The news of the victory of Rocroi was received with frantic delight in Paris. On all sides nothing was heard but praises of the Duc d’Enghien: of his bravery, his military genius, his humanity towards the wounded, both victors and vanquished, and his magnanimity in demanding for his lieutenants all the rewards of victory, since he himself desired nothing but the glory. In a single day, he had become a popular hero. The enthusiasm abated only to burst forth again three months later, when intelligence arrived that Thionville had surrendered to the young general, and that the entrance to Germany, by way of the Moselle, lay open to the French. A few days before Thionville fell, on the evening of 30 July, the little Duchesse d’Enghien gave birth to a very fine boy. “The size of this child is a marvel, in view of the smallness of the mother,” writes Perrault to Girard, secretary to the Duc d’Enghien, “and the doctors who have assisted her wonder at it, and are not less astonished at the facility of the accouchement, which has been such that one would suppose that this little one has never done anything else.”[186] _Monsieur le Prince_ at once sent off one of his gentlemen, named La Roussière, to announce the glad tidings to the duke; but Enghien showed no eagerness to express his paternal joy, and, instead of sending the messenger back, kept him to assist at the reduction of Thionville. Nor was it until after the town had capitulated, and Condé had despatched another messenger, informing him that the boy “resembled him and was the most beautiful in the world,” that he finally condescended to write a few lines to the young mother. About the middle of November, the duke returned to Paris to receive the felicitations of his family and friends, and to resume his “chaste amours” with Mlle. du Vigean. His eulogistic historian Désormeaux declares that, on arriving at the Hôtel de Condé and perceiving his son, “his tender and magnanimous soul enjoyed a pleasure more dear and more pure than that of victory”; while the _Gazette_ asserts that “to express the pleasure which his [Enghien’s] presence had occasioned the Prince de Condé and all his family would be as difficult as to represent the joy which the duke experienced at the sight of the son born to him in the midst of so many laurels and popular acclamations.” It is, however, unnecessary to see in such testimony anything except the blind respect of a _protégé_ of the Condés and the optimism of the editor of an official publication. For the family correspondence proves that, at this time, Enghien certainly gave no indication of the intense affection which he was to bestow upon his son in later years, and he took advantage of the fact that the Court was still in mourning for the late king to have him baptized without the customary rejoicings. The child, to whom Mazarin and _Madame la Princesse_ stood sponsors, received the name of Henri Jules and took the title of Duc d’Albret.