THE FIFTH BOOK 109 and fine the citizens of Poitiers, he rendered up his life on the pre- ceding day ; and so his pride and insolence ceased. 5. At that time Felix, bishop of Nantes, wrote me a letter full of insults, writing also that my brother had been slain because he had killed a bishop, being himself greedy for the bishopric. But the reason FeHx wrote this was because he wanted an estate belong- ing to the church. And when I would not give it he was full of rage and vented on me, as I have said, a thousand insults. I finally replied to him: Remember the words of the prophet:
- Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field !
They are not going to inhabit the earth alone, are they ? ' I wish you had been bishop of Marseilles ! For ships would never have/ brought oil or other goods there, but only paper that you might have greater opportunity for writing to defame honest men. It is the scarcity of paper that sets a Hmit to your wordiness." He was a man of unHmited greed and boastfulness. Now I shall pass over these matters, not to appear like him, and merely tell how my brother passed from the light of day and how swift a vengeance the Lord visited upon his assassin. The blessed Tetricus,^ bishop of the church of Langres, who was already growing old, expelled the deacon Lampadio from his place as procurator, and my brother in his desire to aid the poor men whom Lampadio had wickedly despoiled, joined in bringing about his humiliation and thus in- curred his hatred. Meantime the blessed Tetricus had an apoplec- tic stroke. And when the poultices of the doctors did him no good, the clergy were disquieted, and seeing they were bereft of their shepherd they asked for Monderic. The king granted their re- quest and he was given the tonsure and ordained bishop with the understanding that while the blessed Tetricus Hved he should govern the town of Tonnerre as archpriest and dwell there, and when his predecessor died he should succeed him. But while he lived in the town he incurred the king's anger. For it was charged against him that he had furnished supplies and made gifts to king Sigibert when he was marching against his brother Gunthram. And so he was dragged from the town and thrust off into exile on the bank of the Rhone in a certain tower that was very small and had lost its roof. Here he hved for nearly two years to his great
- Great-uncle of Gregory on his mother's side.
