ion and by his personal intercession on
behalf of Fouquet in 1664, ended in 1668. In that year he proposed to
Louvois, the minister of war, a plan for seizing Franche-Comte, the
execution of which was entrusted to him and successfully carried out. He
was now completely re-established in the favour of Louis, and with
Turenne was the principal French commander in the celebrated campaign of
1672 against the Dutch. At the forcing of the Rhine passage at Tollhuis
(June 12) he received a severe wound, after which he commanded in Alsace
against the Imperialists. In 1673 he was again engaged in the Low
Countries, and in 1674 he fought his last great battle at Seneff against
the prince of Orange (afterwards William III. of England). This battle,
fought on the 11th of August, was one of the hardest of the century, and
Conde, who displayed the reckless bravery of his youth, had three horses
killed under him. His last campaign was that of 1675 on the Rhine, where
the army had been deprived of its general by the death of Turenne; and
where by his careful and methodical strategy he repelled the invasion of
the Imperial army of Montecucculi. After this campaign, prematurely worn
out by the toils and excesses of his life, and tortured by the gout, he
returned to Chantilly, where he spent the eleven years that remained to
him in quiet retirement. In the end of his life he specially sought the
companionship of Bourdaloue, Nicole and Bossuet, and devoted himself to
religious exercises. He died on the 11th of November 1686 at the age of
sixty-five. Bourdaloue attended him at his death-bed, and Bossuet
pronounced his _eloge_.

The earlier political career of Conde was typical of the great French
noble of his day. Success in love and war, predominant influence over
his sovereign and universal homage to his own exaggerated pride, were
the objects of his ambition. Even as an exile he asserted the precedence
of the royal house of France over the princes of Spain and Austria, with
whom he was allied for the moment. But the Conde of 1668 was no longer a
politician and a marplot; to be first in war and in gallantry was still
his aim, but for the rest he was a submissive, even a subservient,
minister of the royal will. It is on his military character, however,
that his fame rests. This changed but little. Unlike his great rival
Turenne, Conde was equally brilliant in his first battle and in his
last. The one failure of his generalship was in the Spa