performed with great pomp at Orleans,
Charibert, king of part of Aquitaine, and brother to Dagobert, being
god-father. The young prince's education was intrusted by the father to
the blessed Pepin of Landen, mayor of his palace, who being forced by
the envy of the nobility to withdraw for some time, carried Sigebert
into the dominions of Charibert in Aquitaine, where he enjoyed a
considerable estate, the paternal patrimony of his wife, the blessed
Itta. Pepin remained there about three years; after which term he was
recalled to the court of Dagobert, who declared his son Sigebert, though
only three years old, in 633, king of Austrasia, and gave him for his
ministers, St. Cunibert, archbishop of Cologne, and duke Adelgise, and
committed the administration of the whole kingdom to Pepin, whom he
always kept near his own person. Dagobert's second son, Clovis II., was
born in the following year, 634, and to him the father allotted for his
inheritance all the western part of France, containing all Neustria and
part of Burgundy.[1] Austrasia, or Eastern France, (in which sense
Austria retains a like name in Germany,) at that time comprised Provence
and Switzerland, (dismembered from the ancient kingdom of Burgundy,) the
Albigeois, Auvergne, Quercy, the Cevennes, Champagne, Lorraine, Upper
Picardy, the archbishopric of Triers, and other states, reaching to the
borders of Friesland; Alsace, the Palatinate, Thuringia, Franconia,
Bavaria, Suabia, and the country which lay betwixt the Lower Rhine and
Old Saxony. Dagobert died in 638, and was buried at the abbey of St.
Denys, of which he was the munificent founder. According to the
settlement which he had made, he was succeeded in Austrasia by St.
Sigebert, and in the rest of France by his youngest son Clovis II. Pepin
of Landen, who had been mayor of the palace to the father, discharged
the same office to his death under St. Sigebert, and not content to
approve himself a faithful minister, and true father to the prince, he
formed him from the cradle to all heroic Christian virtues. By his
prudence, virtue, and valor, St. Sigebert in his youth was beloved and
respected by his subjects, and feared by all his enemies. Pepin dying in
640, the virtuous king appointed his son Grimoald mayor of his palace.
He reigned in perfect intelligence with his brother, of which we have
few examples among the Merovingian kings whenever the French monarchy
was divided. The Thuringians revolting, he redu