The descendants of the Gauls are called "French" because some of their ancestors bore the name "Franks"! These warriors were a so-called "barbarian" people whose language we still cannot reconstruct. These include ancient Germans, who distinguished themselves by their weapons and their unparalleled warrior qualities. As mercenaries, they sold themselves into the service of the Roman Empire. When the Empire faltered, they chose to conquer Gaul for themselves! Clovis, the first Christian king of the Franks, initiated this conquest of former Gallic-Roman territories at the end of the 5th century AD. Frankish kings lacked regular armies, but maintained small "professional" standing armies, whose ranks could quickly swell as needed by drafting men of fighting age. Upon Clovis’s death in 511, his sons and grandsons continued his policy of expansion by conquest, and the Kingdom of the Franks reached its maximum extent in the middle of the 6th century.