Turenne

Turenne, HENRI, VICOMTE DE (1611-75), one of the greatest men of the age of Louis XIV., was a grandson, through his mother, of William the Silent, Prince of Orange. His father was the Duc de Bouillon. Brought up in Holland, he learned war under his uncle, the Stadtholder Maurice. He turned his lessons to good account during the Thirty Years' War, when he won the victory of Casale, and conquered Roussillon and Bavaria for France. He was made a Marshal of France in 1644. During the Fronde he at first, impelled by his passion for Madame de Longueville, took part with the nobles; but after his defeat at Rethel, joined Mazarin and became the royal champion against Conde, whom he defeated at the Faubourg St, Antoine (1652) and the Dunes (1658). He became one of Louis XIV.'s most trusted councillors, and again commanded his armies in the war of Holland. His most brilliant campaign was that of 1674, in which, with greatly inferior forces, he beat the Duke of Lorraine and the Elector of Brandenburg. In the next, in which he was opposed by the skilful Montecuculli, he was killed by a cannon ball. In 1668 he became a Catholic. Napoleon considered him the greatest of modern strategists.