Enghien gave its name to a French
duchy and to the
commune of
Enghien-les-Bains, a suburb of Paris, due to a complex series of family successions: in 1487,
Mary of Luxembourg (d. 1547), the only heir of
Peter II of Luxembourg (d. 1482),
Count of
Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise and member of one of the branches of the
House of Luxembourg, married
François de Bourbon-Vendôme (d. 1495), the great-grandfather of King
Henry IV of France. Mary of Luxembourg brought as her
dowry the fief of
Condé-en-Brie (
Aisne département, France) and the
county of Enghien, among others. These fiefs passed to her grandson
Louis I de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, uncle of King Henry IV of France, who started the line of the
Princes of Condé, the famous cadet branch of the French royal family. In 1566, the county of Enghien was elevated to a
duchy-
peerage. However, the necessary registration process was not completed, so the title became extinct at the death of Louis I de Bourbon in 1569. In 1633,
Henry II, Prince of Condé, grandson of Louis I de Bourbon, inherited the
duchy of Montmorency, near Paris, after the execution of
Henri II de Montmorency, brother of his wife
Charlotte-Marguerite de Montmorency. In 1689, King
Louis XIV allowed
Henry III, Prince of Condé, grandson of Henry II, Prince of Condé, to rename the duchy of Montmorency as "
duchy of Enghien", in memory of the duchy of Enghien which the Princes of Condé had lost in 1569 at the death of Louis I de Bourbon. The city of
Montmorency, at the heart of the duchy, continued to be known as "Montmorency", despite the official name change, but the name "Enghien" stuck to the nearby lake and marshland that developed later as a
spa resort and was incorporated as the
commune of
Enghien-les-Bains in the 19th century. ==Image gallery==