nknown;--Propriety of conduct, it appears, for the present, also
nowhere! (but we are all pagans yet, remember).

Let us get our dates and our geography, at any rate, gathered out of
the great 'nowhere' of confused memory, and set well together, thus
far.

457. Merovee dies. The useful Childeric, counting his exile, and reign
in Amiens, together, is King altogether twenty-four years, 457 to 481,
and during his reign Odoacer ends the Roman empire in Italy, 476.

481. Clovis is only fifteen when he succeeds his father, as King of
the Franks in Amiens. At this time a fragment of Roman power remains
isolated in central France, while four strong and partly savage
nations form a cross round this dying centre: the Frank on the north,
the Breton on the west, the Burgundian on the east, the Visigoth
strongest of all and gentlest, in the south, from Loire to the sea.

Sketch for yourself, first, a map of France, as large as you like, as
in Plate I., fig. 1, marking only the courses of the five rivers,
Somme, Seine, Loire, Saone, Rhone; then, rudely, you find it was
divided at the time thus, fig. 2: Fleur-de-lysee part, Frank; \\\,
Breton; ///, Burgundian; =, Visigoth. I am not sure how far these last
reached across Rhone into Provence, but I think best to indicate
Provence as semee with roses.

Now, under Clovis, the Franks fight three great battles. The first,
with the Romans, near Soissons, which they win, and become masters of
France as far as the Loire. Copy the rough map fig. 2, and put the
fleur-de-lys all over the middle of it, extinguishing the Romans (fig.
3). This battle was won by Clovis, I believe, before he married
Clotilde. He wins his princess by it: cannot get his pretty vase,
however, to present to her. Keep that story well in your mind, and the
battle of Soissons, as winning mid-France for the French, and ending the
Romans there, for ever. Secondly, after he marries Clotilde, the wild
Germans attack _him_ from the north, and he has to fight for life and
throne at Tolbiac. This is the battle in which he prays to the God of
Clotilde, and quits himself of the Germans by His help. Whereupon he is
crowned in Rheims by St. Remy.

[Illustration: Plate I. THE DYNASTIES OF FRANCE.]

And now, in the new strength of his Christianity, and his twin victory
over Rome and Germany, and his love for his queen, and his ambition
for his people, he looks south on that vast Visigothic power, between
Loire and the snowy mount