King Dagobert was not thus under the yoke of his “leudes.”  Either by his own energy, or by surrounding himself with wise and influential counsellors, such as Pepin of Landen, mayor of the palace of Austrasia, St. Arnoul, bishop of Metz, St. Eligius, bishop of Noyon, and St. Andoenus, bishop of Rouen, he applied himself to and succeeded in assuring to himself, in the exercise of his power, a pretty large measure of independence and popularity.  At the beginning of his reign he held, in Austrasia and Burgundy, a sort of administrative and judicial inspection, halting at the principal towns, listening to complaints, and checking, sometimes with a rigor arbitrary indeed, but approved of by the people, the violence and irregularities of the grandees.  At Langres, Dijon, St. Jean-de, Losne, Chalons-sur-Saline, Auxerre, Autun, and Sens, “he rendered justice,” says Fredegaire, “to rich and poor alike, without any charges, and without any respect of persons, taking little sleep and little food, caring only so to act that all should withdraw from his presence full of joy and admiration.”  Nor did he confine himself to this unceremonious exercise of the royal authority.  Some of his predecessors, and amongst them Childebert I., Clotaire I., and Clotaire II., had caused to be drawn up, in Latin and by scholars, digests more or less complete of the laws and customs handed down by tradition, amongst certain of the Germanic peoples established on Roman soil, notably the laws of the Salian Franks and Ripuarian Franks; and Dagobert ordered a continuation of these first legislative labors amongst the newborn nations.  It was, apparently, in his reign that a digest was made of the laws of the Allemannians and Bavarians.  He had also some taste for the arts, and the pious talents displayed by Saints Eloi and Ouen in goldsmith’s-work and sculpture, applied to the service of religion or the decoration of churches, received from him the support of the royal favor and munificence.  Dagobert was neither a great warrior nor a great legislator, and there is nothing to make him recognized as a great mind or a great character.  His private life, too, was scandalous; and extortions were a sad feature of its close.  Nevertheless his authority was maintained in his dominions, his reputation spread far and wide, and the name of great King Dagobert was his abiding title in the memory of the people.  Taken all in all, he was, next to Clovis, the most distinguished of Frankish kings, and the last really king in the line of the Merovingians.  After him, from 638 to 732, twelve princes of this line, one named Sigebert, two Clovis, two Childeric, one Clotaire, two Dagobert, one Childebert, one Chilperic, and two Throdoric or Thierry, bore, in Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy, or in the three kingdoms united, the title of king, without deserving in history more than room for their names.  There was already heard the rumbling of great events to come around the Frankish dominion; and in the very womb of this dominion was being formed a new race of kings more able to bear, in accordance with the spirit and wants of their times, the burden of power.