a sister of Adowere, next glutted her
vengeance. "One day, after leaving the Synod of Paris," writes St.
Gregory, "I had bidden King Chilperic adieu and had withdrawn
conversing with the bishop of Albi. As we crossed the courtyard of the
palace (in the Cite) he said: 'Seest thou not what I perceive above
this roof?' I answered, 'I see only a second building which the king
hath built.' He asked again, 'Seest thou naught else?' I weened he
spoke in jest and did but answer--'If thou seest aught else, prithee
show it unto me.' Then uttering a deep sigh, he said: 'I see the sword
of God's wrath suspended over this house.'" Shortly after this
conversation Chilperic having returned from the chase to his royal
villa of Chelles, was leaning on the shoulder of one of his companions
to descend from his horse, when Landeric, servant of Fredegonde,
stabbed him to death.

Thirty years were yet to pass before the curtain falls on the acts of
the rival queens, their sons and grandsons, but the heart revolts at
the details of the wars and lusts of these savage potentates.

Battle and murder had destroyed Brunehaut's children and her
children's children until none were left to rule over the realms but
herself and the four sons of Thierry II. The nobles, furious at the
further tyranny of a cruel and imperious woman, plotted her ruin, and
in 613, when Brunehaut, sure of victory, marched with two armies
against Clothaire II., she was betrayed near Paris to him, her
implacable enemy. He reproached her with the death of ten kings, and
set her on a camel for three days to be mocked and insulted by the
army. The old and fallen queen was then tied to the tail of a horse:
the creature was lashed into fury and soon all that remained of the
proud queen was a shapeless mass of carrion. The traditional place
where Brunehaut met her death is still shown at the corner of the Rue
St. Honore and the Rue de l'Arbre Sec. Thierry's four sons had already
been put to death. In 597 her rival Fredegonde, at the height of her
prosperity, had died peacefully in bed, full of years, and was buried
in the church of St. Vincent[26] by the side of Chilperic, her
husband.

[Footnote 26: (_See_ pp. 32 and 36.)]

Amid all this ruin and desolation, when the four angels of the
Euphrates seem to have been loosed on Gaul, one force was silently at
work knitting up the ravelled ends of the rent fabric of civilisation
and tending a lamp which burned with the promise of id