Stumbling on obscure tombs while visiting the grand châteaux of France is a common thing as they are everywhere. And while they may not be obscure to the French, they often are to me. While going through some of my old travel photographs I came across this one. Why did I take this photo? Whose tomb is it?
This one happens to hold the remains of Le Duc d’Enghien.
Duc d’Enghien was the title bestowed upon the oldest son of the Condé family. This particular Duc d’Enghien started out life as Louis Antoine Henri, the son of Louis Henri and his wife, Louise Marie Thérèse Mathilde d’Orléans in 1772. He was born at the Château Chantilly into the reigning House of Bourbon which made him a Prince du Sang – a blood prince. He is historically more well known for his death than for the life he led.
At the time of the French Revolution, just after the storming of the Bastille on July 14th 1789, Louis Antoine Henri went into exile with his father and grandfather. They sought to raise forces to invade France and restore the old monarchy. In 1792 the Army of Condé, along with the Duke of Brunswick, staged an unsuccessful invasion of France.
After this, the young duc 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-Rochefort, niece of the Cardinal de Rohan, and took up his residence at Ettenheim in Baden, near the Rhine. — Wikipedia
In 1803 a pair of Royalists – Cadoudal and Pichegru – were planning an upraising against Napoleon. It was known that Le Duc d’Enghien was not part of the plan but …
… Bonaparte, who suspected him, probably wrongly, of being in league with Cadoudal and Pichegru in the plot contrived against him, had him abducted in the night of 15 to 16 March 1804 and brought before the war council. The Duke of Enghien, the last of the Condés, was then shot at the age of 31, brought down by sixteen shots fired by sixteen Gendarmes d’Elite, on the 20th of March at four in the morning, in the moat of the Château of Vincennes. The tomb of the Duke of Enghien is in the Sainte-Chapelle and a pillar was put up on the very site of the shooting in the moat of the Château of Vincennes. — Château of Vincennes
He was the last descendent of the House of Condé; his grandfather and father died after him, but without producing further heirs. In 1816, his bones were exhumed and placed in the chapel of the castle. It is now known that Joséphine and Madame de Rémusat had begged Napoleon for mercy towards the duke; but nothing would bend his will. The blame which the apologists of the emperor have thrown on Talleyrand or Savary is undeserved. On his way to St. Helena and at Longwood, he asserted that, in the same circumstances, he would do the same again; he inserted a similar declaration in his will.
The judicial murder of Enghien shocked the aristocrats of Europe, who still remembered the bloodletting of the Revolution and who lost whatever conditional respect they may have entertained for Napoleon. — Wikipedia
This tomb is located in the Gothic chapel that is on the compound of the Château Vincennes. Saint-Chapelle was first begun in 1379, just before the death of Charles V in 1380, but wasn’t finished until the reign of Henri II in 1552. It was meant to be a similar chapel to the one in the Cité as it is a church that was built with the intention of holding holy relics of the Passion. The floor plan is similar to other traditional castle chapels of the day. It consists only of a single nave – a choir formed by a straight bay and a five-sided apse flanked by two oratories, one for the King and the other for the Queen. The chapel has a number beautiful stained glass windows from the time of the Renaissance particularly the Sun window above the door.
The only way to see the chapel is with a guide on a scheduled tour, which you can find at the entrance to the château.
Entrance via the Tour du Village
1, avenue de Paris
Information at the Charles V reception
Tel.: 33 / (0)1.48.08.31.20 / Fax: 33 / (0)1.58.64.23.95
Metro: Line 1: Château de Vincennes station or RER A Vincennes station
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Tags: French Revolution, history, le duc, Napolean, paris, tomb, vincennes
