Clothilde - Paris, France
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 48° 50.859 E 002° 20.180
31U E 451309 N 5410732
In 493, Clotilde married Clovis, King of the Franks. She is recognized as a Saint in the Catholic Church...but the date of her canonization is unknown.
Waymark Code: WMD2Z5
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 11/11/2011
Views: 19
This sculpture is located in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. It depicts Clotilde standing in a heavily draped dress and robe. She is leaning against a post that has a vine growing around it. Her right arm rests on the post and her left arm is atop her right. She has a crown and it would seem long wrapped pigtails. She looks out into the distance. The artist and date are not indicated at the site.
Clotilde (475-545) faced tragedy as a young woman with her father, King Chilperic II of Burgundy and mother killed by her uncle in 493. Clotilde was sent into exile. That same year, she married Clovis, King of the Franks. Four of their five children would later serve as monarchs. In 496, she converted her husband to Catholicism. After Clovis' death in 1511, she retired to an Abbey in Tours.
One doesn't expect Saints to do what Wikipedia (
visit link) reports:
"In 523 Clotilde finally took revenge for the murder of her father, when she incited her sons against her cousin King Sigismund of Burgundy, the son of Gundobad, and provoked the Burgundian War, which led to Sigismund's deposition and imprisonment, and his assassination the following year. In turn, her eldest son Chlodomer was killed during the following Burgundian campaign under Sigismund's successor King Godomar at the Battle of Vézeronce. Clotilde tried in vain to protect the rights of her three grandsons, the children of Chlodomer, against the claims of her surviving sons Childebert and Chlothar. Chlothar had two of them killed, while only Clodoald (Cloud) managed to escape and later chose an ecclesiastical career. She was equally unsuccessful in her efforts to prevent the civil discords between her children."