Freed of this menace to the whole country the victorious tribes again fell to quarreling among themselves. The Franks proved sturdiest and most persistent. Descended from Pharamond, who, perhaps, was legendary, their king, Mérovée, had led them against Attila. Now his son, Childéric, attacked Paris. Again Geneviève rescued her townsmen from famine, herself embarking upon the Seine, which probably was beset by the enemy along the banks, and returning with a boatload of provisions which, by miraculous multiplication, revictualed the whole hungry and despairing garrison. Childéric’s son, Clovis, leading about 8000 men, in 481 made himself king of northern France with Paris as his capital, thus establishing the line of monarchs who called themselves Merovingians. “Paris,” he wrote in 500 A.D., “is a brilliant queen over other cities; a royal city, the seat and head of the empire of the Gauls. With Paris safe the realm has nothing to fear.” Clovis had married an orthodox Catholic wife, Clotilde, who was eager for his conversion. Her arguments are said to have been far from gentle, but they seem to have been suited to her husband’s nature, for he was almost persuaded to make the great change at the time of the birth of his eldest child. The baby died within the week, however, and the king looked upon his loss as an act of vengeance on the part of his deserted gods. When the second child recovered from a serious illness he was convinced that Clotilde’s intercessions had saved its life, and again he inclined toward Christianity. An incident determined his acceptance of his wife’s faith. In the battle of Tolbiac against the Germans Clovis begged the aid of “the God of the Christians” to determine in his favor a wavering victory. He won the fight, and it is easy to believe the joy of Sainte Geneviève, when the monarch was baptized in the cathedral at Rheims. He seems to have been of simple mind. The fittings and the ceremonies of the vast church touched his spirit to submission. “Is not this the kingdom of heaven you promised me?” he asked of the bishop. Again, when he listened to the story of the crucifixion, he is said to have cried with an elemental desire for vengeance, “Oh, had I been there with my Franks I would have avenged the Christ!”