n the court and amongst the
people, disappear altogether. Dagobert I., for instance, the successor
of Clotaire II., and grandson of Chilperic and Fredegonde, had no
scruple, under the pressure of self-interest, in committing an iniquitous
and barbarous act. After having consented to leave to his younger
brother Charibert the kingdom of Aquitania, he retook it by force in 631,
at the death of Charibert, seizing at the same time his treasures, and
causing or permitting to be murdered his young nephew Chilperic, rightful
heir of his father. About the same time Dagobert had assigned amongst
the Bavarians, subjects of his beyond the Rhine, an asylum to nine
thousand Bulgarians, who had been driven with their wives and children
from Pannonia. Not knowing, afterwards, where to put or how to feed
these refugees, he ordered them all to be massacred in one night; and
scarcely seven hundred of them succeeded in escaping by flight. The
private morals of Dagobert were not more scrupulous than his public acts.
"A slave to incontinence as King Solomon was," says his biographer
Fredegaire, "he had three queens and a host of concubines." Given up to
extravagance and pomp, it pleased him to imitate the magnificence of the
imperial court at Constantinople, and at one time he laid hands for that
purpose, upon the possessions of certain of his "leudes" or of certain
churches; at another he gave to his favorite church, the Abbey of St.
Denis, "so many precious stones, articles of value, and domains in
various places, that all the world," says Fredegaire, "was stricken with
admiration." But, despite of these excesses and scandals, Dagobert was
the most wisely energetic, the least cruel in feeling, the most prudent
in enterprise, and the most capable of governing with some little
regularity and effectiveness, of all the kings furnished, since Clovis,
by the Merovingian race. He had, on ascending the throne, this immense
advantage, that the three Frankish dominions, Austrasia, Neustria, and
Burgundy were re-united under his sway; and at the death of his brother
Charibert, he added thereto Aquitania. The unity of the vast Frankish
monarchy was thus re-established, and Dagobert retained it by his
moderation at home and abroad. He was brave, and he made war on
occasion; but, he did not permit himself to be dragged into it either by
his own passions or by the unlimited taste of his lieges for adventure
and plunder. He found, on this point,