thine enemy doth hide himself in a well-fortified place?  Thou ravagest the fields, thou pillagest the corn, thou cuttest down the vines, thou fellest the olive-trees, thou destroyest all the produce of the land, and yet thou succeedest not in destroying thine adversary.  Rather send thou unto him deputies, and lay on him a tribute to be paid to thee every year.  Thus the land will be preserved, and thou wilt be lord forever over him who owes thee tribute.  If he refuse, thou shalt then do what pleaseth thee.”  Clovis found the counsel good, ordered his army to return home, sent deputies to Gondebaud, and called upon him to undertake the payment every year of a fixed tribute.  Gondebaud paid for the time, and promised to pay punctually for the future.  And peace appeared made between the two barbarians.

Pleased with his campaign against the Burgundians, Clovis kept on good terms with Gondebaud, who was to be henceforth a simple tributary, and transferred to the Visigoths of Aquitania and their King, Alaric II, his views of conquest.  He had there the same pretexts for attack and the same means of success.  Alaric and his Visigoths were Arians, and between them and the bishops of Southern Gaul, nearly all orthodox Catholics, there were permanent ill-will and distrust.  Alaric attempted to conciliate their good-will:  in 506 a council met at Agde; the thirty-four bishops of Aquitania attended in person or by delegate; the King protested that he had no design of persecuting the Catholics; the bishops, at the opening of the council, offered prayers for the King; but Alaric did not forget that immediately after the conversion of Clovis, Volusian, bishop of Tours, had conspired in favor of the Frankish King, and the bishops of Aquitania regarded Volusian as a martyr, for he had been deposed, without trial, from his see, and taken as a prisoner first to Toulouse, and afterward into Spain, where in a short time he had been put to death.  In vain did the glorious chief of the race of Goths, Theodoric the Great, king of Italy, father-in-law of Alaric, and brother-in-law of Clovis, exert himself to prevent any outbreak between the two kings.  In 498 Alaric, no doubt at his father-in-law’s solicitation, wrote to Clovis, “If my brother consent thereto, I would, following my desires and by the grace of God, have an interview with him.”

The interview took place at a small island in the Loire, called the Ile d’Or or de St. Jean, near Amboise.  “The two kings,” says Gregory of Tours, “conversed, ate, and drank together, and separated with mutual promises of friendship.”  The positions and passions of each soon made the promises of no effect.  In 505 Clovis was seriously ill; the bishops of Aquitania testified warm interest in him; and one of them, Quintian, bishop of Rodez, being on this account persecuted by the Visigoths, had to seek refuge at Clermont, in Auvergne.  Clovis no longer concealed his designs.  In 507 he assembled his principal chieftains; and “It displeaseth me greatly,” said he, “that these Arians should possess a portion of the Gauls; march we forth with the help of God, drive we them from that land, for it is very goodly, and bring we it under our own power.”