Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien (2 August 1772-21 March 1804) was a French aristocrat and member of the House of Bourbon whose 1804 execution for allegedly conspiring with Britain against First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte led to the formation of the Third Coalition.
Biography[]
Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Enghien was born at the Chateau de Chantilly in France in 1772, the only son of Louis Henri, Prince of Conde; he was the nephew of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orleans and a first cousin of the future King Louis Philippe I. He joined the French Royal Army in 1788, and he and his family emigrated at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. He assumed command of a corps of French Royalists attached to the Army of Conde in 1792, and he distinguished himself with his bravery and ardor. After the Army of Cone was dissolved on the end of the War of the Second Coalition in 1801, Enghien settled in the German margraviate of Baden. In 1804, Enghien was falsely implicated in Jean-Charles Pichegru and Georges Cadoudal's assassination plot against Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, leading to French dragoons being dispatched into Baden to capture Enghien, which they did on 15 March 1804. A captive Enghien was taken to the Chateau de Vincennes, where he was found guilty and shot by a firing squad in the chateau's moat. The French incursion into Baden, a part of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Duke's execution hastened the formation of a Third Coalition against Napoleon.