in Gaul.

[Footnote 8: Greg. l. ii. c. 12, in tom. i. p. 168. Basina speaks the
language of nature; the Franks, who had seen her in their youth, might
converse with Gregory in their old age; and the bishop of Tours could
not wish to defame the mother of the first Christian king.]

[Footnote 9: The Abbe Dubos (Hist. Critique de l'Etablissement de la
Monarchie Francoise dans les Gaules, tom. i. p. 630-650) has the merit
of defining the primitive kingdom of Clovis, and of ascertaining the
genuine number of his subjects.]

[Footnote 10: Ecclesiam incultam ac negligentia civium Paganorum
praetermis sam, veprium densitate oppletam, &c. Vit. St. Vedasti, in
tom. iii. p. 372. This description supposes that Arras was possessed by
the Pagans many years before the baptism of Clovis.]

[Footnote 11: Gregory of Tours (l v. c. i. tom. ii. p. 232) contrasts
the poverty of Clovis with the wealth of his grandsons. Yet Remigius
(in tom. iv. p. 52) mentions his paternas opes, as sufficient for the
redemption of captives.]

[Footnote 12: See Gregory, (l. ii. c. 27, 37, in tom. ii. p. 175, 181,
182.) The famous story of the vase of Soissons explains both the power
and the character of Clovis. As a point of controversy, it has been
strangely tortured by Boulainvilliers Dubos, and the other political
antiquarians.]

[Footnote 13: The duke of Nivernois, a noble statesman, who has managed
weighty and delicate negotiations, ingeniously illustrates (Mem. de
l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xx. p. 147-184) the political system of
Clovis.]

The first exploit of Clovis was the defeat of Syagrius, the son of
Aegidius; and the public quarrel might, on this occasion, be inflamed
by private resentment. The glory of the father still insulted the
Merovingian race; the power of the son might excite the jealous ambition
of the king of the Franks. Syagrius inherited, as a patrimonial estate,
the city and diocese of Soissons: the desolate remnant of the second
Belgic, Rheims and Troyes, Beauvais and Amiens, would naturally submit
to the count or patrician: [14] and after the dissolution of the Western
empire, he might reign with the title, or at least with the authority,
of king of the Romans. [15] As a Roman, he had been educated in the
liberal studies of rhetoric and jurisprudence; but he was engaged by
accident and policy in the familiar use of the Germanic idiom. The
independent Barbarians resorted to the tribunal of a stranger, who
possessed the