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History of the Franks
St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927
Book 4, 39. Of the Death of Palladius of Auvergne
Palladius, son of the deceased count Britanus and of Caesaria, obtained from King Sigibert the office of count in the city of Javols; but the dissension arising between him and Bishop Parthenius greatly angered the people. For he would often shower abuse upon the bishop, making divers reproaches and accusations against him, despoiling the property of the Church and robbing her servants. Whence it befell that, the quarrel between them growing, they betook themselves before the aforesaid king, bringing various charges against each other. Palladius denounced the bishop as a womanish man and a weakling. ‘Where now are thy lovers,’ he cried, ‘with whom thou livest in foul debauchery?’ But the divine vengeance soon brought to naught these attacks against the bishop. For in the following year Palladius was removed from his position of count, and returned to Auvergne, while Romanus sought to obtain his countship. It happened that one day the two met in Clermont, and during a dispute on the subject of the countship Palladius learned that King Sigibert sought to compass his death. This was proved a false report, started by Romanus; but Palladius was reduced by panic terror to such straits of desperation that he threatened to slay himself with his own hand. His mother and his brother-in-law Firminus kept a careful watch on him to prevent him from doing the deed conceived in the bitterness of his soul, but he found a moment to escape his mother’s watchfulness and went into his sleeping-chamber. There he took advantage of being alone, unsheathed his sword, and holding the hilt firm with his feet, directed the point towards his breast. He then leaned upon it, so that the blade entering at one breast came out by the shoulder-blade. Rising once more and piercing the other breast in the same way, he fell dead. Which misdeed we marvel at, as only achieved through the Devil’s aid; for the first wound was enough to kill him, and would have so done had not the Devil given him strength to carry to the end his impious design. His mother rushed in, half dead with grief, and fell in a swoon upon the body of the son, thus reft from her, while all the household lifted up the voice of lamentation. They bore him for burial to the monastery of Cournon; but no mass was solemnized for him, and he was not laid among the Christian dead. Certain it is that this fate befell him because he had wronged the bishop.