ith his success and with Clotilde's notion, at once sent a
deputation to Gondebaud to demand his niece in marriage. Gondebaud, not
daring to refuse, and flattered at the idea of making a friend of Clovis,
promised to give her to him. Then the deputation, having offered the
denier and the sou, according to the custom of the Franks, espoused
Clotilde in the name of Clovis, and demanded that she be given up to them
to be married. Without any delay the council was assembled at Chalons,
and preparations made for the nuptials. The Franks, having arrived with
all speed, received her from the hands of Gondebaud, put her into a
covered carriage, and escorted her to Clovis, together with much
treasure. She, however, having already learned that Aridius was on his
way back, said to the Frankish lords, "If ye would take me into the
presence of your lord, let me descend from this carriage, mount me on
horseback, and get you hence as fast as ye may; for never in this
carriage shall I reach the presence of your lord."

"Aridius, in fact, returned very speedily from Marseilles, and Gondebaud,
on seeing him, said to him, 'Thou knowest that we have made friends with
the Franks, and that I have given my niece to Clovis to wife.' 'This,'
answered Aridius, 'is no bond of friendship, but the beginning of
perpetual strife; thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, that thou didst
slay Clotilde's father, thy brother Chilperic, that thou didst drown her
mother, and that thou didst cut off her brothers' heads and cast their
bodies into a well. If Clotilde become powerful she will avenge the
wrongs of her relatives. Send thou forthwith a troop in chase, and have
her brought back to thee. It will be easier for thee to bear the wrath
of one person, than to be perpetually at strife, thyself and thine, with
all the Franks.' And Gondebaud did send forthwith a troop in chase to
fetch back Clotilde with the carriage and all the treasure; but she, on
approaching Villers, where Clovis was waiting for her, in the territory
of Troyes, and before passing the Burgundian frontier, urged them who
escorted her to disperse right and left over a space of twelve leagues in
the country whence she was departing, to plunder and burn; and that
having been done with the permission of Clovis, she cried aloud, 'I thank
thee, God omnipotent, for that I see the commencement of vengeance for my
parents and my brethren!'"

The majority of the learned have regarded this