CHAP. XXVII.: The same Subject continued.

WE have seen that the Germans did not appear in their assemblies before they were of age; they were a part of the family but not of the republic. This was the reason that the children of Clodomir, king of Orleans, and conqueror of Burgundy, were

not proclaimed kings, because they were of too tender an age to be present at the assembly. They were not yet kings, but they had a right to the regal dignity as soon as they were able to bear arms; and, in the mean time, Clotildis, their grandmother, governed the state. It appears, from Gregory of Tours, l. 3. that she chose two natives of Burgundy, which had been conquered by Clodomir, to raise them to the see of Tours, which also belonged to Clodomir. ^†658 But their uncles, Clotarius and Childebert, assassinated them, and divided their kingdom. This was the cause that, in the following ages, princes in their minority were proclaimed kings immediately after the death of their fathers. Thus duke Gondovald saved Childebert II. from the cruelty of Chilperic, and caused him to be proclaimed king Gregory of Tours, l. 5. c. 1. Vix lustro ætatis uno jam peracto, qui die Dominicæ natalis regnare cœpit. ^†659 when he was only five years old.

But even in this change they followed the original spirit of the nation; for the public acts did not pass in the name of the young monarch. So that the Franks had a double administration; the one which concerned the person of the infant king, and the other which regarded the kingdom; and in the fiefs there was a difference between the guardianship and the civil administration.