Many had encamped between the _Emporium_[10] and the _tête de pont_; the Burgundians passed round them, and attacking them unawares, drove into the river those who were not massacred. At the same time Clodoald set fire to the whole quarter. The wind was blowing from the south, and the habitations situated on the banks of the river soon presented a mass of flames. When, the Franks having rallied, their forces were on the point of taking the offensive, the Burgundians had already re-entered the _tête de pont_, and were re-ascending the plateau. The Franks had lost from four to five hundred men in this skirmish, while of the besieged not more than twenty men had been put _hors de combat_. This commencement brought joy to the city, and those who from the top of the ramparts saw their houses in flames, endured their ill-fortune patiently, thinking of the vengeance they might reasonably anticipate. Experienced in war as he was, Clodoald would not allow this ardour to cool. On the morning which followed this night so fatal to the Franks, he formed two bodies of two thousand men each, well armed with _angons_, _francisques_, and _scamasaxes_ (for throughout Gaul at that time these weapons were common to the Franks, the Gauls, and the Burgundians, with some slight variations). He ordered a body of about five hundred men to issue by the eastern gate of the southern _place d'armes_, to cross the rivulet, and make a show of intending to pass the river below the stone bridge of the valley, by means of light boats which four men could carry on their shoulders. These boats had been stowed away in the _place d'armes_. At the same time, one of the two bodies was to assemble in the northern outpost, which had not yet been attacked, and make a vigorous sortie. Clodoald himself, with a body of a thousand men, was to pass the eastern gate of the city, skirt the ramparts and the outpost, and come to sustain the attack and take the enemy in flank. The five hundred men furnished with boats were to limit themselves to such a pretence of crossing over as would be sufficient to attract the Franks to the spot; then the second troop was to pass the great _tête de pont_ and act as the occasion might suggest, either attacking the enemy on the march, if he followed the descent of the river, or keeping back the Franks coming from the lower town. A body of a thousand men were to fall upon the troop presenting itself on the banks of the river, and cut them to pieces or drown them.[11] This plan well explained to his lieutenants, the movement commenced about the fourth hour of the day. The two Frank kings had taken the command: Childebert of the troops encamped on the north, Clotaire of the body encamped on the west in the lower town. A bridge of rafts had been early constructed five hundred paces above the isle of sand, to establish a communication between the two bodies.