Charles de Bourbon, comte de Charolais

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Charles de Bourbon in a portrait by Hyacinthe Rigaud from the 18th century.
Signature Charles de Bourbon

Charles de Bourbon, comte de Charolais (born June 19, 1700 in Chantilly , † July 22, 1760 in Paris ) was a French prince and libertine who went down in history primarily because of his extravagant lifestyle. As Count of Charolais , he was also Peer of France .

Life

Charolais belonged to the Bourbon royal family . His father was Louis III. de Bourbon, prince de Condé , his mother Louise Françoise de Bourbon , an illegitimate daughter of the French King Louis XIV. His baptism took place on February 19, 1710 in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris . His education was very neglected, and from a young age his quick-tempered and violent character was revealed.

He fought in 1719 under the command of Eugen of Savoy in the Venetian-Austrian Turkish War and won an award in the Battle of Belgrade . On September 9, 1720 he succeeded the Marquis of Dangeau as governor of Touraine . In the period from June 16, 1722 to 1723, he was a member of the Regency Council composed by Philippe II. De Bourbon , which made France for the minor Louis XV. ruled. In addition, Charles was made Knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit on October 27, 1722 .

Charles had two illegitimate children with Marguerite Caron de Rancurel: Marie Marguerite de Bourbon-Charolais (1752-1830) and Charlotte Marguerite Elisabeth de Bourbon-Charolais (1754-1839), but they were not legitimized.

He had a son from a Paris Opera dancer named Delisle who fell ill as a baby. Charolais killed the child by mistreatment with a sip of brandy. He commented that the child is not his if it dies from it.

In 1740, after the death of his brother Louis IV. Henri , Charolais became the guardian of his four-year-old nephew Louis V. Joseph . He took care of him and, until 1744, of his young relative Donatien Alphonse François de Sade , who also lived in the city ​​palace Hôtel de Condé in Paris.

After his death, the county of Charolais fell back to the French crown.

free time activities

Posterity will remember him primarily as an excessive libertine and sadist :

Sade mentions the Count Charolais very often (e.g. Philosophy dans le Boudoir I, 153, II, 131), who “committed murders out of lust”. According to Moreau, this Count of Charolais (1700–1760) "gloomy memory" combined the most outrageous cynicism with an almost intangible ferocity. He loved to see blood flow at his orgies and horrified the courtisans brought to him. "In the midst of his debauchery with his Maitressen, nothing was more pleasant for him than shooting roofers or passers-by with his rifle". Rolling corpses off the roof gave him infinite pleasure. [...]

According to Michelet , this Charolais loved the fair sex only "in a bloody state". His father, the Prince of Condé, had already found pleasure in poisoning people; B. the poet Santeul, and had passed on these perverse inclinations to his two sons, the Duke of Bourgogne and the Count Charolais. Both used Madame de Prie as an accomplice in their orgies . One day, as Michelet relates, a Madame de Saint-S. Appeared at the same place, who was immediately stripped naked by the neat lord princes, et Charolais la roula dans une serviette [she rolled him a cloth]. Despite this experience, the unfortunate woman let herself be lured into the house of the Prie again and this time she was "fried like a chicken". She only recovered from her severe external and internal burns after several years. Michelet explicitly mentions that the Duke of Bourgogne had this cruel idea.

The French regent Philippe II. De Bourbon (according to other sources Louis XV. ) Granted him exemption from criminal prosecution with the comment: “Monsieur, the favor you ask of me I owe to your rank as Prince of the noblest blood, I would but much better grant someone who pays you like with like. "

literature

  • Paul Colin: Le comte de Charolais et la demoiselle Delisle, danseuse de l'Opéra (1700–1760). D'après les documents inédits de la bibliothèque de l'Arsenal . In: Nouvelle revue rétrospective . Vol. 2, No. 1, 1895, pp. 361-419 ( online ).
  • Eugène Ernest Desplaces, Joseph François Michaud, Louis Gabriel Michaud: Biography universelle (Michaud) ancienne et modern . Volume 7. C. Desplaces, Paris 1854, pp. 672-673 ( online ).
  • Jean Chrétien Ferdinand Hoefer : Nouvelle biography générale. Depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à nos jours, avec les renseignements bibliographiques et l'indication des sources à consulter . Volume 9. Firmin Didot, Paris 1855, Col. 952-953.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Etienne Pattou: Family tree Bourbon-Condé and Bourbon-Conti (PDF; 239 kB) , p. 8, accessed on July 19, 2009.
  2. ↑ Abbé Fauquemprez: Histoire de Chantilly, depuis le dixième siècle jusqu'à nos jours . Regnier, Senslis 1840, p. 163.
  3. ↑ Alexandre Maral: La chapelle royale de Versailles sous Louis XIV. Cérémonial, liturgie et musique . Mardaga, Sprimont 2002, ISBN 2-87009-809-X , p. 391.
  4. ↑ Etienne Pattou: Family tree Bourbon-Condé and Bourbon-Conti (PDF; 239 kB) , p. 9, accessed on July 19, 2009.
  5. ^ A b Maurice Lever: Marquis de Sade. The biography . Europa, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-203-51238-6 , p. 63.
  6. ↑ Iwan Bloch : The Marquis de Sade and his time . Heyne, 1978, p. 273 f.
  7. ^ Donatien Alphonse François de Sade , The philosophy in the boudoir . Merlin-Verlag, Gifkendorf 1991, p. 270.
personal data
SURNAME Charolais, Charles de Bourbon, comte de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bourbon-Condé, Charles de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French prince and libertine
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1700
PLACE OF BIRTH Chantilly
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 1760
Place of death Paris