It is not, however, a fable that the emperor Valentinian, calling himself a Christian, married Justinian during the life of Severa, his first wife, mother of the emperor Gratian; but he was rich enough to support many wives. Among the first race of the kings of the Franks, Gontran, Cherebert, Sigebert, and Chilperic, had several wives at a time. Gontran had within his palace Venerande, Mercatrude, and Ostregilda, acknowledged for legitimate wives; Cherebert had Merflida, Marcovesa, and Theodogilda. It is difficult to conceive how the ex-Jesuit Nonnotte has been able, in his ignorance, to push his boldness so far as to deny these facts, and to say that the kings of the first race were not polygamists, and thereby, in a libel in two volumes, throw discredit on more than a hundred historical truths, with the confidence of a pedant who dictates lessons in a college. Books of this kind still continue to be sold in the provinces, where the Jesuits have yet a party, and seduce and mislead uneducated people. Father Daniel, more learned and judicious, confesses the polygamy of the French kings without difficulty. He denies not the three wives of Dagobert I., and asserts expressly that Theodoret espoused Deutery, although she had a husband, and himself another wife called Visigalde. He adds, that in this he imitated his uncle Clothaire, who espoused the widow of Cleodomir, his brother, although he had three wives already. All historians admit the same thing; why, therefore, after so many testimonies, allow an ignorant writer to speak like a dictator, and say, while uttering a thousand follies, that it is in defence of religion? as if our sacred and venerable religion had anything to do with an historical point, although made serviceable by miserable calumniators to their stupid impostures. _Of the Polygamy Allowed by Certain Popes and Reformers._ The Abbé Fleury, author of the "Ecclesiastical History," pays more respect to truth in all which concerns the laws and usages of the Church. He avows that Boniface, confessor of Lower Germany, having consulted Pope Gregory, in the year 726, in order to know in what cases a husband might be allowed to have two wives, Gregory replied to him, on the 22nd of November, of the same year, in these words: "If a wife be attacked by a malady which renders her unfit for conjugal intercourse, the husband may marry another; but in that case he must allow his sick wife all necessary support and assistance." This decision appears conformable to reason and policy; and favors population, which is the object of marriage.