restored peace and order by the
construction of a massive wall between the Rhine and the Danube over two
hundred miles in length. The barbarians were driven beyond the river,
which had hitherto served as a boundary-line, even past the Elbe and the
Neckar. Finally, however, the internecine strife in the Imperial City
forced the Romans to return thence, and Rhineland was abandoned to the
will of its semi-barbarian inhabitants.

The early Christian centuries are full of the sound of conflict. In the
fourth century the principal tribes in Western Germany were the Franks
and the Alemanni, the former of whom maintained a constant strife with
the Saxons, who pressed heavily upon their rear. The Franks occupied the
lower portion of the river, near to its mouth, whilst the Alemanni dwelt
on the portion to the bounds of Helvetia and Switzerland. At this period
great racial upheavals appear to have been taking place further east.
By the beginning of the sixth century the Saxons seem to have penetrated
almost to the north-western Rhine, where the Franks were now supreme.

The Merovingians

In the middle of the fifth century arose the powerful dynasty of the
Merovingians, one of the most picturesque royal houses in the roll
of history. In their records we see the clash of barbarism with
advancement, the bizarre tints of a semi-civilization unequalled in rude
magnificence. Giant shadows of forgotten kings stalk across the canvas,
their royal purple intermingling with the shaggy fell of the bear
and wolf. One, Chilperic, a subtle grammarian and the inventor of new
alphabetic symbols, is yet the most implacable of his race, the murderer
of his wife, the heartless slayer of hundreds, to whom human life is as
that of cattle skilled in the administration of poison, a picturesque
cut-throat. Others are weaklings, faineants; but one, the most dread
woman in Frankish history, Fredegonda, the queen of Chilperic, towers
above all in this masque of slaughter and treachery.

Tradition makes claim that Andernach was the cradle of the Merovingian
dynasty. In proof of this are shown the extensive ruins of the palace
of these ancient Frankish kings. Merovig, from whom the race derived
its name, was said to be the son of Clodio, but legend relates far
otherwise. In name and origin he was literally a child of the Rhine, his
father being a water-monster who seized the wife of Clodio while bathing
in that river. In time she gave birth to a child, mor