This “direct attack,” which was delivered in June, 1684, on the occasion of the visit which Louis XIV. paid to Chantilly, on his return from the siege of Luxembourg, took the form of demanding for the Duc de Bourbon the hand of Mlle. de Nantes, the elder of the King’s two surviving daughters by Madame de Montespan, who had celebrated her eleventh birthday a few days previously. To the intense joy of _Monsieur le Duc_, it was completely successful, and his Majesty graciously consented to bestow the hand of his legitimated daughter on the heir of the Condés. Owing, however, to the tender age of the young lady, the arrangement remained a secret for some months, and it was not until the following April that it was made public. This was not the first alliance between the fruit of _le Grand Monarques_ amours and the Princes of the Blood. In January, 1684, Condé’s nephew and ward the young Prince de Conti[235] had espoused Louise de la Vallière’s daughter, Mlle. de Blois, on which occasion, we learn from Madame de Sévigné that _Monsieur le Prince_, who had always clung to the bygone fashion of moustaches and a chin-tuft, astonished the Court by appearing clean-shaven, with his hair curled and powdered, and a _justaucorps_ adorned with diamond buttons.[236] But, although Condé approved of the marriage arranged for his grandson, he was far from approving of the latter interrupting his studies to take upon himself conjugal responsibilities. However, such was the _Monsieur le Duc’s_ impatience to see the young prince become the son-in-law of the King that he ultimately withdrew his objections, and Louis XIV. having also proved complaisant, the marriage was celebrated, in the chapel at Versailles, on 24 July, 1685. So far as people were able to judge from features which were hardly yet formed, the twelve-year-old bride gave promise of being very pretty; and this promise was duly fulfilled. As much could not be said for the bridegroom. Both the Duc and Duchesse d’Enghien were short, though of no unusual diminutiveness, but their son was almost a dwarf,[237] and a very ugly one to boot, with an abnormally large head, an unwholesome complexion, and a surly expression. The union of these two marionettes, as the Marquis de Sourches calls them, was celebrated with extreme magnificence, and “the Great Condé and his son left nothing undone to testify their joy, just as they had left nothing undone to bring about the marriage.”[238] The King secured to the duke the reversion of all the offices held by his father and gave him a pension of 90,000 livres, and to his daughter one of 100,000 livres.