With the exception of this incident, his early youth appears to have been very uneventful, for, since France was now at peace, no opportunity occurred for his initiation into the art of war. The King kept him constantly about his person, less through any affection for his kinsman than from a desire to protect him against the influence of ambitious and scheming persons who might seek to use him for the furtherance of their own ends. But the young prince did not possess the qualities which would have fitted him to shine in the gay and licentious society of the time, being shy and awkward, particularly in the presence of ladies, while his revenues were not at all commensurate with his rank; and after the birth of sons to Henri IV. had deprived him of all hope of the throne, he seems to have occupied a very inconspicuous position at Court. Condé’s comparative lack of fortune made a wealthy marriage a necessity, and when, at the beginning of the year 1609, the King announced his intention of bestowing upon him the hand of Charlotte de Montmorency, daughter of the Connétable Henri de Montmorency,[145] and one of the richest heiresses in France, he accepted the offer with a gratitude which was not diminished by the fact that Mlle. de Montmorency united to the advantages of wealth remarkable personal attractions. There was, indeed, no more lovely girl at Court than the daughter of the Constable. Cardinal Bentivoglio, the Papal Nuncio at Brussels, who saw her towards the close of the same year, has left us the following description of her: “She was then sixteen years old, and her loveliness was adjudged by all men to accord with the fame thereof. She was very fair; her eyes and all her features full of charm; an ingenuous grace in all her gestures and in her manner of speaking. Her beauty owed its power to itself alone, since she did not bring to its aid any of the artifices of which women are wont to make use.”[146] It is certain, however, that Condé would have received the proposition in a very different spirit if he had been aware of the reasons which had prompted the King to make it; for it was not the young prince’s interests, but his own convenience, that his Majesty had in mind. One day in January, 1609, it happened that Henri IV. was passing through the great gallery of the Louvre, when he came upon a bevy of young ladies of the Court practising for a ballet, nymphs of Diana, armed for the chase. Among them was Mlle. de Montmorency, whose charms, enhanced by the classical costume she was wearing, made so profound an impression upon the susceptible monarch that he was quite unable to take his eyes off her.