"Her hope," says the _Golden Legend_, from which we have chiefly drawn her story, "was nothing in worldly things, but in heavenly, for she believed in the holy scriptures that saith: Whoso giveth to the poor liveth for availe. The reward which they receive that give to poor people, the Holy Ghost had showed to her long tofore, and therefore she ceased not to weep, to adore and to do works of pity, for she knew well that she was none other in this world but a pilgrim passing." The faithful built a little wooden oratory over her tomb, which Clovis and his wife Clotilde replaced by a great basilica and monastery which became their burial-place. All that now recalls the church, whose length the king measured by the distance he could hurl his axe, is the so-called Tower of Clovis, a thirteenth-century structure in the Rue Clovis. The golden shrine of the saint,[20] which reached thirty feet above the high altar, was confiscated by the Revolutionists to pay their armies, and what remains of her relics is now treasured in the neighbouring church of St. Etienne du Mont. The conversion of Clovis is the capital fact of early French history. His queen Clotilde, niece of the Burgundian king, had long[21] importuned him to declare himself a Christian. He had consented to the baptism of their firstborn, but the infant's death within a week seemed an admonition from his own jealous gods. A second son, however, recovered from grievous sickness at his wife's prayers and this, aided perhaps by a shrewd insight into the trend of events, induced him to lend a more willing ear to the teachers of the new Faith. In 496 the Franks were at death grapple with their German foes at Tolbiac. Clovis, when the fight went against him, invoked the God of the Christians and prayed to be delivered from his enemies. His cry was heard and the advent of the new Lord of Battles was winged with victory. There was a stirring scene that Christmas at Rheims, when Clovis with his two sisters and three thousand of his warriors marched through the streets, all hung with cloth of many colours, into the cathedral which was glittering with innumerable candles and perfumed with incense of divine odour. Clovis was the first to be baptised. "Bend thy neck, gentle Sicamber," cried St. Rémi. "Adore what thou didst burn: burn what thou didst adore." When the bishop was reading the Gospel story of the Passion, the king, thrilled with indignation, cried out: "Ah! had I been there with my Franks I would have avenged the Christ."