Condé, Henri II de Bourbon, 3e prince de

▪ French prince

born September 1, 1588, Saint-Jean-d'Angély, France

died December 26, 1646, Paris

      premier prince of the blood (posthumous son of the 2nd prince of Condé) who became estranged from Henry IV but reconciled to his successor Louis XIII.

      His mother, the princess de Condé (La Trémoille), was accused of having poisoned her husband, and doubts were even cast on the paternity of Henri II de Bourbon. Henry IV of France, however, recognized his cousin as his heir presumptive until the birth of the dauphin, later Louis XIII.

      The 3rd prince de Condé was brought up as a Catholic by his mother, who had abjured Calvinism in 1596. In 1609 he married Charlotte de Montmorency (1594–1650). The new princess, however, had already attracted Henry IV so much that Condé had to send her out of the country and then to flee abroad himself to escape the King's fury. After Henry IV's assassination he returned to France (July 1610) to compete with the other princes and nobles in making demands on the regent, Marie De Médicis. When she and the Marquis d'Ancre began to refuse his demands, he twice blackmailed them by open rebellion, obtaining not only money but the governments of important strongholds under the treaties of Sainte-Menehould (May 1614) and Loudun (May 1616). Finally he was arrested (September 1616).

      Three years of prison (until October 1619) changed Condé's mind. Thenceforth he aided the crown, operating against the rebellious princes in 1620 and against the Huguenots in 1621 and in 1627–29 and fighting in frontier campaigns until 1638, when his invasion of Spain ended in disaster at Fuenterrabia. Rewards included the government of Burgundy (1631), which remained a family perquisite, and most of the property confiscated from his brother-in-law Henri de Montmorency (executed in 1632). Under Anne of Austria's regency he supported Cardinal Mazarin.

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