"Merovingian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this old forgotten myth about the solar hero's hair came some superstition to which was due the Merovingian decree that only princes of the blood-royal should wear their hair long; cutting their long hair made them incapable of becoming kings. Their slaves were shaved. The barbarians ruled that only their free men should wear long hair, and that the slaves should be shaved. Professor ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... country. Italy has already produced a historical novel, of high merit and of still higher promise. In France, the practice has been carried to a length somewhat whimsical. M. Sismondi publishes a grave and stately history of the Merovingian Kings, very valuable, and a little tedious. He then sends forth as a companion to it a novel, in which he attempts to give a lively representation of characters and manners. This course, as it seems to us, has all the disadvantages of a division of labour, and none of its advantages. We understand ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Shantung, is famous for having nine times convoked the States-General. The dictator always presided at such meetings and he was recognised as the real sovereign—as were the mayors of the palace in France in the Merovingian epoch, or the shoguns in Japan during the long period in which the Mikado was called ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... and valor, St. Sigebert in his youth was beloved and respected by his subjects, and feared by all his enemies. Pepin dying in 640, the virtuous king appointed his son Grimoald mayor of his palace. He reigned in perfect intelligence with his brother, of which we have few examples among the Merovingian kings whenever the French monarchy was divided. The Thuringians revolting, he reduced them to their duty; and this is the only war in which he was engaged. The love of peace disposed his heart to be a fit temple of the Holy Ghost, whom he invited into his soul by assiduous prayer, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... long fox-tail beards of silver gray, and enameled chins, like those of girls; bald pates and Merovingian locks; smooth brows and wrinkles: forms erect and stooping; an eye that squinted; one king was deaf; by his side, another that was halt; and not far off, a dotard. They were old and young, tall and short, handsome and ugly, fat ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... There will be some use also in the final notes, in summing the chapters, or saying what is to be more carefully remembered of them. Thus just now it is of no consequence to remember that the first taking of Amiens was in 445, because that is not the founding of the Merovingian dynasty; neither that Merovaeus seized the throne in 447 and died ten years later. The real date to be remembered is 481, when Clovis himself comes to the throne, a boy of fifteen; and the three battles of Clovis' reign to be remembered are Soissons, Tolbiac, and Poitiers—remembering ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... capricious, ignorant, fierce, and indolent. The records of their reigns are the records of drunkenness, extortion, cruelty, lust, and violence—the common history of all barbarous kings. There were some of the Polish princes who were benignant and merciful, but the great majority of them, like the Merovingian and Carlovingian princes of the Dark Ages, were unfit to reign, were the slaves of superstition, and the tools of designing priests. There is a melancholy gloom hanging over the annals of the Middle Ages, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... fancy; let alone the necessity of keeping up a certain prestige. They are, in reality, domineered over by these horses, and these horses' standard of living, as fortunate people are dominated by their servants, their clothes, and their family connections; much as Merovingian kings, we were taught in our "Cours de Dictees," were dominated by the mayors of the palace. Instead of which, bar accidents (and the malignity of bottle-glass and shoe-nails), I am free, and am helped to ever greater freedom by ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee |
