Mention was but just now made of two women—­two queens—­Fredegonde and Brunehaut, who, at the Merovingian epoch, played important parts in the history of the country.  They were of very different origin and condition; and, after fortunes which were for a long while analogous, they ended very differently.  Fredegonde was the daughter of poor peasants in the neighborhood of Montdidier in Picardy, and at an early age joined the train of Queen Audovere, the first wife of King Chilperic.  She was beautiful, dexterous, ambitious, and bold; and she attracted the attention, and before long awakened the passion of the king.  She pursued with ardor and without scruple her unexpected fortune.  Queen Audovere was her first obstacle and her first victim; and on the pretext of a spiritual relationship which rendered her marriage with Chilperic illegal, was repudiated and banished to a convent.  But Fredegonde’s hour had not yet come; for Chilperic espoused Galsuinthe, daughter of the Visigothic king, Athanagild, whose youngest daughter, Brunehaut, had just married Chilperic’s brother, Sigebert, king of Austrasia.  It has already been said that before long Galsuinthe was found strangled in her bed, and that Chilperic espoused Fredegonde.  An undying hatred from that time arose between her and Brunehaut, who had to avenge her sister.  A war, incessantly renewed, between the kings of Austrasia and Neustria followed.  Sigebert succeeded in beating Chilperic, but, in 575, in the midst of his victory, he was suddenly assassinated in his tent by two emissaries of Fredegonde.  His army disbanded; and his widow, Brunehaut, fell into the hands of Chilperic.  The right of asylum belonging to the cathedral of Paris saved her life, but she was sent away to Rouen.  There, at this very time, on a mission from his father, happened to be Merovee, son of Chilperic, and the repudiated Queen Audovere; he saw Brunehaut in her beauty, her attractiveness and her trouble; he was smitten with her and married her privately, and Praetextatus, bishop of Rouen, had the imprudent courage to seal their union.  Fredegonde seized with avidity upon this occasion for persecuting her rival and destroying her step-son, heir to the throne of Chilperic.  The Austrasians, who had preserved the child Childebert, son of their murdered king, demanded back with threats their queen Brunehaut.  She was surrendered to them; but Fredegonde did not let go her other prey, Merovice.  First imprisoned, then shorn and shut up in a monastery, afterwards a fugitive and secretly urged on to attempt a rising against his father, he was so affrightened at his perils, that he got a faithful servant to strike him dead, that he might not fall into the hands of his hostile step-mother.  Chilperic had remaining another son, Clovis, issue, as Merovee was, of Queen Audovere.  He was accused of having caused by his sorceries the death of the three children lost about this time by Fredegonde; and was, in his