ue her struggles with the turbulent
lords of the land, whose opposition gave her more and more trouble as
time went on.

A story of this conflict is told by Gregory of Tours. One of the palace
officers of the queen, Lupus, a Roman by birth, but made by her duke of
Champagne, "was being constantly insulted and plundered by his enemies,
especially by Ursion Bertfried. At last, having agreed to slay him, they
marched against him with an army. At the sight, Brunehild,
compassionating the evil case of one of her lieges unjustly presented,
assumed a manly courage, and threw herself among the hostile battalions,
crying, 'Stay, warriors; refrain from this wicked deed; persecute not
the innocent; engage not, for a single man's sake, in a battle which
will desolate the country!' 'Back, woman!' said Ursion to her; 'let it
suffice thee to have ruled under thy husband's sway. Now it is thy son
that reigns, and his kingdom is under our protection, not thine. Back!
if thou wouldst not that the hoofs of our horses trample thee under as
the dust of the ground!' After the dispute had lasted some time in this
strain, the queen, by her address, at last prevented the battle from
taking place."

The words of Ursion were prophetic. To be trampled under horses' hoofs
into the dust was the final fate of the queen, though for many years yet
she was to retain her power and to keep up her strife with the foes who
surrounded her. Far nobler of soul than Fredegonde, she was as strong in
all those qualities which go to make a vigorous queen.

But we must hasten on to the end of these royal rivals. Fredegonde died
quietly in Paris, in 597, powerful to her death, and leaving on the
throne her son Clotaire II., whom she had infected with all her hatred
against the queen of Austrasia. Brunehild lived till 614, thirty-nine
years after the death of her husband Sigebert, and through the reigns of
her son and two of her grandsons, who were but puppets in her hands. Her
later years were marked by lack of womanly virtue, and by an
unscrupulousness in ridding herself of her enemies significant of
barbarous times. At length, when she had reached the advanced age of
eighty years, she was deserted by her army and her people whom the
crimes imputed to her had incensed, and fell into the hands of her
mortal foe, Clotaire II., in whom all the venom of his cruel mother
seemed retained.

After having subjected the aged queen to base and gross insults and
severe to