Page:History of the Franks.djvu/197

 THE SIXTH BOOK 165 supplies at the expense of the different cities were gathered along the way; in this the king ordered that nothing should be taken from his own treasury but all from the contributions of the poor. And as the king was suspicious that his brother or nephew would prepare some ambush against the girl on the way, he directed that she should be guarded by an army. Great warriors were with her, duke Bobo, MummoKnus's son, with his wife as attendant on the bride, Domigisel and Ansovald and the major-domo Waddo who had once been count of Saintes, and also about four thousand common soldiers. The rest of the dukes and chamberlains who started with her turned back at Poitiers. The others journeyed on as they could. And on this journey such spoils and booty were taken as can scarcely be described. For they robbed the huts of the poor, wasted the vineyards, cutting off the vines and carrying them away grapes and all, taking domestic animals and whatever they could come upon and leaving nothing along their road, and the words that were spoken through Joel the prophet were fulfilled : and that which the cankerworm hath left, hath the caterpillar eaten ; and that which the caterpillar hath left, hath the palmer- worm eaten." This is what happened on this occasion. What was left by frost the storm destroyed, what was left by the storm the drought destroyed, and what was left by the drought the host carried away. 46. While they continued on their way with this plunder, Chilperic, the Nero and Herod of our time, went to his villa of Chelles about one hundred stades distant from Paris and there hunted. One day, returning from the hunt in the dusk, when he was dismounting from his horse and had one hand on a slave's shoulder a certain one came and stabbed him with a dagger under the armpit and repeating the blow pierced his belly. A flood of blood issued at once from his mouth and the open wounds and put his wicked soul to flight. The narrative before this shows how iniquitous he was. For he frequently laid great districts waste and burned them over, and experienced no pain in this but rather joy, like Nero before him when he recited tragedies as the palace burned. He often punished men unjustly because of their wealth. Very few clerics in his time reached the office of bishop. He was
 * 'That which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten;