Henry Condell

“ Such was the melancholy end of the honest and warm-hearted Peter Connell, who, unhappily, was not a solitary instance of a man driven to habits of intoxication and neglect of business by the force of sorrow, which time and a well-regulated mind might otherwise have overcome. We have held him up, on the one hand, as an example worthy of imitation in that industry and steadiness which, under the direction of his wife, raised him from poverty to independence and wealth ”

“ Bourbons were ordered to accompany it. The unhappy Condé must have felt that his cup of humiliation was indeed filled to overflowing when he found himself marching against the stronghold of Protestantism—against those brave citizens amongst whom he counted so many personal friends—beneath the banner of the man who, after causing his father to be murdered, had robbed him of the affection of his wife. When the siege began, he courted danger with the eagerness of a man weary of life ”

“ Abandoned by those who should have lavished upon her the most tender care, the unhappy Claire-Clémence became the prey of greedy and unscrupulous attendants. The man Duval mentioned by Condé in one of his letters to Caillet was a footman of the princess, a person of some education and “de bonne conversation,” to whom the lonely woman had attached herself. She gave him expensive presents and promised him a pension; and Condé, warned of the influence which he was beginning to exercise over his wife, insisted on her dismissing him from her service. ”

“ Condé left Milan on 9 June, and deeming it unsafe to cross France in the then unsettled state of the kingdom, and while still under the ban of high treason, proceeded to Brussels, where he arrived nine days later. In spite of the remonstrances of the Spanish members of the Archdukes’ Council, he lost no time in despatching the faithful Virey to Paris, with letters for Louis XIII. and the Queen-Mother, wherein he protested his devotion to the new King. His overtures were very graciously received, and Virey returned to Brussels with an assurance that a cordial welcome awaited his master. ”

“ Although her health had been profoundly affected by all that she had gone through during the civil war, the princess considered it her duty, so long as any physical strength remained to her, to reside at the Court with her husband, and to follow him in his journeys. Thus, when, in the early summer of 1563, Condé decided to take part in the expedition against Le Havre, she set out for Normandy, accompanied by her mother, the Comtesse de Roye. ”

“ The Princesse de Condé had figured at the marriage of her son and at the subsequent festivities, but, after the young couple had established themselves at Chantilly, where a portion of the château had been placed at their disposal, she gradually disappeared from the Court and Society, and was never seen except at great official functions, where her rank necessitated her presence. Often she was ill and invisible for months at a time, and Condé and Enghien appeared very embarrassed when people inquired after the princess’s health, and hastened to change the subject. ”

“ After the assassination of Concini and the departure of the Queen-Mother for Blois, Condé’s principal adherents were restored to favour, but he himself still remained in the Bastille. [176] However, Louis XIII.’s favourite, the Duc de Luynes, sent his uncle, the Comte de Modène, to visit the prince and report upon his state of health. Condé begged him to convey to the King his hope that, if reasons of State required that he should remain a prisoner, his Majesty would at least consent to ameliorate his captivity, and, particularly, to permit his wife to join him. ”

“ But the lesson he had received had been a severe one, and henceforth the King had no more loyal servant, his Ministers no stauncher supporter, than the first Prince of the Blood. His enemies have accused him, and with only too much reason, of servility towards those in power and of an excessive regard for his own interests; but, on the whole, the line of conduct he pursued seems to have been patriotic as well as prudent.
Two years after Condé’s release from Vincennes, on 8 September, 1621, his wife bore him a son, Louis, Duc d’Enghien, who was to confer so much lustre on the name of Condé ”

“ Early on the morrow, Condé left Taillebourg, but, before his departure, he gave Mlle. de la Trémoille, “two lines in his own handwriting and signed by him, containing the assurance of his good faith touching their future marriage.” Then, “after a thousand reiterated promises that death alone should be the separation of their union,” he took leave of his betrothed and returned to Brouage.
The siege of this town was progressing rapidly; Condé’s forces closely invested it on the land side, while the little Huguenot fleet blockaded the port ”

“ The Duc d’Aumale, in his “Histoire des Princes de Condé,” stigmatizes the Protestants as “unjust and ungrateful,” and declares that “there is no proof that Condé ever contemplated a union by marriage with the House of Lorraine.” “In any case,” continues the royal historian, “if he did ‘bind himself afresh’ to his former rivals; if he refused to take part in all the quarrels and to share all the passions which were raging around him, it was because he was sincerely desirous to obliterate the traces, and prevent the renewal, of the civil war.” ”

“ The negotiations for the marriage of Henri of Navarre had been preceded by the arrangement by Jeanne d’Albret of a very advantageous match for the young Prince de Condé. The wife selected for him was his cousin, Marie de Clèves, Marquise d’Isles, the youngest of the three daughters of François de Clèves, Duc de Nevers, and Marguerite de Bourbon. [92] Marie de Clèves was not only a great heiress, but an extremely beautiful girl, and Condé considered himself a very fortunate young man. ”

“ At the end of the year 1635, Condé judged that the time had come for his son to lay aside the scholar’s gown, and accordingly the Duc d’Enghien bade farewell to the Jesuits of Bourges and set out for Paris, where he was presented to Louis XIII. After a short visit to his mother at Saint-Maur, he set out for Dijon to join his father, who had lately added the government of Burgundy to that of Berry, and remained there until the beginning of the following year. ”

“ On 30 April, 1587, the Princesse de Condé gave birth to “a daughter worthy of such a mother,” who received the name of Éléonore, in memory of the prince’s mother, and became in 1606 the wife of Philip William of Nassau, Prince of Orange.
Early in the new year hostilities were resumed, and Condé gained several successes in Poitou and Saintonge. In October, the King of Navarre and Condé marched from La Rochelle to the Loire to meet the latter’s younger brothers, the Marquis de Conti and the Comte de Soissons, who, although Catholics, had been persuaded to cast in their lot with their relatives. ”

“ My wife and my son are accustoming themselves to live on air.”
When, on 2 January, 1656, Condé arrived at Malines, he found his unfortunate wife without a fire in her room, and learned that the exasperated landlady of the inn had just caused the princess’s maître d’hôtel to be thrown into prison. Moved with pity, despite his egoism, by the wretched condition to which his conduct had reduced this courageous and devoted woman, he humbled his pride sufficiently to write to Don Luis de Haro, Prime Minister of Spain, to demand assistance. ”

“ Ever since their formal reconciliation six years before, the relations between Condé and his wife had been very cool; indeed, it would appear that the tie which bound them had become merely a nominal one. Nevertheless, on learning of the arrest of her husband, the princess, who was at Valery, showed real magnanimity. Without a moment’s delay, she set out for Paris, sent the prince messages assuring him of her sympathy and devotion, and begged the Regent to allow her to share his captivity. Her request, however, was refused, and she received orders to leave Paris at once and return to Valery. ”

“ To his great surprise, even as he was looking for her, he heard a shout and saw the gunboat heading directly for him, with the Independencia in hot pursuit. Carlos Condell, seeing the fate of his consort, and realising that he was hopelessly outmatched, had evidently determined to retreat while his engines were still intact; and the Covadonga was now heading out of the bay at full speed to the southward. ”

“ Finally, Condé took his wife back to Valery, and, though Henri employed every means in his power to induce him to return, it was to no purpose. “Beaumont,” writes the King to the Constable, on 23 September, “returned yesterday, and says that he found our friend (Condé) more unmanageable than ever. He leaves Valery this morning for Muret.” [154]
Muret was a château belonging to Condé in Picardy, not far from the Flemish frontier, and the prince’s pretext for removing thither was the excellent hunting which the neighbourhood afforded. ”

“ No young writer has leaped more lightly into the front rank of American creators of fiction than Richard Connell, whose book “Apes and Angels” folks are talking about a lot these days. Though the present story is American, Dick Connell is as familiar with Europe, especially France, as with his own New England. You are going to find his name in these pages often henceforth.
FLEER killed Siddon at seven, Saturday night. At seven-thirty Fleer entered a restaurant, ate a hearty dinner, and then went home and slept soundly. ”

“ The princess’s relatives and friends, who probably regarded the death of the children as a direct judgment from Heaven upon the father’s sins, did not fail to improve the occasion, and represented to Condé that it was his duty to withdraw, for some time at least, from the Court and remain with his bereaved wife. The poor lady, indeed, needed all the care and attention which were in his power to bestow, since she was a prey to bodily suffering as well as to anguish of mind. Always a delicate woman, the dangers and agitations of the past two years had tried her cruelly. ”

“ But he came alone. Henri was furious, and his anger and disappointment rendered him so insupportable to all about him, that Marie de’ Medici herself begged Condé to send for his wife, promising to keep the strictest watch over her. Such was the King’s wrath that he apparently could not trust himself to interview his cousin personally, but sent for the prince’s secretary Virey, [155] and told him that, if Condé desired a divorce from his wife, he would not oppose it, and would even undertake to obtain the parents’ consent. ”

“ The young Princesse de Condé was at the Château of Montrond, whither she had proceeded on leaving Guienne, when she learned of the death of her mother-in-law. Well aware of the rapacity of the fair Isabelle, she at once despatched Lenet to Châtillon to watch over her husband’s interests; and this intervention obliged the impatient legatee to make a journey to Montrond to ask the princess’s permission to take possession of the jewellery bequeathed to her. ”

“ In accordance with these resolutions, a deputation selected from the most prominent Huguenot divines waited upon the backsliding prince at Valery and endeavoured to awaken him to a sense of the error of his ways. Condé received his reverend friends courteously enough, but declared that he “could not keep continent and could not take a wife, since it was difficult to find a person of his own rank belonging to the same religion, and impossible to find one of another religion.” ”

“ The Duc de Bourbon, however, though he was not without ability, was incurably indolent, and, despite all the efforts of his teachers and the reprimands of Monsieur le Prince, his progress both at the Collège de Clermont and at Louis-le-Grand, to which he was transferred when he was fourteen, was most disappointing. It was evident that Condé had not taken into sufficient consideration the great difference in temperament between himself and his grandson, and that a system which had produced such splendid results in his own case was quite unsuited to this idle, pleasure-loving lad. ”

“ The affair had become a public scandal. Even in the streets, people laughed and jested about the infatuation of the King, and “talked with the utmost freedom of his Majesty and of the corruption and debaucheries of his Court.” [149] If Condé had little love for his wife, he was exceedingly jealous of his honour, and, to Henri’s intense chagrin, absolutely declined to accept the odious rôle he had intended for him, and began, in his Majesty’s phrase, “to play the devil.” ”

“ The rich would live and the poor would die.”
Father Mathew, the celebrated Apostle of Temperance, whose church was but a few doors from young Connolly’s home, noticed the quiet, good-natured boy who was so attentive to his church and catechism, and, perhaps discerning in him some of the rare qualities which afterwards distinguished him as a man, became his friend, confidant, and adviser. The widow was able to give her only son a good education, and we learn that at sixteen young Connolly was well advanced in history and mathematics and in the French, Latin, and Greek languages. ”

“ Surprised and hopelessly outnumbered, the French were routed with terrible loss. Condé’s brother, the gallant Comte d’Enghien, was among the slain, while the Constable and the Maréchal de Saint-André were taken prisoners. Condé himself, who was stationed with part of the light cavalry on the extreme right wing of the army, displayed the most admirable courage and presence of mind amid the general panic, and, keeping his men together, succeeded in cutting his way through the victorious Spaniards and reaching La Fère. ”