his
reign, shown almost equal indifference and cruelty. In 523, during a war
which, in concert with his brothers Childebert and Clotaire, he had waged
against Sigismund, king of Burgundy, he had made prisoners of that king,
his wife, and their sons, and kept them shut up at Orleans. The year
after, the war was renewed with the Burgundians. "Clodomir resolved,"
says Gregory of Tours, "to put Sigismund to death. The blessed Avitus,
abbot of St. Mesrnin de Micy (an abbey about two leagues from Orleans), a
famous priest in those days, said to him on this occasion, 'If, turning
thy thoughts towards God, thou change thy plan, and suffer not these folk
to be slain, God will be with thee, and thou wilt gain the victory; but
if thou slay them, thou thyself wilt be delivered into the hands of thine
enemies, and thou wilt undergo their fate; to thee and thy wife and thy
sons will happen that which thou wilt have done to Sigismund and his wife
and his sons.' But Clodomir, taking no heed of this counsel, said, 'It
were great folly to leave one enemy at home when I march out against
another; one attacking me behind and another in front, I should find
myself between two armies: victory will be surer and easier if I separate
one from the other; when the first is once dead, it will be less
difficult to get rid of the other also.' Accordingly he put Sigismund to
death, together with his wife and his sons, ordered them to be thrown
into a well in the village of Coulmier, belonging to the territory of
Orleans, and set out for Burgundy. After his first success Clodomir fell
into an ambush and into the hands of his enemies, who cut off his head,
stuck it on the end of a pike and held it up aloft. Victory,
nevertheless, remained with the Franks; but scarcely had a year elapsed
when Queen Guntheuque, Clodomir's widow, became the wife of his brother
Clotaire, and his two elder sons, Theobald and Gonthaire, fell beneath
their uncle's hunting-knife."

Even in the coarsest and harshest ages the soul of man does not
completely lose its instincts of justice and humanity. The bishops and
priests were not alone in crying out against such atrocities; the
barbarians themselves did not always remain indifferent spectators of
them, but sometimes took advantage of them to rouse the wrath and warlike
ardor of their comrades. "About the year 528, Theodoric, king of Metz,
the eldest son of Clovis, purposed to undertake a grand campaign on the
right