[1] Orphaned at the age of fifteen, he inherited a vast fortune from his father that had been handed down from his great-grandmother, the duchesse de Mercœur et Penthièvre.

Entering the army at the age of eighteen, Vendôme soon distinguished himself by his vigour and personal courage in the Dutch wars, and by 1688, he had risen to the rank of lieutenant-general.

In the Nine Years' War, he rendered conspicuous service under the duc de Luxembourg at the Battle of Steenkerke, and under Nicolas Catinat at Marsaglia.

In Flanders, meanwhile, Vendôme quarrelled with the king's unenterprising grandson, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, and was unable to prevent the French defeat at the Battle of Oudenarde.

Marie Anne was unmarried at the time of her father’s death, and still had no marriage prospects when her brother, who became the Prince of Condé in 1709, died the next year.

Although Louis XIV had given permission for the marriage, the manipulative duc and duchesse du Maine hurriedly arranged the details of the wedding, probably for mercenary reasons.

Even though the Dowager Princess of Condé was not informed of the marriage, she was present at the bedding ceremony at Sceaux along with Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon, his wife Marie Anne de Bourbon,[5] the Dowager Princess of Conti, and her children the Prince of Conti and Mademoiselle de La Roche-sur-Yon.

[8][9] Saint-Simon wrote of the Duke's relationship with Louis XIV that, although the King "had always a singular horror of the inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain [homosexuals]...M. de Vendôme, though most odiously stained with that vice - so publicly that he treated it as an ordinary gallantry - never found his favor diminished on that account.

One contemporary account alleges that on his estate at the Chateau d'Anet, peasant men from the neighborhood would wait for the Duke in the woods when he went out hunting, hoping to be paid for sexual favors.

He was the first courtier to seek leave from court to be treated for the disease with Mercury salts, known as the "Great Remedy" (le grand remède).