When Clotaire the Third came to the French throne he was only five
years old; consequently the affairs of the kingdom had to be entrusted
to the guidance of a regent. The man selected to fill this post was
Ebroin, and the choice appeared in every respect admirable. Ebroin was
not only, apparently, fitted by birth and talent to sway the people,
but he also possessed the qualification most desirable of all others
for the time and clime in which he lived; that is to say, he was a
valiant and experienced warrior.
Associated, however, with him in power, was Batilde, the queen dowager,
a woman, according to all the priestly chroniclers, of great beauty and
discretion, but doubtless much swayed by bigoted ecclesiastics. For
some years the country enjoyed considerable prosperity: Batilde ruled
with prudence and justice, and by keeping on good terms with the
prelates has obtained no little historic fame; whilst Ebroin, having
managed to quarrel with the Church, has left a reputation for all that
is bad.
The queen dowager, either by compulsion or inclination, having resigned
the cares of government, and taken refuge in the convent of Chelles,
the chief minister, Ebroin, or _Maire du Palais_, as he was styled, was
enabled to give full vent to all those evil qualities which
circumstances had hitherto compelled him to conceal. Taking the entire
power into his own hands, he killed and ill-treated, confiscated and
exiled, with as much arrogance as a reigning king. In the year 668 the
boy Clotaire died, aged about eighteen; and Ebroin, contrary to the
wish of the nobles, placed Thierry, the younger brother of the deceased
monarch, upon the throne, to the exclusion of the elder brother,
Childerick, the next heir. He was induced to act thus in consequence
of Thierry's youth, he being but eight, affording him a good
opportunity of retaining the governing power in his own hands. In this
act, however, he erred; for the nation, or at all events a powerful
portion of it, revolted against his authority, overthrew him, and took
both him and the prince Thierry prisoners. More merciful than was the
wont in those days, the victors put neither of their prisoners to
death, but contented themselves with shaving Ebroin's head--then deemed
a terrible degradation--and confining him in a monastery, and with
placing his youthful protege under priestly surveillance.
In 973, Childerick the Second, and his wife and child, were
assassinated by a gentleman whom he had had brutally beaten for
remonstrating with him somewhat freely on the danger of an excessive
imposition that he had wished to establish. Taking advantage of the
confusion into which the country was thrown by this sudden event,
Ebroin made his escape from the monastery in which he had been immured,
and, aided by a large number of malcontents, set up the standard of
revolt against Thierry the Third, who now, in consequence of his
brother's death, became the legitimate king. Ebroin was joined by the
Governor of Austrasia, by two deposed bishops, and by many other
influential men, all of whom shared with him an intense hatred of
Leger, Bishop of Autun, who now held the reins of power. In order to
obtain more partisans amongst the people, Ebroin and his comrades
brought forward a lad of about twelve or thirteen years of age, and
asserted that he was a son of Clotaire the Third, who was believed to
have died in 670, in his nineteenth year.
There was just a possibility of this boy having been Clotaire's son,
although an illegitimate one, no proof of the deceased monarch's
marriage ever having been adduced; and as illegitimacy was not in those
days deemed a bar to the crown, the claim of little Clovis the Third,
as Ebroin had him styled, may have been as valid as that of his
competitors. Be that as it may, historians have also termed this
youthful pretender, or rather tool of the conspirators, the _false_
Clovis. The lad was attired in royal robes, and taught to affect a
majesty of deportment towards all those who came to render him homage,
whilst all those who refused to acknowledge him as king were
maltreated, and their goods seized by his followers. His reign,
however, was of short duration. Bishop Leger having been captured,
deprived of sight, and thrown into prison, the great nobles and
chieftains succumbed at once, and Ebroin found the whole power of the
country in his own hands; he, therefore, deemed it better to make terms
with Thierry, who willingly replaced him in his post of _Maire du
Palais_, conditionally upon being left in nominal possession of the
sovereignty.
Having thus attained his purpose, Ebroin had no longer any need of his
puppet, and at once relinquished the imposture; but what afterwards
became of the boy king history does not relate. As regards the
originator of the scheme, his cruelties and tyranny increased daily, so
that when in 683, or three or four years after the re-establishment of
his power, he was assassinated by a noble named Bermenfroy, whose
property he had seized, and whose life he had menaced, it must have
been a real relief to his country. Through Ebroin's death it was that
a way was opened for the family of Pepin, the founder of the
Carlovingian race, to acquire the dignity of _Maire du Palais_, and
subsequently the monarchy of France.