The faithful built a little wooden oratory over her tomb, which Clovis and his queen Clotilde replaced in 506 by a great basilica dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul,—whose length the king measured by the distance he could hurl his axe—and the famous monastery of St. Genevieve.[22]

The conversion of Clovis is the capital fact of early French history. Clotilde had long[23] importuned him to declare himself a Christian, and he had consented to the baptism of their firstborn, but the infant's death within a week seemed an admonition from his own jealous gods. A second son, however, recovered from grievous sickness at his wife's prayers, and this, aided perhaps by a shrewd insight into the trend of events, induced him to lend a more willing ear to the teachers of the new Faith. In 496 the Franks were at death grapple with their German foes at Tolbiac. Clovis, when the fight went against him, invoked the God of the Christians and prayed to be delivered from his enemies. His cry was heard and the advent of the new Lord of Battles was winged with victory.

The conversion of Clovis was a triumph for the Church: in her struggle with the Arian heresy in Gaul, she was now able to enforce the arguments of the pen by the edge of the sword. Her scribes are tender to his memory, for his Christianity was marked by few signs of grace. He remained the same savage monarch as before, and did not scruple to affirm his dynasty and extend his empire by treachery and by the assassination of his kinsmen. To the Franks, Jesus was but a new and more puissant tribal deity. "Long live the Christ who loves the Franks," writes the author of the prologue to the Salic law; and when the bishop was one day reading the Gospel story of the Passion, the king, qui moult avait grand compassion, cried out: "Ah! had I been there with my Franks I would have avenged the Christ." Nor was their ideal of kinship any loftier. Their realm was not a trust, but a possession to be divided among their heirs, and the jealousy and strife excited by the repeated partitions among sons, make the history of the Merovingian[24] dynasty a tale of cruelty and treachery whose every page is stained with blood.

Tower of Clovis.
[View larger image]

Clovis, in 508, made Paris the official capital of his realm, and at his death in 511 divided his possessions between his four sons—Thierry, Clodomir, Childebert and Clothaire. Clodomir after a short reign met his death in battle, leaving his children to the guardianship of their grandmother, Clotilde. One day messengers came to her in the old palace of the Cæsars on the south bank of the Seine from Childebert and Clothaire praying that their nephews might be entrusted to them. Believing they were to be trained in kingly offices that they might succeed their father in due time, Clotilde granted their prayer and two of the children were sent to them in the palace of the Cité. Soon came another messenger, bearing a pair of shears and a naked sword, and Clotilde was bidden to determine the fate of her wards and to choose for them between the cloister and the edge of the sword. An angry exclamation escaped her: "If they are not to be raised to the throne, I would rather see them dead than shorn." The messenger waited to hear no more and hastened back to the two kings. Clothaire then seized the elder of the children and stabbed him under the armpit. The younger, at the sight of his brother's blood, flung himself at Childebert's feet, burst into tears, and cried: "Help me, dear father, let me not die even as my brother." Childebert's heart was softened and he begged for the child's life. Clothaire's only answer was a volley of insults and a threat of death if he protected the victim. Childebert then disentwined the child's tender arms clasping his knees—he was but six years of age—and pushed him to his brother, who drove a dagger into his breast. The tutors and servants of the children were then butchered, and Clothaire became at his brother's death, in 558, sole king of the Franks.[25] The third child, Clodoald, owing to the devotion of faithful servants escaped, and was hidden for some time in Provence. Later in life he returned to Paris and built a monastery at a place still known by his name (St. Cloud) about two leagues from the city.

In the days of Siegbert and Chilperic, kings of Eastern and Western France, the consuming flames of passion and greed again burst forth, this time fanned by the fierce breath of feminine rivalry. Siegbert had married Brunehaut, daughter of the Visigoth king of Spain: Chilperic had espoused her sister, Galowinthe, after repudiating his first wife, Adowere. When Galowinthe came to her throne she found herself the rival of Fredegonde, a common servant, with whom Chilperic had been living. He soon tired of his new wife, a gentle and pliant creature, Fredegonde regained her supremacy and one morning Galowinthe was found strangled in bed. The news came to King Siegbert and Brunehaut goaded him to avenge her sister's death. Meanwhile Chilperic had married Fredegonde, who quickly compassed the murder of her only rival, the repudiated queen, Adowere. Soon Chilperic drew the sword and civil war devastated the land. By foreign aid Siegbert captured and spoiled Paris and compelled a peace. Scarcely, however, had the victor dismissed his Germain allies, when Chilperic fell upon him again. Siegbert now determined to make an end. He entered Paris, and prepared to crush his enemy at Tournay. As he set forth, St. Germain, bishop of Paris, seized his horse's bridle and warned him that the grave he was digging for his brother would swallow him too. When he reached Vitry two messengers were admitted to see him. As he stood between them listening to their suit he was stabbed on either side by two long poisoned knives: the assassins had been sent by Fredegonde.

But Fredegonde's tale of blood was not yet complete. She soon learned that Merovée, one of Chilperic's two sons by Adowere, had married Brunehaut. Merovée followed the rest of her victims, and Clovis, the second son, together with a sister of Adowere, next glutted her vengeance. "One day, after leaving the Synod of Paris," writes St. Gregory, "I had bidden King Chilperic adieu and had withdrawn conversing with the bishop of Albi. As we crossed the courtyard of the palace (in the Cité) he said: 'Seest thou not what I perceive above this roof?' I answered, 'I see only a second building which the king hath built.' He asked again, 'Seest thou naught else?' I weened he spoke in jest and did but answer—'If thou seest aught else, prithee show it unto me.' Then uttering a deep sigh, he said: 'I see the sword of God's wrath suspended over this house.'" Shortly after this conversation Chilperic having returned from the chase to his royal villa of Chelles, was leaning on the shoulder of one of his companions to descend from his horse, when Landeric, servant of Fredegonde, stabbed him to death.

Thirty years were yet to pass before the curtain falls on the acts of the rival queens, their sons and grandsons, but the heart revolts at the details of the wars and lusts of these savage potentates.

Battle and murder had destroyed Brunehaut's children and her children's children until none were left to rule over the realms but herself and the four sons of Thierry II. The nobles, furious at the further tyranny of a cruel and imperious woman, plotted her ruin, and in 613, when Brunehaut, sure of victory, marched with two armies against Clothaire II., she was betrayed near Paris to him, her implacable enemy. He reproached her with the death of ten kings, and set her on a camel for three days to be mocked and insulted by the army. The old and fallen queen was then tied to the tail of a horse: the creature was lashed into fury and soon all that remained of the proud queen was a shapeless mass of carrion. The traditional place where Brunehaut met her death is still shown at the corner of the Rue St. Honoré and the Rue de l'Arbre Sec. Thierry's four sons had already been put to death. In 597 her rival Fredegonde, at the height of her prosperity, had died peacefully in bed, full of years, and was buried in the church of St. Vincent[26] by the side of Chilperic, her husband.