Meroveus, whose name was perpetuated in his line, was one of the principal chieftains of the Salian Franks; and his son Childeric, who resided at Tournay, where his tomb was discovered in 1655, was the father of Clovis, who succeeded him in 481, and with whom really commenced the kingdom and history of France.
Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he became King of the Salian Franks of Tournay.

Five years afterwards his ruling passion, ambition, exhibited itself, together with that mixture of boldness and craft which was to characterize his whole life.

He had two neighbors: one, hostile to the Franks, the Roman patrician Syagrius, who was left master at Soissons after the death of his father AEgidius, and whom Gregory of Tours calls "King of the Romans;" the other, a Salian-Frankish chieftain, just as Clovis was, and related to him, Ragnacaire, who was settled at Cambrai.

Clovis induced Ragnacaire to join him in a campaign against Syagrius.

They fought, and Syagrius was driven to take refuge in Southern Gaul with Alaric, king of the Visigoths.