So long as the kings commanded their armies in person, the nation never
thought of choosing a leader. Clovis and his four sons were at the head
of the Franks, and led them on through a series of victories. Theobald,
son of Theodobert, a young, weak, and sickly prince, was the first of
our kings who confined himself to his palace.
[44]
He refused to
undertake an expedition into Italy against Narses, and had the
mortification of seeing the Franks choose for themselves two chiefs, who
led them against the enemy.
[45]
Of the four sons of Clotharius I,
Gontram was the least fond of commanding his armies;
[46]
the other kings
followed this example; and, in order to entrust the command without
danger into other hands, they conferred it upon several chiefs or
dukes.
[47]
Innumerable were the inconveniences which thence arose; all
discipline was lost, no one would any longer obey. The armies were
dreadful only to their own country; they were laden with spoils before
they had reached the enemy. Of these miseries we have a very lively
picture in Gregory of Tours.
[48]
"How shall we be able to obtain a
victory," said Gontram,
[49]
"we who do not so much as keep what our
ancestors acquired? Our nation is no longer the same." ... Strange that
it should be on the decline so early as the reign of Clovis'
grandchildren!
It was therefore natural they should determine at last upon an only
duke, a duke invested with an authority over this prodigious multitude
of feudal lords and vassals who had now become strangers to their own
engagements; a duke who was to establish the military discipline, and to
put himself at the head of a nation unhappily practised in making war
against itself. This power was conferred on the mayors of the palace.
The original function of the mayors of the palace was the management
of the king's household. They had afterwards, in conjunction with other
officers, the political government of fiefs; and at length they obtained
the sole disposal of them.
[50]
They had also the administration of
military affairs, and the command of the armies; employments necessarily
connected with the other two. In those days it was much more difficult
to raise than to command the armies; and who but the dispenser of
favours could have this authority? In this martial and independent
nation, it was prudent to invite rather than to compel; prudent to give
away or to promise the fiefs that should happen to be vacant by the
death of the possessor; prudent, in fine, to reward continually, and to
raise a jealousy with regard to preferences. It was therefore right that
the person who had the superintendence of the palace should also be
general of the army.
