DAGOBERT I., king of France, led for some time a very dissolute life,
but was touched by an extraordinary grace upon the birth of his son
Sigebert {335} and from that time entirely converted to God. Bagnetrude,
our saint's mother, is only styled the concubine of Dagobert, though he
was publicly married to her. The father desiring to have his son
baptized by the most holy prelate of his dominions, recalled St. Amand,
bishop of Masstricht, whom he had banished for his zeal in reproving his
vices, fell at his feet at Clichi, near Paris, to ask his pardon,
promised amendment, and by the advice of St. Owen and St. Eligius, then
laymen in his court, engaged him to initiate his son in the sacrament of
regeneration. The ceremony was performed with great pomp at Orleans,
Charibert, king of part of Aquitaine, and brother to Dagobert, being
god-father. The young prince's education was intrusted by the father to
the blessed Pepin of Landen, mayor of his palace, who being forced by
the envy of the nobility to withdraw for some time, carried Sigebert
into the dominions of Charibert in Aquitaine, where he enjoyed a
considerable estate, the paternal patrimony of his wife, the blessed
Itta. Pepin remained there about three years; after which term he was
recalled to the court of Dagobert, who declared his son Sigebert, though
only three years old, in 633, king of Austrasia, and gave him for his
ministers, St. Cunibert, archbishop of Cologne, and duke Adelgise, and
committed the administration of the whole kingdom to Pepin, whom he
always kept near his own person. Dagobert's second son, Clovis II., was
born in the following year, 634, and to him the father allotted for his
inheritance all the western part of France, containing all Neustria and
part of Burgundy.[1] Austrasia, or Eastern France, (in which sense
Austria retains a like name in Germany,) at that time comprised Provence
and Switzerland, (dismembered from the ancient kingdom of Burgundy,) the
Albigeois, Auvergne, Quercy, the Cevennes, Champagne, Lorraine, Upper
Picardy, the archbishopric of Triers, and other states, reaching to the
borders of Friesland; Alsace, the Palatinate, Thuringia, Franconia,
Bavaria, Suabia, and the country which lay betwixt the Lower Rhine and
Old Saxony. Dagobert died in 638, and was buried at the abbey of St.
Denys, of which he was the munificent founder. According to the
settlement which he had made, he was succeeded in Austrasia by St.
Sigebert, and in the rest of France by his youngest son Clovis II. Pepin
of Landen, who had been mayor of the palace to the father, discharged
the same office to his death under St. Sigebert, and not content to
approve himself a faithful minister, and true father to the prince, he
formed him from the cradle to all heroic Christian virtues. By his
prudence, virtue, and valor, St. Sigebert in his youth was beloved and
respected by his subjects, and feared by all his enemies. Pepin dying in
640, the virtuous king appointed his son Grimoald mayor of his palace.
He reigned in perfect intelligence with his brother, of which we have
few examples among the Merovingian kings whenever the French monarchy
was divided. The Thuringians revolting, he reduced them to their duty;
and this is the only war in which he was engaged. The love of peace
disposed his heart to be a fit temple of the Holy Ghost, whom he invited
into his soul by assiduous prayer, and the exercise of all Christian
virtues. His patrimony he employed in relieving the necessitous, and in
building or endowing monasteries, churches, and hospitals. He founded
twelve monasteries, the four principal of which were Cougnon, now a
priory, not far from Bouillon; Stavelo and Malmedi, two miles from each
other, and St. Martin's, near Metz. St. Remaclus brought from Solignac
the rule of St. Columban, which king Sigebert {336} in his charter to
Cougnon calls the rule of the ancient fathers. This that holy abbot
established first at Cougnon, and afterwards at Malmedi and Stavelo. A
life filled with good works, and devoted all to God, can never be called
short. God was pleased to call this good king from the miseries of this
world to the recompense of his labors on the 1st of February, in the
year 656, the eighteenth of his reign, and the twenty-fifth of his
age.[2] He was interred in the abbey of St. Martin's, near Metz, which
he had built. His body was found incorrupt in 1063, and placed in a
monument on the side of the high altar: and in 1170 it was enshrined in
a silver case. The monastery of St. Martin's, and all others in the
suburbs, were demolished by Francis of Lorraine, duke of Guise, in 1552,
when Charles V. laid siege to Metz. The relics of St. Sigebert are now
deposited in the collegiate church of our Lady at Nancy. He is honored
among the saints in great part of the dominions which he governed, and
in the monasteries and churches which he founded. See Fredegarius and
his continuator, Sigebert of Gemblours, in his life of this saint, with
the learned remarks of Henschenius, p. 40. Also Calmet, Hist. de
Lorraine, t. 1, p. 419. Schoepflin, Alsatia Illustrata, Colmariae, an.
1751. Sect. 2, p. 742.
Footnotes:
1. Charibert, though he took the title of king, and resided at
Toulouse, held his estates of his brother Dagobert, and by his gift.
After Charibert's death, Chilperic, his eldest son, was put to death
by Dagobert; but his second son, Boggis, left a numerous posterity,
which was only extinguished in Louis d'Armagnac, duke of Nemours,
slain at the battle of Cerignole, where he commanded for Louis XII.
against Gonzales de Cordova, surnamed The Great Captain, for the
Catholic king Ferdinand in 1503, by which the French lost the
kingdom of Naples. So long did the family of Clovis II. subsist. See
Vaisette, Hist de Languedoc, Henault, Abr. de l'Hist. de France, t.
1, pp. 26, and 818.
2. St. Sigebert left his son Dagobert, about seven years old, under the
care of Grimoald, mayor of his palace, who treacherously sent him
into Ireland, and placed his own son Childebert on the throne. This
usurper reigned seven months, as Schoepflin proves from the express
testimony of Chronicon Brevissimum, and from circumstances mentioned
by Fredegarius, against the mistake of the authors, l'Art de
verifier les Dates, p. 481, who say he only reigned seven days. By
an insurrection of the people, Grimoald and his son were deposed,
and both perished in prison: but Dagobert not being found, Clovis
II. united Austrasia to his other dominions. Dagobert II., by the
assistance of St. Wilfrid, afterwards archbishop of York, returned
into France eighteen years after the death of his father, and
recovered Alsace and some other provinces by the cession either of
Childeric II., son of Clovis II., (then monarch of all France,) or
of his brother Theodoric III., who succeeded him before the month of
April, in 674: for the reign of Dagobert II must be dated from the
latter end of 673, with Henault, or from 674, with Schoepflin. The
spirit of religion and piety, which he had learned in the school of
afflictions, and under the great masters of a spiritual life, who
then flourished among the Scots and Irish, was eminently the
distinguishing part of his character. As he resided chiefly in
Alsace, he filled that country, in the first place, with monuments
of his devotion, being so liberal in founding and endowing
monasteries and churches, that though his reign was only of six
years, Schoepflin assures us that the French church is not more
indebted to any reign than to this, at least in those parts, (p.
740.) St. Wilfrid, bishop of York, had exceedingly promoted his
return into France; and when that prelate was compelled to leave
England Dagobert entertained him with the most cordial affection,
and, upon the death of St. Arbogastus, earnestly pressed him to
accept of that see. St. Wilfrid declined that dignity, promising,
however, to call upon this good king in his return from Rome, where
he obtained a sentence of pope Agatho in his favor. But coming but
into France, he found his royal friend cut off by a violent death.
It is the general persuasion of the French historians, that the
impious Ebroin, mayor of the palace to Theodoric III., king of
Burgundy and Noustria, was the author of his death, with a view to
seize his dominions. Dagobert was murdered by assassins at Stenay
upon the Meuse, now the best town in the duchy of Bar in Lorraine.
The people, however, chose Pepin and Martin dukes or governors of
Austrasia, who defended their liberty against Ebroin. Martin was
afterwards assassinated by the contrivance of Ebroin, and Ebroin by
Ermenfrid; but Pepin, in 687, defeated Theodoric III. at Testry,
took Paris, and the king himself; from which time, under the title
of mayor, he enjoyed the supreme power in the French monarchy. The
death of St. Dagobert happened in 679, on the 23d of December, on
which day he is commemorated in the Martyrology of Ado and others,
and honored as a martyr at Stenay, in the diocese of Verdun, ever
since the eighth century. The church of Strasburg was much enriched
by this prince, as maybe seen in Schoepflin's Alsatia Illustrata.
The same author gives an account of some of the monasteries which
were founded by this prince in those parts, (c. 11, Sec.254, p. 736,)
and shows from his charters that the palace where he chiefly resided
was at Isenburg in Alsace. (Sect. 1, c. 10, Sec.146, p. 693.) The year
of the death of Dagobert II. is learned from the life of St.
Wilfrid, who returned from Rome when St. Agatho sat in St. Peter's
chair. See on this holy king the lives of St. Wilfrid and St.
Salaberga; also his charters; and, among the moderns, Dan.
Schoepflin, professor of history and eloquence at Strasburg, in his
Alsatia Illustrata, anno 1751. Sect. 2, c. 1, Sec.3, pp. 740, 743, and
Sec.1, c. 10, Sec.146, p. 693, c. 11, Sec.254, p. 736. Also Calmet, Hist. de
Lorraine, t. 1, l. 10, n. 16, p. 432. The first edition of this work
was given in 1728, in three volumes folio, but the second edition is
so much enlarged as to fill six volumes folio. The reign of Dagobert
II. escaped most of the French historians; which omission, and a
false epoch of the beginning of the reign of Dagobert I., brought
incredible confusion into the chronology and history of most of the
Merovingian kings, which Adrian Valois, Henschenius, Le Cointe,
Pagi, Louguerue and others have taken great pains to clear up.
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