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The Franks

Date 2001

A History of the Franks.  Franks.  Clovis.  Christianity and the Franks

The Franks were a group of Germanic tribes that, about the middle of the 3rd century AD, dwelt along the middle and lower Rhine River. The Franks appeared in the Roman provinces around 253 and soon thereafter established themselves in two principal groups, the Salian and the Ripuarian. The Salian Franks inhabited the territory along the lower stretches of the Rhine, and the Ripuarian Franks lived along the middle course of the river. The Salians were conquered by the Roman emperor Julian in 358 and became allies of Rome. During the early 5th century, when the Romans retired from the Rhine, the Salians established themselves in most of the territory north of the Loire River.

Under the Salian king Clovis I, founder of the Merovingian dynasty, the power and extent of the Frankish kingdom grew considerably. In 486 Clovis overthrew Syagrius, the last Roman governor in Gaul, and then successively subjugated the Alamanni, the Bourguignons, the Visigoths of Aquitania, and the Ripuarian Franks. Ultimately, the borders of his kingdom extended from the Pyrenees Mountains to Friesland and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Main River. Clovis was converted to Christianity in 496, and thus began the close connection between the Frankish monarchy and the papacy.

After the death of Clovis, the kingdom was divided among his four sons, and for the following century it went through several divisions and reunifications until finally consolidated by Clotaire II in 613. Shortly after his death, however, the kings ceased to exercise any influence, and authority passed into the hands of the great officers of state, most notably, the mayor of the palace (major domus). The office of major domus existed in all of the Frankish kingdoms. In the eastern part, Austrasia, however, arose a powerful family, the Carolingian, which retained exclusive possession of the palace mayoralty for more than 100 years, ruling as monarchs in fact if not in name. In 687 Pepin of Herstal, the Austrasian mayor of the palace, overthrew the forces of Neustria (the western part) and Burgundy, setting himself up as major domus of a united Frankish kingdom. His son, Charles Martel, extended the frontiers of the kingdom in the east and in 732 repelled the Moors in a decisive battle fought at a site between Tours and Poitiers. Frankish power attained its greatest development under Charles Martel's grandson, Charlemagne, who in his time was the most powerful monarch in Europe. On December 25, 800, he was crowned Carolus Augustus, emperor of the Romans, by Pope Leo III. Charlemagne's imperial title was later borne by the Holy Roman emperors until the early 19th century. His Frankish lands, more specifically, developed into the kingdom of France, which is named for the Franks.

Clovis Founds The Kingdom Of The Franks: It Becomes Christian

Author:      Guizot, Francois P. G.

Part I.

486 - 511

     Clovis, the sturdy Frank, wrought marvellous changes in Gaul.  His

marriage to the Christian princess Clotilde was followed by the conversion of

himself and, gradually, that of his people.  With a well-disciplined army he

pulled down and swept away the last pillars of Roman power out of Gaul.

Guizot gives a graphic account of the transition of the Franks, during two

hundred and fifty years, from being isolated wandering tribes, each

constantly warring against the other, to a well-ordered Christian kingdom,

which led to the establishment of the French monarchy.  The climax of this

period of transition came in the reign of Clovis, with whom commences the

real history of France.  Under his strong hand the various tribes were

gradually brought under his sole rule.

     When Clovis, at the age of fifteen, succeeded his father, Childeric, as

king of the Salian tribe, his people were mainly pagans; the Salian domain

was very limited, the treasury empty, and there was no store of either grain

or wine.  But these difficulties were overcome by him; he subjugated the

neighboring tribes, and made Christianity the state religion.  The new faith

was accorded great privileges and means of influence, in many cases favorable

to humanity and showing respect to the rights of individuals.  So great an

advance in civilization is an early milestone on the path of progress.

     About A.D. 241 or 242 the Sixth Roman legion, commanded by Aurelian, at

that time military tribune, and thirty years later emperor, had just finished

a campaign on the Rhine, undertaken for the purpose of driving the Germans

from Gaul, and was preparing for eastern service, to make war on the

Persians.  The soldiers sang:

     "We have slain a thousand Franks and a thousand

     Sarmatians; we want a thousand, thousand,

     Thousand Persians."

     That was, apparently, a popular burthen at the time, for on the days of

military festivals, at Rome and in Gaul, the children sang, as they danced:

     "We have cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand Thousand;

     One man hath cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand,

     Thousand thousand;

     May he live a thousand thousand years, he who

     Hath slain a thousand thousand!

     Nobody hath so much of wine as he

     Hath of blood poured out."

     Aurelian, the hero of these ditties, was indeed much given to the

pouring out of blood, for at the approach of a fresh war he wrote to the

senate:

     "I marvel, conscript fathers, that ye have so much misgiving about

opening the Sibylline books, as if ye were deliberating in an assembly of

Christians, and not in the temple of all the gods.  Let inquiry be made of

the sacred books, and let celebration take place of the ceremonies that ought

to be fulfilled.  Far from refusing, I offer, with zeal, to satisfy all

expenditure required with captives of every nationality, victims of royal

rank.  It is no shame to conquer with the aid of the gods; it is thus that

our ancestors began and ended many a war."

     Human sacrifices, then, were not yet foreign to pagan festivals, and

probably the blood of more than one Frankish captive on that occasion flowed

in the temple of all the gods.

     It is the first time the name of Franks appears in history; and it

indicated no particular, single people, but a confederation of Germanic

peoplets, settled or roving on the right bank of the Rhine, from the Main to

the ocean.  The number and the names of the tribes united in this

confederation are uncertain.  A chart of the Roman Empire, prepared

apparently at the end of the fourth century, in the reign of the emperor

Honorius - which chart, called tabula Peutingeri, was found among the ancient

MSS. collected by Conrad Peutinger, a learned German philosopher, in the

fifteenth century - bears, over a large territory on the right bank of the

Rhine, the word Francia, and the following enumeration: "The Chaucians, the

Ampsuarians, the Cheruscans, and the Chamavians, who are also called Franks;"

and to these tribes divers chroniclers added several others, "the Attuarians,

the Bructerians, the Cattians, and the Sicambrians."

     Whatever may have been the specific names of these peoplets, they were

all of German race, called themselves Franks, that is "freemen," and made,

sometimes separately, sometimes collectively, continued incursions into Gaul

- especially Belgica and the northern portions of Lyonness - at one time

plundering and ravaging, at another occupying forcibly, or demanding of the

Roman emperors lands whereon to settle.  From the middle of the third to the

beginning of the fifth century the history of the Western Empire presents an

almost uninterrupted series of these invasions on the part of the Franks,

together with the different relationships established between them and the

imperial government.  At one time whole tribes settled on Roman soil,

submitted to the emperors, entered their service, and fought for them even

against their own German compatriots.  At another, isolated individuals, such

and such warriors of German race, put themselves at the command of the

emperors, and became of importance.  At the middle of the third century the

emperor Valerian, on committing a command to Aurelian, wrote, "Thou wilt have

with thee Hartmund, Haldegast, Hildmund, and Carioviscus."

     Some Frankish tribes allied themselves more or less fleetingly with the

imperial government, at the same time that they preserved their independence;

others pursued, throughout the empire, their life of incursion and adventure.

From A.D. 260 to 268, under the reign of Gallienus, a band of Franks threw

itself upon Gaul, scoured it from northeast to southeast, plundering and

devastating on its way; then it passed from Aquitania into Spain, took and

burned Tarragona, gained possession of certain vessels, sailed away, and

disappeared in Africa, after having wandered about for twelve years at its

own will and pleasure.  There was no lack of valiant emperors, precarious and

ephemeral as their power may have been, to defend the empire, and especially

Gaul, against those enemies, themselves ephemeral, but forever recurring;

Decius, Valerian, Gallienus, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, and Probus

gallantly withstood those repeated attacks of German hordes.  Sometimes they

flattered themselves they had gained a definitive victory, and then the old

Roman pride exhibited itself in their patriotic confidence.  About A.D. 278,

the emperor Probus, after gaining several victories in Gaul over the Franks,

wrote to the senate:

     "I render thanks to the immortal gods, conscript fathers, for that they

have confirmed your judgment as regards me.  Germany is subdued throughout

its whole extent; nine kings of different nations have come and cast

themselves at my feet, or rather at yours, as suppliants with their foreheads

in the dust.  Already all those barbarians are tilling for you, sowing for

you, and fighting for you against the most distant nations.  Order ye,

therefore, according to your custom, prayers of thanksgiving, for we have

slain four thousand of the enemy; we have had offered to us sixteen thousand

men ready armed; and we have wrested from the enemy the seventy most

important towns.  The Gauls, in fact, are completely delivered.  The crowns

offered to me by all the cities of Gaul I have submitted, conscript fathers,

to your grace; dedicate ye them with your own hands to Jupiter,

all-bountiful, all-powerful, and to the other immortal gods and goddesses.

All the booty is retaken, and, further, we have made fresh captures, more

considerable than our first losses; the fields of Gaul are tilled by the oxen

of the barbarians, and German teams bend their necks in slavery to our

husbandmen; divers nations raise cattle for our consumption, and horses to

remount our cavalry; our stores are full of the corn of the barbarians - in

one word, we have left to the vanquished naught but the soil; all their other

possessions are ours.  We had at first thought it necessary, conscript

fathers, to appoint a new governor of Germany; but we have put off this

measure to the time when our ambition shall be more completely satisfied,

which will be, as it seems to us, when it shall have pleased divine

Providence to increase and multiply the forces of our armies."

     Probus had good reason to wish that "divine Providence might be pleased

to increase the forces of the Roman armies," for even after his victories,

exaggerated as they probably were, they did not suffice for their task, and

it was not long before the vanquished recommenced war.  He had dispersed over

the territory of the empire the majority of the prisoners he had taken.  A

band of Franks, who had been transported and established as a military colony

on the European shore of the Black Sea, could not make up their minds to

remain there.  They obtained possession of some vessels, traversed the

Propontis, the Hellespont, and the Archipelago, ravaged the coasts of Greece,

Asia Minor, and Africa, plundered Syracuse, scoured the whole of the

Mediterranean, entered the ocean by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, making

their way up again along the coasts of Gaul, arrived at last at the mouths of

the Rhine, where they once more found themselves at home among the vines

which Probus, in his victorious progress, had been the first to have planted,

and with probably their old taste for adventure and plunder.

     After the commencement of the fifth century, from A.D. 406 to 409, it

was no longer by incursions limited to certain points, and sometimes repelled

with success, that the Germans harassed the Roman provinces; a veritable

deluge of divers nations forced, one upon another, from Asia, into Europe, by

wars and migration in mass, inundated the empire and gave the decisive signal

for its fall.  St. Jerome did not exaggerate when he wrote to Ageruchia:

"Nations, countless in number and exceeding fierce, have occupied all the

Gauls; Quadians, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepidians, Herulians, Saxons,

Burgundians, Allemannians, Pannonians, and even Assyrians have laid waste all

that there is between the Alps and the Pyrenees, the ocean and the Rhine.

Sad destiny of the Commonwealth!  Mayence, once a noble city, hath been taken

and destroyed; thousands of men were slaughtered in the church.  Worms hath

fallen after a long siege.  The inhabitants of Rheims, a powerful city, and

those of Amiens, Arras, Terouanne, at the extremity of Gaul, Tournay, Spires,

and Strasburg have been carried away to Germany.  All hath been ravaged in

Aquitania (Novempopulania), Lyonness, and Narbonensis; the towns, save a few,

are dispeopled; the sword pursueth them abroad and famine at home.  I cannot

speak without tears of Toulouse; if she be not reduced to equal ruin, it is

to the merits of her holy bishop Exuperus that she oweth it."

     Then took place throughout the Roman Empire, in the East as well as in

the West, in Asia and Africa as well as in Europe, the last grand struggle

between the Roman armies and barbaric nations.  Armies is the proper term;

for, to tell the truth, there was no longer a Roman nation, and very seldom a

Roman emperor with some little capacity for government or war.  The long

continuance of despotism and slavery had enervated equally the ruling power

and the people; everything depended on the soldiers and their generals.  It

was in Gaul that the struggle was most obstinate and most promptly brought to

a decisive issue, and the confusion there was as great as the obstinacy.

Barbaric peoplets served in the ranks and barbaric leaders held the command

of the Roman armies; Stilicho was a Goth; Arbogastes and Mellobaudes were

Franks; Ricimer was a Suevian.  The Roman generals, Bonifacius, Aetius,

Aegidius, Syagrius, at one time fought the barbarians, at another negotiated

with such and such of them, either to entice them to take service against

other barbarians, or to promote the objects of personal ambition; for the

Roman generals also, under the titles of patrician, consul, or proconsul,

aspired to and attained a sort of political independence, and contributed to

the dismemberment of the empire in the very act of defending it.

     No later than A.D. 412 two German nations, the Visigoths and the

Burgundians, took their stand definitively in Gaul, and founded there two new

kingdoms: the Visigoths, under their kings Ataulph and Wallia, in Aquitania

and Narbonensis; the Burgundians, under their kings Gundichaire and Gundioch,

in Lyonnais, from the southern point of Alsatia right into Provence, along

the two banks of the Saone and the left bank of the Rhone, and also in

Switzerland.  In 451 the arrival in Gaul of the Huns and their king

Attila - already famous, both king and nation, for their wild habits, their

fierce valor, and their successes against the Eastern Empire - gravely

complicated the situation.  The common interest of resistance against the

most barbarous of barbarians, and the renown and energy of Aetius, united,

for the moment, the old and new masters of Gaul; Romans, Gauls, Visigoths,

Burgundians, Franks, Alans, Saxons, and Britons formed the army led by Aetius

against that of Attila, who also had in his ranks Goths, Burgundians,

Gepidians, Alans, and beyond-Rhine Franks, gathered together and enlisted on

his road.  It was a chaos and a conflict of barbarians, of every name and

race, disputing one with another, pell-mell, the remnants of the Roman Empire

torn asunder and in dissolution.

     Attila had already arrived before Orleans, and was laying siege to it.

The bishop, St. Anianus, sustained awhile the courage of the besieged by

promising them aid from Aetius and his allies.  The aid was slow to come; and

the bishop sent to Aetius a message: "If thou be not here this very day, my

son, it will be too late."  Still Aetius came not.  The people of Orleans

determined to surrender; the gates flew open; the Huns entered; the

plundering began without much disorder; "wagons were stationed to receive the

booty as it was taken from the houses, and the captives, arranged in groups,

were divided by lot between the victorious chieftains."  Suddenly a shout

reechoed through the streets: it was Aetius, Theodoric, and Torismund, his

son, who were coming with the eagles of the Roman legions and with the

banners of the Visigoths.  A fight took place between them and the Huns, at

first on the banks of the Loire, and then in the streets of the city.  The

people of Orleans joined their liberators; the danger was great for the Huns,

and Attila ordered a retreat.

     It was the 14th of June 451, and that day was for a long while

celebrated in the church of Orleans as the date of a signal deliverance.  The

Huns retired toward Champagne, which they had already crossed at their coming

into Gaul; and when they were before Troyes, the bishop, St. Lupus, repaired

to Attila's camp, and besought him to spare a defenceless city, which had

neither walls nor garrison.  "So be it," answered Attila; "but thou shalt

come with me and see the Rhine; I promise then to send thee back again."

With mingled prudence and superstition the barbarian meant to keep the holy

man as a hostage.  The Huns arrived at the plains hard by Chalons-sur-Marne;

Aetius and all his allies had followed them; and Attila, perceiving that a

battle was inevitable, halted in a position for delivering it.  The Gothic

historian Jornandes says that he consulted his priests, who answered that the

Huns would be beaten, but that the general of the enemy would fall in the

fight.  In this prophecy Attila saw predicted the death of Aetius, his most

formidable enemy; and the struggle commenced.  There is no precise

information about the date; but "it was," says Jornandes, "a battle which for

atrocity, multitude, horror, and stubbornness has not the like in the records

of antiquity."

     Historians vary in their exaggerations of the numbers engaged and

killed: according to some, three hundred thousand, according to others one

hundred and sixty-two thousand, were left on the field of battle.  Theodoric,

king of the Visigoths, was killed.  Some chroniclers name Meroveus as king of

the Franks, settled in Belgica, near Tongres, who formed part of the army of

Aetius.  They even attribute to him a brilliant attack made on the eve of the

battle upon the Gepidians, allies of the Huns, when ninety thousand men fell

according to some, and only fifteen thousand according to others.  The

numbers are purely imaginary, and even the fact is doubtful.  However, the

battle of Chalons drove the Huns out of Gaul, and was the last victory in

Gaul, gained still in the name of the Roman Empire, but in reality for the

advantage of the German nations which had already conquered it.  Twenty-four

years afterward the very name of Roman Empire disappeared with Augustulus,

the last of the emperors of the West.

     Thirty years after the battle of Chalons the Franks settled in Gaul were

not yet united as one nation; several tribes with this name, independent one

of another, were planted between the Rhine and the Somme; there were some in

the environs of Cologne, Calais, Cambrai, even beyond the Seine and as far as

Le Mans, on the confines of the Britons.  This is one of the reasons of the

confusion that prevails in the ancient chronicles about the chieftains or

kings of these tribes, their names and dates, and the extent and site of

their possessions.  Pharamond, Clodion, Meroveus, and Childeric cannot be

considered as kings of France and placed at the beginning of her history.  If

they are met with in connection with historical facts, fabulous legends or

fanciful traditions are mingled with them; Priam appears as a predecessor of

Pharamond; Clodion, who passes for having been the first to bear and transmit

to the Frankish kings the title of "long-haired," is represented as the son,

at one time of Pharamond, at another of another chieftain named Theodemer;

romantic adventures, spoilt by geographical mistakes, adorn the life of

Childeric.

     All that can be distinctly affirmed is that, from A.D. 450 to 480, the

two principal Frankish tribes were those of the Salian Franks and the

Ripuarian Franks, settled, the latter in the east of Belgica, on the banks of

the Moselle and the Rhine; the former toward the west, between the Meuse, the

ocean, and the Somme.  Meroveus, whose name was perpetuated in his line, was

one of the principal chieftains of the Salian Franks; and his son Childeric,

who resided at Tournai, where his tomb was discovered in 1655, was the father

of Clovis, who succeeded him in 481, and with whom really commenced the

kingdom and history of France.

     Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he became king of the

Salian Franks of Tournai.  Five years afterward his ruling passion, ambition,

exhibited itself, together with that mixture of boldness and craft which was

to characterize his whole life.  He had two neighbors: one, hostile to the

Franks, the Roman patrician Syagrius, who was left master at Soissons after

the death of his father Aegidius, and whom Gregory of Tours calls "king of

the Romans"; the other, a Salian-Frankish chieftain, just as Clovis was, and

related to him, Ragnacaire, who was settled at Cambrai.  Clovis induced

Ragnacaire to join him in a campaign against Syagrius.  They fought, and

Syagrius was driven to take refuge in Southern Gaul, with Alaric, king of the

Visigoths.

     Clovis, not content with taking possession of Soissons, and anxious to

prevent any troublesome return, demanded of Alaric to send Syagrius back to

him, threatening war if the request were refused.  The Goth, less bellicose

than the Frank, delivered up Syagrius to the envoys of Clovis, who

immediately had him secretly put to death, settled himself at Soissons, and

from thence set on foot, in the country between the Aisne and the Loire,

plundering and subjugating expeditions which speedily increased his domains

and his wealth, and extended far and wide his fame as well as his ambition.

The Franks who accompanied him were not long before they also felt the growth

of his power; like him they were pagans, and the treasures of the Christian

churches counted for a great deal in the booty they had to divide.  On one of

their expeditions they had taken in the church of Rheims, among other things,

a vase "of marvelous size and beauty."

     The bishop of Rheims, St. Remi, was not quite a stranger to Clovis.

Some years before, when he had heard that the son of Childeric had become

king of the Franks of Tournai, he had written to congratulate him.  "We are

informed," said he, "that thou hast undertaken the conduct of affairs; it is

no marvel that thou beginnest to be what thy fathers ever were;" and, while

taking care to put himself on good terms with the young pagan chieftain, the

bishop added to his felicitations some pious Christian counsel, without

letting any attempt at conversion be mixed up with his moral exhortations.

The bishop, informed of the removal of the vase, sent to Clovis a messenger

begging the return, if not of all his church's ornaments, at any rate of

that.  "Follow us as far as Soissons," said Clovis to the messenger; "it is

there the partition is to take place of what we have captured; when the lots

shall have given me the vase, I will do what the bishop demands."

     When Soissons was reached, and all the booty had been placed in the

midst of the host, the king said: "Valiant warriors, I pray you not to refuse

me, over and above my share, this vase here."  At these words of the king,

those who were of sound mind among the assembly answered: "Glorious king,

everything we see here is thine, and we ourselves are submissive to thy

commands.  Do thou as seemeth good to thee, for there is none that can resist

thy power."  When they had thus spoken, a certain Frank, light-minded,

jealous, and vain, cried out aloud as he struck the vase with his battle-axe,

"Thou shalt have naught of all this save what the lots shall truly give

thee."  At these words all were astounded; but the king bore the insult with

sweet patience, and, accepting the vase, he gave it to the messenger, hiding

his wound in the recesses of his heart.  At the end of a year he ordered all

his host to assemble fully equipped at the March parade, to have their arms

inspected.  After having passed in review all the other warriors, he came to

him who had struck the vase.  "None," said he, "hath brought hither arms so

ill-kept as thine; nor lance, nor sword, nor battle-axe are in condition for

service."  And wresting from him his axe he flung it on the ground.  The man

stooped down a little to pick it up, and forthwith the King, raising with

both hands his own battle-axe, drove it into his skull, saying, "Thus didst

thou to the vase of Soissons!"  On the death of this fellow he bade the rest

begone, and by this act made himself greatly feared.

     A bold and unexpected deed has always a great effect on men: with his

Frankish warriors, as well as with his Roman and Gothic foes, Clovis had at

command the instincts of patience and brutality in turn; he could bear a

mortification and take vengeance in due season.  While prosecuting his course

of plunder and war in Eastern Belgica, on the banks of the Meuse, Clovis was

inspired with a wish to get married.  He had heard tell of a young girl, like

himself of the Germanic royal line, Clotilde, niece of Gondebaud, at that

time king of the Burgundians.  She was dubbed beautiful, wise, and

well-informed; but her situation was melancholy and perilous.  Ambition and

fraternal hatred had devastated her family.  Her father, Chilperic, and her

two brothers, had been put to death by her uncle Gondebaud, who had caused

her mother, Agrippina, to be thrown into the Rhone, with a stone round her

neck, and drowned.  Two sisters alone had survived this slaughter: the elder,

Chrona, had taken religious vows; the other, Clotilde, was living almost in

exile at Geneva, absorbed in works of piety and charity.

     The principal historian of this epoch, Gregory of Tours, an almost

contemporary authority, for he was elected bishop sixty-two years after the

death of Clovis, says simply: "Clovis at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud

to ask Clotilde in marriage.  Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, put her into

the hands of the envoys, who took her promptly to the King.  Clovis at sight

of her was transported with joy, and married her."  But to this short account

other chroniclers, among them Fredegaire, who wrote a commentary upon and a

continuation of Gregory of Tours' work, added details which deserve

reproduction, first as a picture of manners, next for the better

understanding of history.  "As he was not allowed to see Clotilde," says

Fredegaire, "Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all his

wit to come nigh her.  Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed in rags

and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant.  To insure confidence in

himself he took with him the ring of Clovis.  On his arrival at Geneva,

Clotilde received him as a pilgrim charitably, and while she was washing his

feet Aurelian, bending toward her, said, under his breath, 'Lady, I have

great matters to announce to thee if thou deign to permit me secret

revelation.'  She, consenting, replied, 'Say on.'  'Clovis, king of the

Franks,' said he, 'hath sent me thee: if it be the will of God, he would fain

raise thee to his high rank by marriage; and that thou mayest be certified

thereof, he sendeth thee this ring.'  She accepted the ring with great joy,

and said to Aurelian, 'Take for recompense of thy pains these hundred sous in

gold and this ring of mine.  Return promptly to thy lord; if he would fain

unite me to him by marriage, let him send without delay messengers to demand

me of my uncle Gondebaud, and let the messengers who shall come take me away

in haste, so soon as they shall have obtained permission; if they haste not I

fear lest a certain sage, one Aridius, may return from Constantinople, and,

if he arrive beforehand, all this matter will by his counsel come to naught.'

     "Aurelian returned in the same disguise under which he had come.  On

approaching the territory of Orleans, and at no great distance from his

house, he had taken as travelling companion a certain poor mendicant, by whom

he, having fallen asleep from sheer fatigue, and thinking himself safe, was

robbed of his wallet and the hundred sous in gold that it contained.  On

awakening, Aurelian was sorely vexed, ran swiftly home, and sent his servants

in all directions in search of the mendicant who had stolen his wallet.  He

was found and brought to Aurelian, who, after drubbing him soundly for three

days, let him go his way.  He afterward told Clovis all that had passed and

what Clotilde suggested.  Clovis, pleased with his success and with

Clotilde's notion, at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud to demand his niece

in marriage.  Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, and flattered at the idea of

making a friend of Clovis, promised to give her to him.  Then the deputation,

having offered the denier and the sou, according to the custom of the Franks,

espoused Clotilde in the name of Clovis, and demanded that she be given up to

them to be married.

     "Without any delay the council was assembled at Chalons, and

preparations made for the nuptials.  The Franks, having arrived with all

speed, received her from the hands of Gondebaud, put her into a covered

carriage, and escorted her to Clovis, together with much treasure.  She,

however, having already learned that Aridius was on his way back, said to the

Frankish lords, 'If ye would take me into the presence of your lord, let me

descend from this carriage, mount me on horseback, and get you hence as fast

as ye may; for never in this carriage shall I reach the presence of your

lord.'

     "Aridius, in fact, returned very speedily from Marseilles, and

Gondebaud, on seeing him, said to him, 'Thou knowest that we have made

friends with the Franks, and that I have given my niece to Clovis to wife.'

'This,' answered Aridius, 'is no bond of friendship, but the beginning of

perpetual strife.  Thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, that thou didst

slay Clotilde's father, thy brother Chilperic, that thou didst drown her

mother, and that thou didst cut off her brothers' heads and cast their bodies

into a well.  If Clotilde become powerful she will avenge the wrongs of her

relatives.  Send thou forthwith a troop in chase, and have her brought back

to thee.  It will be easier for thee to bear the wrath of one person than to

be perpetually at strife, thyself and thine, with all the Franks.'  And

Gondebaud did send forthwith a troop in chase to fetch back Clotilde with the

carriage and all the treasure; but she, on approaching Villers, where Clovis

was waiting for her, in the territory of the Troyes, and before passing the

Burgundian frontier, urged them who escorted her to disperse right and left

over a space of twelve leagues in the country whence she was departing, to

plunder and burn; and that having been done with the permission of Clovis,

she cried aloud, 'I thank thee, God omnipotent, for that I see the

commencement of vengeance for my parents and my brethren!'"

     The majority of the learned have regarded this account of Fredegaire as

a romantic fable, and have declined to give it a place in history.  M.

Fauriel, one of the most learned associates of the Academy of Inscriptions,

has given much the same opinion, but he nevertheless adds: "Whatever may be

their authorship, the fables in question are historic in the sense that they

relate to real facts of which they are a poetical expression, a romantic

development, conceived with the idea of popularizing the Frankish kings among

the Gallo-Roman subjects."  It cannot, however, be admitted that a desire to

popularize the Frankish kings is a sufficient and truth-like explanation of

these tales of the Gallo-Roman chroniclers, or that they are no more than "a

poetical expression, a romantic development" of the real facts briefly noted

by Gregory of Tours; the tales have a graver origin and contain more truth

than would be presumed from some of the anecdotes and sayings mixed up with

them.  In the condition of minds and parties in Gaul at the end of the fifth

century the marriage of Clovis and Clotilde was, for the public of the

period, for the barbarians and for the Gallo-Romans, a great matter.  Clovis

and the Franks were still pagans; Gondebaud and the Burgundians were

Christians, but Arians; Clotilde was a Catholic Christian.  To which of the

two, Catholics or Arians, would Clovis ally himself?  To whom, Arian, pagan,

or Catholic, would Clotilde be married?

     Assuredly the bishops, priests, and all the Gallo-Roman clergy, for the

most part Catholics, desired to see Clovis, that young and audacious Frankish

chieftain, take to wife a Catholic rather than an Arian or a pagan, and hoped

to convert the pagan Clovis to Christianity much more easily than an Arian to

orthodoxy.  The question between Catholic orthodoxy and Arianism was, at that

time, a vital question for Christianity in its entirety, and St. Athanasius

was not wrong in attributing to it supreme importance.  It may be presumed

that the Catholic clergy, the bishop of Rheims, or the bishop of Langres was

no stranger to the repeated praises which turned the thoughts of the Frankish

King toward the Burgundian princess, and the idea of their marriage once set

afloat, the Catholics, priesthood or laity, labored undoubtedly to push it

forward, while the Burgundian Arians exerted themselves to prevent it.

Part II.

     Thus there took place between opposing influences, religious and

national, a most animated struggle.  No astonishment can be felt, then, at

the obstacles the marriage encountered, at the complications mingled with it,

and at the indirect means employed on both sides to cause its success or

failure.  The account of Fredegaire is but a picture of this struggle and its

incidents, a little amplified or altered by imagination or the credulity of

the period; but the essential features of the picture, the disguise of

Aurelian, the hurry of Clotilde, the prudent recollection of Aridius,

Gondebaud's alternations of fear and violence, and Clotilde's vindictive

passion when she is once out of danger - there is nothing in all this out of

keeping with the manners of the time or the position of the actors.  Let it

be added that Aurelian and Aridius are real personages who are met with

elsewhere in history, and whose parts as played on the occasion of Clotilde's

marriage are in harmony with the other traces that remain of their lives.

     The consequences of the marriage justified before long the importance

which had on all sides been attached to it.  Clotilde had a son; she was

anxious to have him baptized, and urged her husband to consent.  "The gods

you worship," said she, "are naught, and can do naught for themselves or

others; they are of wood or stone or metal."  Clovis resisted, saying: "It is

by the command of our gods that all things are created and brought forth.  It

is plain that your God hath no power; there is no proof even that he is of

the race of the gods."  But Clotilde prevailed; and she had her son baptized

solemnly, hoping that the striking nature of the ceremony might win to the

faith the father whom her words and prayers had been powerless to touch.  The

child soon died, and Clovis bitterly reproached the Queen, saying: "Had the

child been dedicated to my gods he would be alive; he was baptized in the

name of your God, and he could not live."  Clotilde defended her God and

prayed.  She had a second son who was also baptized, and fell sick.  "It

cannot be otherwise with him than with his brother," said Clovis; "baptized

in the name of your Christ, he is going to die."  But the child was cured,

and lived; and Clovis was pacified and less incredulous of Christ.

     An event then came to pass which affected him still more than the

sickness or cure of his children.

     In 496 the Alemannians, a Germanic confederation like the Franks, who

also had been, for some time past, assailing the Roman Empire on the banks of

the Rhine or the frontiers of Switzerland, crossed the river and invaded the

settlements of the Franks on the left bank.  Clovis went to the aid of his

confederation and attacked the Alemannians at Tolbiac, near Cologne.  He had

with him Aurelian, who had been his messenger to Clotilde, whom he had made

duke of Melun, and who commanded the forces of Sens.  The battle was going

ill; the Franks were wavering and Clovis was anxious.  Before setting out he

had, according to Fredegaire, promised his wife that if he were victorious he

would turn Christian.

     Other chroniclers say that Aurelian, seeing the battle in danger of

being lost, said to Clovis, "May lord King, believe only on the Lord of

heaven whom the Queen, my mistress, preacheth."  Clovis cried out with