Henri I. de Bourbon, Prince de Condé--His personal appearance and character--Jeanne d’Albret presents Henri of Navarre and Condé to the army--The “Admiral’s pages”--The “Journey of the Princes”--Battle of Arnay-le-Duc--Condé at La Rochelle--Henri of Navarre is betrothed to Marguerite de Valois, and Condé to Marie de Clèves--An awkward lover--Marriage of Condé--Massacre of Saint-Bartholomew--The King of Navarre and Condé are ordered to abjure their religion--Firmness of the latter, who, however, at length yields--Humiliating position of Condé--Intrigue between his wife and the Duc d’Anjou--Condé at the siege of La Rochelle--Anjou elected King of Poland--He offers the hand of his discarded mistress, Mlle. de Châteauneuf, to Nantouillet, provost of Paris--Unpleasant consequences of the provost’s refusal of this honour. By his two marriages, Louis I., Prince de Condé, had had eleven children, of whom seven--six sons and a daughter--survived him.[87] The eldest son, Henri de Bourbon, was at this time in his seventeenth year. In appearance, he was very short, like his father, and very slightly built, with a countenance which betokened an extremely sensitive nature, a nervous and delicate constitution: a high forehead, large, expressive blue eyes, a long face, a long, straight nose, and thin lips. In character, save in the matter of physical courage, the new head of the House of Condé had little in common with his predecessor. Nor is this surprising, since few princes have passed a more gloomy boyhood. The constant companion of his mother during the last sad years of her life, he had shared with her the hardships and dangers of the civil war, and had been shut up in Orléans, amid the horrors of that terrible siege. Returning home, he had seen the poor princess, “to whom he had plighted his boundless reverence and love,”[88] slowly languish away before his eyes, worn out by sickness and sorrow. Then had come Condé’s second marriage, and the lad had been left to the care of bigoted divines, who had brought him up in the strictest tenets of the Calvinistic faith. Finally, scarcely had he been summoned to take his place by his father’s side, than that father had been foully slain. Thus, at the age of sixteen, Henri de Bourbon had experienced little of life but its sorrows, and was a thoughtful, grave, and almost melancholy youth, without any of those social qualities which had made his father so popular, but very superior to him in the earnestness of his religious convictions, and ready, as we shall see hereafter, to suffer for the truth in circumstances which overcame the courage and constancy of some even of the boldest.