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508] than by force. The Arian clergy were allowed to resume their rank in the hierarchy after a reconciliation by laying on of hands. Their churches were not destroyed, but after reconsecration were made over to the use of the orthodox.

On his way back from the war, Clovis in 508 visited the town of Tours, where he made large gifts to the monastery of St Martin. At Tours he received from the Emperor of the East, Anastasius, the patent of consular rank. He was not entitled consul, and his name would be sought in vain in the consular records; he was an honorary consul, tanquam consul, as Gregory of Tours quite accurately expresses it. He at once assumed the insignia of the consulship, with the purple tunic and mantle of the same colour, and, starting from the church of St Martin, he made a solemn entry into the town of Tours, and proceeded to the cathedral of St Gatien, scattering largess as he went. Clovis was evidently proud of this new honour, which was a proof of the Emperor's friendship — perhaps he had come to an agreement with the Emperor directed against Theodoric — but his investiture with the consulship gave him no new authority. His rights were those of conquest; they were not dependent on the sanction of the Emperor, and he continued to govern the Gallo-Romans after 508 as he had governed them before it. If he wore the Roman insignia at his entry into Tours, he continued to wear also the crown characteristic of barbarian kings, and along with the title of honorary consul — translated in a prologue to the Salic law by Proconsul — he assumed that of Augustus.

From Tours, Clovis proceeded to Paris where he now established the seat of his government. The town was admirably situated, lying on an island in the Seine, at a point about the middle of its course, and not far from the points at which it receives its two great confluents, the Marne and the Oise; well placed also for communication with the northern plain, and with the south of France by way of the Gap of Poitou. Already the town had overflowed to the left bank, and there Clovis built a basilica dedicated to the Holy Apostles. This was later the church of Ste Geneviève, close to what is now the Panthéon. In the neighbourhood of Paris there sprang up a number of royal villae, Clichy, Rueil, Nogent-sur-Marne, Bonneuil.

Clovis had won great victories; but there were still some Salian tribes which were ruled over by their own kings, and round about Cologne lay the kingdom of the Ripuarian Franks. By a series of assassinations Clovis got rid of the Salian kings, Chararic and Ragnachar, and the two brothers of the latter, Richar and Rignomer — the former killed near Mans — and took possession of their territories. The details which have come down to us of the assassination of these petty kings are legendary, but that they were murdered would appear to be the fact. There remained the kingdom of the Ripuarians.