Although the loss of the Prince of Condé was, considering his rank and influence, a great blow to the French Protestants, they comforted themselves by the thought that it was “rather an advancement than a hindrance to their affairs,” as Sir Walter Raleigh said, in consequence of his “over-confidence in his own courage.” Coligny naturally succeeded to the command of the Huguenot forces, which soon recovered from the disaster at Jarnac. While they were rallying and reorganizing at Niort, Joan of Albret suddenly appeared in their camp, bringing with her two youths of fifteen. One of them was her nephew Henry, son of the murdered prince; the other her own son, Henry of Bearn, destined after many struggles to become Henry IV. of France. Addressing the assembled captains in a tone well calculated to raise their drooping spirits, she said: “I offer you my son, who burns with a holy ardor to avenge the death of the prince we all regret. Behold also Condé’s son, now become my own child. He succeeds to his father’s name and glory. Heaven grant that they may both show themselves worthy of their ancestors!” The Huguenot troops hailed the young Prince of Bearn with acclamations as their commander-in-chief, and the protector of their churches. The gallant boy welcomed the perilous commission, and coming forward exclaimed: “Soldiers, your cause is mine. I swear to defend our religion, and to persevere until death or victory[433] has restored us the liberty for which we fight.” In the “Memoirs of Nevers” there are some letters written two years before this by the principal magistrate of Bordeaux, containing several interesting particulars of the young prince’s person and manners:--“He is a charming youth. At thirteen he has all the riper qualities of eighteen or nineteen. He is agreeable, polite, obliging, and behaves to every one with an air so easy and engaging, that wherever he is, there is always a crowd. He mixes in conversation like a wise and prudent man, speaks always to the purpose, and when it happens that the court is the subject of discourse, it is easy to see that he is perfectly well acquainted with it, and never says more or less than he ought wherever he may be. I shall all my life hate the new religion for having robbed us of so worthy a subject.... His hair is a little red, yet the ladies think him not less agreeable on that account. His face is finely shaped, his nose neither too large nor too small, his eyes full of sweetness, his skin brown but clear, and his whole countenance animated with an uncommon vivacity.”[434]