Page:History of the Franks.djvu/165

THE FIFTH BOOK 133 and they will agree with me." I replied: "No wise man will he be but a fool, who will consent to follow your proposals." At this he ground his teeth and said no more. A few days later bishop Salvius of Albi visited him and he had this treatise read to him, begging him to accept his views. But upon hearing them Salvius was so revolted that if he could have laid hands on the paper con- taining the writing he would have torn it into bits. And so the king gave up the project. The king wrote also other books in verse following Sedulius as a model. But those poor verses have no rela- tion of any sort with meter. He also added letters to our alphabet, namely « as the Greeks have it, cb, the, vvt, which are written by the following characters : (o 6^ (e y^^ the Z, vvl A. And he wrote to all the cities of his kingdom that boys should be taught these letters and that books written in previous times should be erased with pumice and rewritten. [45. Agricola, bishop of Chalon-sur-Saone, dies. "He con- structed many buildings in that city, erecting houses, and building a church which he supported with columns and adorned with vari- colored marbles and mosaics."] 46. At that time also Dalmatius bishop of Rodez passed away, a man distinguished for every kind of holiness, an abstainer from food and the desires of the flesh, a great almsgiver and kind to all, steadfast enough in prayer and watching. He built a church, but frequently tore it down to build it better and left it unfinished. After his death, as usual there were many candidates for his office. And the priest Transobad, who at one time had been his arch- deacon, was making a great effort for it, relying on the fact that he had put his son in care of Gogo who was then tutor to the king. Now the bishop had made a will in which he indicated to the king who was to receive this ofhce after his death, adjuring him with terrible oaths not to appoint a stranger in that church, nor a greedy man, nor one entangled by marriage, but that one free from all these drawbacks should be put in his place, who would spend his days in the praise of the Lord and nothing else. Now the priest Transobad prepared a feast for the clergy in the city. And while they 'were seated one of the priests began to abuse shamelessly the bishop mentioned above, and he went so far as to call him a mad- man and a fool. While he was speaking the butler came to offer