a well in the village of Coulmier, belonging to the territory of Orleans, and set out for Burgundy.  After his first success Clodomir fell into an ambush and into the hands of his enemies, who cut off his head, stuck it on the end of a pike and held it up aloft.  Victory, nevertheless, remained with the Franks; but scarcely had a year elapsed when Queen Guntheuque, Clodomir’s widow, became the wife of his brother Clotaire, and his two elder sons, Theobald and Gonthaire, fell beneath their uncle’s hunting-knife.”

Even in the coarsest and harshest ages the soul of man does not completely lose its instincts of justice and humanity.  The bishops and priests were not alone in crying out against such atrocities; the barbarians themselves did not always remain indifferent spectators of them, but sometimes took advantage of them to rouse the wrath and warlike ardor of their comrades.  “About the year 528, Theodoric, king of Metz, the eldest son of Clovis, purposed to undertake a grand campaign on the right bank of the Rhine against his neighbors the Thuringians, and summoned the Franks to a meeting.  ‘Bethink you,’ said he, that of old time the Thuringians fell violently upon our ancestors, and did them much harm.  Our fathers, ye know, gave them hostages to obtain peace; but the Thuringians put to death those hostages in divers ways, and once more falling upon our relatives, took from them all they possessed.  After having hung children up, by the sinews of their thighs, on the branches of trees, they put to a most cruel death more than two hundred young girls, tying them by the legs to the necks of horses, which, driven by pointed goads in different directions, tore the poor souls in pieces; they laid others along the ruts of the roads, fixed them in the earth with stakes, drove over them laden cars, and so left them, with their bones all broken, as a meal for the birds and dogs.  To this very day doth Hermannfroi fail in his promise, and absolutely refuse to fulfil his engagements:  right is on our side; march we against them with the help of God.’  Then the Franks, indignant at such atrocities, demanded with one voice to be led into Thuringia. . . .  Victory made them masters of it, and they reduced the country under their dominion. . . .  Whilst the Frankish kings were still there, Theodoric would have slain his brother Clotaire.  Having put armed men in waiting, he had him fetched to treat secretly of a certain matter.  Then, having arranged, in a portion of his house, a curtain from wall to wall, he posted his armed men behind it; but, as the curtain was too short, it left their feet exposed.  Clotaire, having been warned of the snare, entered the house armed and with a goodly company.  Theodoric then perceived that he was discovered, invented some story, and talked of this, that, and the other.  At last, not knowing how to get his treachery forgotten, he made Clotaire a present of a large silvern dish.  Clotaire wished him good by, thanked him, and returned home.  But Theodoric immediately complained to his own folks that he had sacrificed his silvern dish to no purpose, and said to his son Theodebert, ’Go, find thy uncle, and pray him to give thee the present I made him.’  Theodebert went, and got what he asked.  In such tricks did Theodoric excel.” (Gregory of Tours, III. vii.)