Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne Turenne, vicomte de Turenne, Henri
de La Tour d'Auvergne, vicomte de (äNrēˈ də lä tōr dōvĕrˈnyə
vēkôNtˈ də tərĕnˈ) [key], 1611–75, marshal of France, one of the
greatest of French commanders. The son of the duc de Bouillon,
he was brought up as a Protestant. He began his military career
in the Dutch army but soon entered French service. Turenne
showed his great capabilities in the Thirty Years War,
distinguishing himself under Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar in the
victory (1638) over the imperial forces at Breisach. In the
successful battles of Freiburg im Breisgau (1644) and Nördlingen
(1645) he served with the brilliant commander Louis II de
Bourbon, prince de Condé; the lives of the two were thereafter
intertwined. Turenne, who had been made a marshal in 1643,
was—with the Swede Lennart Torstensson—the dominant figure in
the last years of the war. His series of victories expedited the
long negotiations leading to the Peace of Westphalia (1648). In
the war of the Fronde of the Princes (