nds bound
behind his back, Ragnachar and his brother Richiar were brought into the
presence of Clovis. "Shame on thee", said the indignant king, "for
humiliating our race by suffering thy hands to be bound. It had been
better for thee to die--thus", and the great battle-axe descended on his
head. Then turning to Richiar, he said: "If thou hadst helped thy
brother, he would not have been bound"; and his skull too was cloven
with the battle-axe. Before many days the traitorous chiefs discovered
the base metal in the ornaments which had purchased their treason, and
complained of the fraud. "Good enough gold", said Clovis, "for men who
were willing to betray their lord to death"; and the traitors, trembling
for their lives under his frown and fierce rebuke, were glad to leave
the matter undiscussed.

Thus in all his arguments with the weaker creatures around him the
Frankish king was always right. It was always they, not he, who had
befouled the stream. In this, shall I say, shameless plausibility of
wrong, the founder of the Frankish monarchy was a worthy prototype of
Louis XIV. and of Napoleon.

Having slain these and many other kings, and extended his dominions over
the whole of Gaul, he once, in an assembly of his nobles, lamented his
solitary estate. "Alas, I am but a stranger and a pilgrim, and have no
kith or kin who could help me if adversity came upon me". But this he
said, not in real grief for their death, but in guile, in order that if
there were any forgotten relative lurking anywhere he might come forth
and be killed. None, however, was found to answer to the
invitation.[112]

[Footnote 112: We are reminded of the well-known story of Marshal
Narvaez on his death-bed. "My son", said the confessor, "it is necessary
that you should with all your heart grant forgiveness to your enemies".
"Ah, that is easy", said the dying man, "I have shot them all".]

Like all his family, Clovis was short-lived, though not so conspicuously
short-lived as many of his descendants. He died at forty-five, in the
year 511, five years after the battle of the Campus Vogladensis. He was
buried (511) in the Church of the Holy Apostles at Paris, and his
kingdom, consolidated with so much labor and at the price of so many
crimes, was partitioned among his four sons. The aged Emperor
Anastasius survived his Frankish ally seven years, and died in the
eighty-ninth year of his age, 8th July, 518. His death was sudden, and
some later writer