f
under the protection of Gunthram, was sent to Rueil, a town in the
domain of Rouen, near the meeting of the Eure and Seine. Leaving for
awhile in peace the old ecclesiastic who had had the insolence to come
back to the dignities from which she had driven him, Fredegond turned
at once to plot the destruction of her lifelong enemy, Brunhilda, who
was now in a position of far greater security and honour than herself.
But her emissary was obliged to return unsuccessful, and had his feet
and hands cut off for his pains. A second attempt upon both mother and
son failed equally, and then Fredegond, balked of her higher prey,
took the victim that was nearest, and went out from Rueil to Rouen. It
was not long before the quarrel that she sought was occasioned by the
bishop, who seems to have added to his usual unwisdom a courage born
of the hardships of seven years of exile. Answering a taunt flung at
him by the deposed queen, he bitterly drew the contrast between their
present positions, and their former relation to each other, and bade
Fredegond look to the salvation of her soul and the education of her
son, and leave the wickedness that had stained so many years of her
life with blood.

She left him on the instant and without a word, "felle fervens," says
Gregory; and indeed it was not long before her vengeance broke out in
the usual way. As the bishop knelt in prayer soon afterwards before
the altar of the Cathedral, her assassin drove his knife beneath his
armpit, and Pretextatus was carried bleeding mortally to his chamber.
Thither came the queen to gloat over her latest victim, begging him to
say whose hand it was had done the deed, that so due punishment might
be at once exacted. But he knew well who was the real murderess. "Quis
haec fecit," replied the dying prelate, "nisi qui reges interemit, qui
sepius sanguinem innocentium effudit, qui diversa in hoc regno mala
commisit?"

The whole town was cast into distress and bitter mourning by this
pitiless assassination, and Fredegond had accomplished her will with
so much cunning that the crime could with the greatest difficulty be
legally traced to its true origin. For she had taken advantage of the
ecclesiastical jealousy which unfortunately existed side by side with
the popular reverence and love. Melantius, who had for seven years
enjoyed the privileges of office and dispensed his favours in the
bishopric, had seen himself deposed with very mingled feelings by the
ex