Julie de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Guenani, de Châteaubriant

https://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00004407&tree=LEO

BIOGRAPHY Julie was born in 1668, the illegitimate child of Henri Jules de Bourbon, prince de Condé, and Françoise-Charlotte de Montalais. Recognised and made legitimate by her father, she was known variously as Julie de Bourbon, Julie de Guenani (an anagram for Anguien, an alternative spelling for the family name of Enghien; her grandfather Louis II, 'le Grand Condé' was also duc d'Enghien) and Mademoiselle de Châteaubriant.

Julie was raised in Maubuisson, placed in the Abbaye-aux-Bois for a time, then brought to Chantilly. Her father made her legitimate in 1693 when she was twenty-five. It was hoped that she would join a religious order, but she was much too orientated to the world around her. She was pretty, wilful and capricious. Armand de Madaillan de Lesparre, marquis de Lassay, close to both Louis II de Condé and his son Henri Jules, fell in love with Julie. They were married on 5 March 1696, and had a daughter Anne Louise who would have progeny.

The marquis de Lassay was of passionate temperament, a man of letters and a friend of the libertines of his day. This union, for which he had yearned, was to cause him deep unhappiness. On the day after the wedding, his new wife declared her intention to live independently of him. It appears that Julie married him largely to escape her single state, and she judged it impractical to take lovers, at least while single. She had inherited the impetuous temperament and pride of the Condés, and intended to live life accordingly.

Julie died on 10 March 1710, aged forty-three, and Armand, grief stricken, arranged for her to be buried at the priory of Lassay in the diocese of Mans. He had passionately loved a woman who had never cared for him. A chronicler wrote: 'Nevertheless, when his undeserving wife died, he wept enough to fill three buckets, because he had never ceased thinking of her for a single day, nor desisted from begging her to return to him.'

In 1715 their daughter Anne Louise Félicité married Gabriel Simon d'O, marquis de Franconville, and had a daughter Adelaide Geneviève who in 1731 married Louis II de Brancas, duc de Lauraguais, duc et pair de Villars.