was killed in a war against the Burgundians, leaving three sons, direct heirs of his kingdom, subject to equal partition between them. Their grandmother, Clotilde, kept them with her at Paris; and “their uncle Childebert (king of Paris), seeing that his mother bestowed all her affection upon the sons of Clodomir, grew jealous; so, fearing that by her favor they would get a share in the kingdom, he sent secretly to his brother Clotaire (king of Soissons), saying, ‘Our mother keepeth by her the sons of our brother, and willeth to give them the kingdom of their father. Thou must needs, therefore, cone speedily to Paris, and we must take counsel together as to what shall be done with them; whether they shall be shorn and reduced to the condition of commoners, or slain and leave their kingdom to be shared equally between us.’ Clotaire, overcome with joy at these words, came to Paris. Childebert had already spread abroad amongst the people that the two kings were to join in raising the young children to the throne. The two kings then sent a message to the queen, who at that time dwelt in the same city, saying, ‘Send thou the children to us, that we may place them on the throne.’ Clotilde, full of joy, and unwitting of their craft, set meat and drink before the children, and then sent them away, saying, ‘I shall seem not to have lost my son if I see ye succeed him in his kingdom.’ The young princes were immediately seized, and parted from their servants and governors; and the servants and the children were kept in separate places. Then Childebert and Clotaire sent to the queen their confidant Arcadius (one of the Arvernian senators), with a pair of shears and a naked sword. When he came to Clotilde, he showed her what he bare with him, and said to her, ‘Most glorious queen, thy sons, our masters, desire to know thy will touching these children: wilt thou that they live with shorn hair or that they be put to death?’ Clotilde, astounded at this address, and overcome with indignation, answered at hazard, amidst the grief that overwhelmed her, and not knowing what she would say, ‘If they be not set upon the throne I would rather know that they were dead than shorn.’ But Areadius, caring little for her despair or for what she might decide after more reflection, returned in haste to the two kings, and said, ‘Finish ye your work, for the queen, favoring your plans, willeth that ye accomplish them.’ Forthwith Clotaire taketh the eldest by the arm, dasheth him upon the ground, and slayeth him without mercy with the thrust of a hunting-knife beneath the arm-pit. At the cries raised by the child, his brother casteth himself at the feet of Childebert, and clinging to his knees, saith amidst his sobs, ‘Aid me, good father, that I die not like my brother.’ Childebert, his visage bathed in tears, saith to Clotaire, ‘Dear brother, I crave thy mercy for his life; I will give thee whatsoever thou wilt as the price of his soul; I pray thee, slay him not.’ Then Clotaire, with menacing and furious mien, crieth out aloud, ‘Thrust him away, or thou diest in his stead: thou, the instigator of all this work, art thou, then, so quick to be faithless?’ At these words Childebert thrust away the child towards Clotaire, who seized him, plunged a hunting-knife in his side, as he had in his brother’s, and slew him. They then put to death the slaves and governors of the children. After these murders Clotaire mounted his horse and departed, taking little heed of his nephew’s death; and Childebert withdrew into the outskirts of the city. Queen Clotilde had the corpses of the two children placed in a coffin, and followed them, with a great parade of chanting, and immense mourning, to the basilica of St. Pierre (now St. Genevieve), where they were buried together. One was ten years old and the other seven. The third, named Clodoald (who died about the year 560, after having founded, near Paris, a monastery called after him St. Cloud), could not be caught, and was saved by some gallant men. He, disdaining a terrestrial kingdom, dedicated himself to the Lord, was shorn by his own hand, and became a church-man: he devoted himself wholly to good works, and died a priest. And the two kings divided equally between them the kingdom of Clodomir.” (Gregory of Tours, Histoire des Francs, III. xviii.)
The history of the most barbarous peoples and times assuredly offers no example, in one and the same family, of an usurpation more perfidiously and atrociously consummated. King Clodomir, the father of the two young princes thus dethroned and murdered by their uncles, had, during his reign, shown almost equal indifference and cruelty. In 523, during a war which, in concert with his brothers Childebert and Clotaire, he had waged against Sigismund, king of Burgundy, he had made prisoners of that king, his wife, and their sons, and kept them shut up at Orleans. The year after, the war was renewed with the Burgundians. “Clodomir resolved,” says Gregory of Tours, “to put Sigismund to death. The blessed Avitus, abbot of St. Mesrnin de Micy (an abbey about two leagues from Orleans), a famous priest in those days, said to him on this occasion, ‘If, turning thy thoughts towards God, thou change thy plan, and suffer not these folk to be slain, God will be with thee, and thou wilt gain the victory; but if thou slay them, thou thyself wilt be delivered into the hands of thine enemies, and thou wilt undergo their fate; to thee and thy wife and thy sons will happen that which thou wilt have done to Sigismund and his wife and his sons.’ But Clodomir, taking no heed of this counsel, said, ‘It were great folly to leave one enemy at home when I march out against another; one attacking me behind and another in front, I should find myself between two armies: victory will be surer and easier if I separate one from the other; when the first is once dead, it will be less difficult to get rid of the other also.’ Accordingly he put Sigismund to death, together with his wife and his sons, ordered them to be thrown into a well in the village of Coulmier, belonging to the territory of Orleans, and set out for Burgundy. After his first success Clodomir fell into an ambush and into the hands of his enemies, who cut off his head, stuck it on the end of a pike and held it up aloft. Victory, nevertheless, remained with the Franks; but scarcely had a year elapsed when Queen Guntheuque, Clodomir’s widow, became the wife of his brother Clotaire, and his two elder sons, Theobald and Gonthaire, fell beneath their uncle’s hunting-knife.”
Even in the coarsest and harshest ages the soul of man does not completely lose its instincts of justice and humanity. The bishops and priests were not alone in crying out against such atrocities; the barbarians themselves did not always remain indifferent spectators of them, but sometimes took advantage of them to rouse the wrath and warlike ardor of their comrades. “About the year 528, Theodoric, king of Metz, the eldest son of Clovis, purposed to undertake a grand campaign on the right bank of the Rhine against his neighbors the Thuringians, and summoned the Franks to a meeting. ‘Bethink you,’ said he, that of old time the Thuringians fell violently upon our ancestors, and did them much harm. Our fathers, ye know, gave them hostages to obtain peace; but the Thuringians put to death those hostages in divers ways, and once more falling upon our relatives, took from them all they possessed. After having hung children up, by the sinews of their thighs, on the branches of trees, they put to a most cruel death more than two hundred young girls, tying them by the legs to the necks of horses, which, driven by pointed goads in different directions, tore the poor souls in pieces; they laid others along the ruts of the roads, fixed them in the earth with stakes, drove over them laden cars, and so left them, with their bones all broken, as a meal for the birds and dogs. To this very day doth Hermannfroi fail in his promise, and absolutely refuse to fulfil his engagements: right is on our side; march we against them with the help of God.’ Then the Franks, indignant at such atrocities, demanded with one voice to be led into Thuringia. … Victory made them masters of it, and they reduced the country under their dominion. … Whilst the Frankish kings were still there, Theodoric would have slain his brother Clotaire. Having put armed men in waiting, he had him fetched to treat secretly of a certain matter. Then, having arranged, in a portion of his house, a curtain from wall to wall, he posted his armed men behind it; but, as the curtain was too short, it left their feet exposed. Clotaire, having been warned of the snare, entered the house armed and with a goodly company. Theodoric then perceived that he was discovered, invented some story, and talked of this, that, and the other. At last, not knowing how to get his treachery forgotten, he made Clotaire a present of a large silvern dish. Clotaire wished him good by, thanked him, and returned home. But Theodoric immediately complained to his own folks that he had sacrificed his silvern dish to no purpose, and said to his son Theodebert, ‘Go, find thy uncle, and pray him to give thee the present I made him.’ Theodebert went, and got what he asked. In such tricks did Theodoric excel.” (Gregory of Tours, III. vii.)
These Merovingian kings were as greedy
