Another reconciliation, of less solemnity, but of great importance, that between the Duke of Mayenne and Henry IV., took place a week after the absolution pronounced by the pope.  As soon as the civil war, continued by the remnants of the dying League, was no more than a disgraceful auxiliary to the foreign war between France and Spain, Mayenne was in his soul both grieved and disgusted at it.  The affair of Fontaine-Francaise gave him an opportunity of bringing matters to a crisis; he next day broke with the Constable of Castile, Don Ferdinand de Velasco, who declined to follow his advice, and at once entered into secret negotiations with the king.  Henry wrote from Lyons to Du Plessis-Mornay, on the 24th of August, 1595, “The Duke of Mayenne has asked me to allow him three months for the purpose of informing the enemy of his determination in order to induce them to join him in recognizing me and serving me.  So doing, he has also agreed to bind himself from this present date to recognize me and serve me, whatever his friends may do.”  On the 23d of September following, Henry IV., still at Lyons, sent to M. de la Chatre:—­

“I forward you the articles of a general truce which I have granted to the Duke of Mayenne at his pressing instance, and on the assurance he has given me that he will get it accepted and observed by all those who are still making war within my kingdom, in his name or that of the League.”  This truce was, in point of fact, concluded by a preliminary treaty signed at Chalons, and by virtue of which Mayenne ordered his lieutenants to give up to the king the citadel of Dijon.  The negotiations continued, and, in January, 1596, a royal edict, signed at Folembray, near Laon, regulated, in thirty-one articles and some secret articles, the conditions of peace between the king and Mayenne.  The king granted him, himself and his partisans, full and complete amnesty for the past, besides three surety-places for six years, and divers sums, which, may be for payment of his debts, and may be for his future provision, amounted to three million five hundred and eighty thousand livres at that time (twelve million eight hundred and eighty-eight thousand francs of the present day).  The Parliament of Paris considered these terms exorbitant, and did not consent to enregister the edict until April 9, 1596, after three letters jussory from the king.  Henry IV. nobly expressed, in the preamble of the edict, the motives of policy that led to his generous arrangements; after alluding to his late reconciliation with the pope, “Our work,” he said, “would have been imperfect, and peace incomplete, if our most dear and most beloved cousin, the Duke of Mayenne, chief of his party, had not followed the same road, as he resolved to do so soon as he saw that our holy father had approved of our reunion.  This hath made us to perceive better than heretofore the aim of his actions, to accept and take in good part all that he hath exhibited against us of the zeal he felt