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THE EIGHTH BOOK 191 same time you were inviting my brother in other letters. God will judge my cause since I have always tried to treat you as fathers of the church and you have always been treacherous." And he said to the bishops Nicasius and Antidius : Most holy fathers, tell me what you have done for the advantage of your country or the security of my kingdom." They made no reply and the king washed his hands and after receiving a blessing from the bishops sat at table with a glad countenance and a cheerful behavior as if he had said nothing about the wrongs done him. 3. Meantime when the dinner was now half over the king asked me to request my deacon who had sung the responsory at the mass the day before, to sing. When he had sung he next asked me to request all the bishops who, at my instance, had come prepared, to appoint each a single clerk from his service to sing before the king. And so I made the request at the king's command, and they sang, each to the best of his ability, a psalm before the king. And when the courses were being changed the king said : "All the silver you see belonged to that perjurer Mummolus, but now by the help of God's grace it has been transferred to my ownership. I have already had fifteen of his dishes like the larger one you see yonder melted down, and I have kept only this one and one other of a hundred and seventy pounds. Why [keep] more than enough for daily use ? It is too bad, but I have no other son than Childebert, and he has enough treasures which his father left him beside what I had sent to him from the property of this wretch which was found at Avignon. The rest must be given for the necessities of the poor and the churches. 4. There is only one thing that I ask of you, my lord bishops, namely, to pray God's mercy for my son Childebert. For he is a man of sense and ability so that one so cautious and energetic as he could scarcely be found in many years. And if God would deign to grant him to these Gauls perhaps there would be hope that by him our race, greatly weakened though it is, can rise again. And I have confidence that this will happen through His mercy because the indications at the boy's birth were of this sort. For it was the holy day of Easter and my brother Sigibert was standing in the church and the deacon was walking in procession with the holy book of the Gospels, and a messenger came to the king, and the