Early life Anne Geneviève was the only daughter of
Henri de Bourbon,
Prince of Condé, and his wife
Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, and the sister of
Louis, Grand Condé. She was born in the prison of the
Château of Vincennes into which her father and mother had been thrown for opposition to
Concino Concini, the
favourite of
Marie de' Medici, who was then
regent during the minority of
Louis XIII. She was educated with great strictness in the convent of the
Carmelites in the
Rue Saint-Jacques in
Paris. Her early years were clouded by the execution of
Henri of Montmorency, her mother's only brother, for intriguing against
Cardinal Richelieu in 1632, and that of her mother's cousin the Count
François de Montmorency-Bouteville for
duelling in 1635; but her parents made their peace with Richelieu, and being introduced into society in 1635 she soon became one of the stars of the
Hôtel de Rambouillet, at that time the center of all that was learned, witty, and gay in
France.
"The Goddess of Peace and Concord" . In 1642, she was married to
Henri II d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville, governor of
Normandy, a widower twice her age (his first wife
Louise de Bourbon had died in 1637). The marriage was not happy. After Richelieu's death, her father became chief of the council of regency during the minority of
Louis XIV, her brother Louis won the great
victory of Rocroi in 1643, and the duchess became of political importance. In 1646, she accompanied her husband to
Münster, where he was sent by
Mazarin as chief envoy, and where she charmed the German
diplomats who were negotiating the
treaty of Westphalia and was addressed as the "goddess of peace and concord".
La Fronde On her return, she fell in love with the
Duke of La Rochefoucauld, the author of the
Maxims, who made use of her love to obtain influence over her brother, and thus win honors for himself. She was the guiding spirit of the first
Fronde, when she brought over
Armand de Bourbon,
Prince de Conti, her second brother, and her husband to the malcontents, but she failed to attract Condé himself, whose loyalty to the court overthrew the first
Fronde. It was during the first Fronde that she lived at the
Hôtel de Ville and took the city of Paris as godmother for the child born to her there. The peace did not satisfy her, although La Rochefoucauld won the titles he desired. The second Fronde was largely her work, and in it she played the most prominent part in attracting to the rebels first Condé and later Turenne. In the last year of the war, she was accompanied into
Aquitaine by the
Duke of Nemours, an intimacy which gave La Rochefoucauld an excuse for abandoning her, and to immediately return to his former mistress the
duchesse de Chevreuse.
Jansenism: a Refuge from Disgrace Thus abandoned, and in disgrace at court, the Duchess betook herself to religion. She accompanied her husband to his government at
Rouen, and devoted herself to good works. She took for her spiritual director the Abbé
Antoine Singlin (1607–1664), famous in the history of
Port-Royal. She chiefly lived in Normandy until 1663, when her husband died, and she came to Paris. There she became more and more
Jansenist in opinion, and her piety and the remembrance of her influence during the tough days of the Fronde, and above all the love her brother, the great Condé, bore her, made her conspicuous. The king pardoned her and in every way showed respect for her. She became the protectress of the Jansenists; it was in her house that
Antoine Arnauld,
Pierre Nicole and
Noël Lalane, author of
De la Grâce victorieuse, were protected; and to her influence must be in great part attributed the release of
Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy, from the
Bastille, the introduction of
Simon Arnauld, marquis de Pomponne into the ministry and of Arnauld to the king. Her famous letters to the pope are part of the history of Port-Royal, and as long as she lived the nuns of
Port-Royal des Champs were left in safety. Her elder son resigned his title and estates, and became a
Jesuit under the name of the Abbé d'Orléans, while the younger, after leading a debauched life, was killed leading the attack in the passage of the Rhine on 12 June 1672. As her health failed, she hardly ever left the convent of the Carmelites in which she had been educated. On her death in 1679, she was buried with great splendor by her brother Condé, and her heart, as she had directed, was sent to the nuns of the Port-Royal des Champs. ==Authorities on the Duchess==