The daughter of
Henri de Montmorency and his second wife,
Louise de Budos, Charlotte lost her mother before she was five years of age. She was brought up under the care of her aunt
Diane de France,
Duchess of Angoulême. In 1609, fifteen-year-old Charlotte-Marguerite wed the Prince of Condé in a glittering ceremony. The king had arranged Charlotte's marriage to Condé for his own convenience, in order to sleep with her himself when he pleased. To escape from this predicament, the couple fled to
Brussels. The king was enraged and threatened to march into
Flanders with an army unless the Habsburg governors returned Condé and his wife at once. At the time, he was also threatening
war with the Habsburgs over the succession to the
United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, so historians are unsure how crucial in itself Charlotte's return was as a reason for war. Condé continued to provoke Henry from Flanders. When asked to drink to the queen of France, he replied that there seemed to be more than one queen of France, maybe as many as four or five. Along with many other French nobles, her husband bitterly opposed the rule of
Marshal d'Ancre, who abandoned the policy of the late King Henry IV. In September 1616, Condé and Charlotte-Marguerite were arrested and imprisoned at
Vincennes, where their daughter
Anne Geneviève was conceived and born three years later, in 1619. In 1632, Charlotte-Marguerite's only brother,
Henri, Duke de Montmorency was executed for intriguing against
Cardinal Richelieu. The title passed to her. She was buried at the Carmel du faubourg Saint-Jacques, a
Carmelite convent in
Paris. ==Children==