Clovis inherited the Merovingian throne in 481, aged fifteen. His realm was then a mere corner of Gaul; other Frank tribes ruled the Rhineland, and the Visigothic and Burgundian kingdoms in southern Gaul had been made fully independent by the fall of Rome. Northwest Gaul, still nominally under Roman power, was left defenseless. Clovis invaded it, captured towns and dignitaries, accepted ransoms, sold spoils, bought troops, supplies, and arms, advanced to Soissons, and defeated a “Roman” army (486). During the next ten years he extended his conquests till they touched Brittany and the Loire. He won over the Gallic population by leaving them in possession of their lands, and the orthodox Christian clergy by respecting their creed and their wealth. In 493 he married a Christian, Clothilde, who soon converted him from paganism to Nicene Christianity. Remi, bishop and saint, baptized him at Reims before an audience of prelates and notables judiciously invited from all Gaul; and 3000 soldiers followed Clovis to the font. Perhaps Clovis, longing to reach the Mediterranean, thought France was worth a Mass. The orthodox population in Visigothic and Burgundian Gaul now looked askance at their Arian rulers, and became the secret or open allies of the young Frank king.
Alaric II saw the oncoming tide, and tried to turn it back with fair words. He invited Clovis to a conference; they met at Amboise, and pledged lasting friendship. But Alaric, returning to Toulouse, arrested some orthodox bishops for conspiring with the Franks. Clovis summoned his martial assembly and said: “I take it very hard that these Arians hold part of Gaul. Let us go with God’s help and conquer them.”47 Alaric defended himself as well as he could with a divided people; he was defeated at Vouillé, near Poitiers (507), and was slain by Clovis’ hand. “After Clovis had spent the winter in Bordeaux,” says Gregory of Tours, “and had taken all the treasures of Alaric from Toulouse, he went to besiege Angoulême. And the Lord gave him such grace that the walls fell down of their own accord”;48 here, so soon, is the characteristic note of the medieval chronicler. Sigebert, the old king of the Ripuarian Franks, had long been an ally of Clovis. To Sigebert’s son Clovis now suggested the advantages that would come from Sigebert’s death. The son killed his father; Clovis sent professions of friendship to the patricide, and agents to murder him; this having been attended to, Clovis marched to Cologne, and persuaded the Ripuarian chieftains to accept him as their king. “Every day,” says Gregory, “God caused his enemies to fall beneath his hand … because he walked with a right heart before the Lord, and did the things that were pleasing in His sight.”49
The conquered Arians were readily converted to the orthodox faith, and their clergy, by omitting an iota, were allowed to retain their clerical rank. Clovis, rich with captives, slaves, spoils, and benedictions, moved his capital to Paris. There, four years later, he died, old at forty-five. Queen Clothilde, having helped to make Gaul France, “came to Tours after the death of her husband, and served there in the church of St. Martin, and dwelt in the place with the greatest chastity and kindness all the days of her life.”50
3. The Merovingians: 511–614
Clovis, who had longed for sons, had too many at his death. To avoid a war of succession he divided his kingdom among them: Childebert received the region of Paris, Chlodomer that of Orléans, Chlotar that of Soissons, Theodoric that of Metz and Reims. With barbarian energy they continued the policy of unification by conquest. They took Thuringia in 530, Burgundy in 534, Provence in 536, Bavaria and Swabia in 555; and Chlotar I, outliving his brothers and inheriting their kingdoms, governed a Gaul vaster than any later France. Dying (561), he redivided Gaul into three parts: the Reims and Metz region, known as Austrasia (i.e., East), went to his son Sigebert; Burgundy to Gunthram; and to Chilperic the Soissons region, known as Neustria (i.e., Northwest).
From the day of Clovis’ marriage the history of France has been bisexual, mingling love and war. Sigebert sent costly presents to Athanagild, Visigothic king of Spain, and asked for his daughter Brunhilda; Athanagild, fearing the Franks even when they bore gifts, consented; and Brunhilda came to grace the halls of Metz and Reims (566). Chilperic was envious; all that he had was a simple wife, Audovera, and a rough concubine, Fredegunda. He asked Athanagild for Brunhilda’s sister; Galswintha came to Soissons, and Chilperic loved her, for she had brought great treasures. But she was older than her sister. Chilperic returned to the arms of Fredegunda; Galswintha proposed to go back to Spain; Chilperic had her strangled (567). Sigebert declared war upon Chilperic, and defeated him; but two slaves sent by Fredegunda assassinated Sigebert. Brunhilda was captured, escaped, crowned her young son Childebert II, and ruled ably in his name.
Chilperic is described to us as “the Nero and Herod of our time,” ruthless, murderous, lecherous, gluttonous, greedy for gold. Gregory of Tours, our sole authority for this portrait, partly explains it by making him also the Frederick II of his age. Chilperic, he tells us, scoffed at the idea of three persons in one God, and at the conception of God as like a man; held scandalous discussions with Jews; protested against the wealth of the Church and the political activity of the bishops; annulled wills made in favor of churches; sold bishoprics to the highest bidders; and tried to remove Gregory himself from the see of Tours.51 The poet Fortunatus described the same king as a synthesis of virtues, a just and genial ruler, a Cicero of eloquence; but Chilperic had rewarded Fortunatus’ verse.52
Chilperic was stabbed to death in 584, possibly by an agent of Brunhilda. He left an infant son, Chlotar II, in whose stead Fredegunda ruled Neustria with as much skill, perfidy, and cruelty as any man of the time. She sent a young cleric to kill Brunhilda; when he returned unsuccessful she had his hands and feet cut off; but these items too are from Gregory.53 Meanwhile the nobles of Austrasia, encouraged by Chlotar II, raised revolt after revolt against the imperious Brunhilda; she controlled them as well as she could by diplomacy tempered with assassination; finally they deposed her, aged eighty, tortured her for three days, tied her by hair, hand, and foot to the tail of a horse, and lashed the horse to flight (614). Chlotar II inherited all three kingdoms, and the Frank realm was again one.
From this red chronicle we may exaggerate the barbarism that darkened Gaul hardly a century after the urbane and polished Sidonius; men must find some substitute for elections. The unifying work of Clovis was undone by his descendants, as that of Charlemagne would be; but at least government continued, and not all Gauls could afford the polygamy and brutality of their kings. The apparent autocracy of the monarch was limited by the power of jealous nobles; he rewarded their services in administration and war with estates on which they were practically sovereign; and on these great demesnes began the feudalism that would fight the French monarchy for a thousand years. Serfdom grew, and slavery received a new lease of life from new wars. Industry passed from the towns to the manors; the towns shrank in size, and fell under the control of the feudal lords; commerce was still active, but hindered by unstable currencies, highway brigandage, and the rise of feudal tolls. Famine and pestilence fought successfully against the eager reproductiveness of men.