We have already met the Franks in their home on the lower
Rhine, from which they pushed gradually into Roman territory. In 486 A.D.,
just ten years after the deposition of Romulus Augustulus, the Franks went
forth to conquer under Clovis, [7] one of their chieftains. By overcoming the
governor of Roman Gaul, in a battle near Soissons, Clovis destroyed the last
vestige of imperial rule in the West and extended the Frankish dominions to the
river Loire. Clovis then turned against his German neighbors. East of the
Franks, in the region now known as Alsace, lived the Alamanni, a people whose
name still survives in the French name of Germany. [8] The Alamanni were
defeated in a great battle near Strassburg (496 A.D.), and much of their
territory was added to that of the Franks. Clovis subsequently conquered the
Visigothic possessions between the Loire and the Pyrenees, and compelled the
Burgundians to pay tribute. Thus Clovis made himself supreme over nearly the
whole of Gaul and even extended his authority to the other side of the Rhine.
This great work entitles him to be called the founder of the French nation.
[7] His name is properly spelled Chlodweg, which later
became Ludwig, and in French, Louis.
[8] Allemagne. On the other hand, the inhabitants
of Gaul came to call their country France and themselves Français
after their conquerors, the Germanic Franks.
THE FRANKS AND THE GALLO-ROMANS
Clovis reigned in western Europe as an independent king,
but he acknowledged a sort of allegiance to the Roman emperor by accepting the
title of honorary consul. Henceforth to the Gallo-Romans he represented the
distant ruler at Constantinople. The Roman inhabitants of Gaul were not
oppressed; their cities were preserved; and their language and laws were
undisturbed. Clovis, as a statesman, may be compared with his eminent
contemporary, Theodoric the Ostrogoth.
