Few Princes of the Blood have made a more modest _début_ at the Court of France than the first of the Condés. Since the treason of the Connétable de Bourbon his family had fallen into a sort of discredit, and, though, in the last years of the previous reign, the partiality shown by François I. for the young Comte d’Enghien had seemed a promise of returning favour, the untimely death of the count, followed by that of the King, soon dissipated their hopes. When the head of the house, Antoine, Duc de Vendôme, was hard put to maintain a position in accordance with his rank, there was little enough for his younger brothers; and Louis de Bourbon made his appearance at Court so quietly dressed and with so modest a suite as to provoke no small merriment at his expense among the gorgeous butterflies of both sexes who adorned the salons of the Louvre and the gallery of the Tournelles. 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 imputation of actual deformity is scarcely reconcilable with the well-known popular song concerning him: “Ce petit homme tant jolly, Qui toujours cause et toujours ry Et toujours baise sa mignonne, Dieu gard’ de mal le petit homme.” Moreover, if somewhat diminutive in stature, he was “nimble and vigorous, and as adroit at martial exercises, both on foot and on horseback, as any man in France.”[4] His features, too, were pleasing without being regular, and illuminated by a pair of very bright eyes; he had excellent natural abilities, and had not neglected to cultivate them, being exceptionally well-informed and a good conversationalist, with a touch of sarcasm, which, however, his good-humour deprived of its sting, and “agreeable, accessible, and amiable.”[5]