PART II.THE FRANKS.

THE FRANK CONFEDERACY.—CLOVIS, THE FOUNDER OF THE FRANK MONARCHY.

A great deal of labor and ingenuity has been wasted in futile endeavors to trace the origin of adistinctFrank nation; however, after exhausting every possible means of research, and every probable and improbable suggestion of fancy, the most rational writers are now agreed in looking upon the supposed existence of a distinctFranknation as a myth,[71]and in believing that the name ofFranksorFreemenwas assumed, most probably about the middle of the third century after Christ, by aleague of several Germanic nations, of whom the most important were theSigambriansand theCatti. The former constituted, with theBructeri, theChamavians, theChattuarii, and perhaps also part of theBatavians, thelowerbranch of the confederacy; towards the end of the third century their settlements extended along the eastern bank of the Rhine, from the Lippe down to the mouth of the great German river; they occupied also the island of the Batavians, and the land between the Rhine and Meuse, and down to the Scheld. From the settlement of the Sigambrians on theYsselorSala, this branch of the confederacy received thename of theSalian[72]Franks. TheCatti, theAmbsivarians, and some other tribes, (including perhaps even theHermunduri, orThuringians?) constituted theupperbranch of the confederacy.

The upper Franks extended their settlements from the lands between the Mein and Lippe gradually along both banks of the Rhine, from Mayence to Cologne; and, although repeatedly driven back by the Romans, they ultimately retained possession of the left bank of the river; whence they were also calledRiparianorRipuarianFranks (from the Latinripa, bank, shore).

The Franks repeatedly invaded Gaul, more particularly in the reigns of Valerian[73](253-260), and of Gallienus (260-268); and though the Romans boast of numerous victories achieved at the time against them, under the leadership of Posthumus, the general of Valerian, but who afterwards usurped the empire in Gaul,[74]yet it is certain that the Franks not only carried their devastations from the Rhine to the foot of the Pyrenees, but numbers of them actually crossed these mountains, and ravaged Spain during twelve years; when they had exhausted that unfortunate country, they seized on some vessels in the ports of Spain, and crossed over to the coast of Africa,where their sudden appearance created the utmost consternation. The Emperor Probus defeated the Franks in 277, and transported a colony of them to the sea-coast of Pontus, where he established them with a view of strengthening the frontier against the inroads of the Alani. But impelled by their unconquerable love of country and freedom, they seized on a number of vessels in one of the harbors of the Euxine, sailed boldly through the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, and, cruising along the coast of the Mediterranean, made frequent descents upon the coasts of Asia, Greece, and Africa, and actually took and sacked the opulent city of Syracuse, in the island of Sicily; whence they proceeded to the Columns of Hercules, where they made their way into the Atlantic, and coasting round Spain and Gaul, reached the British Channel, sailed through it, and landed ultimately in safety, and richly laden with spoil, on the Batavian shore.

In 287, the MenapianCarausius, who usurped the imperial purple in Britain, granted to the Franks the island of the Batavians, and the land between Meuse and Scheld.Constantius(293), andConstantine(313), expelled them from these provinces; the Ripuarians also felt the heavy hand of Constantine, and of his sonCrispus; the latter expelled them for a time from the left bank of the Rhine. But Julian found both the Salians and the Ripuarians in their old places; and, though successful against both (357 and 358), contented himself with the partial expulsion of the Ripuarians and the Chamavians, leaving the Sigambrians in quiet possession of the island of the Batavians, and the extensive district of Brabant, which they had occupied, on condition that they should henceforth hold themselves subjects and auxiliaries of the Roman empire. However, the expelled tribes soon made their reappearance on the banks of the Rhine, and, at the end of the fourth century, the Franks had regained complete possession of their old quarters.

Stilicho, the great minister and general of the contemptible Honorius, made it one of the first acts of his administration to secure the alliance of the warlike Franks against the enemies of Rome (395). He succeeded so well, itwould appear, that the Franks actually handed over to the discretion of his justice, one of their kings or dukes,[75]Marcomir, who was accused of having violated the faith of treaties; the accused prince was exiled to Tuscany, his brotherSunno, who attempted to avenge the insult which he deemed had been put upon the nation by this degradation of the dignity of one of its chiefs, met with a harsher fate at the hands of his own countrymen: he was slain by them; and the princes whom Stilicho had appointed, were cheerfully acknowledged. The fact that Stilicho himself was of German (Vandalian) extraction, may account in some degree for this extraordinary subserviency of the Franks to the will and wishes of the master of the Western Empire. On this occasion, the Franks had engaged to protect the province of Gaul against invasion from the side of Germany. An opportunity of proving their sincerity and fidelity to Rome, or perhaps rather to the great minister who had made the treaty of alliance with them, offered in the year 406, when the confederated nations of theVandals, theAlani, theSuevi, and theBurgundians, were moving in a body to the Rhine with the intention of invading Gaul; and most honestly and valiantly indeed did the Franks acquit themselves of the duty undertaken by them. It so happened that the Vandals were the first to make their appearance on the bank of the river; proudly relying on their numbers they attempted to force the passage, without awaiting the coming up of the other confederated nations. They paid the penalty of their rashness; twenty thousand of them were slain, among them their king,Godigisclus; and the opportune arrival of theAlani, whose squadrons trampled down the infantry of the Franks, alone saved the nation of the Vandals from total destruction. Attacked by the combined forces of theconfederates, the Franks were at last compelled to give way. On the 31st December, 406, the Suevi, the Alani, the Vandals, and the Burgundians, crossed the frozen Rhine without further opposition, and thus entered the defenceless provinces of Gaul, where the Burgundians formed a lasting settlement, the other nations of the confederacy proceeding subsequently further on to Spain and Lusitania.

History leaves us in the dark as to the period when the Franks first submitted to the sway ofhereditaryprinces; but this much seems certain, that it must have been long before the time of Pharamond; and also that their long-haired kings[76]did not derive the name ofMerovingians, from Meroveus, the grandson of Pharamond, but either from some more ancient Meroveus; or perhaps fromMerve, the name which the Meuse receives after its union with the Waal (an arm of the Rhine); or from the same name of a castle near Dortrecht, supposed to have been the family seat of the Frankian kings.

It would appear thatPharamond, the son of Marcomir, was elevated on the buckler,[77]about 410, and that his sonClodionsucceeded him in 428. It is somewhat doubtful whether these two kings held sway over the Ripuarians as well as over the Salians, or even over all the nations which constituted the league of the latter. Clodion had his residence atDispargum(Duisborch?[78]), in Brabant, somewhere between Louvain and Brussels. Soon after his accession, this prince invaded Belgic Gaul, took Tournay and Cambray, and advanced as far as the river Somme. He was surprised and defeated in the plains of Artois, byÆtius, the general of the Western empire (430); but that astute politician deemed it the wiser course to securethe friendship of the powerful leader of the warlike Franks, and therefore conceded to him free possession of the conquered province.Clodiondied about 448 (450?) He left two sons who disputed his succession. All we can gather from the very confused and contradictory accounts of this period, is that the younger of the two sons, whose name is not mentioned, was raised on the buckler by the Ripuarian, the elder,MerveyorMeroveus,[79]by the Salian Franks; and that the former joinedAttilain his invasion of Gaul, and fought on the side of the Huns in the great battle of Chalons (451); whilst Meroveus, with his Salians joined the standard of Ætius, and combated on the side of the Romans and Visigoths. Mervey’s son,Childeric, offended the Franks by his excesses and his arbitrary proceedings: he was deposed by them, and was compelled to seek a refuge at the court of the King of the Thuringians,BisinusorBasinus. The Franks having thus disposed of their king, proceeded to bestow the royal dignity uponÆgidius, the Roman master-general of Gaul, who, after the compelled abdication and the most suspicious death of the EmperorMajorian, in 461, had refused to acknowledge the successor forced upon the acceptance of the Roman Senate by the all-powerful PatricianRicimer, the instigator of Majorian’s fall, and had assumed the sovereignty over theremnantof the Gallic province which still obeyed the Roman sway. However, a few years after, the Franks, who found the Roman system of taxation more oppressive and objectionable than any act of Childeric’s, recalled that prince, and, under his guidance, expelled the “tax-gatherers” (465). Ægidius acquiesced with a goodgrace in a change which he had not the power to oppose. Childeric had been most hospitably entertained by KingBisinus; but thehospitalityextended to him by the wife of that monarch, QueenBasina, was, by all accounts, still moreliberalthan that shown to the interesting guest by her worthy husband. After Childeric’s restoration, Basina left her husband, and rejoined her lover: the fruit of this voluntary union wasClovis, who, at the age of fifteen, succeeded, by his father’s death, to the rule of that portion of the Salian territory, over which Childeric had held sway, and which was confined to the island of the Batavians, with the ancient dioceses of Tournay and Arras; for the custom of the Franks to divide the treasures and territories of a deceased duke or king equally among his sons, had had the natural effect to split the kingdom of Pharamond into several parts independent of each other.Cloviscombined with an insatiable ambition, all the qualities requisite to satisfy that all-absorbing passion. His personal bravery was controlled and directed by cool and consummate prudence. He wielded thefrancisca(the battle-axe of the Franks) with formidable strength and skill; and he did not hesitate, when occasion required, to make his own soldiers feel the weight of his arm and the precision of his aim. He subjected the barbarians whom he commanded to the strict rules of a severe discipline which he enforced with unbending rigor. A crafty and astute politician, he was endowed with the most essential requisites for success,patienceandperseverance. In the pursuit and accomplishment of his ambitious designs, he trampled on every law of God and nature: no feeling of pity ever stayed, no fear of retribution ever restrained, his murderous hands. He was indeed the worthy progenitor of a line of princes fit to take the proudest place among the highest aristocracy of crime, to put to the blush theNeros, theCaligulas, theDomitians, theCaracallas, theElagabalusof imperial Rome, and to rank with theBourbons, theHapsburgsand theTudors. At the age of twenty, he made war uponSyagrius, the son of Ægidius, who had inherited from his father the city and diocese of Soissons, and whose sway was acknowledged also by the cities and territories of Rheims, Troyes,Beauvais and Amiens. In alliance with his cousinRagnachar, King of the Franks of Cambray, and some other Merovingian princes, he defeated Syagrius at Soissons, and reduced in the brief space of a few months the remnant of the Roman dominion in Gaul, and which had survived ten years the extinction of the Western empire (486). Syagrius fled to Thoulouse, where he flattered himself to find a safe asylum; but in vain:Alaric II., the son of the greatEuric, was a minor, and the men who governed the kingdom of the Visigoths in his name, were but too readily intimidated by the threats of Clovis, and pusillanimously delivered up the hapless fugitive to certain death. A few years after (491), Clovis enlarged his dominions towards the east by the ample diocese of Tongres. In 498, he married the Burgundian princessClotilda, who, in the midst of an Arian court, had been educated in the Nicean faith.[80]Clotilda’s endeavors to convert her husband to Christianity were not very successful at first, though he consented to the baptism of his first-born son; the sudden death of the infant, which the ignorant and superstitious Pagan was inclined to attribute to the anger of his gods, had well-nigh proved fatal to any further attempt at conversion; still the beauty and blandishments of the pious queen succeeded at last in overcoming the scruples and apprehensions of her husband, and gaining his consent to a repetition of the experiment: this time the infant survived, and Clovis began to listen with greater favor to the exhortations of his Christian spouse.

In the year 496, the Alemanni,[81]who occupied both banks of the Rhine, from the source of that river to its conflux with the Mein and the Moselle, and had spread themselves over the modern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, invaded the territories ofSigebert, the king of the Ripuarian Franks, who had his seat at Cologne. Sigebert, unable to resist the invaders single-handed, invoked the powerful aid of his cousin, Clovis, and the latter hastened at once to the rescue. He encountered the invaders in the plain ofTolbiac(Zülpich), about twenty-four miles from Cologne. A fierce battle ensued. For several hours it raged with unabated fury, without any decided advantage being gained by either party; at length the Franks gave way, and the Alemanni raised shouts of victory. Clovis saw his dream of power and ambition rapidly fading away; in his extremity he invoked the God of Clotilda and the Christians, to grant him the victory over his enemies, which service he vowed duly to acknowledge, by consenting to be baptised.[82]Resolved, however, to do his share also towardsthe achievement of the victory which he was imploring the Christian Lord of Hosts to vouchsafe him, he rallied his discomfited troops, and placing himself at their head, led them on again to the attack, and by his valor and conduct, succeeded in restoring the battle. The franciscas, and the heavy swords of the Franks, made fearful havoc in the hostile ranks; the king, and many of the most valiant chiefs of the Alemanni, were slain, and ere evening the power of one of the fiercest and most warlike nations of Germany, was annihilated. Pursued by the victorious Franks into the heart of their forests, the Alemanni were forced to submit to the yoke of the conqueror; some of their tribes fled to the territory of the Gothic king of Italy,Theodoric, who assigned them settlements in Rhætia, and interceded, with his brother-in-law,[83]in favor of the conquered nation.

In his distress, Clovis had vowed to adore the God of the Christians, if He would succour him; the danger past, and the victory achieved, the perfidious Frank would gladly have made light of his vow, but for the incessant importunities of Clotilda, and of Remigius, the Catholic bishop of Rheims. On the day of Christmas in the same year, (496), Clovis was baptised in the Cathedral of Rheims with 3000 of his warlike subjects; and the remainder of the Salians speedily followed the example. As the kings of the Goths, Burgundians, and Vandals were Arians, and even the Greek emperor, Anastasius, was not quite free from the taint of heresy; the Bishop of Rome,Anastasius II., overjoyed at the conversion of the powerful king of the Franks to the Nicean faith, hailed the neophyte as the “Most Christian King.”

The conversion of Clovis to the Catholic faith stood him in excellent need in his schemes of further aggrandisement. His arms were henceforward supported by the favor and zeal of the Catholic clergy, more especially in the discontented cities of Gaul, under the sway of the Arian kings of the Visigoths and the Burgundians. The Armoricans, or Bretons, in the north-western provinces of Gaul, who had hitherto bravely and successfully resisted all attempts of thePaganchief to conquer them, were now gradually induced to submit to an equal and honorable union with a Christian people, governed by aCatholicking (497-500); and the remnants of the Roman troops (most of them of barbarian extraction), also acknowledged the sway of Clovis, on condition of their being permitted to retain their arms, their ensigns, and their peculiar dress and institutions.

Clotilda had never ceased to urge her husband to make war upon her uncle Gundobald, the murderer of her father. Her other uncle,Godegesil, had been permitted by his rapacious brother to retain the dependent principality of Geneva. But fearful lest Gundobald should treat him in the end the same as he had his other brothers, he lent a willing ear to the suggestions of his niece, and the tempting offers of the Frankish king, and entered into a secret compact with the latter to betray and abandon the cause of his brother on the first favorable opportunity. Hereupon Clovis declared war against the King of Burgundy, and invaded his territories: in the year 500 or 501, the armies of the Franks and the Burgundians met between Langres and Dijon. The treacherous desertion, at the decisive moment, of Godegesil and the troops of Geneva, saved Clovis from defeat. Apprehensive of the disaffection of the Gauls, Gundobald abandoned the castle of Dijon, and the important cities of Lyons and Vienna, to the king of the Franks, and continued his flight till he had reached Avignon; but here he made a stand, and defended the city with such skill and vigor, that Clovis ultimately consented to a treaty of peace, which made the king of Burgundy tributary to him, and stipulated the cession of the province of Vienna to Godegesil, as a reward for his treachery. Agarrison of 5000 Franks was left at Vienna, to secure the somewhat doubtful allegiance of Godegesil, and also to protect the latter against the vengeance of his offended brother. But Gundobald, unscrupulous and truculent though he was in the pursuit of his grasping policy, was yet not lacking wisdom. As soon as the conclusion of the peace with Clovis had restored to him the remnant of his kingdom, he applied himself to gain the affections of his Roman and Gallic subjects, by the promulgation of a code of wise and impartial laws[84](502), and to conciliate the Catholic prelates by artful promises of his approaching conversion from the errors of the Arian heresy. Having strengthened his position, moreover, by alliances with the kings of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, he suddenly invaded the territories which Clovis had compelled him to cede to his brother, and surprised Vienna and its Frankish garrison ere his brother was even fully aware of his hostile intentions. Godegesil sought refuge in a church; but the protection of the holy precincts availed him nought; he was struck down dead at the altar by his remorseless brother. The provinces of Geneva and Vienna were re-united to the Burgundian kingdom; the captive Franks were sent to the king of the Visigoths, who settled them in the territory of Thoulouse. Clovis, who could now no longer rely upon the assistance of a traitor in the camp of Gundobald, deemed it the wiser course to submit to the altered state of affairs, and to content himself with the alliance and the promised military service of the King of Burgundy.

Already before the Burgundian war, Clovis had cast his covetous eyes upon the fair provinces of the south of Gaul, which were held byAlaric II., the King of the Visigoths. Here, also, the disaffection of the Catholic Gauls and Romans promised the best chances of success. Some paltry border-squabble was eagerly laid hold of by Clovis to pick a quarrel with the King of the Visigoths, and war seemed at the time inevitable between the two nations; when Theodoric, Alaric’s father-in-law,[85]interposed his good offices, andsucceeded, by a well-timed threat of an armed intervention, in restraining the aggressive spirit of the Frankish King, (498). A personal interview was proposed between Clovis and Alaric: it was held on the border of the two states, in a small island of the Loire, near Amboise. The two kings met in right royal fashion: they embraced, feasted together, indulged in a profusion of protestations of mutual regard and brotherly affection, and parted full of smiles—and mutual hatred and distrust.

Had Alaric pursued the same wise course as Gundobald, he might have found in the affection of the people under his sway, a safe shield against Frank aggression. But, unfortunately, the Arian could not forbear from inflicting upon his dissenting subjects, those petty acts of tyranny in which dominant sects delight, and which are always sure to create a deeper and more lasting disaffection than any act of political oppression. The Catholic clergy in Aquitaine laid their complaints against their Arian sovereign, before the Catholic King of the Franks; and besought the latter to come to the aid of his co-religionists, and free them from the yoke of their Gothic tyrants. Clovis eagerly seized the pretext. In a general assembly of the Frankish chiefs and the Catholic prelates held at Paris, he declared his intention not to permit the Arian heretics to retain possession any longer of the fairest portion of Gaul. Alaric did his best to prepare for the coming struggle; the army which he collected was much more numerous, indeed, than the military power which Clovis could bring against him; but, unfortunately, a long peace had enervated the descendants of the once so formidable warriors of the first Alaric. They were unable to sustain the fierce shock of the Franks, who totally overthrew and routed them in the battle of Vouglé, near Poitiers, in 507. Alaric himself fell by the hand of his rival; Angoulême, Bordeaux, Thoulouse, submitted to the conqueror, and the whole of Aquitaine acknowledged his sway, (508); and he would have succeeded in driving the Visigoths beyond the Pyrenean mountains, had not the King of Italy thrown the shield of his power over the discomfited nation. The Franks and their Burgundian allies were besieging Arles and Carcassone, when the valiantHibbas, Theodoric’s general,appeared on the scene with a powerful and well-appointed army of Ostrogoths. He defeated the victors of Vouglé, and compelled the ambitious King of the Franks to raise the siege of the two cities, and to lend a willing ear to proposals of an advantageous peace. He then overthrew and slew the bastardGesalic, who had usurped the throne of the Visigoths, to the exclusion of Alaric’s infant son,Amalaric. The latter was now proclaimed King of Spain and Septimania, under the guardianship of his grandfather, Theodoric: Clovis being permitted to retain possession of the land from the Cevennes and the Garonne to the Loire, whilst the Provence was annexed to the dominions of the King of Italy, who thus did not disdain despoiling his own grandson of one of the finest provinces of his kingdom.

The Emperor Anastasius, overjoyed at the humiliation inflicted by Clovis upon the Goths, bestowed upon the King of the Franks the dignity and ensigns of the Roman consulship! (510); which, though in reality a mere empty title, yet invested that monarch, in the eyes of his Roman and Gallic subjects, with the prestige of Imperial authority.

Clovis seeing himself thus in undisputed possession of the greater part of Gaul, thought the time had come to unite the several Frankish tribes into one nation, under his sceptre. But, knowing full well that his Franks would not follow him in an open war against his own kindred of the race of Pharamond, he coolly planned the assassination of the whole family.Sigebert, the king of the Ripuarians, had proved himself a most faithful ally of his Salian cousin; and in the last campaign against the Visigoths, he had sent to his aid a powerful contingent of his Ripuarians, under the command of his own son,Chloderic. Clovis excited the ambition and cupidity of the latter, and succeeded in persuading him to murder his own father; when the horrid deed was perpetrated, the wretched son, intent upon securing the powerful support of the Salian king, offered him part of the treasures of the murdered man. The “fair cousin” sent him word to keep his treasures, and simply to show them to his ambassadors, that he, Clovis, might rejoice in the prosperity of his cousin; but, when the assassin of his father had lifted up the heavy lid of one of the boxes,and was bending down to take out some of the precious articles which it held, he was slain in his turn by one of theambassadorsof Clovis. That most Christian king afterwards solemnly protested to the Ripuarians that Chloderic, the assassin of his father, had fallen by the hand of some unknown avenger, and that he, Clovis, was innocent of the death of either of them. “Surely,” he exclaimed, with well affected horror and indignation, “no one would dare to deemmeguilty of that most horrible of all crimes, the murder of my own kindred!” The Ripuarians believed him, and acknowledged him their king, by raising him on a shield. The next victims wereChararic, the king of the Morinic Franks, in Belgium, and his son. Chararic, had refused his aid to Clovis, in the campaign against Syagrius; the fact had, indeed, occurred rather long ago, but still it answered the purpose of the unscrupulous son of Childeric. Chararic and his son, having fallen into his hands by the grossest treachery, were despoiled of their treasures and their long hair, and ordained priests. When the son, endeavoring to console his father, could not refrain from indignant invectives against the author of their misery, the pious king of the Salians calmly ordered both of them to be slain, as they had “dared to rebel against the will of the Most High!” There remained still the family of the Cambray princes, consisting of three brothers, viz.,Ragnachar,Richar, andRignomer. The pretext in their case was that they still continued Pagans. Clovis bribed some of the chiefs of the tribe withspuriousgold; they fell unawares upon Ragnachar and Richar, bound them, and delivered them into the hands of their “loving cousin.” Addressing the hapless Ragnachar, that monstrous villain exclaimed, “How dare you bring disgrace upon our noble family, by submitting to the indignity of bonds!” and, with a blow of his battle-axe, he spared the wretched captive the trouble of a reply; then turning to the brother of the butchered man, “Hadst thou defended thy brother,” he cried, “they could not have bound him;” and an instant after, the blood and brains of the brothers had mingled their kindred streams on the weapon of the most Christian king. When the wretches who had betrayed their princes into thehands, of the assassin, came to complain that the price of their treachery had been paid inbase coin, he told them, traitors deserved no better reward, and bade them be gone, lest he should feel tempted to avenge upon them the blood of his murdered relations.

Rignomer was disposed of by private assassination, and Clovis might now exclaim: “At last I am king of the Franks.” The worthy bishop of Tours, the chronicler of this, and some of the following reigns of the Merovingians, whilst coolly relating these horrid crimes of his hero, piously informs us that success in all his undertakings was vouchsafed to Clovis by the Most High, and that his enemies were delivered up into his hands,because he walked with a sincere heart in the ways of the Lord, and did that which was right in his sight!![86]What a pity that this godly monarch was not permitted to walk a little longer in the ways of the Lord: an additional score or so of murders would surely have achieved canonisation for him. But the most orthodox and most Christian king was suddenly called away from the scene of his glorious exploits; at the very time when he was revolving mighty schemes of further aggrandisement, and planning, as preliminary step, the assassination of Gundobald, the king of Burgundy, and of Theudes, the regent of Spain, (511). His four sons divided his kingdom between them;Theodoric, (Thierry) the eldest, received the Eastern part,Austrasia,[87](Francia orientalis), and also part of Champagne, and the conquests of Clovis south of the Loire; he established the seat of his government at Metz;Clodomir’sseatwas at Orleans;Clotaire’sat Soissons;Childebert’sat Paris; the share of the latter was calledNeustriaorNeustrasia(Francia occidentalis), a name which was afterwards used to designate the whole of the territories occupied by the Franks between the mouths of the Rhine and the Loire, the Meuse, and the sea.

It is not my intention to smear my pages with the blood and mire of the lives and acts of the Merovingian princes. We will content ourselves here with a brief glance at the principal events and incidents connected with the progress of the Frank empire during the two hundred years that intervene between the death of Clovis and the accession of Charles, afterwards surnamedMartel, as Mayor of the Palace.

In the year 523, the three sons of Clotilda, invited by their unforgiving mother, invaded Burgundy, and attacked the son and successor of Gundobald,Sigismond, whose conversion to the Catholic faith has gained him, in the lying annals penned by the clerical historians of the period, the name of a saint and a martyr, though he had imbrued his hands in the blood of his own son, an innocent youth whom he had basely sacrificed to the pride of his second wife! Sigismond lost a battle and fell soon after into the hands of the sons of Clotilda, who carried him to Orleans, and had him buried alive together with his wife and two of his children—an excellent proof that they had notdegenerated. Sigismond’s brother,Gondemar, defeated the invaders in the battle of Vienna, where Clodomir fell. This gave Gondemar a few years’ respite, as the two brothers, Clotaire and Childebert, were busy sharing the inheritance of Clodomir.[88]But, in 534, the brothers invaded Burgundy again; when Gondemar lost his crown and his liberty, andthe fair Burgundian provinces became the patrimony of the Merovingian princes. In the year 530, Theodoric and Clotaire conquered and annexed the territories of the Thuringians, thus extending their dominion to the banks of the Unstrut. Rhætia and Provence also fell into the hands of the successors of Clovis. Theudobald, the grandson and second successor of Theodoric, or Thierry, died in 554; as he left no heir, Clotaire and Childebert shared his dominions between them; Childebert’s death, in 558, without male heirs, left Clotaire in sole and undisputed possession of the Frankish empire, which now extended from the Atlantic and the Pyrenees to the Unstrut. After having added to the list of his crimes the murder of his son Chramus, and also of the wife and the two daughters of the latter, King Clotaire died in 560. His kingdom was again divided between his four sons,Charibert,Guntram,Sigebert, andChilperic; the eldest of the brothers, Charibert, died in 567. As he left no heir, his territories were divided between the three surviving brothers. But Chilperic was dissatisfied with his share, and this led to a series of civil wars, which terminated only in 613, when Clotaire II., the son of Chilperic and Fredegonda, re-united in his hands the entire empire of the Franks.

It would be difficult to crowd a greater number of more appalling and atrocious crimes, within the short space of half a century, than were committed by the Merovingians, from the time of the death of Charibert up to the re-union of the empire under Clotaire II.; the names of Chilperic, of Fredegonda,[89]of Brunehilda,[90]ofTheuderic,[91]and last, though not least, of the monster Clotaire (second of the name) deserve, indeed, prominent places in the great criminal calendar of the world’s history.

FOOTNOTES:[71]Still we must not omit to state that the lays of ancient Germany, and the old Chronicles of the country, exhibit singular agreement in the reproduction of the popular tradition which makes thenation of the Frankscome from Troy. However, after all, this makes no great difference, as even the most strenuous believers in the existence of a distinct nation of Franks, fully admit that as early as the third century (the time when the name of the Franks first appears in history) that name includedseveralGermanic nations. By some the Thuringians are given as abranchof the Frank nation.[72]Some, however, derive the name from the Old German wordsaljan, i.e. to grant, in reference to part of the territory occupied by the Salian Franks having beengrantedto them by the Romans (byCarausius, in 287, confirmed at a later period byJulianthe Apostate).Leoderives the name from the Celtic word,Sal, i.e. the sea.[73]Valerian was taken prisoner bySapor, King of Persia, in 260, who is said to have treated the fallen emperor with the greatest indignity. Valerian died in captivity.[74]He was one of thenineteenusurpers who rose against Gallienus in the several provinces of the empire. The writers of the Augustan history have magnified the number tothirty.[75]History namesPharamondas the firstKingof the Franks; the author of theGesta Francorummakes that prince the son of Marcomir, the king mentioned in the text; and there appears to be little doubt indeed, but that the Franks had established the right of hereditary succession somewhat before the time of Clodion, the reputed son of Pharamond.[76]The fashion of long hair was among the Franks for a time, the somewhat exclusive privilege of the royal family; the members of which wore their locks hanging down in flowing ringlets on their back and shoulders; while the rest of the nation were obliged to shave the hind part of the head, and to comb the hair over the forehead.[77]Elevation on a buckler was the ceremony by which the Franks invested their chosen leader with military command.[78]According to some historians and geographers, Duisburg, on the right bank of the Rhine.[79]Most historians make Meroveus, theyoungerof the two sons of Clodion; and, after his father’s death, they send him to Rome to implore the protection of Ætius. Now, it is next to impossible that thebeardless youth, whom Priscus states to have seen at Rome (about 449 or 450), could have been Meroveus, since thesonof that prince,Childeric, was within ten years after exiled by the Franks on account of his excesses and his despotic sway. The young man whom Priscus saw was most probably Childeric, who may have been sent to Rome by his father, Meroveus, to renew the alliance which Clodion had made with Ætius.[80]The kingdom of the Burgundians, which had been established in 407 (seepage 93), was divided, in 470, among the four sons of kingGonderic;Hilperic, orChilperic, the father of Clotilda, fixed his residence at Geneva;Gundobaldat Lyons;Godegesilat Besançon, andGodemarat Vienne (in Dauphiné). A war broke out between the brothers, in which Gundobald conquered and took prisoner Hilperic and Godemar; the latter committed suicide; the former was put to death by his inhuman brother Gundobald, and his wife and his two sons shared his fate; his two daughters were spared, and one of them, Clotilda, was brought up at the court of Lyons; and, as chance would have it, in theCatholicfaith, though Gundobald himself, like most of the Christian princes of the time, professed the Arian doctrine, Gundobald would gladly have refused Clovis the hand of his niece, had he dared to brave the anger of the powerful Frankish chief. Clotilda, on her part, was overjoyed at the prospect of an alliance with a King, whose ambition might be turned to good account for the pursuit of her own vengeful projects against the murderer of her father; with a pagan, whose conversion to the Nicean creed would gain her beloved Catholic church a formidable champion against the hated Arian heretics. Gundobald had scarcely parted with his niece, and her father’s treasures, when the pious princess displayed her Christian spirit, by ordering her Frankish escort to burn down the Burgundian villages through which they were passing, and when she saw the flames rising, and heard the despairing cries of the unfortunates who were thus being deprived of their homes, she lifted up her voice, and praised the God of Athanasius—theholyChlotildis![81]The Alemanni were also, like the Franks, a league of several Germanic nations, among whom the Teneteri, the Usipetes, and most probably a portion of the Suevi, were the most important. The favorite etymology of the name,AllemanniorAll-Men, as meant to denote at once the various lineage, and the common bravery of the component members of the league, is a little fanciful perhaps, yet not more so, or rather not quite so much so, as some other etymologies of the name indulged in by the learned.[82]The invocation as given by Gregory of Tours, is rathernaïve.Jesu Christe, quem Chlotildis prædicat esse filium Dei vivi, qui dare auxilium laborantibus, victoriamque in te sperantibus tribuere diceris, tuæ opis gloriam devotus efflagito: ut si mihi victoriam super hos hostes indulseris, et expertus fuero illam virtutem, quam de te populus tuo nomine dicatus probasse se prædicat, credam tibi et in nomine tuo baptizer.Invocavi enim deos meos, sed ut experior, elongati sunt ab auxilio meo: unde credo eos nullius potestatis, qui tibi obedientibus non succurrunt.A pretty plain hint: no victory, no belief, no baptism![83]Theodoric had lately marriedAlbofleda(Audofleda, or Andefleda), the sister of Clovis.[84]Lex Gudebalda—“La loy Gombette.”—Drawn up byAredius.[85]Alaric was married to Theodoric’s daughterTheudogotha, orTheodichusa.[86]Prosternabat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub manu ipsius, et augebat regnum ejus,eo quod ambularet recto corde coram eo, et faceret, quæ placita erant in oculis ejus. Gregor. Hist. lib. II., cap. 40.[87]Austrasia comprised the old Salian possessions in Belgium, and the territories of the Ripuarians and the Alemanni.[88]Clodomir had left three sons, who were brought up by their grandmother, Clotilda. The two brothers having got possession of two of their nephews, calmly resolved to kill them. Clotaire sheathed his dagger in the breast of one of them, the other embraced the knees of his uncle Childebert, and besought him to spare his life. The tears of the innocent child moved even the harsh Childebert to pity; he entreated his brother to spare him; but that monster remained deaf to all prayers, and threatened even to make Childebert share the fate of the helpless boy, should he continue any longer to withhold him from his murderous hands: Childebert thereupon pushed back the poor innocent, and Clotaire’s dagger speedily sent him to rejoin his brother (532). The third of thechildren of Clodomirwas, indeed, saved from his uncle’s clutches; but he deemed it necessary afterwards to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, in order to secure his safety.[89]Fredegonda was first Chilperic’s concubine, subsequently, after the murder of Galsuintha, his wife. After a career of blood and crime, of which history affords but few parallels, she died in 579, at the height of prosperity and power, tranquilly in her bed, properly shriven, of course, and with a promise of paradise. Had the female monster been but a little more liberal to theChurch, who knows but the Calendar of the Saints might contain an additional name.[90]Brunehilda was the daughter of Athanagild, King of Spain, and the wife of Sigebert, King of Austrasia. She was in every respect a worthy pendant to Fredegonda; but her final fate was very different from that of her more fortunate rival, whom she survived about sixteen years. In the year 613, she fell into the hands of Fredegonda’s son, Clotaire, who inflicted upon the aged woman the most horrible tortures, and had her finally tied, with one arm and one leg, to the tail of a wild horse, and thus dragged along over a stony road until death took mercy upon her. And all these peopleprofessedthe religion of Christ, and were surrounded by numbers ofmost piousbishops! but then, theChurchhas always been indulgent to those who could and would remember her with rich endowments. Moreover, many of the bishops of that period were themselves such monstrous villains that little or no remonstrance could be expected fromthemagainst any royal crime, however so atrocious.—To give one instance out of many: a bishop of Clermont, wishing to compel a priest of his diocese to cede to him a small estate held by the latter, and which he refused to part with, had the unfortunate man shut up in a coffin, with a decaying corpse, and the coffin placed in the vault of the church![91]Theuderic, or Thierry, was the younger son of Sigebert’s son Childebert; he murdered his elder brother, Theudebert, and the infant son of the latter, Meroveus (612). He died a year after, and two of his own boys, Sigebert and Corbus, met the same fate at the hands of Clotaire.

[71]Still we must not omit to state that the lays of ancient Germany, and the old Chronicles of the country, exhibit singular agreement in the reproduction of the popular tradition which makes thenation of the Frankscome from Troy. However, after all, this makes no great difference, as even the most strenuous believers in the existence of a distinct nation of Franks, fully admit that as early as the third century (the time when the name of the Franks first appears in history) that name includedseveralGermanic nations. By some the Thuringians are given as abranchof the Frank nation.

[72]Some, however, derive the name from the Old German wordsaljan, i.e. to grant, in reference to part of the territory occupied by the Salian Franks having beengrantedto them by the Romans (byCarausius, in 287, confirmed at a later period byJulianthe Apostate).Leoderives the name from the Celtic word,Sal, i.e. the sea.

[73]Valerian was taken prisoner bySapor, King of Persia, in 260, who is said to have treated the fallen emperor with the greatest indignity. Valerian died in captivity.

[74]He was one of thenineteenusurpers who rose against Gallienus in the several provinces of the empire. The writers of the Augustan history have magnified the number tothirty.

[75]History namesPharamondas the firstKingof the Franks; the author of theGesta Francorummakes that prince the son of Marcomir, the king mentioned in the text; and there appears to be little doubt indeed, but that the Franks had established the right of hereditary succession somewhat before the time of Clodion, the reputed son of Pharamond.

[76]The fashion of long hair was among the Franks for a time, the somewhat exclusive privilege of the royal family; the members of which wore their locks hanging down in flowing ringlets on their back and shoulders; while the rest of the nation were obliged to shave the hind part of the head, and to comb the hair over the forehead.

[77]Elevation on a buckler was the ceremony by which the Franks invested their chosen leader with military command.

[78]According to some historians and geographers, Duisburg, on the right bank of the Rhine.

[79]Most historians make Meroveus, theyoungerof the two sons of Clodion; and, after his father’s death, they send him to Rome to implore the protection of Ætius. Now, it is next to impossible that thebeardless youth, whom Priscus states to have seen at Rome (about 449 or 450), could have been Meroveus, since thesonof that prince,Childeric, was within ten years after exiled by the Franks on account of his excesses and his despotic sway. The young man whom Priscus saw was most probably Childeric, who may have been sent to Rome by his father, Meroveus, to renew the alliance which Clodion had made with Ætius.

[80]The kingdom of the Burgundians, which had been established in 407 (seepage 93), was divided, in 470, among the four sons of kingGonderic;Hilperic, orChilperic, the father of Clotilda, fixed his residence at Geneva;Gundobaldat Lyons;Godegesilat Besançon, andGodemarat Vienne (in Dauphiné). A war broke out between the brothers, in which Gundobald conquered and took prisoner Hilperic and Godemar; the latter committed suicide; the former was put to death by his inhuman brother Gundobald, and his wife and his two sons shared his fate; his two daughters were spared, and one of them, Clotilda, was brought up at the court of Lyons; and, as chance would have it, in theCatholicfaith, though Gundobald himself, like most of the Christian princes of the time, professed the Arian doctrine, Gundobald would gladly have refused Clovis the hand of his niece, had he dared to brave the anger of the powerful Frankish chief. Clotilda, on her part, was overjoyed at the prospect of an alliance with a King, whose ambition might be turned to good account for the pursuit of her own vengeful projects against the murderer of her father; with a pagan, whose conversion to the Nicean creed would gain her beloved Catholic church a formidable champion against the hated Arian heretics. Gundobald had scarcely parted with his niece, and her father’s treasures, when the pious princess displayed her Christian spirit, by ordering her Frankish escort to burn down the Burgundian villages through which they were passing, and when she saw the flames rising, and heard the despairing cries of the unfortunates who were thus being deprived of their homes, she lifted up her voice, and praised the God of Athanasius—theholyChlotildis!

[81]The Alemanni were also, like the Franks, a league of several Germanic nations, among whom the Teneteri, the Usipetes, and most probably a portion of the Suevi, were the most important. The favorite etymology of the name,AllemanniorAll-Men, as meant to denote at once the various lineage, and the common bravery of the component members of the league, is a little fanciful perhaps, yet not more so, or rather not quite so much so, as some other etymologies of the name indulged in by the learned.

[82]The invocation as given by Gregory of Tours, is rathernaïve.Jesu Christe, quem Chlotildis prædicat esse filium Dei vivi, qui dare auxilium laborantibus, victoriamque in te sperantibus tribuere diceris, tuæ opis gloriam devotus efflagito: ut si mihi victoriam super hos hostes indulseris, et expertus fuero illam virtutem, quam de te populus tuo nomine dicatus probasse se prædicat, credam tibi et in nomine tuo baptizer.Invocavi enim deos meos, sed ut experior, elongati sunt ab auxilio meo: unde credo eos nullius potestatis, qui tibi obedientibus non succurrunt.A pretty plain hint: no victory, no belief, no baptism!

[83]Theodoric had lately marriedAlbofleda(Audofleda, or Andefleda), the sister of Clovis.

[84]Lex Gudebalda—“La loy Gombette.”—Drawn up byAredius.

[85]Alaric was married to Theodoric’s daughterTheudogotha, orTheodichusa.

[86]Prosternabat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub manu ipsius, et augebat regnum ejus,eo quod ambularet recto corde coram eo, et faceret, quæ placita erant in oculis ejus. Gregor. Hist. lib. II., cap. 40.

[87]Austrasia comprised the old Salian possessions in Belgium, and the territories of the Ripuarians and the Alemanni.

[88]Clodomir had left three sons, who were brought up by their grandmother, Clotilda. The two brothers having got possession of two of their nephews, calmly resolved to kill them. Clotaire sheathed his dagger in the breast of one of them, the other embraced the knees of his uncle Childebert, and besought him to spare his life. The tears of the innocent child moved even the harsh Childebert to pity; he entreated his brother to spare him; but that monster remained deaf to all prayers, and threatened even to make Childebert share the fate of the helpless boy, should he continue any longer to withhold him from his murderous hands: Childebert thereupon pushed back the poor innocent, and Clotaire’s dagger speedily sent him to rejoin his brother (532). The third of thechildren of Clodomirwas, indeed, saved from his uncle’s clutches; but he deemed it necessary afterwards to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, in order to secure his safety.

[89]Fredegonda was first Chilperic’s concubine, subsequently, after the murder of Galsuintha, his wife. After a career of blood and crime, of which history affords but few parallels, she died in 579, at the height of prosperity and power, tranquilly in her bed, properly shriven, of course, and with a promise of paradise. Had the female monster been but a little more liberal to theChurch, who knows but the Calendar of the Saints might contain an additional name.

[90]Brunehilda was the daughter of Athanagild, King of Spain, and the wife of Sigebert, King of Austrasia. She was in every respect a worthy pendant to Fredegonda; but her final fate was very different from that of her more fortunate rival, whom she survived about sixteen years. In the year 613, she fell into the hands of Fredegonda’s son, Clotaire, who inflicted upon the aged woman the most horrible tortures, and had her finally tied, with one arm and one leg, to the tail of a wild horse, and thus dragged along over a stony road until death took mercy upon her. And all these peopleprofessedthe religion of Christ, and were surrounded by numbers ofmost piousbishops! but then, theChurchhas always been indulgent to those who could and would remember her with rich endowments. Moreover, many of the bishops of that period were themselves such monstrous villains that little or no remonstrance could be expected fromthemagainst any royal crime, however so atrocious.—To give one instance out of many: a bishop of Clermont, wishing to compel a priest of his diocese to cede to him a small estate held by the latter, and which he refused to part with, had the unfortunate man shut up in a coffin, with a decaying corpse, and the coffin placed in the vault of the church!

[91]Theuderic, or Thierry, was the younger son of Sigebert’s son Childebert; he murdered his elder brother, Theudebert, and the infant son of the latter, Meroveus (612). He died a year after, and two of his own boys, Sigebert and Corbus, met the same fate at the hands of Clotaire.

Back to Index Next