Clovis, three years before perhaps, had wed Clotilde of great beauty and young, and for herself Catholic, niece of the Burgundian king; and when their first son was born to them she had him baptized as should be baptized the son of a king (for Clovis was called “king” by the Franks, the soldiers of his troop). But the child had died, and in his death Clovis had learnt a terror of the Cross. Yet was his second son also baptized with pomp, as though there were already about this warrior, his father, something imperial. And this second child lived. Then it was that in his battle with the German horde, out near the Rhine and in the thickest of the press when victory or rout hung even, Clovis made a loud vow to the God of Clotilde if he should be victorious over the Germans he would follow Him. He had won the victory, he had driven them over Rhine, and now at last with his men he was riding into Rheims for the feast, and Remigius knew that now Gaul, in the north, and as far southward as such armies could conquer, would be governed with the bishops and with the Church. In the Basilica of Rheims, round-arched and long, Remigius ordered hangings of the richest dyes, come from the old time before the wealth and order of the empire had failed; and round the baptistry also he had the same colours displayed, and out of doors in the keen air across the streets of the town, and with pennons in the market-place, he ordered decorations as though for a victory. Pagan men come in from the hills understood the greatness of the moment. For all the history of France and the turning of it lay here, since Clovis, who must now take up government in the Roman name, and restore the fortunes of these cities, was to abandon the old and powerless gods and to be baptized. They burnt incense in the baptistry on that short winter day, and lit a crowd of candles, making the round place glorious. But Clovis thought of the army, and before he would do so great a thing he appealed first to the soldiers (whom a chief must hold), lest too many of them should regret the old gods. But those who spoke for them bade him go forward, and whatever he did they would also do. Then Clovis knelt for baptism amid those lights within, and Remigius, the great bishop, said over him not only the sacramental words, “... of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” which are the making of Christian men, but also those other famous words: “Bow down the head, Sicambrian, adore what thou hast burnt, and burn what thou hast adored.”