hed north
again to be crowned at Vitry, leaving his wife behind to guard the
capital in triumph. Now came Fredegond's opportunity. For when
Hilperik was besieged by Sigebert in the city of Tournai and sore
pressed, Fredegond saw her enemy delivered into her hand. "La femme,"
say the chronicles of St. Denis (III. 3 and 4) "pensa de la besogne la
ou le sens de son seigneur faillait, qui selon la coutume de femme,
moult plus est de grand engieng a malfaire que n'est homme." By some
diabolical trick of fascination she persuaded a pair of assassins to
penetrate into Sigebert's camp, armed with a "scramasax" she had
herself provided. They murdered him as he sat at table, and were
instantly cut to pieces by the courtiers.[3] Fredegond always managed
to get inconvenient witnesses out of the way. Hilperik at once took
advantage of the confusion to march on Paris, and the horror of
Brunhilda may be imagined as she realised that the murderer of her
husband and of her sister was approaching the city in which the widow
and her three orphans were defenceless. Her son (afterwards the second
Hildebert), was then but five years old, and by the help of Gundobald
she was able to contrive his escape, lowering him in a basket through
an opening in the city walls.

[Footnote 3: Gregory of Tours, _Ib._ 51. "Tunc duo pueri cum cultris
validis, quos vulgo scramasaxos vocant, infectis veneno, maleficati a
Fredegundae Regina, cum aliam causam suggerere simularent, utraque ei
latera feriunt."]

Then began another act in this dark drama, which ended very
differently to the expectations of Fredegond. For with his father had
come young Merowig to Paris, and whether from fascinations that had
some deep ulterior design, or whether as is more probable from the
natural attraction felt by the young warrior for a lovely princess in
distress, Merowig fell hopelessly in love with the fair Brunhilda, who
was but twenty-eight and could have been very little older than her
second husband. He saw, however, the danger of prematurely confessing
his passion, and quietly went off on a foraging expedition to Berri
and Touraine at the bidding of his father. But, no doubt, he was aware
before starting of Hilperik's intention to send Brunhilda to Rouen;
for it was not long before he marched northwards (after a visit to his
mother Audowere in her prison at Le Mans),[4] and came to Rouen
himself. The meeting cannot have been a surprise to the daughter of
the Spanish Go