Henry_III_Jules_de_Bourbon,_prince_de_Condé

Henri Jules, Prince of Condé

Henri Jules, Prince of Condé

Prince of Condé


Henri Jules de Bourbon (29 July 1643, in Paris – 1 April 1709, in Paris, also Henri III de Bourbon) was prince de Condé, from 1686 to his death. At the end of his life he suffered from clinical lycanthropy and was considered insane.[citation needed]

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Biography

Henri Jules was born to Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé in 1643. He was five years younger than King Louis XIV of France. He was the sole heir to the enormous Condé fortune and property, including the Hôtel de Condé and the Château de Chantilly. His mother, Princess Claire-Clémence de Maillé-Brézé, was a niece of Cardinal Richelieu. He was baptised at the Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris on his day of birth. For the first three years of his life, while his father was duc d'Enghien, he was known at court as the duc d'Albret.

Henri Jules' four surviving daughters, Gobert.

Upon the death of his grandfather, he succeeded to his father's courtesy title of duc d'Enghien. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was born a prince du sang and styled as Monsieur le Duc.

Throughout much of his life, Henri Jules was mentally unstable. He was a short, ugly, debauched, and brutal man not only "repulsive in appearance", but "cursed with so violent a temper that it was positively dangerous to contradict him".[1] He was well educated but had a malicious character.

Trained as a soldier, in 1673 he was made official commander of the Rhine front, but in name only, as he lacked the military ability of his father. A possible bride considered for him at this time was his distant cousin, Élisabeth Marguerite d'Orléans, daughter of Gaston d'Orléans, but the marriage did not materialise.

He eventually married the German princess Anne Henriette of Bavaria in the chapel of the Palais du Louvre in Paris in December 1663. The bride was the daughter of Edward, Count Palatine of Simmern and the political hostess Anna Gonzaga. The couple had ten children, only half of whom lived to adulthood. The young princess was noted for her pious, generous and charitable nature. Many at court praised her for her solicitude towards her disagreeable husband. Despite her good qualities, Henri Jules often beat his quiet wife during his rages.

In addition, he had an illegitimate daughter by Françoise-Charlotte de Montalais. The child was known variously as Julie de Bourbon, Julie de Gheneni (anagram of Enghien, aka de Guenani), or Mademoiselle de Châteaubriant. She was legitimised in 1693 at 25 years of age. She died on 10 March 1710, at age 43.

Henry Jules was succeeded by his only surviving son, Louis III de Bourbon.

Ancestry

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References

  1. Williams, H. Noel (1912). "Love Affairs of the Condé family". pp. 268–280.

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