He went to him to plead the cause of some poor natives of the Sequanaise, who had been reduced into slavery by a subordinate potentate. This petty tyrant was one of those degenerate Romans, courtiers and oppressors, who, by flattering the new-born authority of the barbarian kings, found means of trampling on and spoiling their inferiors. He was perhaps one of those senators of Gaul whom the Burgundians had admitted in 456 to a share of the conquered soil, and Lupicinus, although of Gallo-Roman origin, seems to have been less favourably disposed towards the Roman government than that of the Barbarians. Gregory of Tours has recorded a tradition which well depicts the impression made on the popular imagination by this apparition of the monks confronted with the triumphant Barbarians. He relates that when Lupicinus crossed the threshold of the palace of Chilperic, the throne upon which the king was seated trembled, as if there had been an earthquake. Reassured at the sight of the old man clothed in skins, the Burgundian prince listened to the curious debate which arose between the oppressor and the advocate of the oppressed. "It is then thou," said the courtier to the abbot, "it is thou, old impostor, who hast already insulted the Roman power for ten years, by announcing that all this region, and its chiefs, were hastening to their ruin." "Yes, truly," answered the monk, pointing to the king, who listened, "Yes, perverse traitor, the ruin which I predicted to thee and to thy fellows, there it is. Seest thou not, degenerate man, that thy rights are destroyed by thy sins, and that the prayers of the innocent are granted? Seest thou not that the fasces and the Roman purple are compelled to bow before a foreign judge? Take heed that some unexpected guest does not come before a new tribunal to claim thy lands and thy domains." The king of the Burgundians not only justified the abbot by restoring his clients to liberty, but overwhelmed him with presents, and offered him fields, and vineyards for his abbey. Lupicinus would only accept a portion of the produce of these fields and vineyards, fearing that the sentiment of too vast a property might make his monks proud. Then the king decreed that they should be allowed every year three hundred measures of corn, three hundred measures of wine, and a hundred gold pieces for vestments; and the treasury of the Merovingian kings continued to pay these dues long after the fall of the kingdom of the Burgundians. The old abbot was true to his profession of self-mortification to the last. As he lay a dying he asked for a drink of water. One of the brethren sweetened it, by pouring in a spoonful of honey. But the dying man, when he tasted the sweetness, turned his head away, and refused to drink. S. ENDA, AB. OF ARAN-MORE. (ABOUT A.D. 540.)