s, and their Burgundian allies, was compelled to raise the siege
of Arles, with the loss, as it is said, of thirty thousand men. These
vicissitudes inclined the fierce spirit of Clovis to acquiesce in an
advantageous treaty of peace. The Visigoths were suffered to retain the
possession of Septimania, a narrow tract of sea-coast, from the Rhone to
the Pyrenees; but the ample province of Aquitain, from those mountains
to the Loire, was indissolubly united to the kingdom of France. [56]

[Footnote 53: Angouleme is in the road from Poitiers to Bordeaux; and
although Gregory delays the siege, I can more readily believe that he
confounded the order of history, than that Clovis neglected the rules of
war.]

[Footnote 54: Pyrenaeos montes usque Perpinianum subjecit, is the
expression of Rorico, which betrays his recent date; since Perpignan
did not exist before the tenth century, (Marca Hispanica, p. 458.) This
florid and fabulous writer (perhaps a monk of Amiens--see the Abbe
le Boeuf, Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xvii. p. 228-245) relates, in
the allegorical character of a shepherd, the general history of his
countrymen the Franks; but his narrative ends with the death of Clovis.]

[Footnote 55: The author of the Gesta Francorum positively affirms, that
Clovis fixed a body of Franks in the Saintonge and Bourdelois: and he
is not injudiciously followed by Rorico, electos milites, atque
fortissimos, cum parvulis, atque mulieribus. Yet it should seem
that they soon mingled with the Romans of Aquitain, till Charlemagne
introduced a more numerous and powerful colony, (Dubos, Hist. Critique,
tom. ii. p. 215.)]

[Footnote 56: In the composition of the Gothic war, I have used the
following materials, with due regard to their unequal value. Four
epistles from Theodoric, king of Italy, (Cassiodor l. iii. epist. 1-4.
in tom. iv p. 3-5;) Procopius, (de Bell. Goth. l. i. c 12, in tom. ii.
p. 32, 33;) Gregory of Tours, (l. ii. c. 35, 36, 37, in tom. ii. p.
181-183;) Jornandes, (de Reb. Geticis, c. 58, in tom. ii. p. 28;)
Fortunatas, (in Vit. St. Hilarii, in tom. iii. p. 380;) Isidore, (in
Chron. Goth. in tom. ii. p. 702;) the Epitome of Gregory of Tours, (in
tom. ii. p. 401;) the author of the Gesta Francorum, (in tom. ii. p.
553-555;) the Fragments of Fredegarius, (in tom. ii. p. 463;) Aimoin,
(l. i. c. 20, in tom. iii. p. 41, 42,) and Rorico, (l. iv. in tom. iii.
p. 14-19.)]

After the success of the Gothic war, Clovis accepted the hono