the year 638, with the death of the renowned Dagobert, whose dominions extended to the Danube, disappeared the last vestige of independence and authority possessed by the monarchs of the Merovingian dynasty. Henceforth the regal power was vested in, and practically exercised by, the bold and able mayors of the palace, the prime ministers of the _rois fainéants_, who, through indifference or compulsion, were apparently contented with the titles and glittering baubles of royalty. The superior talents of the priest were industriously employed in enriching his church or his abbey, and the zeal and fears of the devout co-operating with the avarice of the clergy, the sacred edifices became depositories of treasures which dazzled the eyes of the greedy freebooters of Abd-al-Rahman with their magnificence and value. No sovereign in Europe could boast of such wealth as had been accumulated through the lavish generosity of pilgrims and penitents by the shrines of St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Martin of Tours. The ecclesiastics habitually represented themselves as the treasurers of heaven, the chosen intermediaries with the saints; and the most costly gift was scarcely considered an equivalent for a hasty blessing or a relic of more than doubtful authenticity, graciously bestowed upon the humble and delighted contributor to clerical rapacity and monkish imposture. The manly vigor inherited from a barbarian ancestry, developed and strengthened by military exercises, had formed of the Franks a nation of heroes. Their gigantic forms, encased in mail, enabled them to resist assaults which must have overwhelmed mortals of less ponderous build. A phlegmatic temperament, joined to a devotion to their lords which never questioned the justice of their commands, imparted to them steadiness and inflexible constancy in the field. Their naturally ferocious aspect was increased by grotesque helmets of towering height, and by the skins of wild beasts which draped their massive shoulders, while their weapons were of a size and weight that the demigods of old alone might wield. Such were the warriors to whose valor were now committed the destinies of the Christian world. The throne of the Franks was then occupied by Thierry IV., one of a series of royal phantoms, who had been exalted to this nominal dignity by a certain mayor of the palace named Charles, the natural son of Pepin d’Heristal, Duke of Austrasia. It was the policy of these officials, necessarily men of talent, whose abilities had raised them to prominence, and who controlled the empire of the state, to bestow the crown upon princely youths purposely familiarized with vice, that every noble aspiration might be stifled and every patriotic impulse repressed in the indulgence of the most wanton and effeminate luxury. The profligate habits of these sovereigns, which shortened their reigns, account for their number and rapid succession in the annals of France.