n, the crafty Dejoces had raised himself to the throne of the
Medes, (Herodot. l. i. c. 96-100.)]

[Footnote 17: Campum sibi praeparari jussit. M. Biet (p. 226-251) has
diligently ascertained this field of battle, at Nogent, a Benedictine
abbey, about ten miles to the north of Soissons. The ground was marked
by a circle of Pagan sepulchres; and Clovis bestowed the adjacent lands
of Leully and Coucy on the church of Rheims.]

[Footnote 18: See Caesar. Comment. de Bell. Gallic. ii. 4, in tom. i.
p. 220, and the Notitiae, tom. i. p. 126. The three Fabricae of Soissons
were, Seutaria, Balistaria, and Clinabaria. The last supplied the
complete armor of the heavy cuirassiers.]

[Footnote 19: The epithet must be confined to the circumstances; and
history cannot justify the French prejudice of Gregory, (l. ii. c. 27,
in tom. ii. p. 175,) ut Gothorum pavere mos est.]

[Footnote 20: Dubos has satisfied me (tom. i. p. 277-286) that Gregory
of Tours, his transcribers, or his readers, have repeatedly confounded
the German kingdom of Thuringia, beyond the Rhine, and the Gallic city
of Tongria, on the Meuse, which was more anciently the country of the
Eburones, and more recently the diocese of Liege.]

The name of the Alemanni has been absurdly derived from their imaginary
settlement on the banks of the Leman Lake. [21] That fortunate district,
from the lake to the Avenche, and Mount Jura, was occupied by the
Burgundians. [22] The northern parts of Helvetia had indeed been subdued
by the ferocious Alemanni, who destroyed with their own hands the fruits
of their conquest. A province, improved and adorned by the arts of
Rome, was again reduced to a savage wilderness; and some vestige of the
stately Vindonissa may still be discovered in the fertile and populous
valley of the Aar. [23] From the source of the Rhine to its conflux
with the Mein and the Moselle, the formidable swarms of the Alemanni
commanded either side of the river, by the right of ancient possession,
or recent victory. They had spread themselves into Gaul, over the modern
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine; and their bold invasion of the kingdom
of Cologne summoned the Salic prince to the defence of his Ripuarian
allies.

Clovis encountered the invaders of Gaul in the plain of Tolbiac, about
twenty-four miles from Cologne; and the two fiercest nations of Germany
were mutually animated by the memory of past exploits, and the prospect
of future greatness. The Franks, af