Henri, the second eldest son and third child of Prince Robert, Duke of Chartres, was born at Ham, London on 16 October 1867.

Prince Henri was a somewhat violent Anglophobe, and his diatribes against Great Britain contrasted rather curiously with the cordial reception which his position as a traveller obtained for him in London, where he was given the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society.

[5] In 1897, in several articles for Le Figaro, Prince Henri described the Italian soldiers being held captive in Ethiopia, during the first First Italo–Ethiopian War, as cowards.

The sword was agreed upon as the weapon of choice, as the Italians thought that duel with pistols, favored by the French, was worthy of betrayed husbands, not of princes of royal blood.

[10] The "Monseigneur" Henri received a serious wound to his right abdomen, and the doctors of both parties considered the injury serious enough to put him in a state of obvious inferiority, causing the end of the duel, and making the Count of Turin famous in Europe.