debates which they did not understand; contenting themselves with their old pre-eminence in the warlike inroads upon neighbouring states, which were still sufficiently frequent, and sufficiently rich in plunder to satisfy their barbaric energy and greedy love of wealth. Among the prelates then present might be seen the Bishop of Tours, Gregorius,-and Prætextatus, Bishop of Rouen, and Berthramn, Bishop of Bourdeaux, with several others, and a crowd of ecclesiastical dignitaries of lower rank. Gregory might be said to represent the active, intelligent, literary priest; for he kept an elaborate record of the times; which, though written with clear-sighted good sense, was yet deeply imbued with the superstitious bigotry of the period. He was foremost in all public discussions on ecclesiastical affairs, and was the only one who ventured to dispute, deny, or oppose the heretical doctrines and innovations which Chilperic, as an exciting délassement, sought to impose upon the Gallic church. Prætextatus represented the simple-minded priest, seeking to soften the harsh barbarism of the age through the influence of that form of Christianity which he especially defined to himself; having at the same time a keen eye, in a quiet unobtrusive mode, to the good things of this world, in the way of personal preferment and advantage. Berthramn, on the other hand, was the courtly prelate, loving above all things splendour and display. He was connected by blood with the

princes of the Merovingian race, and had turned his position to good account, by obtaining, in addition to his valuable ecclesiastical preferments, extensive grants of rich land and other property, of which the Gallo-Roman owners had been despoiled during the fraternal disputes which followed the death of Caribert. He appeared at Braine, on the present occasion, with a retinue almost regal in its splendour, and in his train were several mistresses, celebrated as the greatest beauties of their time.

Among the personages then present in the palatial court might have been observed the Roman, Lupus, whose superior military knowledge had been fully appreciated by Chilperic, who had created him Count, or Governor of Champagne. He walked with a group of other chiefs, also of Roman descent, whose soft Latin, as they spoke, contrasted agreeably with the guttural energy of the language spoken by the neighbouring groups of Franks.

Then there was Leudaste, Count of Tours, the son of the Gallic peasant, Leucadius, who, from being a scullion in the royal kitchen, which he deserted on account of the volumes of wood-smoke which injured his eyes, had risen to high favour with Chilperic in consequence of his reckless audacity; notwithstanding a persevering opposition to his promotion by the Bishop Gregory, who detested the wily treachery of his character. Then there was the Austrasian emissary, Gon

thram, surnamed Bose, for his cunning, and generally known as Gonthram-Bose; and Markulf, Mariskalk of the royal horses, an Herculean Frank, who rolled his huge form along in the glittering crowd, evidently vain of his gigantic frame, and the rich habiliments denoting his office, in which he was clothed.

But more remarkable than all was a tall and stately female figure, whose long flowing robes were heavy with embroidery, and with the superadded pearls that glistened with their milky light among the massive gold work. She was in the flower of womanhood, and the warmly tinted and rather olive complexion of her face and neck, and finely formed arms, exhibited a soft and downy smoothness, which, while it charmed the admirer of female beauty, reminded him involuntarily of the velvet smoothness of the soft skinned panther; and there was a certain undulation in her stately step that favoured the illusion, and something in the cold glance of her pale grey eye, notwithstanding its clearness and brilliancy, that confirmed it. Yet, she was almost faultlessly beautiful; and in that rare and high degree which becomes a goddess, or a queen; a style quite distinct from the mere prettiness that is the general characteristic of an inferior order of female beauty.

It was Fredegonda, the favourite wife of Chilperic, the real queen of Neustria, before whose influence that of other wives and mistresses sank too deeply into

the shade even to excite a passing feeling of jealousy, in that age of general incontinence. She was followed by a group of richly attired female attendants, and received with evident though supercilious pleasure, the encomiums that were lavished upon her truly regal charms, as she swept past towards a low arched doorway which led to the palace gardens, and the banks of the river.

Fredegonda had paved her way to supreme influence in the court of Chilperic, by a series of the most daring crimes; which perhaps, to her strong, untamed, and unscrupulous nature had appeared little more than the crushing of a spider which profaned her tapestry with his encroaching web,-or the destruction of a worm that unconsciously crawled in her path. She had, by a treacherous stratagem, induced Chilperic to disgrace and dismiss his wife Andowera, whose waiting-maid she had been, though at the same time a secret concubine of the king. And when Chilperic, in emulation of the ambition of his brother Sigbert, who had married Brunehilda, the daughter of Athanagild, king of the Goths of Spain, had in turn applied to that sovereign for a wife, and had married his remaining daughter, Galiswentha-Fredegonda, feeling that the new influence cast her somewhat in the shade, especially with the Gallic nobles, who paid much respect to the royal descent of the new queen, succeeded in inducing the king, by a succession of

well laid schemes, to consent to the murder of that unfortunate princess. The circumstances of the murder were so little disguised, that Chilperic was compelled to submit to an open trial, at the suit of his brother Sigbert, King of Austrasia, whose wife, Brunehilda, was furious at the murder of her sister.

Chilperic openly acknowledged on the trial, that the murder had been committed by his orders, declaring himself ready to pay any pecuniary fine which the ecclesiastical and Frankish law might enforce, as compensation for the homicide.

Those laws claimed from 15 to 30 sols for the murder of a domestic, a hundred for that of a Roman landowner, and double that sum for a Frankish proprietor. The fine was very much increased for a Churchman, and trebled for a retainer of the Sovereign. All these, however, were penalties which did not apply to the murder of a crowned queen, the daughter of a king; and Sigbert claimed that all the rich towns which Chilperic had settled as a dowry upon his royal bride at the time of her marriage, should be transferred to Brunehilda, in compensation for the death of her sister. To this arrangement Chilperic cheerfully consented, for he thought any terms easy which restored Fredegonda to her lost position, and freed him for a time from the machinations which any opposition to her views was sure to engender. It was by such means that Fredegonda had triumphed over all opposition,