of his father's house. 'Glorious Warrior.'
8.
Chlodowald
. Youngest son of Chlodomir. 'Glorious
Power,' afterwards 'St. Cloud.'
49. I will now follow straight, through their light and shadow, the course of Clovis' reign and deeds. [Pg 52] A.D. 481. Crowned, when he was only fifteen. Five years afterwards, he challenges, "in the spirit, and almost in the language of chivalry," the Roman governor Syagrius, holding the district of Rheims and Soissons. "Campum sibi præparari jussit—he commanded his antagonist to prepare him a battlefield"—see Gibbon's note and reference, chap. xxxviii. (6, 297). The Benedictine abbey of Nogent was afterwards built on the field, marked by a circle of Pagan sepulchres. "Clovis bestowed the adjacent lands of Leuilly and Coucy on the church of Rheims."[2-11]
A.D. 485. The Battle of Soissons. Not dated by Gibbon: the subsequent death of Syagrius at the court of (the younger) Alaric, was in 486—take 485 for the battle.
50. A.D. 493. I cannot find any account of the relations between Clovis and the King of Burgundy, the uncle of Clotilde, which preceded his betrothal to the orphan princess. Her uncle, according to the common history, had killed both her father and mother, and compelled her sister to take the veil—motives none assigned, nor authorities. Clotilde herself was pursued on her way to France, [2-12] and the litter in which she travelled captured, with part of her marriage portion. [Pg 53] But the princess herself mounted on horseback, and rode with part of her escort, forward into France, "ordering her attendants to set fire to everything that pertained to her uncle and his subjects which they might meet with on the way."
51. The fact is not chronicled, usually, among the sayings or doings of the Saints: but the punishment of Kings by destroying the property of their subjects, is too well recognized a method of modern Christian warfare to allow our indignation to burn hot against Clotilde; driven, as she was, hard by grief and wrath. The years of her youth are not counted to us; Clovis was already twenty-seven, and for three years maintained the faith of his ancestral religion against all the influence of his queen.