Henri Louis was born in Paris, a member of the House of Rohan, which claimed ancestry relating to the Dukes of Brittany.

He was the only son of the family's main branch chief, Jules Hercule Mériadec de Rohan, Prince of Guéméné, whereas his mother Marie Louise Henriette Jeanne de La Tour d'Auvergne (daughter of Charles Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne) had an illegitimate child with her lover, Charles Edward Stuart.

In 1775 Henri Louis was appointed Grand Chamberlain of France by Louis XVI, inasmuch as his uncle Godefroy Charles Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne, duke of Bouillon gave up that charge.

In 1782, Henri Louis's mistress, Countess Thérèse-Lucy de Dillon, the first wife of Arthur Dillon and a friend of his wife, succumbed to tuberculosis at age 30; in the same year the Prince declared bankruptcy, with a debt of 33 million livres.

During the French Revolution, Henri Louis and his father, wife and children fled to Habsburg monarchy, where he died in Prague in 1809, at the age 63 years (later in 1820 his family bought Sychrov Castle, where they established residence).