Turenne, HENRI DE LA TOUR D'AUVERGNE, VICOMTE DE, one of France's military heroes, was the second son of the Duke of Bouillon and Elizabeth of Nassau, daughter of William (I.) of Orange, and was born at Sedan, 11th September 1611. Brought up in the Reformed faith, he was sent, on the death of his father in 1623, to Holland, where, under his uncle, the celebrated Maurice (q.v.), he was initiated into the art of war. Returning to France in 1630, he was favourably received by Richelieu, who at once gave him a commission. During the alliance of France with the Protestants in the Thirty Years' War he fought with distinction (part of the time under Bernhard of Weimar), and helped to bring about the capture of Landrecies, Maubeuge, and Breisach. The victory of Casale in the Italian campaign of the following year added to his laurels, and in 1641 he was entrusted with the supreme command. The rapid conquest of Roussillon from the Spaniards in 1642 was rewarded in 1644 with the baton of a marshal of France and the chief command on the Rhine. Condé's arrival transferred him for a time to a subordinate position; and his restoration to supreme command was followed by the commission of a strategic error for which he was severely punished by the Imperialist general Count Mercy, who completely routed him at Marienthal, 5th May 1645; but on August 3 of the same year this disgrace was amply avenged by Condé at Nördlingen; and Turenne gloriously concluded France's share in the war by the reconquest of the Trèves electorate, by the conquest of Bavaria (1646-47) with the Swedes, and by a successful campaign in Flanders.
In the civil wars of the Fronde (q.v.) Turenne joined the party of the frondeurs, moved by his passion for the Duchess of Longueville; but after being defeated at Rethel (December 15, 1650) he withdrew to Flanders, returning on Mazarin's retirement. On the minister's return Turenne joined his party, while Condé deserted to the frondeurs, and the two greatest generals of the period were for the first time pitted against each other. Turenne triumphed over his former chief at Gien and the Faubourg St Antoine (1652), and ultimately forced him to retire from France; after which he subdued the revolted cities, crossed the northern frontier, and conquered much of the Spanish Netherlands. His defeat of Condé at the Dunes (1658), with the help of Cromwell's 6000, closed their long struggle. In 1660 Turenne was created Marshal-general of France, and in 1668 he became a Catholic from loyalty. His next campaign in Holland was triumphant (1672), and the year after he held his ground against both the Imperialist Montecuculi and the Elector of Brandenburg. In 1674 he dashed across the Rhine, defeated the Duke of Lorraine at Sinseim, next mercilessly ravaged the Palatinate, crushed Brandenburg at Colmar, laid waste Alsace, and then advanced into the heart of Germany again to meet a worthy antagonist in Montecuculi. But their famous four months' passage of strategy was left unfinished, Turenne being killed by a cannon-ball while reconnoitring at Sasbach, 27th July 1675. His remains, entombed at Saint Denis, were respected at the Revolution, and were placed by Napoleon under the dome of the Invalides.
Turenne left Mémoires (published 1782); and there are Lives by Ransay (Paris, 1733), Raguenet (1738), Duruy (5th ed. 1889), Hozier (Lond. 1885); and works on his strategy and tactics by Neuber (Vienna, 1869), Roy (Paris, 1884), and Choppin (Paris, 1875 and 1888).