Charles, Prince of Soubise

Charles de Rohan, Prince of Soubise (16 July 17151 July 1787) was a French Royal Army officer and courtier who served during the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. He was the last male of his branch of the House of Rohan, and was great-grandfather to the Duke of Enghien, executed by Napoleon in 1804. Styled Prince d'Epinoy at birth, he became the Prince of Soubise after 1749.

Biography

Rohan was born at the Palace of Versailles on 16 July 1715, the son of Jules, Prince of Soubise, lieutenant captain of the Gendarmes of the Royal Guard, and of Anne Julie Adélaïde de Melun. The eldest of five children, he was styled the Prince of Epinoy till his father's death in 1724.

His parents died in Paris of smallpox in 1724, leaving him and his remaining siblings, including Marie Louise, orphans. His sister lost her husband to smallpox in 1743.

He was entrusted to his grandfather Hercule Mériadec, Duke of Rohan-Rohan, who raised Soubise to the court, where he became the companion of Louis XV, who was the same age as he. One of his great grandmothers was Madame de Ventadour, via his paternal grandmother Anne Geneviève de Lévis; Madame de Ventadour, who died in 1744, was close to her great grandson.

He accompanied Louis XV in the campaign of 1744–48 and attained high military rank, which owed more to his courtiership than to his generalship.

Soon after the beginning of the Seven Years' War, through the influence of Madame de Pompadour, he was put in command of a corps of 24,000 men, and in November 1757 his army was defeated by Prussian forces at the Battle of Rossbach.

After Anne Thérèse died in 1745, Charles married that same year Princess Anna Viktoria of Hessen-Rheinfels-Rotenburg (1728–1792). They had no children.

Charles also notably had relationships with Madeleine Guimard and Anne Victoire Dervieux.

Legacy Soubise sauce, based on onion and béchamel, is said to have been named after him.

Ancestry