The Duc de Bourbon, for he preferred to retain his old title, instead of assuming that which his grandfather had rendered so illustrious--an example which was followed by his son, and, a century later, by the last head of his House--did not live to carry out his father’s projects at Chantilly, since he survived him less than a year. He had been suffering for some time from continual pains in the head, “which tempered the joy he felt at being delivered from his troublesome father and brother-in-law.”[250] His mother, much alarmed, had besought him to think of his soul, and this he had promised to do, as soon as the Carnival and its pleasures were over and the fashionable season for penitence had arrived. On the evening of Shrove Monday (3 March, 1710), as he was driving home over the Pont-Royal from the Hôtel de Coislin, he was seized with a fit and carried in an unconscious condition to the Hôtel de Condé. Priests and doctors were speedily in attendance, but he never recovered consciousness, and died about four o’clock in the morning. “_Madame la Duchesse_,” writes Madame de Caylus, “appeared infinitely afflicted by his death, and I believe she was sincere.” But the chronicler is careful to explain that this affliction was not caused by any love for the departed prince, but “because, since the death of the Prince de Conti, her mind and heart were occupied by nothing but ambition,[251] and _Monsieur le Duc_ possessed all the qualities necessary to make her conceive great hopes in that direction.” CHAPTER XX Louis Henri de Bourbon-Condé--He assumes the title of Duc de Bourbon, instead of that of Prince de Condé, and is known as _Monsieur le Duc_--His personal appearance--He loses an eye by a shooting-accident--His military career--He becomes President of the Council of Regency on the death of Louis XIV.--His protection of John Law--His wealth--His character--His marriage with Marie Anne de Bourbon-Conti--Singular intrigue which precedes it--His indifference to his wife--His amours--The financier Berthelot de Pléneuf--Gallantries of Madame de Pléneuf--Saint-Simon’s portrait of her--Her daughter, Agnès de Pléneuf--Singular beauty and intelligence of this young girl--Violent jealousy which her mother conceives for her--Marriage of Agnès to the Marquis de Prie, who is soon afterwards appointed Ambassador at Turin--Her life at Turin--Disgrace and bankruptcy of Berthelot de Pléneuf--Financial straits of the de Pries--Madame de Prie comes to Paris to intercede with the Government on her husband’s behalf--Calumnies concerning her spread by her mother and her partisans--Her relations with the Regent.