He did not, however, take the name of king; and four descendants of Clovis, Thierry III., Clovis III., Childebert III., and Dagobert III.

continued to bear that title in Neustria and Burgundy, under the preponderating influence of Pepin of Heristal.

He did, during his long sway, three things of importance.

He struggled without cessation to keep or bring back under the rule of the Franks the Germanic nations on the right bank of the Rhine,--Frisons, Saxons, Thuringians, Bavarians, and Allemannians; and thus to make the Frankish dominion a bulwark against the new flood of barbarians who were pressing one another westwards.
He rekindled in Austrasia the national spirit and some political life by beginning again the old March parades of the Franks, which had fallen into desuetude under the last Merovingians.

Lastly, and this was, perhaps, his most original merit, he understood of what importance, for the Frankish kingdom, was the conversion to Christianity of the Germanic peoples over the Rhine, and he abetted with all his might the zeal of the popes and missionaries, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and Gallo-Roman, devoted to this great work.