THE WAR OF WOMEN. BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1903. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. In "Twenty Years After" Dumas dealt with the earlier stages of the War of the Fronde,--the arrest of the three counsellors of the Parliament of Paris, Charton, Blancmesnil, and Broussel, the "day of barricades," of which the Abbé de Gondy, coadjutor to the Archbishop of Paris, afterwards Cardinal de Retz, claims to have been the author, and the flight of the queen regent, with the cardinal and the young king, to Saint-Germain. In the present volumes he reverts to the same extraordinary conflict at a later period, after several turns of the political kaleidoscope had taken place, and nearly all the prominent personages in the kingdom had changed sides again and again. It will be remembered that the Prince de Condé, whose memorable victory at Lens was of the same year as the day of the barricades and the Peace of Westphalia, was among those who accompanied the queen and cardinal to Saint-Germain, and was then, and for some time thereafter, the commander-in-chief of the troops of the court party. But when he had had the honor of escorting the court back to Paris in triumph, he amused himself by making sport of it. "Considering that he was not rewarded in proportion to his glory and his services," says Voltaire, "he was the first to ridicule Mazarin, to defy the queen, and insult the government he despised.... "No crime against the State could be imputed to Condé; nevertheless he was arrested at the Louvre, he and his brother Conti, and his brother-in-law Longueville, without ceremony, and simply because Mazarin feared them. The proceeding was, in truth, contrary to all laws, but laws were disregarded by all parties. "The cardinal, to make himself master of the princes, resorted to a piece of knavery, which was called shrewd politics. The Frondeurs were accused of having made an attempt upon the Prince de Condé's life; Mazarin led him to believe that it was proposed to arrest one of the conspirators, and that it was advisable for his Highness, in order to deceive the Frondeurs, to sign the order for the gendarmes of the guard to be in readiness at the Louvre. Thus the great Condé himself signed the order for his own detention. There could be no better proof that politics often consists in lying, and that political cleverness consists in unearthing the liar. "We read in the 'Life of the Duchesse de Longueville,' that the queen mother withdrew to her little oratory while the princes were being secured, that she bade the king, then eleven years of age, to fall upon his knees, and that they prayed earnestly together for the success of the undertaking....