THE NINTH BOOK 217 Felix added: He begs your goodness to give him help against the Lombards so that they may be driven from Italy and the part which his father claimed when alive may return to him, and the other part be restored by your and his aid to the dominion of the emperor." The king replied: I cannot send my army to Italy and expose the soldiers to death uselessly. For a very severe plague is now wasting Italy." And I said : You have told your nephew to have all the bishops of his kingdom meet together since there are many things to be decided. But it was the opinion of your glorious nephew that each metropohtan according to the custom of the canons should meet with his provincials, and then what went wrong in each district would be set right by order of the bishops. For what reason is there that so great a number should assemble ? The faith of the church is not attacked by any danger; no new heresy is appearing. What need will there be for so many bishops to meet together?" And he said: "There is much to be looked into that has gone wrong, both acts of incest and matters which are in discussion between us. But the most important case of all is that of God, since you must investigate why bishop Praetextatus was slain by the sword in his church. Moreover there ought to be an examination of those who are accused of wantonness so that if found guilty they can be corrected by the bishops' sentence, or if they prove innocent that the falsity of the charge can be publicly recognized." Then he gave orders for the synod to be adjourned to the Kalends of the fourth month.^ After this conversation we went to church ; it was the day of the anniversary of the Lord's resurrection. After mass he invited us to a dinner which was as abundant in dishes as rich in cheer. For the king talked always of God, building churches and helping the poor, and then he made pious jokes and to please us he went on to say this: "I hope my nephew will keep his promises; for all I have is his. Still, if he is disturbed because I receive my nephew Clothar's legates, I'm not so mad, am I, but that I can mediate between them and keep the trouble from going further? I know it is better to cut it short than to carry it too far. If I decide that Clothar is my nephew I will give him two or three cities in some part, so that he shall not seem to be disinherited, and what I leave to Childebert ^ June.
