the court of Gundobald. They were educated as Catholics, although the king, like most of the Burgandians, was an Arian.
In 492 or 493 Clotilda was married at Soissons. On her journey thither she set fire to every village for the last two leagues of her uncle's country, and when she crossed the frontier at Chǎlons, she looked back upon the flames and thanked God that her vengeance was begun. A year after her marriage, Clotilda had a son, and obtained her husband's consent to have him christened. The child immediately died. Clovis was angry, and said this misfortune had happened because his wife had placed her son under the care of an inefficient God. The following year the queen had another son, and again persuaded the king to let him be baptized. The infant was taken dangerously ill, and Clovis bitterly reproached his wife with sacrificing his children to her gods and priests. But the agonized prayers of the mother were answered by the speedy recovery of the babe. Not long after this, in 496, Clovis fought against the Alemanni, at Tolbiac. The battle was going against him, when he remembered the God of Clotilda, and turning to Him in his need, vowed that if He would give him this victory, he would worship no other thenceforward. That moment the enemy turned and fled, and at the same time tradition says that three white lilies were brought by an angel to Clotilda while she prayed. These Clovis substituted for the three frogs which had previously been the badge on his shield. In the same year he took Paris. St. Geneviève advised the Parisians to submit to the King of the Franks. At the same time she bespoke his clemency, and joined with Clotilda in urging him to fulfil his vow and become a Christian. He was baptized at Rheims by St. Rémi (see Cilinia (1)), with his sister Alboflede, and three thousand of his warriors.
Clovis was a great acquisition to the Catholic party. Pope Anastasius II. sent him a letter of congratulation (preserved by Bouquet), in which he styled him "Most Christian King," and the "Eldest son of the Church." The Emperor of the East sent him a crown, and made him consul. In 500 he accomplished part of Clotilda's vengeance by making war on the Burgundians, defeating Gundobald at Dijon, and annexing part of his dominions. In 507 he went to war with the Arian Visigoths in Aquitaine; their king, Alaric II., was killed in the battle of Vouillé, or Voullon, near Poitiers. Many years afterwards, Amalaric, son of this Alaric, married Clotilda, the daughter of Clovis and Clotilda (1).
Having made himself master of the whole of France by conquest and by crime, he did what before him none of the barbarian conquerors of the Roman empire had done. He set himself to restore order in the lands he had acquired, and to have them governed by humane and equitable laws. He died Nov. 27, 511, and was buried in Paris, in the church of SS. Peter and Paul, which he had built. St. Geneviève was buried there in the same year, and the church was afterwards called by her name.
Clotilda had never thoroughly slaked her thirst for vengeance against her uncle. She desired her son Clodomir to go and revenge on Sigismund—the son and successor of Gundobald—the crimes his father had committed nearly half a century before. Clodomir defeated Sigismund, and put him to flight. St. Avitus, abbot of Micy, solemnly warned Clodomir to be content with his victory, and not murder his near relations, promising him success in his future wars on that condition. But Clodomir, obeying the letter and spirit of his mother's orders, took Sigismund, his wife, and two children to Orleans, his capital, and buried them alive. The next year Clodomir's head was carried on the end of a lance along the ranks of the Burgundian army. His brother Charibert added his widow to the wives he had already, and Clotilda adopted his children. Charibert and Clothaire had no idea of keeping their brother's kingdom for these infants. They divided his domains between themselves, and sent a message to their mother to send them the three little boys, that they might at once make them kings. The fond grandmother gave up
