The principal authorities, both contemporary and modern, which I have consulted in the preparation of this volume are mentioned either in the text or the footnotes. Nor did he succeed in recovering any of the vast possessions of the Constable, which were definitely alienated from his House, and, on his death in , he left but a scanty fortune. Of the sons, five lived to attain their majority, though only one survived middle-age and died a natural death, and he was in holy orders.
They were:. Two of these princes married and founded families: Antoine, who was the father of Henri IV. Of his boyhood nothing whatever is known, though, as his widowed mother, who lived in strict retirement, was scarcely the person best fitted to superintend that chivalrous education which was deemed indispensable for a lad of high birth, it is probable that he was brought up by his brother-in-law, the Duc de Nevers, or some other male relative.
The precise time and occasion of his assuming the title which he and his descendants were to render so illustrious are likewise involved in obscurity.
Nor was there anything in the personal appearance of this youth of nineteen to suggest the great part that he was to play in after years. Unlike his ancestors, who had been tall men of imposing presence, he was short and slightly built, and some anecdote-mongers even represent him as hump-backed.
Admitting however, that he may have been round-shouldered, the [5] imputation of actual deformity is scarcely reconcilable with the well-known popular song concerning him:. The young prince was, therefore, not without qualifications to ensure advancement at Court, but in the two most essentialβwealth and influenceβhe was conspicuously lacking. The absence of the first might have mattered little had he possessed the second, but the cloud under which the Bourbons had lain for a quarter of a century showed no sign of lifting.
