ar gone; if you are wise you will send at
once a troop in swift pursuit, and bring her back. She is but one, the
Franks are many. You will find it easier to bear the wrath of one person
than for you and yours to be perpetually at war with all the Franks."

Gondebaud saw the wisdom of these words, and lost no time in taking his
councillor's advice. A troop was sent, with orders to ride at all speed,
and bring back Clotilde with the carriage and the treasure.

The carriage and the treasure they did bring back; but not Clotilde.
She, with her escort, was already far away, riding in haste for the
frontier of Burgundy. Clovis had advanced to meet her, and was awaiting
at Villers, in the territory of Troyes, at no great distance from the
border of Burgundy. But before reaching this frontier, Clotilde gave
vent to revengeful passion, crying to her escort,--

"Ride right and left! Plunder and burn! Do what damage you may to this
hated country from which Heaven has delivered me!"

Then, as they rode away on their mission of ruin, to which they had
obtained permission from Clovis, she cried aloud,--

"I thank thee, God omnipotent, for that I see in this the beginning of
the vengeance which I owe to my slaughtered parents and brethren!"

In no long time afterwards she joined Clovis, who received her with a
lover's joy, and in due season the marriage was celebrated, with all the
pomp and ceremony of which those rude times were capable.

Thus ends the romantic story told us by the chronicler Fredegaire,
somewhat too romantic to be accepted for veracious history, we fear. Yet
it is interesting as a picture of the times, and has doubtless in it an
element of fact--though it may have been colored by imagination.
Aurelian and Aridius are historical personages, and what we know of them
is in keeping with what is here told of them. So the reader may, if he
will, accept the story as an interesting compound of reality and
romance.

But there is more to tell. Clotilde had an important historical part to
play, which is picturesquely described by the chronicler, Gregory of
Tours. She was a Christian, Clovis a pagan; it was natural that she
should desire to convert her husband, and through him turn the nation of
the Franks into worshippers of Christ. She had a son, whom she wished to
have baptized. She begged her husband to yield to her wishes.

"The gods you worship," she said, "are of wood, stone, or metal. They
are nought, and can d