Throne of Dagobert

[1] A later scholarly consensus attributed it to the Carolingian Renaissance, and the French National Library correspondingly estimates it between the late 8th and early 9th centuries.

[2] A similar throne, which may be the same object, appears in depictions of Carolingian ruler Lothair I and Capetian kings from Louis VII onwards.

In the mid-18th century it was referred to in the 18th stanza of the satirical song Le bon roi Dagobert, as "an old iron chair" (un vieux fauteuil de fer).

Napoleon I saw political value in claiming the Merovingian legacy, for example as he used bees inspired by jewels found at the tomb of Childeric I in Tournai as his emblem (as in the Flag of Elba).

[2] In 1852 it was transferred to the Louvre, in which Napoleon III had created a section glorifying past rulers of France, dubbed the Musée des Souverains.

[7] A cast-iron copy made in the early 19th century is located in the Saint-Denis Basilica on the same spot where the throne was kept during the French ancien régime.