After Sigebert and the Ripuarian Franks, came the Franks of Terouanne, and Chararic their king.  He had refused, twenty years before, to march with Clovis against the Roman, Syagrius.  Clovis, who had not forgotten it, attacked him, took him and his son prisoners, and had them both shorn, ordering that Chararic should be ordained priest and his son deacon.  Chararic was much grieved.  Then said his son to him, “Here be branches which were cut from a green tree, and are not yet wholly dried up:  soon they will sprout forth again.  May it please God that he who hath wrought all this shall die as quickly!” Clovis considered these words as a menace, had both father and son beheaded, and took possession of their dominions.  Ragnacaire, king of the Franks of Cambrai, was the third to be attacked.  He had served Clovis against Syagrins, but Clovis took no account of that.  Ragnacaire, being beaten, was preparing for flight, when he was seized by his own soldiers, who tied his hands behind his back, and took him to Clovis along with his brother Riquier.  “Wherefore hast thou dishonored our race,” said Clovis, “by letting thyself wear bonds?” “Twere better to have died;” and cleft his skull with one stroke of his battle-axe.  Then turning to Riquier, “Hadst thou succored thy brother,” said he, “he had assuredly not been bound;” and felled him likewise at his feet.  Rignomer, king of the Franks of Le Mans, met the same fate, but not at the hands, only by the order, of Clovis.  So Clovis remained sole king of the Franks, for all the independent chieftains had disappeared.

It is said that one day, after all these murders, Clovis, surrounded by his trusted servants, cried, “Woe is me! who am left as a traveller amongst strangers, and who have no longer relatives to lend me support in the day of adversity!” Thus do the most shameless take pleasure in exhibiting sham sorrow after crimes they cannot disavow.

It cannot be known whether Clovis ever felt in his soul any scruple or regret for his many acts of ferocity and perfidy, or if he looked, as sufficient expiation, upon the favor he had bestowed on the churches and their bishops, upon the gifts he lavished on them, and upon the absolutions he demanded of them.  In times of mingled barbarism and faith there are strange cases of credulity in the way of bargains made with divine justice.  We read in the life of St. Eleutherus, bishop of Tournai, the native land of Clovis, that at one of those periods when the conscience of the Frankish king must have been most heavily laden, he presented himself one day at the church.  “My lord king,” said the bishop, “I know wherefore thou art come to me.”  “I have nothing special to say unto thee,” rejoined Clovis.  “Say not so, O king,” replied the bishop; “thou hast sinned, and darest not avow it.”  The king was moved, and ended by confessing that he had deeply sinned and had need of large pardon.  St. Eleutherus betook himself