He was a member of a junior line of the House of Bourbon, his first cousin being the future Henry IV of France.

His father remarried Françoise d'Orléans, Mademoiselle de Longueville in 1565 and had a further three children, Charles, Count of Soissons being the only child to survive infancy.

[2] In 1589 after the murder of Henry III he was one of the two princes of the blood who signed the declaration recognising Henry IV as king, and continued to support him even though he himself was mentioned as a candidate for the throne upon the death of Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon in 1590.

The couple were married at the Palais du Louvre on 17 December 1581, Jeanne died in 1601 having had no children.

Upon the exposure of the plot the cardinal exiled her to her estate at Eu, near Amiens, where she died.