DAGOBETT I., son of Clotarius IL, encore& I him in 628 in the Frankish monarchy. lie gave his brother Carib ert a part of Aquitania, with the city of Toulouse; but Caribert dying in 630, Dagobert reunited the whole monarchy under his sceptre, and caused Chilperic, Caribert's eldest son, to be put to death. Boger), another son of Caribert, was the head of tho line of the dukes of Aquitaine and of the connts of Armagnac. Dagobert sustained wars against the Saxons from England, the Vascones of the Pyrenees, the Slavonians, and the Bretons, and he obliged Judicael, the prince of Brittany, to give him satisfaction for the incursions which he had made into his territories. When the Bulgarians were flying from before the Huua, they took Wage in Austrasin, where Dagobert granted them au asylum ; but soon after, fearing that these guests might become too powerful for him, he gave orders to have them all massacred in one night, when 10,000 families were put to the sword. Dagobert was cruel and debauched, like all
the rest of the Merovingian kings ; and yet in the old ballads and chronicles he is called 'le bon Roi Dagobert.' He published the laws of the Franks ; he encouraged commerce, and opened negotiations for that purpose with the Byzantine emperors; and he made Paris his permanent residence. The wealth and splendour of his court are extolled by the chroniclers. Engine, or Eloi, a skilful goldsmith of the time, became his treasurer and confidential minister, and was later in life made bishop of Nelms. Dagobert died in 0331n his thirty-sixth year, and loft two eons, Siegbert 11., who succeeded him in Australia, and Clovis IL, who became king of Burgundy and Neustria.