Two years afterwards, at his death, the scarcely asserted throne is seized—perhaps inevitably—by the tutor of his children, Merovée, whose dynasty is founded on the defeat of Attila at Chalons.
He died in 457. His son Childeric, giving himself up to the love of women, and scorned by the Frank soldiery, is driven into exile, the Franks choosing rather to live under the law of Rome than under a base chief of their own. He receives asylum at the court of the king of Thuringia, and abides there. His chief officer in Amiens, at his departure, breaks a ring in two, and, giving him the half of it, tells him, when the other half is sent, to return.
And, after many days, the half of the broken ring is sent, and he returns, and is accepted king by his Franks.
The Thuringian queen follows him, (I cannot find if her husband is first dead—still less, if dead, how dying,) and offers herself to him for his wife.
"I have known thy usefulness, and that thou art very strong; and I have come to live with thee. Had I known, in parts beyond sea, any one more useful than thou, I should have sought to live with him."
He took her for his wife, and their son is Clovis.
A wonderful story; how far in literalness true is of no manner of moment to us; the myth, and power of it, do manifest the nature of the French kingdom, and prophesy its future destiny. Personal valour, personal beauty, loyalty to [Pg 8] kings, love of women, disdain of unloving marriage, note all these things for true, and that in the corruption of these will be the last death of the Frank, as in their force was his first glory.
Personal valour, worth. Utilitas, the keystone of all. Birth nothing, except as gifting with valour;—Law of primogeniture unknown;—Propriety of conduct, it appears, for the present, also nowhere! (but we are all pagans yet, remember).