The check thus given to the extension of his kingdom at the expense of other German nations, and the desire perhaps of collecting fresh strength for a more successful struggle thereafter, seem to have induced Clovis to turn his attention to the destruction of his Merovingian kindred. The manner in which he effected his purpose is related with a fulness which naturally excites suspicion. But though it is easy to detect both absurdity and inconsistency in many of the romantic details with which Gregory has furnished us, we see no reason to deny to his statements a foundation of historical truth.
Clovis was still but one of several Frankish kings; and of these Sigebert of Cologne, king of the Ripuarians, was little inferior to him in the extent of his dominions and the number of his subjects. But in other respects—in mental activity and bodily prowess—“the lame” Sigebert was no match for his Salian brother. The other Frankish rulers were Chararic, of whom mention has been made in connection with Syagrius, and Ragnachar (or Ragnachas), who held his court at Cambray. The kingdom of Sigebert extended along both banks of the Rhine, from Mogontiacum (Mainz) down to Cologne; to the west along the Moselle as far as Trèves; and on the east to the river Fulda and the borders of Thuringia. The Franks who occupied this country are supposed to have taken possession of it in the reign of Valentinian III, when Mainz, Cologne, and Trèves were conquered by a host of Ripuarians. Sigebert, as we have seen, had come to the aid of Clovis, in two very important battles with the Alamanni and the Visigoths, and had shown himself a ready and faithful friend whenever his co-operation was required. But gratitude was not included among the graces of the champion of catholicity, who only waited for a suitable opportunity to deprive his ally of throne and life. The present juncture was favourable to his wishes, and enabled him to rid himself of his benefactor in a manner peculiarly suited to his taste. An attempt to conquer the kingdom of Cologne by force of arms would have been but feebly seconded by his own subjects, and would have met with a stout resistance from the Ripuarians, who were conscious of no inferiority to the Salian tribe. His efforts were therefore directed to the destruction of the royal house, the downfall of which was hastened by internal divisions.
Clotaire (or Clotaric), the expectant heir of Sigebert, weary of hope deferred, gave a ready ear to the hellish suggestions of Clovis, who urged him, by the strongest appeals to his ambition and cupidity, to the murder of his father. Sigebert was slain by his own son in the Buchonian forest near Fulda. The wretched parricide endeavoured to secure the further connivance of his tempter, by offering him a share of the blood-stained treasure he had acquired. But Clovis, whose part in the transaction was probably unknown, affected a feeling of horror at the unnatural crime, and procured the immediate assassination of Clotaire—an act which rid him of a rival, silenced an embarrassing accomplice, and tended rather to raise than to lower him in the opinion of the Ripuarians. It is not surprising, therefore, that when Clovis proposed himself as the successor of Sigebert, and promised the full recognition of all existing rights, his offer should be joyfully accepted. In 509 A.D. he was elected king by the Ripuarians, and raised upon a shield in the city of Cologne, according to the Frankish custom, amid general acclamation.
[509-511 A.D.]
“And thus,” says Gregory of Tours,[o] in the same chapter in which he relates the twofold murder of his kindred, “God daily prostrated his enemies before him and increased his kingdom, because he walked before him with an upright heart, and did what was pleasing in his eyes!”—so completely did his services to the Catholic church conceal his moral deformities from the eyes of even the best of the ecclesiastical historians.
To the destruction of his next victim, Chararic, whose power was far less formidable than that of Sigebert, he was impelled by vengeance as well as ambition. That cautious prince, instead of joining the other Franks in their attack upon Syagrius, had stood aloof and waited upon fortune. Yet we can hardly attribute the conduct of Clovis towards him chiefly to revenge, for his most faithful ally had been his earliest victim; and friend and foe were alike to him, if they did but cross the path of his ambition. After getting possession of Chararic and his son, by tampering with their followers, Clovis compelled them to cut off their royal locks and become priests; subsequently, however, he caused them to be put to death.
Ragnachar of Cambray, whose kingdom lay to the north of the Somme, and extended through Flanders and Artois, might have proved a more formidable antagonist, had he not become unpopular among his own subjects by the disgusting licentiousness of his manners. The account which Gregory gives of the manner in which his ruin was effected is more curious than credible, and adds the charge of swindling to the black list of crimes recorded against the man who “walked before God with an upright heart.” According to the historian, Clovis bribed the followers of Ragnachar with armour of gilded iron, which they mistook, as he intended they should, for gold. Having thus crippled by treachery the strength of his enemy, Clovis led an army over the Somme, for the purpose of attacking him in his own territory. Ragnachar prepared to meet him, but was betrayed by his own soldiers and delivered into the hands of the invader. Clovis, with facetious cruelty, reproached the fallen monarch for having disgraced their common family by suffering himself to be bound, and then split his skull with an axe. The same absurd charge was brought against Richar, the brother of Ragnachar, and the same punishment inflicted on him. A third brother was put to death at Mans.
Gregory refers, though not by name, to other kings of the same family, who were all destroyed by Clovis. “Having killed many other kings,” he says, “who were his kinsmen, because he feared they might deprive him of his power, he extended his kingdom through the whole of Gaul.” He also tells us that the royal hypocrite, having summoned a general assembly, complained before it, with tears in his eyes, that he was “alone in the world.” “Alas, for me!” he said, “I am left as an alien among strangers, and have no relatives who can assist me.” This he did, according to Gregory, “not from any real love of his kindred, or from remorse at the thought of his crimes, but that he might find out any more relatives and put them also to death.”
Clovis died at Paris, in 511 A.D., in the forty-fifth year of his age and the thirtieth of his active, blood-stained, and eventful reign. He lived therefore only five years after the decisive battle of Voulon.