These Memoirs might merit the honourable name of history from the truths contained in them, as I shall prefer truth to embellishment.  In fact, to embellish my story I have neither leisure nor ability; I shall, therefore, do no more than give a simple narration of events.  They are the labours of my evenings, and will come to you an unformed mass, to receive its shape from your hands, or as a chaos on which you have already thrown light.  Mine is a history most assuredly worthy to come from a man of honour, one who is a true Frenchman, born of illustrious parents, brought up in the Court of the Kings my father and brothers, allied in blood and friendship to the most virtuous and accomplished women of our times, of which society I have had the good fortune to be the bond of union.

I shall begin these Memoirs in the reign of Charles IX., and set out with the first remarkable event of my life which fell within my remembrance.  Herein I follow the example of geographical writers, who, having described the places within their knowledge, tell you that all beyond them are sandy deserts, countries without inhabitants, or seas never navigated.  Thus I might say that all prior to the commencement of these Memoirs was the barrenness of my infancy, when we can only be said to vegetate like plants, or live, like brutes, according to instinct, and not as human creatures, guided by reason.  To those who had the direction of my earliest years I leave the task of relating the transactions of my infancy, if they find them as worthy of being recorded as the infantine exploits of Themistocles and Alexander,—­the one exposing himself to be trampled on by the horses of a charioteer, who would not stop them when requested to do so, and the other refusing to run a race unless kings were to enter the contest against him.  Amongst such memorable things might be related the answer I made the King my father, a short time before the fatal accident which deprived France of peace, and our family of its chief glory.  I was then about four or five years of age, when the King, placing me on his knee, entered familiarly into chat with me.  There were, in the same room, playing and diverting themselves, the Prince de Joinville, since the great and unfortunate Duc de Guise, and the Marquis de Beaupreau, son of the Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon, who died in his fourteenth year, and by whose death his country lost a youth of most promising talents.  Amongst other discourse, the King asked which of the two Princes that were before me I liked best.  I replied, “The Marquis.”  The King said, “Why so?  He is not the handsomest.”  The Prince de Joinville was fair, with light-coloured hair, and the Marquis de Beaupreau brown, with dark hair.  I answered, “Because he is the best behaved; whilst the Prince is always making mischief, and will be master over everybody.”