One day when king Clotarius was a hunting, young Dagobert invited his governor to dinner. The prince, feigning during the repast, to act without ceremony, (say the chronicles of France,) _presented him the cup to drink, with three_. This was a snare which the duke of Aquitaine never dreamed of. He received the cup with a confident air: and this was a crime. _And he, who was deserving of punishment, took it from his hand, not as it ought to be taken from a person of great consequence, but as it is customary to take it from an equal._ The author of these same chronicles, who was not a contemporary however, does not fail, as may be perceived, to condemn Sadregesile, for having accepted the cup, and to justify Dagobert who had presented it to him _with three_. Without doubt he did not observe, in receiving it, all the ceremony which the etiquette of the court in those days required. This slight want of respect, or rather this liberty, was made a pretext by Dagobert for revenge. After having called Sadregesile all manner of names, and had him beaten by his servants, the young prince, hurried away by his rage, without regarding the age of his governor, or the authority with which he was invested, not even his title of duke of Aquitaine, rushed upon him and cut off his beard with his knife. Some other chronicles which relate the same affair, add likewise this bad treatment. _Prince_ _Dagobert took him by the beard, and with his knife, which he held in his hand, cut it so close, that he cut off a piece of his chin with it._ The two authors, who agree in relating the same affair, were well persuaded, that the abuse and the blows, which the duke of Aquitaine received, hurt his feelings much less than the loss of his beard. This is the reason of their laying more stress on the latter. _In those days_, says one of them, _it was the greatest affront and disgrace a man could receive, to have his beard cut off_. Clotarius, on his return from hunting, was far from applauding his son’s conduct. _The king was greatly enraged._ The young Dagobert, to avoid the just indignation of his father, fled for refuge to the _chapel of the Martyrs_, now called the church of St. Denis. In vain did the king send serjeants to take him from thence: the writers, who relate this affair, assert that God worked a miracle in favour of this young rebel; they say, that all the men the king sent were stopped on the road by a _divine power_. Be that as it may, this miracle had no effect on Clotarius; for he never pardoned his son’s cutting off the beard of his governor. _The king was so enraged_, say the same chronicles, _that he never forgave this offence_.