duke.
Frenchdragoons crossed the Rhine secretly, surrounded his house and brought him toStrasbourg (15 March 1804), and thence to theChâteau de Vincennes, near Paris, where a military commission of French colonels presided over byGeneral Pierre-Augustin Hulin was hastily convened to try him. The duke was charged chiefly with bearing arms against France in the late war, and with intending to take part in thenew coalition then proposed against France.
The military commission, presided over by Hulin, drew up the act of condemnation, being incited thereto by orders fromAnne Jean Marie René Savary, who had come charged with instructions to kill the duke. Savary prevented any chance of an interview between the condemned and the First Consul, and, on 21 March, the duke was shot in the moat of the castle, near a grave which had already been prepared. A platoon of theGendarmes d'élite was in charge of the execution.[4] His last words were "I must die then at the hands of Frenchmen!"[5]
In 1816, his remains were exhumed and placed in theHoly Chapel[6] of the Château de Vincennes.
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Royalty across Europe were shocked and dismayed at the duke's death. TsarAlexander I of Russia was especially alarmed, and decided to curb Napoleon's power.[7] "Baden was the territory of the tsar's father-in-law, and the German principalities were part of the Holy Roman Empire of which Russia was a guarantor."[7][8]
Enghien was the last descendant of theHouse of Condé; his grandfather and father survived him, but died without producing further heirs. It is now known thatJoséphine andMadame de Rémusat had begged Bonaparte to spare the duke, but nothing would bend his will. WhetherTalleyrand,Fouché orSavary bore responsibility for the seizure of the duke is debatable, as at times Napoleon was known to claim Talleyrand conceived the idea, while at other times he took full responsibility himself.[9] On his way toSt. Helena and atLongwood, Napoleon asserted that, in the same circumstances, he would do the same again; he inserted a similar declaration in his will, stating that "[I]t was necessary for the safety, interest, and the honour of the French people when theComte d'Artois, by his own confession, was supporting sixty assassins at Paris."[10]
The execution shocked the aristocracy of Europe, who still remembered the bloodletting of the Revolution. EitherAntoine Boulay, comte de la Meurthe[11] (deputy fromMeurthe in theCorps législatif) or Napoleon's chief of police, Fouché,[12] said about his execution"C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute", a statement often rendered in English as "It was worse than a crime; it was a blunder." The statement is also sometimes attributed to Talleyrand. In the 1844 essay, "Experience",Emerson misattributes the line to Napoleon himself.
In contrast, in France the execution appeared to quiet domestic resistance to Napoleon, who soon set up a military dictatorship by crowning himselfEmperor of the French.Cadoudal, dismayed at the news of Napoleon's proclamation, reputedly exclaimed, "We wanted to make a king, but we made an emperor".[13]
The killing of d'Enghien is discussed in the opening book ofLeo Tolstoy'sWar and Peace.[14]: 6 The vicomte de Mortemart, a Frenchémigré who supposedly knew the duke personally, is the focus of attention of the Russian aristocrats gathered at Anna Pavlovna Sherer's home:
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 [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 actressMarguerite-Joséphine Wiemer, known as "Mademoiselle George", was indeed Napoleon's mistress, but there is no evidence that Enghien had anything to do with her, or that the story preserved to posterity by Tolstoy's masterpiece was anything more than one of the pieces of gossip and conspiracy theories current around Europe at the time.
Enghien's death is referenced inThe Knight of Sainte-Hermine byAlexandre Dumas. For example:
[T]he dominant sentiment in Bonaparte's mind at that moment was neither fear nor vengeance, but rather the desire for all of France to realise that Bourbon blood, so sacred to Royalist partisans, was no more sacred to him than the blood of any other citizen in the Republic.
"Well, then", asked Cambacérès, "what have you decided?"
"It's simple", said Bonaparte. "We shall kidnap the Duc d'Enghien and be done with it."[15]
His death was also briefly mentioned inThe Count of Monte Cristo:
'There wasn't any trouble over treaties when it was a question of shooting the poor Duc d'Enghien' "[16]
La mort du duc d'Enghien en 1804 (1909) was a one-reel silent film directed byAlbert Capellani.[17]
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| Ancestors of Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien |
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Enghien, Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon Condé, Duc d'".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.Generations are numbered by descent fromCharles de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme | ||
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*died without issue | ||
