"I believe it. I feel it. Aye, I feel within me indomitable will and vitality. To reign! the ambition of great souls! To reign like the Emperors of Rome! I wish to emulate them in all their sovereign omnipotence! I wish to count by the millions the instruments of my will! I wish, by a mere gesture, to cause the power of my arms to be felt from one confine of the world to the other! I wish to increase my kingdom to an infinite extent! I wish to be able to say: 'All these countries, from the nearest to the most distant, belong to me! I wish to concentrate the forces of all nations into my own hands and to cause all the peoples of the earth to bend under my yoke! I wish to raise in all parts of Gaul the marvels of art that now cover Burgundy—fortified castles, magnificent palaces, gold-naved basilicas, wide and interminable highways, prodigious monuments, all of which will in all the centuries to come re-echo the name of Brunhild! Should I allow vulgar scruples to stay my hand, having such grand designs in view? No! No! Could these children whom I unman, could these men whom I kill because they hinder my progress—could they or any of them as much as conceive my gigantic designs? Of what value to the world is the life of these obscure victims? Their bones will have turned to dust, their names will be buried in oblivion, when my name, repeated from age to age, will continue to amaze posterity!"
"And these will be valid reasons for the priests and bishops, who besiege you with applications for grants of land and money, to pardon your crimes."
"I forbid you to say an evil word against the priests; it is they who draw my triumphal car—"
"The team is rather ruinous."
"Not to me. Do the gifts that I bestow upon them impoverish me? Is not that which I give them, the overflow of my overflow? Moreover, they will aid me in restoring the imposts formerly decreed by the emperors, and thereby to replenish my coffers. Here, take this key; open the little coffer yonder on the table, and look for a roll of parchment tied in a purple ribbon."
"Here it is, madam."
"Kiss the parchment, it is written on by the hand of the representative of God on earth, a Pope—the pious Gregory himself—"
"And does the sovereign pontiff, the successor of St. Peter, as he claims, he who holds in his hands the keys of paradise, promise to open them wide for you?"
"It is but just. Have I not amply gilded those keys of paradise? Read over again to me what the parchment contains."
"'Gregory to Brunhild, Queen of the Franks. The manner in which you govern the kingdom and preside over the education of your son give witness to the virtues of your Excellency, virtues that must be praised and that are pleasing to God. You did not content yourself with leaving intact to your son the glory of temporal things, you also laid up for him the great riches of eternal life by causing, with pious maternal solicitude the germs of the true faith to take root in his soul.'"