 Merovingian descent from a Trojan ancestor was embodied in a literary myth first established in Fredegar's chronicle (2.4, 3.2.9), to the effect that the Franks were of Trojan stock and adopted their name from King Francio, who had built a new Troy on the banks of the river Rhine (modern Treves).However, even before the so-called Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century these supposed facts of the medieval concept of history were doubted by Blaise Pascal