he succumbed to the enervating Gallic influence, and, while conquering
and subduing, was himself conquered and subdued.

The cultivated Roman in his toga appealed to the imagination of the
fine barbarian; the habits of the Romanized cities were a tempting
model for imitation. Bridges, aqueducts, palaces, with their splendid
mingling of strength and beauty, fragments of which still linger to
convince us of our inferiority, these were awe-inspiring to the Frank
and filled him with longings to drink deep at this fountain of
civilization. The heroic strain brought by Clovis was quickly
enfeebled and debauched by luxury. The court of the Merovingian king
became a miserable assemblage of half-Romanized barbarians covered with
the frayed and worn-out mantle of imperialism. It is a strange picture
we have of this descendant of Clovis, this _Roi Fainéant_ (Do-nothing
King) in a royal procession on a state occasion. Curled and perfumed,
he emerges from the _Palais des Thermes_, attended in great pomp by
Romans and Romanized Frankish warriors. Then, in remembrance of the
primitive simplicity of his ancestral line, sitting alone in a wagon
drawn by bullocks, he leads the pageant through the narrow streets of
old Paris.

But while masquerading as a simple barbarian he was only a poor
imitator of the vices and dregs of a perishing civilization. But in
proof that virility was still a characteristic of the Frank in Gaul, we
are told that while the Church and the offices of State were filled by
Romans or Gallo-Romans, the army at this time was composed entirely of
Franks.

With the degeneracy of these _Rois Fainéants_ the kingdom of Clovis was
gradually shrinking, and men were already waiting to seize the power as