yone. We heap up riches and know not for whom. Our
treasures, all laden with plunder and curses, are like to remain without
possessors. Our cellars are they not bursting with wine, and our
granaries with corn? Our coffers were they not full to the brim with
gold and silver and precious stones and necklaces and other imperial
ornaments? And yet that which was our most beautiful possession we are
losing! Come then, if thou wilt, and let us burn all these wicked
lists!' Having thus spoken, and beating her breast, the queen had
brought to her the rolls, which Mark had consigned to her of each of the
cities that belonged to her, and cast them into the fire. Then, turning
again to the king, 'What!' she cried, 'dost thou hesitate? Do thou even
as I; if we lose our dear children, at least we escape everlasting
punishment!'" It may be taken for granted that Fredegonde's "works meet
for repentance" on this occasion have not suffered in the recital by
Gregory of Tours. She may have exhorted her husband to acts of mercy;
nevertheless she planned and saw executed the assassination of
Chilperic, being fearful lest he discover the guilty connection which
had sprung up between herself and an officer of her household. By this
act, she became the sovereign guardian of her infant, and held this
potential position during the last thirteen years of her life. Guizot
thus summarizes her character: "She was a true type of the
strong-willed, artful, and perverse woman in barbarous times; she
started low down in the scale and rose very high without a corresponding
elevation of soul; she was audacious and perfidious, as perfect in
deception as in effrontery, proceeding to atrocities either from cool
calculation or a spirit of revenge, abandoned to all kinds of passion,
and, for gratification of them, shrinking from no sort of crime.
However, she died quietly at Paris in 597 or 598, powerful and dreaded,
and leaving on the throne of Neustria her son, Clotaire II., who,
fifteen years later, was to become sole king of all the Frankish
dominions."

Contemporaneous with Fredegonde, and exerting a stronger and indeed more
salutary influence upon her age, though scarcely superior in her moral
character, was Brunehaut, Queen of the Franks of Austrasia. She was a
younger sister of Galsuinthe, by the murder of whom the way was opened
to Chilperic's bed and throne for Fredegonde. The King of Austrasia was
Sigebert, brother of Chilperic. Among those fierce M