Thus perished the first, but by no means the last, military usurper who sat on the Constantinopolitan throne, overthrown, as he had been elevated, by an armed rebellion. All the world with singular unanimity testified to the worthlessness of Phocas, save one single adherent; but this was no less a person than Pope Gregory the Great. Much to his discredit the great pontiff had been a supporter, nay, even a flatterer, of the Thracian boor who wore the eastern diadem with such ill grace. But Gregory had been an enemy of the unfortunate Maurice, because that prince—though orthodox in matters of doctrine—had shown scant respect to the See of Rome. He had called some of Gregory’s epistles ‘fatuous,’ and had allowed John ‘the Faster,’ patriarch of Constantinople, to assume the title of ‘œcumenical bishop,’ a style which filled Gregory with horror, and caused him to exclaim that the times of Antichrist were at hand. Gregory therefore looked on Maurice’s murderer as the avenger of the outraged dignity of the See of Rome, and did not shrink from heaping upon him epithets of unseemly adulation; the choirs of angels, he said, sang with joy in heaven at the accession of such a worthy Caesar! Truly this was a painful episode in the life of a man who, in spite of all his faults, has been justly hailed as a saint. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER X DECLINE AND DECAY OF THE MEROVINGIANS 561-656. The sons of Chlothar divide the Frankish realm—Wars of Sigibert and Chilperich—The fortunes of Brunhildis—Continued wars of Neustria and Austrasia—Tyranny of Chilperich and Fredegundis—Decay of the Royal Power among the Franks—The House of St. Arnulf and Pippin—Brunhildis regent in Austrasia—Wars of her grandsons—Her death—Chlothar II. sole king—His weakness—His successor Dagobert I. last free king of the Merovingian line—Rise of the Mayors of the Palace.