"Right you are, as you may judge by the deceased Hlode-Wig, or Clovis, as he is popularly pronounced; and his family bids fair to surpass even him. Imagine gathered in that monster, whom St. Remi baptised a son of the Church--imagine gathered in that one monster the cunning of the fox and the cowardly ferocity of the wolf. To enumerate to you the murders that he committed with his dagger or his axe would take too long. I shall only mention some of the leading ones. An old Frankish chief, a hunchback named Sigebert, was King of Cologne. This is the way these bandits become Kings: they pillage and ravage a province at the head of a band, massacre or sell like so many heads of cattle men, women and children, reduce the rest of the inhabitants to slavery, and then they say: 'Here we are Kings'; the bishops echo back: 'Yes, our friends the Franks are Kings here; we shall baptize them into the Church; and you, people of Gaul, obey them or we will damn you!" "And has there never been found any courageous man to plant a dagger in the heart of such a King?" "Karadeucq, my pet, do not heat yourself in that manner. Thanks to God, that Clovis is dead. That is, at any rate, one less. Proceed, good peddler!" "Well, as I was saying, Sigebert the hunchback was King of Cologne. He had a son. Clovis said to him: 'Your father is old--kill him and you will inherit his power.' The son sympathized with the idea and killed his father. And what does Clovis do but kill the parricide and appropriate the kingdom of Cologne!" "You shudder, my children! I can well imagine it. Such are the new Kings of Gaul!" "What, you shudder, my hosts, at so little? Only wait. Shortly after that murder, Clovis strangled with his own hands two of his near relatives, father and son, named Chararic, and plundered them of what they themselves had plundered Gaul of. But here is a still worse incident: Clovis was at war with another bandit of his own royal family named Ragnacaire. He ordered a set of necklaces and baldrics to be made of imitation gold, and sent them through one of his familiars to the leudes who accompanied Ragnacaire with the message that, in exchange for the present, they deliver to him their chief and his son. The bargain was struck, and the two Ragnacaires were delivered to Clovis. This great King thereupon struck them both down with his axe like oxen in the slaughter house; he thus at one stroke committed two crimes--cheated the leudes of Ragnacaire and murdered their chiefs." "And yet the Catholic bishops preach to the people submission to such monsters?"