and a marplot; to be first in war and in gallantry was still his aim, but for the rest he was a submissive, even a subservient, minister of the royal will. It is on his military character, however, that his fame rests. This changed but little. Unlike his great rival Turenne, Condé was equally brilliant in his first battle and in his last. The one failure of his generalship was in the Spanish Fronde, and in this everything united to thwart his genius; only on the battlefield itself was his personal leadership as conspicuous as ever. That he was capable of waging a methodical war of positions may be assumed from his campaigns against Turenne and Montecucculi, the greatest generals of the predominant school. But it was in his eagerness for battle, his quick decision in action, and the stern will which sent his regiments to face the heaviest loss, that Condé is distinguished above all the generals of his time. In private life he was harsh and unamiable, seeking only the gratification of his own pleasures and desires. His enforced and loveless marriage embittered his life, and it was only in his last years, when he had done with ambition, that the more humane side of his character appeared in his devotion to literature.
Condé’s unhappy wife had some years before been banished to Châteauroux. An accident brought about her ruin. Her contemporaries, greedy as they were of scandal, refused to believe any evil of her, but the prince declared himself convinced of her unfaithfulness, placed her in confinement, and carried his resentment so far that his last letter to the king was to request him never to allow her to be released.
Authorities.—See, besides the numerous Mémoires of the time, Puget de la Serre, Les Sièges, les batailles, &c., de Mr. le prince de Condé (Paris, 1651); J. de la Brune, Histoire de la vie, &c., de Louis de Bourbon, prince de Condé (Cologne, 1694); P. Coste, Histoire de Louis de Bourbon, &c. (Hague, 1748); Desormeaux, Histoire de Louis de Bourbon, &c. (Paris, 1768); Turpin, Vie de Louis de Bourbon, &c. (Paris and Amsterdam, 1767); Éloge militaire de Louis de Bourbon (Dijon, 1772); Histoire du grand Condé, by A. Lemercier (Tours, 1862); J. J. E. Roy (Lille, 1859); L. de Voivreuil (Tours, 1846); Fitzpatrick, The Great Condé, and Lord Mahon, Life of Louis, prince of Condé (London, 1845). Works on the Condé family by the prince de Condé and de Sevilinges (Paris, 1820), the duc d’Aumale, and Guibout (Rouen, 1856), should also be consulted.
CONDÉ, the name of some twenty villages in France and of
two towns of some importance. Of the villages, Condé-en-Brie
(Lat. Condetum) is a place of great antiquity and was in the
middle ages the seat of a principality, a sub-fief of that of
Montmirail; Condé-sur-Aisne (Condatus) was given in 870 by
Charles the Bald to the abbey of St Ouen at Rouen, gave its
name to a seigniory during the middle ages, and possessed a
priory of which the church and a 12th-century chapel remain;
Condé-sur-Marne (Condate), once a place of some importance,
preserves one of its parish churches, with a fine Romanesque tower. The two towns are:—
1. Condé-sur-l’Escaut, in the department of Nord, at the junction of the canals of the Scheldt and of Condé-Mons. Pop. (1906) town, 2701; commune, 5310. It lies 7 m. N. by E. of Valenciennes and 2 m. from the Belgian frontier. It has a church dating from the middle of the 18th century. Trade is in coal and cattle. The industries include brewing, rope-making and boat-building, and there is a communal college. Condé (Condate) is of considerable antiquity, dating at least from the later Roman period. Taken in 1676 by Louis XIV., it definitely passed into the possession of France by the treaty of Nijmwegen two years later, and was afterwards fortified by Vauban. During the revolutionary war it was besieged and taken by the Austrians (1793); and in 1815 it again fell to the allies. It was from this place that the princes of Condé (q.v.) took their title. See Perron-Gelineau, Condé ancien et moderne (Nantes, 1887).
2. Condé-sur-Noireau, in the department of Calvados, at the confluence of the Noireau and the Drouance, 33 m. S.S.W. of Caen on the Ouest-État railway. Pop. (1906) 5709. The town is the seat of a tribunal of commerce, a board of trade-arbitration and a chamber of arts and manufactures, and has a communal college. It is important for its cotton-spinning and weaving, and carries on dyeing, printing and machine-construction; there are numerous nursery-gardens in the vicinity. Important fairs are held in the town. The church of St Martin has a choir of the 12th and 15th centuries, and a stained-glass window (15th century) representing the Crucifixion. There is a statue to Dumont d’Urville, the navigator (b. 1790), a native of the town. Throughout the middle ages Condé (Condatum, Condetum) was the seat of an important castellany, which was held by a long succession of powerful nobles and kings, including Robert, count of Mortain, Henry II. and John of England, Philip Augustus of France, Charles II. (the Bad) and Charles III. of Navarre. The place was held by the English from 1417 to 1449. Of the castle some ruins of the keep survive. See L. Huet, Hist. de Condé-sur-Noireau, ses seigneurs, son industrie, &c. (Caen, 1883).
CONDE, JOSÉ ANTONIO (1766–1820), Spanish Orientalist,
was born at Peraleja (Cuenca) on the 28th of October 1766,
and was educated at the university of Alcalá. His translation of
Anacreon (1791) obtained him a post in the royal library in 1795,
and in 1796–1797 he published paraphrases from Theocritus,
Bion, Moschus, Sappho and Meleager. These were followed by
a mediocre edition of the Arabic text of Edrisi’s Description
of Spain (1799), with notes and a translation. Conde became
a member of the Spanish Academy in 1802 and of the Academy
of History in 1804, but his appointment as interpreter to Joseph
Bonaparte led to his expulsion from both bodies in 1814. He
escaped to France in February 1813, and returned to Spain in
1814, but was not allowed to reside at Madrid till 1816. Two
years later he was re-elected by both academies; he died in
poverty on the 12th of June 1820. His Historia de la Dominación
de los Árabes en España was published in 1820–1821. Only the
first volume was corrected by the author, the other two being
compiled from his manuscript by Juan Tineo. This work was
translated into German (1824–1825), French (1825) and English
(1854). Conde’s pretensions to scholarship have been severely
criticized by Dozy, and his history is now discredited. It had,
however, the merit of stimulating abler workers in the same field.
CONDENSATION OF GASES. If the volume of a gas continually
decreases at a constant temperature, for which an
increasing pressure is required, two cases may occur:—(1)
The volume may continue to be homogeneously
filled. (2) If the substance is contained in a certain
Critical temperature.
volume, and if the pressure has a certain value,
the substance may divide into two different phases, each
of which is again homogeneous. The value of the temperature
T decides which case will occur. The temperature which
is the limit above which the space will always be homogeneously
filled, and below which the substance divides into
two phases, is called the critical temperature of the substance.
It differs greatly for different substances, and if we represent it by
Tc, the condition for the condensation of a gas is that T must
be below Tc. If the substance is divided into two phases, two
different cases may occur. The denser phase may be either a
liquid or a solid. The limiting temperature for these two cases,
at which the division into three phases may occur, is called the
triple point. Let us represent it by T3; if the term “condensation
of gases” is taken in the sense of “liquefaction of gases”—which
is usually done—the condition for condensation is Tc > T > T3.
The opinion sometimes held that for all substances T3 is the same
fraction of Tc (the value being about ½) has decidedly not been
rigorously confirmed. Nor is this to be expected on account of
the very different form of crystallization which the solid state
presents. Thus for carbon dioxide, CO2, for which Tc = 304°
on the absolute scale, and for which we may put T3 = 216°, this
fraction is about 0.7; for water it descends down to 0.42, and
for other substances it may be still lower.
If we confine ourselves to temperatures between Tc and T3, the gas will pass into a liquid if the pressure is sufficiently increased. When the formation of liquid sets in we call the gas a saturated vapour. If the decrease of volume is continued, the gas pressure remains constant till all the vapour has passed into liquid. The invariability of the properties of the phases is in close connexion with the invariability of the pressure (called maximum tension). Throughout the course of the process of condensation these properties remain unchanged, provided the temperature remain
