e child, with his unshorn locks and in his studiously
neglected garb, was the descendant of a long line of kings, and was
destined to eclipse them all by the grandeur of his name.

As years glided along he advanced to energetic boyhood, the constant
companion, and, in all his sports and modes of life, the equal of the
peasant-boys by whom he was surrounded. He hardly wore a better dress
than they; he was nourished with the same coarse fare. With them he
climbed the mountains, and leaped the streams, and swung upon the
trees. He struggled with his youthful competitors in all their
athletic games, running, wrestling, pitching the quoit, and tossing
the bar. This active out-door exercise gave a relish to the coarse
food of the peasants, consisting of brown bread, beef, cheese, and
garlic. His grandfather had decided that this regimen was essential
for the education of a prince who was to humble the proud monarchy of
Spain, and regain the territory which had been so unjustly wrested
from his ancestors.

When Henry was about six years of age, his grandfather, by gradual
decay, sank sorrowingly into his grave. Consequently, his mother,
Jeanne d'Albret, ascended the throne of Navarre. Her husband, Antony
of Bourbon, was a rough, fearless old soldier, with nothing to
distinguish him from the multitude who do but live, fight, and die.
Jeanne and her husband were in Paris at the time of the death of her
father. They immediately hastened to Bearn, the capital of Navarre, to
take possession of the dominions which had thus descended to them. The
little Henry was then brought from his wild mountain home to reside
with his mother in the royal palace. Though Navarre was but a feeble
kingdom, the grandeur of its court was said to have been unsurpassed,
at that time, by that of any other in Europe. The intellectual
education of Henry had been almost entirely neglected; but the
hardihood of his body had given such vigor and energy to his mind,
that he was now prepared to distance in intellectual pursuits, with
perfect ease, those whose infantile brains had been overtasked with
study.

Henry remained in Bearn with his parents two years, and in that time
ingrafted many courtly graces upon the free and fetterless carriage he
had acquired among the mountains. His mind expanded with remarkable
rapidity, and he became one of the most beautiful and engaging of
children.

About this time Mary, Queen of Scots, was to be married to the Dauphin