Etienne was to be made a priest, in order to leave the property and titles of the house of Herouville to his younger brother.
At that cost the poor mother believed she ensured the safety of her hated child.
No two brothers were ever more unlike than Etienne and Maximilien.

The younger's taste was all for noise, violent exercises, and war, and the count felt for him the same excessive love that his wife felt for Etienne.

By a tacit compact each parent took charge of the child of their heart.

The duke (for about this time Henri IV.

rewarded the services of the Seigneur d'Herouville with a dukedom), not wishing, he said, to fatigue his wife, gave the nursing of the youngest boy to a stout peasant-woman chosen by Beauvouloir, and announced his determination to bring up the child in his own manner.