Enghien, Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, Duc d'

Enghien, Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, Duc d' (1772-1804), French prince, born at Chantilly, the only son of the duc de Bourbon. He was privately educated, and received military training. At the beginning of the French Revolution he fled the country, served in his grandfather's émigré army until its dissolution after the peace of Luneville in February 1801, married Charlotte de Rohan-Rochefort, and settled in Baden. In 1804 false reports reached Napoleon, then First Consul, that seemed to connect the Duc d'Enghien with a plot to overthrow him, and his arrest was ordered. Armed French gendarmes crossed the Rhine and seized him. He was taken first to Strasbourg, and thence to the castle of Vincennes where, accused of bearing arms against France in the late war, he was hurriedly court-martialled. Despite pleas from Josephine and others he was shot in the castle moat, near a grave already prepared, on March 21, 1804. Napoleon's action caused indignation throughout Europe, echoed in Antoine Boulay's famous remark: “C'est pire qu'un crime—c'est une faute”. (It is more serious than a crime—it is a mistake.)