Losing that set at least had the desired effect of sparking Henman into life.
The fourth set was a torrid affair, with both players complaining about line calls and swapping breaks of serve. The Frenchman looked the more troubled, however, and after serving a double fault at a key moment smashed the errant ball out of the court in frustration.
Eventually, Henman remembered that he was the better, more consistent player and finished off his opponent after two hours and 33 minutes.
Henman, though, rated his own performance as good, saying: "I played pretty flawless tennis at the start and I didn't do too much wrong in the third set when he picked it up.
"The crowd were great - I didn't know if I was in Melbourne or London."
Henman now faces Victor Hanescu for the first time in the second round, and given that the 88th-ranked Romanian managed to lose to Britain's Ian Flanagan, the world No866, at Queen's last year, a place in the third round should be on the cards.
Meanwhile, local hope Lleyton Hewitt maintained his perfect record against Arnaud Clement as he beat the Frenchman 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 in the opening round.
The Australian world No3 stretched his record over Clement to 7-0 to set up a second-round meeting with American James Blake.
Clement, an Australian Open finalist in 2001, lost to Hewitt in two warm-up tournaments this month and was again unable to find a way past the former Wimbledon and US Open champion, who is hoping to provide the host nation with their first Australian men's champion in 29 years.
Playing in front of a packed centre court, Hewitt took control of the match from the outset.
He broke Clement's serve once in each of the first two sets and three times in the third to secure victory in less than two hours.
