2. The Conversion of Clovis and the Franks. — In the year 481 Clovis succeeded to the chieftaincy of the Sa- lian Franks. In 493 he married Clotilda, the daughter of the king of Burgundy, who professed Christianity, and sought to persuade her husband to embrace it also; but her efforts for a time were without success. '"At length, on the battle-field of Tolbiac, his incredulity came to an end. The fierce and dreadful Alemanni, fresh from their native forests, had burst upon the king- dom of his Ripuarian allies; Clovis, with his Franks, had rushed to the rescue, and the two fiercest nations of Germany were to decide between them the suprem- acy of Gaul. The battle was long and bloody; the Franks, after an obstinate struggle, wavered, and seemed on the point of flying, and in vain Clovis implored the aid of his own deities. At length he bethought him of the vaunted omnipotence of Clotilda's God, and he vowed that if victorious he would abjure his pagan creed and be baptized as a Christian. Thereupon the tide of battle turned; the last king of the Allemanni fell, and his troops fled in disorder, purchasing safety b\' submission to the Frankish chief. On his return Clovis recounted to his queen the story of the fight, the suc- cess of his prayer, and the vow he had made. Over- whelmed with joy, she sent without delay for Remigius, the venerable bishop of Rheims, and on his arrival the victorious chief listened attentively to his arguments. Still he hesitated, and said he would consult his war- riors. These rough soldiers evinced no unwillingness; with, perhaps, the same indifference that he himself had permitted the baptism of his children, they declared themselves nothing loth to accept the creed of their chief. Clovis therefore yielded, and the baptism was fixed to take place at the approaching festival of Christ- mas. The greatest pains were taken to lend as much solemnity as possible to the scene. The church was hung with embroidered tapestry and white curtains, and blazed with a thousand lights, while odors of in- cense, • like airs of paradise,' in the words of the excited chronicler, ' filled the place.' The new Constantine, as he entered, was struck with awe. 'Is this the heaven thou didst promise me ?' said he to the bishop. ' Not heaven itself, but the beginning of the way thither,' replied the bishop. The service proceeded. As he knelt before the font to wash away the leprosy of his heathenism, ' Sicambrian,' said Remigius, 'gently bow thy neck, burn that thou didst adore, adore that which thou didst burn.' Thus, together with three thousand
of his followers, Clovis espoused Clotilda's creed, and became the single sovereign of the West who adhered to the Confession of Nica;a. Everj'where else Arianism was triumphant. The Ostrogoth Theodoric in Italy, the successors of Euric in Visigothic France, the king of Burgundy, the Suevian princes in Spaui, the Vandal in Africa — all were Arians.
" The conversion of Clovis, like that of Constantine, is open to much discussion. It certainly had no effect upon his moral character. The same 'untutored sav- age' he was, the same he remained. But the services he rendered to Catholicism were great, and they were appreciated. ' God daily prostrated his enemies before him, because he walked before him with an upright heart, and did what was pleasing in his eyes.' In these words Gregory of Tours expresses the feelings of the Gallic clergy, who rallied round Clovis to a man, and excused all faults in one who could wield the sword so strenuously in behalf of the orthodox faith. His subse- quent career was a succession of triumphs : Gundebald, the Burgundian king, felt the vengeance of Clotilda's lord on the bloody field of Dijon on the Ousche, and the cities on the Saone and the Rhone were added to the Frankish kingdom. A few more years and the Visi- gothic kingdom in the south felt the same iron hand. The orthodox prelates did not disguise the fact that this was a religious war, and that the supremacy of the Arian or the Catholic Creed in Western Europe was now to be decided. Clovis himself entered fully into the spirit of the crusade : on approaching Tom-s, he made death the penalty of injuring the territory of the holy St. Martin; in the church of the saint he publicly per- formed his devotions, and listened to the voices of the priests as they chanted the 18th Psalm : ' Thou hast girded me, 0 Lord, with strength unto the battle; thou hast subdued unto me those which rose up against me. Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me.' Whether ho under- stood the words or not, they seemed prophetic of the subsequent career of the new champion of Catholicism. The orthodox historians exhaust the treasury of legends to adorn his progress. A ' hind of wonderful magnitude' guided him through the swollen waters of the River Vi- enne ; a pillar of fire blazed forth from the cathedral as he drew nigh Poitiers, to assure him of success. At last the bloody plains of Vougle witnessed the utter de- feat of the Arian Goths, and Alaric, their king, was min- gled with the crowd of fugitives. Bordeaux, Auvergne, Rovergne, Toulouse, Angouleme, successively fell into the hands of the Frankish king, and then before the shrine of St. Martin the ' eldest son of the Church' was invested with the titles of Roman Patricius and Consul, conferred by the Greek emperor Anastasius.