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 THE FOURTH BOOK 79 be able to go free.' " This fable made him greatly feared and hated. Under him Buccelenus after bringing all Italy under the rule of the Franks was slain by Narses, and Italy was taken by the emperor's party and there was no one to recover it later. In his time we saw grapes grow on the tree we call saucum [elder-tree] without having any vine on it, and the blossoms of the same trees, which as you know usually produce black seeds, yielded the seeds of grapes. At that time a star coming from the opposite direction was seen to enter the disk of the fifth moon. I suppose these signs announced the death of the king. He became very sick and could not move from the waist down. He gradually grew worse and died in the seventh year of his reign, and king Clothar took his kingdom, taking Vuldetrada his wife to his bed. But being rebuked by the bishops he left her, giving her to duke Garivald and sending his son Chramnus to Clermont. [10. King Clothar destroys the greater part of the rebellious Saxons and lays Thuringia waste.] II. Bishop Gunthar died at Tours, and at a suggestion, it is said, of bishop Cautinus the priest Cato was requested to undertake the government of the church at Tours. And the clergy accom- panied by Leubastes, keeper of the relics and abbot, went in great state to Clermont. And when they had declared the king's will to Cato he would not answer them for a few days. But they wished to return and said : "Declare your will to us so that we may know what we ought to do ; otherwise we will return home. For it was not of our own will that we came to you but at the command of the king." And Cato in his greed for vainglory got together a crowd of poor men and instructed them to shout as follows : " Good father, why do you abandon us your children, whom you taught until now ? Who will strengthen us with food and drink if you go away ? We beg you not to leave us whom you are wont to support." Then he turned to the clergy of Tours and said : "You see now, beloved brothers, how this multitude of the poor loves me ; I cannot leave them to go with you." They received this answer and returned to Tours. Now Cato had made friends with Chramnus and got a promise from him that if king Clothar should die at that time, Cautinus was to be cast out at once from the bishop's office and Cato was to be given control of the church. But he who despised