François - Henri de Montmorency , duc de Luxembourg François Henri de Montmorency de Bouteville , Duke of Piney , Duke of Luxembourg , called Luxembourg ( 8 January 1628 – 4 January 1695 ) was a French general , marshal of France , famous as the comrade and successor of the great Condé . Early years . François Henri de Montmorency was born at Paris . His father , the Count of Bouteville , had been executed six months before his birth for participating in a duel against the Marquis de Beuvron . His aunt , Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency , Princess of Condé , took charge of him and educated him with her son , the Duke of Enghien . The young Montmorency ( or Bouteville as he was then called ) attached himself to his cousin , and shared his successes and reverses throughout the troubles of the Fronde . He returned to France in 1659 and was pardoned , and Condé , then much attached to the , Montmorency ' s sister , contrived the marriage of his adherent and cousin to the greatest heiress in France , Madeleine de Luxembourg , Princess of Tingry and heiress of the Luxembourg dukedom ( 1661 ) , after which he was created Duke of Luxembourg and peer of France . Luxembourg as general . War of Devolution and the Franco - Dutch War . At the opening of the War of Devolution ( 1667 – 68 ) , Condé , and consequently Luxembourg , had no command , but during the second campaign he served as Condé ' s lieutenant general in the conquest of Franche - Comté . During the four years of peace which followed , Luxembourg cultivated the favour of Louvois , and in 1672 held a high command against the Dutch during the Franco - Dutch War . He defeated a counterattack by the forces of Prince William III of Orange at Woerden but was blocked by the Dutch Water Line . On 27 December the inundations were frozen over and he began to cross over the ice , but a sudden thaw cut his force in half . Retreating , de Luxembourg found the fortress town of Bodegraven abandoned by its garrison and ordered the entire civilian population to be burned alive with their houses . The Dutch anti - French propaganda quickly exploited this massacre and when de Luxembourg bragged to Louis XIV that he had roasted any Dutchman he could find in the town , he was surprised to find that some at court considered such cruelties unnecessary . In 1673 he made his famous retreat from Utrecht to Maastricht with only 20 , 000 men in face of 70 , 000 , an exploit which placed him in the first rank of generals . In 1674 he was made captain of the Garde du Corps , and in 1675 Marshal of France . In 1676 he was placed at the head of the army of the Rhine , but failed to keep the Duke of Lorraine out of Philipsburg . In 1677 he stormed Valenciennes ; and in 1678 he defeated the Prince of Orange , who attacked him at St Denis after the signature of the Peace of Nijmegen . His reputation was now high and it is reputed that he quarrelled with Louvois , who managed to involve him in the " affair of the poisons " and get him sent to the Bastille . Rousset in his " Histoire de Louvois " has shown that this quarrel is probably apocryphal . Luxembourg doubtlessly spent some months of 1680 in the Bastille , but on his release took up his post at court as " capitaine des gardes " . War of the Grand Alliance 1688 - 97 . By 1690 , during the War of the Grand Alliance , Luxembourg was entrusted with the command of King Louis ' army in the Spanish Netherlands , superseding Louis de Crevant , Duke of Humières . On 1 July 1690 he won a great victory over William ' s allied commander , the Prince of Waldeck , at Fleurus . In the following year he was again victorious at Leuze on 18 September 1691 . In the next campaign he covered the king ' s 1692 Siege of Namur , and defeated William at Steenkerque in 1692 ; and on 29 July 1693 he won his greatest victory over his old adversary at Neerwinden , after which he was called " le tapissier de Nôtre Dame " from the number of captured colours that he sent to the cathedral . He was received with enthusiasm at Paris by all but the king , who looked coldly on a relative and adherent of the Condés . St - Simon describes in the first volume of his " Memoirs " how , instead of ranking as eighteenth peer of France according to his patent of 1661 , he claimed through his wife to be duc de Piney of an old creation of 1571 , which would place him second on the roll . The affair is described with St - Simon ' s usual interest in the peerage , and was chiefly checked through his assiduity . In the campaign of 1694 , Luxembourg did little in Flanders , except that he conducted a famous march from Vignamont to Tournai in face of the enemy . Death . On his return to Versailles for the winter he fell ill , and died . In his last moments he was attended by the famous Jesuit priest Bourdaloue , who said on his death , " I have not lived his life , but I would wish to die his death . " Luxembourg ' s morals were bad even in those times , but as a general he was Condé ' s grandest pupil . Though slothful like Condé in the management of a campaign , at the moment of battle he seemed seized with happy inspirations , against which no ardour of William ' s and no steadiness of Dutch or English soldiers could stand . His death and Catinat ' s disgrace close the second period of the military history of the reign of Louis XIV , and Catinat and Luxembourg , though inferior to Condé and Turenne , were far superior to Tallard and Villeroi . He was distinguished for a pungent wit . One of his retorts referred to his deformity . " I never can beat that cursed humpback " , William was reputed to have said of him . " How does he know I have a hump ? " retorted Luxembourg , " he has never seen my back . " He left four sons , the youngest of whom was a marshal of France as Marechal de Montmorency . Marriage and children . On 17 March 1661 François - Henri de Montmorency married Madeleine de Clermont - Tonnerre , duchess of Luxembourg , princess of Tingry , comtess of Ligny , baronness of Dangu , and had 5 children :