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A great deterioration in the Church and in its ministry ensued after the first generation following the Germanic conquests passed away. This demoralization was more among the secular clergy than the monastic. He was himself an intrepid prelate, who did not quail before Chilperic I. and Fredegunde, but braved their wrath.
Some of them were monsters, and others were idiots. Clotaire burned to death his own son and wife and daughters. Frédegunde armed her assassins with poisoned daggers. "Thirteen sovereigns reigned over the Franks in one hundred and fourteen years, only two of whom attained to man's estate, and not one to the full development of intellectual powers.
Upon the death of Clovis his inheritance was divided among four sons, who, with their wives and families and their tempestuous passions, afforded material for a great epic. Whether Fredegunde or Brunhilde was the more terrible who can say? But the story of these rival queens, with their loves and their hatreds and their ambitious, vengeful fury, is more like the story of demons than of women.
Family contests, and wars full of horrors, in which the tragic feud of two women, Brunhilde of Austrasia, a daughter of Athanagild, king of the Visigoths, and Fredegunde of Neustria, played a prominent part, ensued. In 613 Clotaire II. of Neustria united the entire kingdom. Brunhilde was captured, and put to death in a barbarous manner. The son of Clotaire, Dagobert, was a worthless king.
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