But the king of whom she had dreamed was of her own race; not this terrible Frank.  Had she exchanged one servitude for another?  Had she been, not set free, but simply annexed to the realm of the barbarian across the Rhine?  Let us say rather that it was an espousal.  She had brought her dowry of beauty and “land,” that most coveted of possessions, and had pledged obedience, for which she was to be cherished, honored, and protected, and to bear the name of her lord.

It will be well not to examine too closely the conversion of Clovis to Christianity, any more than that of Constantine to the religion of Christ, or that of Henry VIII. to Protestantism.  The only thing Clovis wanted of the gods was aid in destroying his enemies.  At a certain dark moment, when the pagan deities failed him, and the tide of battle was turning against him, in desperation he offered to become a Christian, if the God of the Christians would save him.  He kept his word.  His victory was followed by Christian baptism, and the Church had won a great defender, whose ferocious instincts were thereafter to be directed toward the extermination of unbelievers.  And while hewing and consolidating and bringing his kingdom into form, whether by treacheries or intrigues or assassination, this converted Frank was not alone defender of the faith, but of the orthodox faith.  The Visigoth kingdom in Spain was given over to that heresy known as Arianism!  So in a crusade, like another of a later date, he swept them over beyond the Pyrenees, thus establishing a frontier which always remained.

Such were the rough beginnings of France, geographically and historically.

Ancient heroes are said to be seen through a shadowy lens, which magnifies their stature.  Let us hope that the crimes of the three or four generations immediately succeeding Clovis have been in like manner expanded; for it is sickening to read of such monstrous prodigality of wickedness; whole families butchered—­husbands, wives, children, anything obstructing the path to the throne—­with an atrocity which makes Richard III. seem a mere pigmy in the art of intrigue and killing.  The chapter closes with the daughter and mother of kings (Brunhilde or Brunhaut), naked, and tied by one arm, one leg, and her hair to the tail of an unbroken horse, and amid jeers and shouts dashed over the stones of Paris (A.D. 600).

Upon the death of Clovis his inheritance was divided among four sons, who, with their wives and families and their tempestuous passions, afforded material for a great epic.  Whether Fredegunde or Brunhilde was the more terrible who can say?  But the story of these rival queens, with their loves and their hatreds and their ambitious, vengeful fury, is more like the story of demons than of women.  But these conditions led to two results which played a great part in subsequent events.  One was the exclusion of women from the succession by the adoption of the Salic Law.  Then, in order to curb the degeneracy or to reinforce the inefficiency of the hereditary ruler, there was created the office of Maire du Palais, a modest title which contained the germ of the future, not alone of France, but of the world.