Louis Antoine was born on August 2, 1772 in Château de Chantilly. He was the only son of Louis-Henri-Joseph, Duke de Bourbon, and Louise-Marie-Thérèse-Bathilde d’Orléans, he emigrated with his father at the outbreak of the French Revolution.
He was educated privately by the abbe Millot, and received a military training from the commodore de Virieux.
On the outbreak of the French Revolution he " emigrated " with very many of the nobles a few days after the fall of the Bastille, and remained in exile, seeking to raise forces for the invasion of France and therestoration of the old monarchy.
In 1792, on the outbreak of war, he held a command in the force of emigris (styled the " French royal army ") which shared in the duke of Brunswick's unsuccessful invasion of France.
The news ran that the duke was in company with Dumouriez and made secret journeys into France.
Napoleon gave orders for the seizure- of the duke.
French mounted gendarmes crossed the Rhine secretly, surrounded his house and brought him to Strassburg (15th of March 1804), and thence to the castle of Vincennes, near Paris.
There a commission of French colonels was hastily gathered to try him.
Meanwhile Napoleon had found out the true facts of the case, and the ground of the accusation was hastily changed.
The duke was now charged chiefly with bearing arms against France in the late war, and with intending to take part in the new coalition then proposed against France.
The colonels hastily and most informally drew up the act of condemnation, being incited thereto by orders from Savary (q. v. ), who had come charged with instructions.
Savary intervened to prevent all chance of an interview between the condemned and the First Consul; and the duke was shot in the moat of the castle, near a grave which had already been prepared.
With him ended the house of Conde.
In 1816 the bones were exhumed and placed in the chapel of the castle.
It is now known that Josephine and Mme de Remusat 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.
He secretly married Charlotte de Rohan-Rochefort and settled at Ettenheim, in Baden.
