ng Power, and pride in its
protection, added only fierceness to his soldiership, and deepened his
political enmities with the rancour of religions indignation. No more
dangerous snare is set by the fiends for human frailty than the belief
that our own enemies are also the enemies of God; and it is perfectly
conceivable to me that the conduct of Clovis might have been the more
unscrupulous, precisely in the measure that his faith was more sincere.

Had either Clovis or Clotilde fully understood the precepts of their
Master, the following history of France, and of Europe, would have
been other than it is. What they could understand, or in any wise were
taught, you will find that they obeyed, and were blessed in obeying.
But their history is complicated with that of several other persons,
respecting whom we must note now a few too much forgotten particulars.

If from beneath the apse of Amiens Cathedral we take the street
leading due south, leaving the railroad station on the left, it brings
us to the foot of a gradually ascending hill, some half a mile long--a
pleasant and quiet walk enough, terminating on the level of the
highest land near Amiens; whence, looking back, the Cathedral is seen
beneath us, all but the fleche, our gained hill-top being on a level
with its roof-ridge: and, to the south, the plain of France.

Somewhere about this spot, or in the line between it and St. Acheul,
stood the ancient Roman gate of the Twins, whereon were carved Romulus
and Remus being suckled by the wolf; and out of which, one bitter
winter's day, a hundred and seventy years ago when Clovis was
baptized--had ridden a Roman soldier, wrapped in his horseman's
cloak,[5] on the causeway which was part of the great Roman road from
Lyons to Boulogne.

[Footnote 5: More properly, his knight's cloak; in all likelihood the
trabea, with purple and white stripes, dedicate to the kings of Rome,
and chiefly to Romulus.]

And it is well worth your while also, some frosty autumn or winter day
when the east wind is high, to feel the sweep of it at this spot,
remembering what chanced here, memorable to all men, and serviceable,
in that winter of the year 332, when men were dying for cold in Amiens
streets:--namely, that the Roman horseman, scarce gone out of the city
gate, was met by a naked beggar, shivering with cold; and that, seeing
no other way of shelter for him, he drew his sword, divided his own
cloak in two, and gave him half of it.