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 Merovingians kinship
of the closest degree had no deterring influence on their passions. In a
war between these two brothers, Sigebert was assassinated in his tent by
the emissaries of Fredegonde. Brunehaut fell into the latter's power,
and only the fact that she managed to make her way into the Cathedral of
Paris, and thus claim right of asylum, saved her life. Thence she was
sent to Rouen, where she met and married a son of Chilperic by a former
wife. This so enraged Fredegonde that she persecuted her stepson until,
in despair, he prevailed on a faithful servant to take his life. In the
meantime, the Austrasians, who had the custody of Brunehaut's infant
son, demanded their queen from Chilperic; she was surrendered to them,
and was instated as queen-guardian of her son.

Brunehaut was in every sense a born ruler. A princess by birth, she also
possessed a mind that was capable of formulating plans which united her
people with herself in the enjoyment of the fruits of success as well as
in the labor of accomplishment. Faults she had in abundance. As callous
in regard to bloodshed and as loose in her morals as were the barbarians
of her time, she was not without conscience as to the opportunities of
her position, and she labored in many ways for the public good.
Brunehaut came from Spain, where the Visigoths retained much of the
Roman civilization. She endeavored to introduce some of these advantages
into Austrasia, which was peopled by the least cultivated of the Franks;
but, though forcing her reforms by sheer strength of will and intellect,
the result was her expulsion from the land. The history of her rule is
thus epitomized by Guizot: "She clung stoutly to the efficacious
exercise of the royal authority; she took a practical interest in the
public works, highways, bridges, monuments, and the progress of material
civilization; the Roman roads in a short time received and for a long
while kept in Austrasia the name of Brunehaufs Causeways; there used to
be shown, in a forest near Bourges, Brunehaufs castle, Brunehaufs tower
at Etampes, Brunehaufs stone near Tournay, and Brunehaufs fort near
Cahors. In the royal domains, and wheresoever she went, she showed
abundant charity to the poor, and many ages after her death the people
of those districts still spoke of Brunehaufs Alms. She liked and
protected men of letters, rare and mediocre indeed at that time, but the
only beings, such as they were, with the notion of seeking 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
condemnation of many faults to be silenced by his gratitude for the
piety of the queen in erecting "the Church of Saint Martin in the
suburbs of Augustodunum (Autun), and a monastery for handmaidens of God,
and also a hospital in the same city." There is also a letter to
Thalassia, the first abbess of this convent, ordaining that the property
donated shall never be alienated from her and her successors; also, that
"on the death of an abbess of the aforementioned monastery, no other
shall be ordained by means of any kind of craftiness or secret scheming,
but that such a one as the king of the same province, with the consent
of the nuns, shall have chosen in the fear of God, and provided for the
ordination of." This also is evidence regarding the interior politics of
the nunneries of that time.

Brunehaut lived a stormy life. Gentleness and modesty, the qualities
most esteemed in feminine character, were the least noticeable in her
nature; they would not have been consonant with either her ambitions or
her methods. She was ever striving with the chieftains of her realm,
endeavoring, with no little success, to force their independence into
submission to regal authority. With the clerics, also, she had her
quarrels. Saint Didier, Bishop of Vienne, was at her instigation
brutally murdered. Saint Columba, even, was visited with her displeasure
because he refused to connive at her faults with the award of his
blessing. In 614, after thirty-nine years of the most strenuous
political life and the most extreme vicissitudes of personal fortune
that ever fell to the lot of any queen, she perished most miserably at
the hands of Clotaire II., the son of her old enemy, Fredegonde. He
caused the venerable queen, now eighty years of age, to be paraded
before the army on the back of a camel; and then, by his order, she was
bound by the hair, one hand, and one foot, to the tail of an unbroken
steed by which she was kicked and dashed to pieces. Thus lived, and thus
died a "Christian" queen who had received high encomiums from one of the
greatest bishops of history.

It must not be supposed, however, that feminine modesty, faithful love,
and the gentleness which is ever venerated in womankind, were entirely
unknown to that rough and licentious age. What could be more pleasing
than the romantic story of Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards? In the
year 584, Authari succeeded to that kingdom. He asked in marriage the
beautiful and pious daughter of Garibald, King of the Bavarians. In
order that he might ascertain whether the attractions of this damsel
were in reality equal to their reputation, and also that he might hasten
matters in case he should be satisfied on this point, Authari
impersonated his own ambassador and visited the court of Garibald in
this guise. He there stated that he was the trusted friend of the
Lombard king, and that Authari had charged him to bring back a minute
report of the charm of his expected bride. Theodelinda submitted to the
inspection; and the supposed ambassador, being at once enamored of her
grace and beauty, hailed her as Queen of the Lombards, and requested
that, according to the custom of his people, she present a cup of wine
to him, her first subject. As she did this, he slyly touched her hand
and then his own lips. This familiarity astonished the maiden, but,
advised by her nurse, she said nothing, and Authari, before leaving the
court, succeeded in gaining her affections. As he left to return home,
he revealed his rank to her by saying, as he drove his huge battle-ax
into the trunk of a tree, "Thus strikes the king of the Langobardi."
After his departure, influenced by the Franks, Garibald withdrew his
consent to his daughter's marriage; whereupon Theodelinda took the
matter into her own hands and fled across the Alps to her lover and was
married to him at Verona. Although she was early left a widow, she had
so completely gained the love and the confidence of the Lombards, that
they intrusted her with the privilege of raising to the throne
whomsoever she might favor with her hand in marriage. Her choice fell
upon a handsome Thuringian named Agilulf. He knew not of his fortune
until it was announced to him by the queen herself in this fashion: one
day, as he bent to kiss her hand in faithful homage, she blushingly
said, "You have the right to kiss my cheek, for you are my king!" So
great was Theodelinda's influence over her people that at her request
the whole nation simultaneously became Christian; and in view of that
event, it is no wonder that she was on the most friendly terms with Pope
Gregory the Great, whose letters to her may still be read. Under her
happy reign, the kingdom of Lombardy was strengthened, and its
constitution established. Agilulf died, and his son and successor,
Adelwald, rendering himself obnoxious, was murdered by some of his
subjects; but to make amends to her for this act, the Lombards placed
the husband of her daughter Gerberga on the throne. Boccaccio, by making
Theodelinda the subject of one of his amorous tales, has taken an
unwarranted and reprehensible liberty with a good queen of whom her age
was justly proud.

It is to these times, also, that the pathetic story of Saint Genevieve
belongs. She was the wife of Count Siegfried of Andernach. He, setting
out against the Moors who were then invading the land, intrusted her to
the care of Golo, his principal servant. This man, having failed in his
repeated attempts on her conjugal faithfulness, accused her of the fault
which he would fain have persuaded her to commit, and procured her
condemnation to death. Her executioners being merciful, spared her life
by having her conveyed far into the recesses of a forest. There she,
with her little daughter, lived for several years in absolute solitude.
They were sheltered by a cave; and a doe, whose tameness was regarded as
a miraculous providence, supplied them with milk. It was no less
regarded as a divine interposition which eventually led Siegfried to the
grotto while following the chase; her innocence being proved, she was
happily reinstated as his wife, and has ever since been honored as a
saint, which doubtless she was.

Christianity, during the latter half of the first millennium, could show
triumphs of sanctification in personal character; it had its heroes of
morality, but it must be confessed that the conversion of the barbaric
nations was not accompanied with a very signal improvement in their
morals. Milman says: "It is difficult to conceive a more dark and odious
state of society than that of France under her Merovingian kings, the
descendants of Clovis, as described by Gregory of Tours. In the conflict
or coalition of barbarism with Roman