Biography
The Duke was the only son of Louis Henri de Bourbon "Duke of Bourbon", and of Bathilde d'Orléans, "Duchess of Bourbon". As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a Prince du Sang. He was born at the Château de Chantilly, the country residence of the Princes of Condé - a title he was born to inherit.
He was given the title Duke of Enghien from birth, his father already being the Duke of Bourbon and the heir of the Prince of Condé, the Duke of Bourbon being the Heir apparent of Condé.
His mother's full name was Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d'Orléans; she was the only surviving daughter of Louis Philippe d'Orléans (grandson of the Regent Philippe d'Orléans) and Louise Henriette de Bourbon. His uncle was the future Philippe Égalité and he was thus a first cousin of the future Louis-Philippe I, King of the French. He was also a descendant of Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan, his mother being a great-granddaughter of Mademoiselle de Blois (1677–1749) and his father a great-grandson of Mademoiselle de Nantes (1673–1743), the two surviving daughters of Madame de Montespan.
He was an only child, his parents separating in 1778 after his father's romantic involvement with one Marguerite Catherine Michelot, an opera singer, was discovered; it was his mother who was blamed for her husband's infidelity. His father had two illegitimate daughters with Marguerite.
He was educated privately by the Abbé Millot, and in military matters by Commodore de Vinieux. He early on showed the warlike spirit of the House of Condé, and began his military career in 1788. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, he emigrated with his father and grandfather a few days after the fall of the Bastille, and remained in exile, seeking to raise forces for the invasion of France and the restoration of the monarchy. In 1792, at the outbreak of French Revolutionary Wars, he held a command in the corps of émigrés organized and commanded by his grandfather, the Prince of Condé. This Army of Condé shared in the Duke of Brunswick's unsuccessful invasion of France.
After this, the young duke continued to serve under his father and grandfather in the Condé army, and, on several occasions, distinguished himself by his bravery and ardour in the vanguard. On the dissolution of that force after the peace of Lunéville (February 1801), he married privately Charlotte de Rohan, niece of the Cardinal de Rohan, and took up his residence at Ettenheim in Baden, near the Rhine.
Read more about this topic: Louis Antoine, Duke Of Enghien
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