arns for corn,
one of Bacchus' prime wine cellars and of Neptune's best salt-pits,"
became the prey of the barbarian. The whole fabric of civilisation
seem doomed to destruction, Gaul had become the richest and most
populous of Roman provinces; its learning and literature were noised
in Rome; its rhetoricians drew students from the mother city herself;
it was the last refuge of Graeco-Roman culture in the west. But at the
end of the sixth century Gregory of Tours deplores the fact that in
his time there were neither books, nor readers, nor scholar who could
compose in verse or prose, and that only the speech of the rustic was
understood. He playfully scolds himself for muddling prepositions and
confusing genders and cases, but his duty as a Christian priest is to
instruct, not to charm, and so he tells the story of his times in such
rustic Latin as he knows. He draws for us a vivid picture of Clovis,
his savage valour, his astuteness, his regal passion.

After the victory at Soissons over Syagrius, the shadowy king of the
Romans, Clovis was met by St. Remi, who prayed that a vase of great
price and wondrous beauty among the spoil might be returned to him.
"Follow us," said the king, "to Soissons, where the booty will be
shared." Before the division took place Clovis begged that the vase
might be accorded to him. His warriors answered: "All, glorious king,
is thine." But before the king could grasp the vase, one, jealous and
angry, threw his _francisque_[20] at it, exclaiming: "Thou shalt have
no more than falls to thy lot." The broken vase was however
apportioned to the king, who restored it to the bishop. But Clovis hid
the wound in his heart, and at the annual review in the Champ de Mars
near Paris, as the king strode along the line inspecting the weapons
of his warriors, he stopped in front of the uncourtly soldier, took
his axe from him, complained of its foul state, and flung it angrily
on the ground. As the man stooped to pick it up Clovis, with his own
axe, cleft his skull in twain, exclaiming: "Thus didst thou to the
vase at Soissons." "Even so," says Gregory quaintly, "did he inspire
all with great fear."

[Footnote 20: The favourite arm of the Franks, a short battle-axe,
used as a missile or at close quarters.]

At this point of our story we are met by the first of those noble
women, heroic and wise, for whom French history is pre-eminent. In the
early fifth century "saynt germayn[21] of aucerre and saynt l