ABSTRACT
Louis de Bourbon was shown on his throne, holding rebellion and impiety captive by the force of his authority, to which his people, who considered themselves fortunate to be able to obey, submitted voluntarily. The reporting of the Battle of the Dunes, the major engagement of Le Grand Conde's rebellion, gives a good indication of how the new definition affected public perceptions. Cardinal Mazarin was determined that Conde should be publicly recognized as a rebel and a traitor who had forfeited all his rights and could only be received back into France as a penitent and a supplicant. Conde was declared to be no longer Bourbon; he was stripped of all his titles, privileges, governorships and other offices and condemned to death. Apart from Conde, whose behaviour had made it plain they considered themselves the incarnation of heroic qualities—nobility of race, moral autonomy, a fierce sense of their own worth—had been eclipsed.
