ranny. Instead of exercising the rights of conquest, we have been contented to impose such tributes as are requisite for your own preservation. Peace cannot be secured without armies; and armies must be supported at the expense of the people. It is for your sake, not for our own, that we guard the barrier of the Rhine against the ferocious Germans, who have so often attempted, and will always desire, to exchange the solitude of their woods and morasses for the wealth and fertility of Gaul. The fall of Rome would be fatal to the provinces; and you would be buried in the ruins of that mighty fabric, which has been raised by the valour and wisdom of eight hundred years. Your imaginary freedom would be insulted and oppressed by a savage master; and the expulsion of the Romans would be succeeded by the eternal hostilities of the barbarian conquerors. This salutary advice was accepted, and this strange prediction was accomplished. In the space of four hundred years, the hardy Gauls, who had encountered the arms of Cæsar, were imperceptibly melted into the general mass of citizens and subjects; the western empire was dissolved; and the Germans, who had passed the Rhine, fiercely contended for the possession of Gaul, and excited the contempt, or abhorrence, of its peaceful and polished inhabitants. With that conscious pride which the pre-eminence of knowledge and luxury seldom fails to inspire, they deride the hairy and gigantic savages of the north; their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite, and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and to the smell. The liberal studies were still cultivated in the schools of Autun and Bourdeaux; and the language of Cicero and Virgil was familiar to the Gallic youth. Their ears were astonished by the harsh and unknown sounds of the Germanic dia c Eadem semper causa Germanis transcendendi in Gallias libido atque avaritia et mutandæ sedis amor; ut relictis paludibus et solitudinibus suis, fecundissimum hoc solum vosque ipsos possiderent..... Nam pulsis Romanis quid aliud quam bella omnium inter se gentium exsistent? lect, and they ingeniously lamented that the trembling muses fled from the harmony of a Burgundian lyre. The Gauls were endowed with all the advantages of art and nature; but as they wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to flatter, the victorious barbarians, by whose clemency they held their precarious fortunes and their lives." Euric Visigoths, As soon as Odoacer had extinguished the king of the western empire, he sought the friendship of the A.D. 476 most powerful of the barbarians. The new so-485. vereign of Italy resigned to Euric, king of the Visigoths, all the Roman conquests beyond the Alps, as far as the Rhine and the ocean: and the senate might confirm this liberal gift with some ostentation of power, and without any real loss of revenue or dominion. The lawful pretensions of Euric were justified by ambition and success; and the Gothic nation might aspire, under his command, to the monarchy of Spain and Gaul. Arles and Marseilles surrendered to his arms; he oppressed the freedom of Auvergne; and the bishop condescended to purchase his recall from exile by a tribute of just, but reluctant, praise. Sidonius waited before the gates of the palace among a crowd of ambassadors and suppliants; and their various business at the court of Bourdeaux attested the power and the renown of the king of the Visigoths. The Heruli of the distant ocean, who painted their naked bodies with its cerulean colour, implored his protection; and the Saxons respected the maritime provinces of a prince, who was destitute of any naval force. The tall Burgundians submitted to his authority; nor did he restore the captive Franks, till he had imposed on that fierce nation the terms of an unequal peace. The Van d Sidonius Apollinaris ridicules, with affected wit and pleasantry, the hardships of his situation. (Carm. 12. in tom. 1. p. 811.) See Procopius de Bell. Gothico, lib. 1. c. 12. in tom. 2. p. 31. The character of Grotius inclines me to believe, that he has substituted the Rhine for the Rhone, (Hist. Gothorum, p. 175.) without the authority of some MS. dals of Africa cultivated his useful friendship; and the Ostrogoths of Pannonia were supported by his powerful aid against the oppression of the neighbouring Huns. The north (such are the lofty strains of the poet) was agitated or appeased, by the nod of Euric; the great king of Persia consulted the oracle of the west; and the aged god of the Tyber was protected by the swelling genius of the Garonne. The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents; and France may ascribe her greatness to the premature death of the Gothic king, at a time when bis son Alaric was a helpless infant, and his adversary Clovis an ambitious and valiant youth. Clovis Franks, While Childeric, the father of Clovis, lived king of the an exile in Germany, he was hospitably enterA.D. 481. tained by the queen, as well as by the king, of 511. the Thuringians. After his restoration, Basina escaped from her husband's bed to the arms of her lover; freely declaring, that if she had known a man wiser, stronger, or more beautiful, than Childeric, that man should have been the object of her preference." Clovis was the offspring of this voluntary union; and, when he was no more than fifteen years of age, he succeeded, by his father's death, to the command of the Salian tribe. The narrow limits of his kingdom' were confined to the island of the Batavians, with the ancient diocesses of Tournay and Arras; and at the baptism f Sidonius, lib. 8. epist. 3. 9. in tom. 1. p. 800. Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 47. p. 680.) justifies, in some measure, this portrait of the Gothic hero. I use the familiar appellation of Clovis, from the Latin Chlodovechus, or Chlodo vaus. But the Ch expresses only the German aspiration; and the true name is not different from Luduin or Lewis. (Mem. de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. 20. p. 68.) h Greg. Turon. lib. 2. c. 12. in tom. 1. p. 168. Basina speaks the language of nature: the Franks, who had seen her in their youth, might converse with Gregory in their old age; and the bishop of Tours could not wish to defame the mother of the first Christian king. i The abbé Dubos (Hist. Critique de l'Etablissement de la Monarchie Françoise dans les Gaules, tom. 1. p. 630–650.) has the merit of defining the primitive kingdom of Clovis, and of ascertaining the genuine number of his subjects. Ecclesiam incultam ac negligentia civium paganorum prætermissam, veprium desitate oppletam, &c. Vit. St. Vedasti, in tom. 3. p. 372. This description supposes that Arras was possessed by the Pagans, many years before the baptism of Clovis. of Clovis, the number of his warriors could not exceed five thousand. The kindred tribes of the Franks, who had seated themselves along the Belgic rivers, the Scheld, the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, were governed by their independent kings, of the Merovingian race; the equals, the allies and sometimes the enemies, of the Salic prince. But the Germans, who obeyed, in peace, the hereditary jurisdiction of their chiefs, were free to follow the standard of a popular and victorious general; and the superior merit of Clovis attracted the respect and allegiance of the national confederacy. When he first took the field, he had neither gold and silver in his coffers, nor wine and corn in his magazines:' but he imitated the example of Cæsar, who, in the same country, had acquired wealth by the sword, and purchased soldiers with the fruits of conquest. After each successful battle or expedition, the spoils were accumulated in one common mass; every warrior received his proportionable share, and the royal prerogative submitted to the equal regulations of military law. The untamed spirit of the barbarians was taught to acknowledge the advantages of regular discipline." At the annual review of the month of March, their arms were diligently inspected; and when they traversed a peaceful territory, they were prohibited from touching a blade of grass. The justice of Clovis was inexorable; and his careless or disobedient soldiers were punished with instant death. It would be superfluous to praise the valour of a Frank; but the valour of Clovis was directed by cool and consummate prudence." In all his transactions with mankind, he Gregory of Tours (lib. 5. c. 1. in tom. 2. p. 232.) contrasts the poverty of Clovis with the wealth of his grandsons. Yet Remigius (in tom. 4. p. 52.) mentions his paternas opes, as sufficient for the redemption of captives. m See Gregory. (lib. 2. c. 27. 37. in tom. 2. p. 175. 181, 182.) The famous story of the vase of Soissons explains both the power and the character of Clovis. As a point of controversy, it has been strangely tortured by Boulainvilliers, Dubos, and the other political antiquarians. "The duke of Nivernois, a noble statesman, who has managed weighty and delicate negotiations, ingeniously illustrates (Mem. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. 20. p. 147-184.) the political system of Clovis. His vic tory over calculated the weight of interest, of passion, and of opinion; and his measures were sometimes adapted to the sanguinary manners of the Germans, and sometimes moderated by the milder genius of Rome, and Christianity. He was intercepted in the career of victory, since he died in the forty-fifth year of his age; but he had already accomplished, in a reign of thirty years, the establishment of the French monarchy in Gaul. The first exploit of Clovis was the defeat of Syagrius, Syagrius, the son of Ægidius; and the public A. D. 486. quarrel might, on this occasion, be inflamed by private resentment. The glory of the father still insulted the Merovingian race; the power of the son might excite the jealous ambition of the king of the Franks. Syagrius inherited, as a patrimonial estate, the city and diocess of Soissons: the desolate remnant of the second Belgic, Rheims and Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, would naturally submit to the count or patrician; and after the dissolution of the western empire, he might reign with the title, or at least with the authority, of king of the Romans. As a Roman, he had been educated in the liberal studies of rhetoric and jurisprudence; but he was engaged by accident and policy in the familiar use of the Germanic idiom. The independent barbarians resorted to the tribunal of a stranger, who possessed the singular talent of explaining, in their native tongue, the dictates of reason and equity. The diligence and affability of their judge rendered him popular, the impartial wisdom of his decrees obtained their voluntary obedience, and the reign of Syagrius over the Franks and Burgundians, seemed to revive the original institution of civil society. In • M. Biet (in a Dissertation which deserved the prize of the Academy of Soissons, p. 178-226.) has accurately defined the nature and extent of the kingdom of Syagrius, and his father; but he too readily allows the slight evidence of Dubos (tom. 2. p. 54-57.) to deprive him of Beauvais and Amiens. PI may observe that Fredegarius, in his Epitome of Gregory of Tours, (tom. 2. p. 398.) has prudently substituted the name of Patricius for the incredible title of Rex Romanorum. Sidonius, (lib. 5. epist. 5. in tom. 1. p. 794.) who styles him the Solon, the |