If in France military talents of the highest order, and important services rendered to the state, had possessed any protecting influence, Francis Henry de Montmorenci, Duke of Luxembourg, would not have been made a prisoner, and nearly a victim, by an implacable and unprincipled minister. Luxembourg was the posthumous son of that Bouteville whom, in a preceding chapter, we have seen consigned to the scaffold for the crime of duelling. He was warmly patronised by the Princess of Condé, who placed him as aide-de-camp to her son. The young Condé soon became attached to him. At the battle of Lens, Bouteville distinguished himself so greatly, that, though he was not more than twenty, Anne of Austria made him a major-general. During the war of the Fronde, Bouteville followed the fortunes of Condé; he joined the Spaniards with him, acquired in numerous encounters a well-merited reputation, and, finally, returned to his allegiance along with his friend. There is an anecdote recorded of him, on the latter occasion, which is much to his honour. After Bouteville had ceased to bear arms against France, the Spanish monarch sent him 60,000 crowns, as a reward for his services. He refused to take the money: “I never,” said he, “considered myself in the service of Spain, and will receive favours only from my own sovereign.” Soon after this, he married the heiress of the house of Luxembourg, by which union he gained a dukedom, and a splendid fortune. If we may believe St. Simon, rank and riches were all that the husband derived from this match, the lady being “frightfully ugly, both in figure and face,” and not at all atoning for her personal defects by intellectual qualities. As far as regarded beauty, the pair had no right to reproach each other; for Luxembourg himself had repulsive features, a prominence on his chest, and another behind. Between 1667 and 1679, Luxembourg, sometimes commander-in-chief, sometimes as second to the great Condé and the Duke of Orleans, displayed, in Franche Comté, Holland, and Flanders, a degree of skill which gave him a conspicuous place in the first class of generals: in fact, Turenne having fallen, and Condé retired, Luxembourg had no equal in France. The marshal’s staff was conferred on him in 1675. But neither the ancient descent, nor the high rank, nor the still higher renown, of Luxembourg, were sufficient to shield him from the malice of his potent enemy. That enemy was Louvois,—Louvois, the perpetual inciter of Louis to war, the director of the horrible crimes committed by the French troops in Holland, and the incendiary of the Palatinate. He was, at one time, the friend of Luxembourg, but they quarrelled; and he thenceforth hated him, with even a more deadly hatred than he had cherished against Turenne. The affair of the poisoners seemed to afford him an opportunity, which he eagerly seized, of disgracing, and perhaps destroying, the duke.