Enghien

Enghien (in Dutch Edingen, in Walloon Inguî) is a French-speaking city and municipality in Belgium located in the Walloon Region, province of Hainaut.
It provides linguistic facilities for Dutch speakers. It has 11,837 inhabitants.

Founded by Englebert of Enghien in the 11th century, the city is rich in a prestigious past.
Enghien was the first barony of the county of Hainaut (Haynaut).
Enghien gave its name to the French duchy and to the town of Enghien-les-Bains, near Paris, after a complex succession of inheritances: in 1487, Marie of Luxembourg, the sole heiress of Peter II of Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise and a member of one of the branches of the House of Luxembourg, married François de Bourbon-Vendôme, the great-grandfather of Henry IV. Marie de Luxembourg apportioned to him among other properties the principality of Condé-sur-l'Escaut and the county of Enghien. These fiefs passed to her grandson Louis I of Bourbon, Prince of Condé, the uncle of Henry IV, and founder of the illustrious lineage of the princes of Condé, the first princes of the blood. Louis I had the name Enghien transferred to the seigneury of Nogent-le-Rotrou in Perche, which he renamed Enghien-le-Français.
In 1566, the county of Enghien was elevated to a dukedom-peerage, but Louis I died in 1569 before the registration of the letters patent, and the title therefore became extinct with him.
His grandson Henri II, Prince of Condé exchanged Nogent-le-Rotrou for the barony of Issoudun in Berry, possession of Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully, and gave to Issoudun the name and title of "Duchy of Enghien." In 1633, following the execution of his brother-in-law Henri II de Montmorency, Henri II was created Duke of Montmorency.
In 1689, his grandson Henri III, Prince of Condé was authorized by Louis XIV to rename the Duchy of Montmorency to the Duchy of Enghien for the benefit of his son Louis III de Bourbon-Condé. Since then, the title of Duke of Enghien has been held by the eldest son of the Prince of Condé in title.
The city of Montmorency, in the heart of the duchy, continued to be called Montmorency despite the official name change, but the name Enghien applied to the nearby lake and the marsh that surrounded it, where a spa center was later built and established as a municipality under the name of Enghien-les-Bains in the 19th century.
Enghien is also known for a garden featuring more than 3,000 varieties of roses, created by Louis Joseph Ghislain Parmentier, brother of Andrew Parmentier, who himself created more than 800 varieties, making him one of the largest collectors in Europe, as well as one of the most prolific rose breeders. Among the varieties of this breeder, we know Félicité Parmentier or Désirée Parmentier but also Cardinal de Richelieu, which has only recently been reassigned to him, or Belle Isis, whose crossing with Dainty Maid allowed David Austin to obtain in 1961 Constance Spry, the first of the now popular English roses.

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