Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon (Louis Henri Joseph; 18 August 1692 – 27 January 1740), was a French nobleman and politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1723 to 1726. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a prince du sang.

Louis Henri was the second child and eldest son of Louis III, Prince of Condé, and Louise Françoise de Bourbon, the eldest daughter of King Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan. Following the death of his father in 1710, he became head of the Bourbon-Condé cadet branch of the House of Bourbon. As such, he was entitled to be known as Prince of Condé, but he used the title Duke of Bourbon instead and was known at court as Monsieur le Duc. After his maternal grandfather died in 1715, Louis Henri became a member of the regency council led by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, the regent for the new minor king Louis XV.

In 1723, Louis Henri succeeded the Duke of Orléans as chief minister to Louis XV. He negotiated the King's marriage to the Polish princess Marie Leszczyńska. In 1726, Louis XV dismissed Louis Henri as chief minister and replaced him with Cardinal de Fleury. Louis Henri died at his manor, the Château de Chantilly, in 1740. His titles were inherited by his 4-year-old son, Louis Joseph.

Early years

Louis Henri was born at Versailles, the eldest son of Louis III, Prince of Condé and Louise Françoise de Bourbon, the eldest legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and his maîtresse-en-titre, Madame de Montespan. He was styled at birth Duke of Enghien, and as congratulations for his birth, his grandmother Madame de Montespan gifted his mother her finest pearl and diamond parure for her daughter.

He was the great-grandson of Louis de Bourbon, le Grand Condé, and ranked as a prince du sang. Following the death one after the other of the heirs to the throne of France in the early 18th century (except for the duc d'Anjou, great-grandson of Louis XIV and future king as Louis XV) Bourbon was third in the order of succession to the throne, being preceded for a time only by Philippe, the 2nd duc d'Orléans who became regent, and the latter's son, Louis d'Orléans, duc de Chartres.

He was described in a contemporary description of him as:

Satirical pamphlets directed against royalty were a common form of literature and the chronicles left by courtiers were influenced by rivalries or prejudice, so he may not have looked so bad. Based on collaborating evidence from other sources, however, it is probably safe to assume that he was tall, and not plump.

It is fairly certain he only had the use of one eye:

One of Bourbon's first moves as prime minister was to replace d'Argenson, the minister of police, with Nicolas Ravot d'Ombreval, who was a relative of Bourbon's mistress, the marquise de Prie. This gave Bourbon control of press censorship, and also gave him control of much of the mail.

He made the first promotion to the rank of Marshal of France since 1715 — and made some new appointments to France's highest chivalric order, the Order of the Holy Spirit (Ordre du Saint-Esprit). The recipients were almost all supporters of Monsieur le Duc. the marquise de Prie, and possibly also Monsieur le Duc, were considering breaking Louis XV's engagement with the infanta, despite the great offence this would cause Spain, and finding him a wife who might provide the country with an heir at an earlier date.

By, at latest, the winter of 1724, replacement of the infanta was being considered. Candidates included the Duke's sisters, especially Mademoiselle de Vermandois. Mme de Prie was opposed to this choice because it would give the duchesse de Bourbon, Vermandois and the duke's mother too much influence. The duchess and Mme de Prie did not like each other. Furthermore, Fréjus was opposed to Louis marrying anyone from the Bourbon-Condé branch of the royal family.

In April 1725, the seven-year-old infanta was sent back to Madrid — Louis did not even say goodbye to her. A new candidate was sought urgently because, should Louis die with no heir, and assuming Philippe V of Spain did not seize the throne, then it would pass to the new duc d'Orléans, son of the deceased regent; the House of Orléans and the House of Condé were rivals, so this would cast Monsieur le Duc into the political wastelands.

Prominent among these was a daughter of George II of Great Britain. The prize was offered to her if she would consent to become a Catholic. However that would have caused great difficulties for her father, as he was occupying the British throne mainly because he was Protestant, whereas his rival, James Stuart, was Catholic; he had to politely decline the offer of France to his daughter.

Another prominent contender was the grand duchess, later empress, Elizabeth of Russia. Others on the list included the Princess Anne Charlotte of Lorraine; a princess of Savoy who was Louis XV's first cousin, and the Landgravine Caroline of Hesse-Rotenburg. Bourbon redecorated the building as well as the grounds and entertained there when he could avoid hosting the Parisian set which had banished him. He died there, aged 47. The titles of the Bourbon-Condé family then passed to his 4-year-old son who was to hold the title of prince de Condé for more than seven decades.

Wealth

right|thumb|[[Chantilly porcelain|Chantilly soft-paste porcelain teapot 1735-1740]]Chantilly porcelain was established by the Prince de Condé. During the Regency his several pensions, together with the income from his extensive estates, gave him an income of 1.8 million livres, the historian Bernier, writing in 1984, estimating the livre as equivalent to about $4.50.

During the Regency he made large amounts of money by speculating in the financial Système (1716–20) of John Law. He bought paper notes, waited for their value to rise, then, before the Système failed in 1720, took them to Law's bank (which had become the national bank) and traded them in for gold. On 3 March 1720, following the example of the Prince de Conti who the day before had gone to Law's bank and withdrawn fourteen million livres in gold in several large carts, Bourbon went to the bank and took away twenty-five million. The bank closed later that year due to lack of reserves. Bourbon made 40 million livres off the Système, or perhaps 20 million. Historian James Breck Perkins says, "he asked enormous advantages in return for the protection he extended [to John Law and his associates], and the unfortunate adventurer [Law] was not in a position to say no to so powerful a nobleman." After the Système went under, "the government compelled some humbler speculators to disgorge their gains, but no one ventured to disturb the head of the house of Condé."

Marriages and issue

On 9 July 1713 at Versailles, he married Marie Anne de Bourbon who died in 1720. Marie Anne was the eldest daughter of Marie Thérèse de Bourbon and François Louis, Prince de Conti. His younger sister Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon, married Marie Anne's brother, Louis Armand II de Bourbon, prince de Conti. They had no children. At her death, Marie Anne gave all her property to her sister Mademoiselle de La Roche-sur-Yon.

On 23 July 1728, he married Caroline of Hesse, a daughter of Ernest Leopold, Landgrave of Hesse-Rotenburg and they had one son:

  • Louis Joseph de Bourbon (9 August 1736 – 13 May 1818), who led the Army of Condé during the French Revolutionary Wars.

Caroline had once been on a list of possible wives for Louis XV. Her husband was pardoned by Louis XV in 1730; this was regarding his exile to the Château de Chantilly in 1725. The couple lived at the Palais Bourbon which had been built by her mother-in-law Louise Françoise de Bourbon.

In addition, Louis Henri had an illegitimate daughter with Armande Félice de La Porte Mazarin (1691–1729), the wife of Louis de Mailly, marquis de Nesle (1689–1767), whom he officially recognized,

  • Henriette de Bourbon (23 April 1725 – 11 September 1780), Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who married Jean, marquis de Laguiche, (1719–1770) in 1740.

Notes

References

  • Olivier Bernier,Louis the Beloved, The Life of Louis XV. 1984, Garden City, New York; Doubleday & Co.
  • Mouffle d'Angerville, The Private Life of Louis XV. "Annotated and amplified by quotations from original and unpublished documents by Albert Mirac." Translated from the French by H. S. Mingard. 1924, New York; Boni and Liveright.  D'Angerville's original title: Vie privée de Louis XV, ou principaux évènements, particularités et anecdotes de son règne. 4 vols. crown 8vo., published in London in 1781. Meyrac says he "extracted these piquant pages" from the original.
  • G. P. Gooch, Louis XV: The Monarchy in Decline. 1956, London; Longmans.
  • Guizot, History of France. Transl. from the French by Robert Black. No date, but a publisher's note is dated 1876; New York; Klemscott Society. vol. 6, p. 110ff.
  • Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon. 2002, New York; Columbia University Press.
  • G. W. Kitchin, D.D., F.S.A., dean of Durham, History of France vol. III. 1903, Oxford, at the Clarendon Press.
  • Ernest Lavisse, Histoire de France, reprinted from the editions of 1900–1911, Paris. 1969, New York; AMS Press, Inc. Vol. VIII, part 2.
  • James Breck Perkins, France Under Louis XV, vol. i. 1897, Boston; Houghton Mifflin Co.
  • J. H. Shennan, Philippe, Duke of Orleans. 1979, London; Thames and Hudson.

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