All that can be distinctly affirmed is that, from A.D. 450 to 480, the two principal Frankish tribes were those of the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks, settled, the latter in the east of Belgica, on the banks of the Moselle and the Rhine; the former toward the west, between the Meuse, the ocean, and the Somme.  Meroveus, whose name was perpetuated in his line, was one of the principal chieftains of the Salian Franks; and his son Childeric, who resided at Tournai, where his tomb was discovered in 1655, was the father of Clovis, who succeeded him in 481, and with whom really commenced the kingdom and history of France.

Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he became king of the Salian Franks of Tournai.  Five years afterward his ruling passion, ambition, exhibited itself, together with that mixture of boldness and craft which was to characterize his whole life.  He had two neighbors:  one, hostile to the Franks, the Roman patrician Syagrius, who was left master at Soissons after the death of his father AEgidius, and whom Gregory of Tours calls “king of the Romans”; the other, a Salian-Frankish chieftain, just as Clovis was, and related to him, Ragnacaire, who was settled at Cambrai.  Clovis induced Ragnacaire to join him in a campaign against Syagrius.  They fought, and Syagrius was driven to take refuge in Southern Gaul, with Alaric, king of the Visigoths.

Clovis, not content with taking possession of Soissons, and anxious to prevent any troublesome return, demanded of Alaric to send Syagrius back to him, threatening war if the request were refused.  The Goth, less bellicose than the Frank, delivered up Syagrius to the envoys of Clovis, who immediately had him secretly put to death, settled himself at Soissons, and from thence set on foot, in the country between the Aisne and the Loire, plundering and subjugating expeditions which speedily increased his domains and his wealth, and extended far and wide his fame as well as his ambition.  The Franks who accompanied him were not long before they also felt the growth of his power; like him they were pagans, and the treasures of the Christian churches counted for a great deal in the booty they had to divide.  On one of their expeditions they had taken in the church of Rheims, among other things, a vase “of marvellous size and beauty.”

The bishop of Rheims, St. Remi, was not quite a stranger to Clovis.  Some years before, when he had heard that the son of Childeric had become king of the Franks of Tournai, he had written to congratulate him.  “We are informed,” said he, “that thou hast undertaken the conduct of affairs; it is no marvel that thou beginnest to be what thy fathers ever were;” and, while taking care to put himself on good terms with the young pagan chieftain, the bishop added to his felicitations some pious Christian counsel, without letting any attempt at conversion be mixed up with his moral exhortations.  The bishop, informed of the removal of the vase, sent to Clovis a messenger begging the return, if not of all his church’s ornaments, at any rate of that.  “Follow us as far as Soissons,” said Clovis to the messenger; “it is there the partition is to take place of what we have captured; when the lots shall have given me the vase, I will do what the bishop demands.”