The capture of Bordeaux was followed by negotiations which resulted in a sort of peace, of which the terms were: "That a general amnesty should be granted to all, without exception, who had taken up arms and negotiated with Spain; that all troops should be disbanded save such as the king should choose to take into his pay; that the Princesse de Condé and her son should reside either upon one of her estates in Anjou or at Mouzon; and that M. d'Épernon should be deprived of the government of Guyenne." Something less than a year later (February, 1651) the queen regent was forced to set the princes free, and to banish her first minister from the kingdom. Mazarin himself went to Havre, where the princes were then confined, and restored their liberty. "He was received by them," says Voltaire, "with the contempt he should have expected." Condé returned to Paris, where his presence gave new life to the cabals and dissensions, and once more it was found that the step which was expected to put an end to the commotion, gave the signal for a renewal of the conflict with more bitterness than ever. The character of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, author of the celebrated "Maxims," in which he attributes the noblest actions of mankind to self-esteem, has baffled more than one chronicler,--among the rest, Cardinal de Retz, with whom he was always at enmity. "There has always been something very mysterious in M. de La Rochefoucauld," says the coadjutor. "He never was fit for war, though an excellent soldier; neither was he ever of himself a good courtier, although he always had a great inclination to be so; he never was a good party-man, although all his life long involved in party conflicts." Pierre Lenet, councillor of State, and _procureur-général_ to the Parliament of Dijon, was the author of Memoirs,--"not so well known as their interest entitles them to be," says Voltaire,--in which he gave the history of the Prince de Condé from his birth in 1627 to the treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. The non-historical characters in the "War of Women," introduced to embellish and impart romantic flavor to a plot founded upon an incident which is in itself by no means devoid of the element of romance, include some of the most interesting and attractive of all Dumas' creations. Cauvignac, the Gascon adventurer, is, in respect to the qualities supposed to be most characteristic of the natives of Gascony, a worthy compeer of the immortal D'Artagnan. The lovely, high-spirited, and virtuous Vicomtesse de Cambes, and the equally lovely and high-spirited favorite of the Duc d'Épernon, meet upon common ground in their rivalry for the affection of Canolles. In Nanon de Lartigues, as in Olympe de Clèves, Dumas has shown that we need not always look in vain among women whose virtue is not without stain, for qualities of mind and heart deserving of respect. LIST OF CHARACTERS. Period, 1650.