ed a sentence of pope Agatho in his favor. But coming but
into France, he found his royal friend cut off by a violent death.
It is the general persuasion of the French historians, that the
impious Ebroin, mayor of the palace to Theodoric III., king of
Burgundy and Noustria, was the author of his death, with a view to
seize his dominions. Dagobert was murdered by assassins at Stenay
upon the Meuse, now the best town in the duchy of Bar in Lorraine.
The people, however, chose Pepin and Martin dukes or governors of
Austrasia, who defended their liberty against Ebroin. Martin was
afterwards assassinated by the contrivance of Ebroin, and Ebroin by
Ermenfrid; but Pepin, in 687, defeated Theodoric III. at Testry,
took Paris, and the king himself; from which time, under the title
of mayor, he enjoyed the supreme power in the French monarchy. The
death of St. Dagobert happened in 679, on the 23d of December, on
which day he is commemorated in the Martyrology of Ado and others,
and honored as a martyr at Stenay, in the diocese of Verdun, ever
since the eighth century. The church of Strasburg was much enriched
by this prince, as maybe seen in Schoepflin's Alsatia Illustrata.
The same author gives an account of some of the monasteries which
were founded by this prince in those parts, (c. 11, Sec.254, p. 736,)
and shows from his charters that the palace where he chiefly resided
was at Isenburg in Alsace. (Sect. 1, c. 10, Sec.146, p. 693.) The year
of the death of Dagobert II. is learned from the life of St.
Wilfrid, who returned from Rome when St. Agatho sat in St. Peter's
chair. See on this holy king the lives of St. Wilfrid and St.
Salaberga; also his charters; and, among the moderns, Dan.
Schoepflin, professor of history and eloquence at Strasburg, in his
Alsatia Illustrata, anno 1751. Sect. 2, c. 1, Sec.3, pp. 740, 743, and
Sec.1, c. 10, Sec.146, p. 693, c. 11, Sec.254, p. 736. Also Calmet, Hist. de
Lorraine, t. 1, l. 10, n. 16, p. 432. The first edition of this work
was given in 1728, in three volumes folio, but the second edition is
so much enlarged as to fill six volumes folio. The reign of Dagobert
II. escaped most of the French historians; which omission, and a
false epoch of the beginning of the reign of Dagobert I., brought
incredible confusion into the chronology and history of most of the