For, devout and good though she was, this excellent
little maiden of the year 485 was by no means the gentle-hearted
girl of 1888, and, like most of the world about her, had but two
desires: to become a good church-helper, and to be revenged on
her enemies. Certainly, fourteen centuries of progress and
education have made us more loving and less vindictive.
But now that the good priest Ugo of Rheims saw that his own home
land was in trouble, he felt that there lay his duty. And
Godegesil, the under-king of Geneva, feeling uneasy alike from
the nearness of this boy conqueror and the possible displeasure
of his brother and over-lord, King Gundebald, declined longer to
shelter his niece in his palace at Geneva.
"And why may I not go with you?" the girl asked of Ugo; but the
old priest knew that a conquered and plundered land was no place
to which to convey a young maid for safety, and the princess,
therefore, found refuge among the sisters of the church of St.
Peter in Geneva. And here she passed her girlhood, as the record
says, "in works of piety and charity."
So four more years went by. In the north, the boy chieftain,
reaching manhood, had been raised aloft on the shields of his
fair-haired and long-limbed followers, and with many a "hael!"
and shout had been proclaimed "King of the Franks.
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