The Albrets are first heard of in the XIth century, when the Benedictine abbot of S. Pierre at Condom, alarmed for the safety of Nérac, one of the abbatial possessions, called upon his brother, Amanieu d’Albret, for aid. The better to defend the monk’s property, the Sire of Albret built a castle on the left bank of the Baïse, and played the _rôle_ of protector so well that at last his descendants are found sole lords of Nérac, on the public square of which now stands the statue of Henry IV., the most glorious of the race. The second Amanieu went to the Crusades under the banner of Raymond of St. Gilles, and entered Jerusalem next to Godfrey of Bouillon, to whom an old historian makes him related, nobody knows how. Oihenard says the Albrets descended from the old kings of Navarre, and a MS. of the XIVth century links them with the Counts of Bigorre; but this was probably to flatter the pride of the house after it rose to importance. We find a lord of Albret in the service of the Black Prince with a thousand lances (five thousand men), and owner of Casteljaloux, Lavazan, and somehow of the abbey of Sauve-Majour; but not finding the English service sufficiently lucrative, he passed over to the enemy. Charles d’Albret was so able a captain that he quartered the lilies of France on his shield, and held the constable’s sword till the fatal battle of Agincourt. Alain d’Albret made a fine point in the game by marrying Françoise de Bretagne, who, though ugly, was the niece and only heiress of Jean de Blois, lord of Périgord and Limoges. His son had still better luck. He married Catherine of Navarre. If he lost his possessions beyond the Pyrenees, he kept the county of Foix, and soon added the lands of Astarac. Henry I. of Navarre, by marrying Margaret of Valois, acquired all the spoils of the house of Armagnac. Thus the princely house of Navarre, under their daughter Jeanne, who married Antoine de Bourbon, was owner of all Gascony and part of Guienne. It was Henry IV. of France who finally realized the expression of the blind faith of the house of Albret in its fortune, expressed in the prophetic device graven on the Château de Coarraze, where he passed his boyhood: “_Lo que ha de ser no puede faltar_”--That which must be will be!