Charles, Prince of Soubise

The prince 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, remaining his siblings, including Marie Louise, making them 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.[1]

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 he sustained the crushing defeat of Rossbach.[1] Along with the failure to hold Hanover following the Invasion of Hanover (1757) this marked a dramatic turnaround for French fortunes as just months before they had seemed on the brink of victory in Europe.

He was more fortunate, however, in his later military career, and continued in the service until the general peace of 1763, after which he lived the life of an ordinary courtier and man of fashion in Paris.[1]

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