Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti (11 October 162926 February 1666), was a French nobleman, the younger son of Henri II, Prince of Condé and Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, daughter of Henri I, Duke of Montmorency. He was the brother of le Grand Condé and Anne Geneviève, Duchess of Longueville. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a Prince du Sang.
Life
left|thumb|125x125px|Engraving by [[Claude Mellan of Armand de Bourbon as a boy wearing a priests cassock]]
thumb|right|140px|[[Coat-of-arms for Armand, Prince of Conti.]]
Early life
Armand de Bourbon was born October 11, 1629 in Paris. The title of Prince of Conti was revived in his favor at the time of his birth. With the title Armand also inherited the Château de L'Isle-Adam and its estate, which had been passed down to his mother Charlotte Marguerite after the death of her brother, Henri II de Montmorency whom had been executed due to Cardinal Richelieu´s intrigues.
Conti's god-father was the Cardinal Richelieu whom he was also named Armand after. His godmother was his aunt by marriage Marie-Félicie des Ursins, Duchess of Montmorency.
Conti´s paternal grandfather Henri I de Condé had been a leader of the Calvinist Huguenots and his paternal grandmother Charlotte Catherine de La Trémoille was descended from two of France's oldest and most powerful families. His maternal grandfather was Henri de Montmorency, Duke of Montmorency and Louise de Budos.
Conti´s parents marriage had been arranged partly to neutralize his father as a potential leader of the Huguenots to rally around, and partly because the king, Henry IV wished to make Charlotte-Marguerite his mistress- and believing his young relative would remain complaisant enough to allow this. Instead Henri had fled together with his wife to Brussels and did not return until after the death of Henry IV in 1610.
Conti's mother, Charlotte Marguerite was known for her beauty and refinement, while his father Henri was small and thin, intelligent but with a temper and with a reputation as zealous Catholic who much preferred hunting and the military life to being at court.
Of the six children born to the couple only three would survive to adulthood.
In 1632, the Duke of Montmorency, the Condé children's uncle, was accused of conspiring against the king. Their mother Charlotte-Marguerite went to plead with the king for her brothers life and to assure them of his loyalty. Distraught she even offered her sons, the Duke of Enghien and the Prince of Conti as a guarantee of her words- but to no avail. Montmorency was executed.
Education
Due to a slight deformity of his back and having a weak constitution he was destined for a clerical career and studied theology at the university of Bourges, where he was educated by Étienne - Agard de Champs. He had his own household Hotel de Limoges
But although he received several benefices, including the abbeys of Cluny, Saint Denis,Lerins and Molesme, he did not take orders.
Conti would later study at the Collège de Clermont, a Jesuit institution. On 6 August 1643, he obtained his diploma as master of arts and, in 1646, that of bachelor in theology from the University of Bourges.
On the death of his father in 1646 when he was seventeen, he inherited the governorship of Champagne and Brie, and during the same year, he was subject to the decision of a family council which decided to keep him with the Jesuits for another year, to his great displeasure.
Conti was considered intelligent but was described as "a cypher" by a contemporary. and vacillated between debauched behavior and religious fervor.
Literary interests
It has been claimed that Conti had been a fellow student of Molière's at Clermont but as Conti started attending the school in 1637 by which time Molière had already left the school its more truthful to say they were alumni of the same school. Conti was however a patron of Moliere and La Fontaine. He even he secured an introduction to the court of King Louis XIV for Moliére.
Conti and his sister, the duchess de Longueville attended the literary salon of Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet at the Hôtel de Rambouillet.
Conti was involved in a literary dispute over the sonnet Job (1651) by the poet Benserade. of Bordeaux who was "as silly as she was handsome". Ending their relationship with her he entered instead into an affair with a Mme de Calvière of Montpellier who was a relative of the mistress of one of the noblemen in Conti's entourage, Comte. d'Aubijoux. It was said that d'Aubijoux also was the cause of Conti contracting syphilis The person in charge of guarding them was captain Guy de Bar, who had been given a hundred men to guard them and was said to treat his prisoners very harshly.
They were then taken on Château de Marcoussis where they arrived 15 November 1650 and after this to Fort du Havre on 25 November.
Life in prison
Conti, his brother and their brother-in-law de Longuevilles imprisonment in the Chateau de Vincennes would be prove to be an ordeal for the young prince, and during the earlier days of captivity Conti would keep to his bed and cry.
Said to be "mystic" and "full of strange ideas", Conti turned slightly mad while in prison. (this might have been a symptom of the syphilis which would lead to his death) Having a secret passion for his sister the Duchess of Longueville, he invented tricks to make her notice him. He would later like her become a fervent jansenist. He tried alchemy and potions for some time and eventually bruised himself with a spatula. This episode was ultimately fortunate for him because he could no longer be refused external help from physicians, some of whom would pass letters and pleas to the outside world which sped up his eventual release.
The sister of the brothers, the Duchess de Longueville, having fled to avoid capture turned to Turenne and begged him for aid and he resolved to rescue her brothers.
The Fronde of the Princes, the second Fronde began in early 1650 and was unlike the first Fronde which dealt with constitutional issues, instead it was opportunistically motivated the result was a web of intrigues, rivalries, and ever-shifting allegiances. One common factor among the aristocratic rebels was opposition to Mazarin and his influence over government. Conti´s brother Condé, disappointed in his hope for political power became rebellious.
Conti, his brother and brother-in-law were released early in February 1651, and by the spring the rebellion was over. Condé, and what was left of his army decided to enter the service of the king of Spain.
Third Fronde
Conti and the Comte de Marsin were left as the Condes representatives in Guyenne while Condé, reinforced by the troops of the Duke of Orleans, advanced on the royalist army at Bleneau.The Grand Condé was arrested after paying a visit to the Anne of Austria, and yet again confined at Vincennes, and then imprisoned at Nantes, from where he managed to escape. Condé forced into exile and sentenced to execution in his absence was not able to return to France until after the death of Cardinal Mazarin. Conti on the other took refuge in Bordeaux and he capitulated on 31 July 1653 and obtained permission to retire to Languedoc, to Pézenas in his castle of La Grange-des-Prés.
Released when Cardinal Mazarin went into exile, Conti wished to marry Charlotte-Marie de Lorraine (1627–1652), the second daughter of Madame de Chevreuse, the confidante of the queen, Anne of Austria (wife of King Louis XIII), but was prevented from doing so by his brother Condé, who was now supreme in the state.
Marriage
Soon afterwards became reconciled with Cardinal Mazarin and as a cause of this Conti married Anne-Marie Martinozzi in 1654, the daughter of Girolamo Martinozzi and Laura Margherita Mazzarino. Anne Marie was one of the Mazarinettes, the many nieces of the powerful Cardinal Mazarin. The marriage took place at the Palais du Louvre 22 February 1654. left|thumb|153x153px|Anne Marie Martinozzi (1660-1670) by an anonymous painter. ([[Palace of Versailles|Palace of Versailles, France)]]Anne-Marie was described as being possessed of a beautiful appearance, blonde hair, a sweet temper, generous, with a lot of wit and intelligence Although generally seen as gentle and modest, she sometimes had blunt manners that disconcerted and offended people. Ciron would be consulted by Conti on a regular basis, and would also serve as spiritual advisor for Conti´s wife and sister.
Now completely devoted to Jansenism, Conti completely changed his way of living, by moderating his spending, cutting out all unnecessary luxuries in his household. The Prince of Conti also gave abundant alms to hospitals and the poor and gave considerable sums to churches and convents; he had even wanted to strip himself of all his property and his titles but was prevented by Pavillon to do so. Furthermore apart from when he was devoted to business, Conti occupied himself with reading religious literature,
spiritual retreats, mortification and confessions to Abbé Ciron.
Ciron had such a great power over Conti that he went, on the orders of Ciron, to throw himself at the feet of M. de Calvimont, a counselor in the Bordeaux Parliament, whose wife Mme de Calvimont, Conti had seduced a few years earlier and beg his forgiveness.
Conti´s new religious fervor went to such extreme lengths as to forbidding the servants in his household from dancing, playing games and attending plays. He also expected his servants to attend three masses a day held in his private chapel. Those servants that he deemed lacking their worship he punished by ordering that they only be given bread and water for a few days.
In order to demonstrate how sincere his conversion was Conti who had been a patron of the theatre, decided write a treatise against the theatre entitled Traité de la comédie et des spectacles selon les traditions de l'Église (Paris, 1667), in which Conti turned against his old protégé Moliére, and charged the dramatist with keeping a school of atheism.
The writing of this work constantly occupied him during the last years of his life. Conti also wrote Lettres sur la grâce, and Du devoir des grands et des devoirs des gouverneurs de province. Conti was buried at the Chartreuse du Val-de-Bénédiction in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.
Issue
Armand married Anne Marie Martinozzi, the daughter of Girolamo Martinozzi and Laura Margherita Mazzarini, elder sister of Cardinal Mazarin. They had the following children:
- Stillborn child (1655)
- Stillborn child (1656)
- Louis de Bourbon (Hôtel de Conti, 6 September 1658 - Hôtel de Conti, 14 September 1658)
- Louis Armand I, Prince of Conti (1661–1685), married Marie Anne de Bourbon, the eldest legitimised daughter of King Louis XIV and his mistress, Louise de La Vallière, and died childless.
- François Louis, Prince of Conti (1664–1709), known as "le Grand Conti", married Marie Thérèse de Bourbon, daughter of Henri Jules, Prince of Condé (Armand's nephew), and had issue.
Ancestry
Notes
:1.Marthe de Calviére (née de la Roche) was the daughter of the President of Chambres des comptes [English:Court of Auditors] and the wife of Antoine de Calvière, seigneur de Saint-Césaire-de-Gaussignan. In sources she is referred to as "Demoiselle Rochette"
:2.François-Jacques d'Amboise, Comte d'Aubijoux, Baron de Castelnau, Governor of Montpellier