"Notre Dame du bout du pont, Venez à mon aide en cette heure! Priez le Dieu du ciel Qu'il me délivre vite; Qu'il me donne un garçon. Tout, jusqu'au haut des monts, vous implore. Notre Dame du bout du pont, Venez à mon aide en cette heure." It was in the little village of Billère, on the Lescar road, just outside the gates of Pau, that the infant Henri was put _en nourrice_. The little Prince de Viane, the name given the eldest son of the house of Navarre, was later confided to a relative, Suzanne de Bourbon, Baronne de Miossens, who lived in the mountain château of Coarraze. The education of the young prince was always an object of great solicitude to the mother, Jeanne d'Albret. For instructor he had one La Gaucherie, a man of austere manners, but of a vast erudition, profoundly religious, but doubtful in his devotion to the Pope and church of Rome. The child Henri continued his precocious career from the day when he first became a _bon vivant_ and a connoisseur of wine. By the age of eleven he had translated the first five books of Cæsar's Commentary, and to the very end kept his literary tastes. He planned to write his mémoires to place beside those of his minister, Sully, and the work was actually begun, but his untimely death lost it to the world. Another dramatic scene of history identified with the Pau château of the D'Albrets was when Henri IV took his first armour. As he was out-growing the early years of his youth, the queen of Navarre commanded the appearance at the palace of all the governors of the allied provinces. The investiture was a romantic and imposing ceremony. The boy prince was given a suit of coat armour, a shield and a sword. A day on horseback, clad in full warrior fashion, was to be the beginning of his military education. All the world made holiday on this occasion; for three days little was done by the retainers save to sing praises and shout huzzas for their king to be. For the seigneurs and their ladies there were comedies and dances, and for all the people of Gascogne who chose to come there were great fêtes, cavalcades and open-air amusements on the plain of Pau below the castle. The culmination of the fête was on the evening of the third day. The young prince of Navarre, dressed as a simple Béarnais, with only a gold fleur-de-lis on his _béret_, as a mark of distinction, came out and mingled with his people. As a finishing ceremony the prince took again his sword, and, amid the shouts and acclamations of the populace, plunged it to the hilt in a tall _broc_, or jug, of wine, and raised it--as if in benediction--first towards the people, then towards the army, then towards the ladies of the court--as a sign of an unwritten pact that he would ever be devoted to them all.