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|date=November 2022}}

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.

File:Daughters of Henri Jules de Bourbon, Gobert.jpg.]]

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.

= Childhood and education =

Because of his father exile from France and fighting for Spain, Henri Jules spent much of his youth in the Spanish Netherlands where he was also beginning in 1652 when he was seven years old educated by Pierre Bourdelot who taught him Latin. The following year Henri Jules was enrolled in a Jesuit school in Namur to be taught alongside other children.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8_VgEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22henri+jules%22&pg=PA42 |title=The Worlds of Knowledge and the Classical Tradition in the Early Modern Age: Comparative Approaches |date=2022-02-22 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-46233-5 |language=en}}

Throughout much of his life, Henri Jules was mentally unstable. His maternal grandmother Nicole du Plessis, sister to the Cardinal Richelieu had suffered from the belief that her bottom was made of glass and therefore refused to sit down. Henri-Jules delusions manifested themselves in that he would imagine himself a dog and would bark like one.

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".{{cite web|url= https://archive.org/stream/loveaffairsofcon00willuoft/loveaffairsofcon00willuoft_djvu.txt|title= Love Affairs of the Condé family|last= Williams|first= H. Noel|year= 1912|pages= 268–280}} 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. He also displayed a recklessness in battle and this lack of judgement made him as much a threat to his own troops as the enemy.{{Cite book |last=Swann |first=Julian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VTu0Zt0yArMC&dq=%22henri+jules%22&pg=PA111 |title=Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy: The Estates General of Burgundy, 1661–1790 |date=2003-08-21 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-44083-7 |language=en}} His father would instead transfer his hopes on a worthy military successor for the Condé name on Henri-Jules cousin Francois-Louis.

Henri Jules was accorded the responsibility of governing the Condé estates, a task for which he proved to be much more suitable.

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 materialize.

= Marriage =

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 (1633-1718). 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 and was married to Armand de Madaillan de Lesparre, Marquis de Lassay, a member of her fathers entourage. She died on 10 March 1710, at age 43.

Later life

Henri Jules mental instability worsened towards the later end of his life and he became convinced that he was already deceased and therefore he began taking his meals in an underground chamber which he was convinced was the home of M. de Turenne. He would also invite guests to this chamber to dine with him and pretend they were also dead and converse on the afterlife.{{Cite book |last=Ladurie |first=Emmanuel Le Roy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a3IAU2sECocC&dq=%22prince+de+conti%22+jansenist&pg=PA247 |title=Saint-Simon and the Court of Louis XIV |date=July 2001 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-47320-8 |language=en}} while served by servants dressed in white sheets.

Though his contemporaries considered his actions being a symptom of his mental illness, it should however noted that he was a fervent Jansenist and as part of that belief included preparing for ones death through reflection and austerious living,{{clarify|reason=meaning unclear?|date=March 2025}} and learning how to die well.{{Cite book |last1=Booth |first1=Philip |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mWULEAAAQBAJ&dq=jansenism+prepare+for+death&pg=PA180 |title=A Companion to Death, Burial, and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, c. 1300–1700 |last2=Tingle |first2=Elizabeth |date=2020-11-23 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-44343-3 |language=en}}

Death

Henry Jules was succeeded by his only surviving son, Louis III de Bourbon, who only survived his father by a few months. Therefore the title passed to Henri Jules grandson Louis-Henri.

Ancestry

{{ahnentafel

|collapsed=yes |align=center

| boxstyle_1 = background-color: #fcc;

| boxstyle_2 = background-color: #fb9;

| boxstyle_3 = background-color: #ffc;

| boxstyle_4 = background-color: #bfc;

| 1 = 1. Henri Jules de Bourbon

| 2 = 2. Louis II, Prince of Condé

| 3 = 3. Claire-Clémence de Maillé-Brézé

| 4 = 4. Henri II, Prince of Condé

| 5 = 5. Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency

| 6 = 6. Urbain de Maillé, marquis de Brézé

| 7 = 7. Nicole du Plessis de Richelieu

| 8 = 8. Henri I, Prince of Condé

| 9 = 9. Charlotte Catherine de La Trémoille

| 10 = 10. Henri I, duc de Montmorency

| 11 = 11. Louise de Budos

| 12 = 12. Charles de Maillé, seigneur de Brézé

| 13 = 13. Jacqueline de Thévalle

| 14 = 14. François III du Plessis, seigneur de Richelieu

| 15 = 15. Suzanne de La Porte

}}

Issue

style="text-align:center; width:100%" class="wikitable" ! width=20% \| Name !! width=100px \| Portrait !! Lifespan !! Notes !!
Marie Thérèse de Bourbon Princess of Conti	100px	1 February 1666 – 22 February 1732	Born in Paris and known as Mademoiselle de Bourbon in her youth, she married her cousin François Louis, Prince of Conti and had issue; she was briefly titular Queen of Poland in 1697.
Henri de Bourbon Duke of Bourbon	100px	5 November 1667 – 5 July 1670	Died in childhood.
Louis de Bourbon Duke of Bourbon Prince of Condé	100px	10 November 1668 – 4 March 1710	Born in Paris, he became the heir apparent of his father on his brother's death in 1670; he married Louise-Françoise de Bourbon, légitimée de France a daughter of Louis XIV; the couple had issue.
Anne de Bourbon Mademoiselle d’Enghien	100px	11 November 1670 – 27 May 1675	Died in childhood.
Henri de Bourbon Count of Clermont	100px	3 July 1672 – 6 June 1675	Born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye and died at the age of two in Paris.
Louis Henri de Bourbon Count of La Marche	100px	9 November 1673 – 21 February 1677	Born in Paris, he died at the age of three in the same city.
Anne Marie Victoire de Bourbon Mademoiselle d'Enghien Mademoiselle de Condé	100px	11 August 1675 – 23 October 1700	Born in Paris, she died at the age of 25 at the Château Asnières.
Anne Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon Duchess of Maine	100px	8 November 1676 – 23 January 1753	Born in Paris, she was known as Mademoiselle d’Enghien and then Mademoiselle de Charolais during her youth; she married another illegitimate child of Louis XIV, Louis Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine; the couple had issue.
Marie Anne de Bourbon Duchess of Vendôme	100px	24 February 1678 – 11 April 1718	Born in Paris, she was known as Mademoiselle de Montmorency and then Mademoiselle d’Enghien during her youth; she married her cousin, Louis Joseph de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme; the couple had no issue and Marie Anne died at the Hôtel de Vendôme.
N de Bourbon Mademoiselle de Clermont	100px	17 July 1679 – 17 September 1680	Born and died in Paris.

References

External links

{{s-ttl|title=Prince of Condé|years=11 November 1686 – 11 April 1709}}

Category:1643 births

Category:1709 deaths

Category:Dukes of Enghien

202

Category:Dukes of Montmorency

Category:Grand masters of France

Henri

Henry III Jules de Bourbon, prince de Conde

Henri

Category:Candidates for the Polish elective throne

Category:17th-century peers of France

Category:18th-century peers of France