have turned the
strongest head of a person addicted to pride, produced no alteration in
a heart perfectly grounded to humility and other virtues. She seemed
even to become more humble than before, and more tender of the poor. Her
present station furnished her with the means of being truly their
mother, which she was before in the inclination and disposition of her
heart. All other virtues appeared more conspicuous in her, but above the
rest an ardent zeal for religion. The king gave her the sanction of his
royal authority for the protection of the church, the care of the poor,
and the furtherance of all religions undertakings. She bore him three
sons, who all successively wore the crown, Clotaire III., Childeric II.,
and Thierry I. He dying in 655, when the eldest was only five years old,
left her regent of the kingdom. She seconded the zeal of St. Owen, St.
Eligius, and other holy bishops, and with great pains banished simony
out of France, forbade Christians to be made slaves,[1] did all in her
power to promote piety, and filled France with hospitals and pious
foundations. She restored the monasteries of St. Martin, St. Denys, St.
Medard, &c., founded the great abbey of Corbie for a seminary of virtue
and sacred learning, and the truly royal nunnery of Chelles,[2] on the
Marne, which had been begun by St. Clotildis. As soon as her son
Clotaire was of an age to govern, she with great joy shut herself up in
this monastery of Chelles, in 665, a happiness which she had long
earnestly desired, though it was with great difficulty that she obtained
the consent of the princes. She had no sooner taken the veil but she
seemed to have forgotten entirely her former dignity, and was only to be
distinguished from the rest by her extreme humility, serving them in the
lowest offices, and obeying the holy abbess St. Bertilla as the last
among the sisters. She prolonged her devotions every day with many
tears, and made it her greatest delight {312} to visit and attend the
sick, whom she comforted and served with wonderful charity. St. Owen, in
his life of St. Eligius, mentions many instances of the great veneration
which St. Bathildes bore that holy prelate, and relates that St.
Eligius, after his death, in a vision by night, ordered a certain
courtier to reprove the queen for wearing jewels and costly apparel in
her widowhood, which she did not out of pride, but because she thought
it due to her state while she was regent of the kingdom
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