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Everybody in France knows the bed song of " good king Dagobert "; but how much know that Dagobert lived a part of his life near the Country of Longuyon and found the tragic end there?
Here is thus Dagobert's unusual and local story.
In 656, Sigebert III, the father of Dagobert is murdered at instigation of the mayor of the palace Grimoald. This one, who had made adopt his son Childebert by Sigebert III prefers to leave alive the young person Dagobert, then 4-year-old, but deprives him of his rights for the royal succession by making him tonsurer.
The bishop Didon of Poitiers, believer of Sigebert III, takes Dagobert in a convent in Ireland. The conspirator Grimoald announces Dagobert's death to install on the throne his son Childebert. This attempt is a defeat and Childéric II, son of Clovis II, murders Childebert and seizes the realm of Austrasie.
Dagobert comes back from exile in 674 to demand his realm of Austrasie, but obtains only regions close to the Rhine over which he reigns, after the murder of his cousin king Childéric II in the forest of Lognes in September 675.
Dagobert II restricts the law to steer to the mayor of his palace Pépin de Herstal. He opposes to the desire of independence of the noble persons and to the expansion of the Roman church. He declares the city of Stenay as Merovingian capital.
This politics aroused a plot instiguated either by the mayor of the palace Pépin de Herstal, or by the mayor of the palace of Neustrie and Burgondie, Ébroïn.
Finally, December 23rd 679, during a hunt in forest of Woëvre, the forest situated between Mouzay and Juvigny-sur-Loison, Dagobert II is murdered by Ebroïn. The body of dead king was returned to the castle of Charmoy, then was buried in the basilica Saint-Rémi of Stenay.
On September 10th 892, king Charles II “le Chauve” makes transport the rests of Dagobert II to Douzy where the deceased king is mysteriously canonized by a council of metropolitan bishops, under the name of Saint Dagobert.
Charles II makes build to Stenay the basilica Saint-Dagobert to receive the relics of the saint, preserved in a box of gold and silver; a part of these relics will be attributed to the abbey of Juvigny-sur-Loison.
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