and giving
any kind of intellectual enjoyment; and they in turn took pleasure in
celebrating her name and her deserts. The most renowned of all during
that age, Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, dedicated nearly all his
little poems to two queens: one, Brunehaut, plunging amidst all the
struggles and pleasures of the world; the other, Saint Radegonde,
sometime wife of Clotaire I, who had fled in all haste from a throne to
bury herself at Poitiers, in a convent she had founded there. To
compensate, Brunehaut was detested by the majority of the Austrasian
chiefs, those Leudes, land owners and warriors, whose sturdy and
turbulent independence she was continually fighting against. She
supported against them, with indomitable courage, the royal officers,
the servants of the palace, her agents, and frequently her favorites."

Brunehaut maintained her power under the reigns of her son and her
grandson in Austrasia, the capital of which was Metz. In 599, however,
she was expelled from this kingdom, and went to that of Burgundy, where
her other grandson, Theodoric II., reigned, having his capital at
Orleans. In a letter written to Theodoric by Gregory the Great, the
latter says: "And this in you among other things is enough to call for
praise and admiration, that in such things as you know that our
daughter, your most excellent grandmother, desires for the love of God,
in these you make haste most earnestly to lend your aid, so that thereby
you may reign both happily here, and in a future life with the angels."
It is evident from this that in Burgundy the veteran queen was not
denied the opportunity to exercise that executive talent of which the
Austrasians had wearied. If the accounts given by Frankish historians
may be relied upon, Brunehaut's influence upon her grandson was not in
all respects calculated to fit him for a life among the angels. They
accuse her of having encouraged him in licentious living, in order that
her own power might not be undermined by the introduction into his court
of a lawful queen.

There are several letters extant which were written to her by Pope
Gregory. They all, in that polite manner in which Church dignitaries
treat worldly potentates, speak of her virtuous acts and ignore all
mention of her frailties. Brunehaut would be an exceedingly estimable
woman if nothing more of her were known than what is to be gathered from
these epistles. Gregory was a severe moralist, but he allowed his
condemnati