In about 463 at Orléans, in conjunction with the Roman General Aegidius, who was based at Soissons, he defeated the Visigoths, who hoped to extend their dominion along the banks of the Loire River; after the death of Aegidius he first assisted Comes ("count") Paul of Angers in a mixed band of Gallo-Romans and Franks, defeating the Goths and taking booty. Odoacer reached Angers but Childeric arrived the next day and a battle ensued. Count Paul was killed and Childeric took the city. Childeric having delivered Angers, he followed a Saxon warband to the islands at the Atlantic mouth of the Loire, and massacred them there. In a change of alliances, he also joined forces with Odoacer, according to Gregory of Tours, to stop a band of the Alamanni who wished to invade Italy.

His Tomb
Childeric's tomb was discovered in 1653, by a mason doing repairs at the church of Saint-Brice in Tournai when numerous precious objects were found, a richly ornamented sword, a torse-like bracelet, jewels of gold and cloisonné enamel with garnets, gold coins, a gold bull's head and a ring with the inscription CHILDERICI REGIS ("of Childeric the king"), which identified the tomb. Some 300 golden bees were also in the find. Archduke Leopold William, Spanish governor of the Netherlands, had the find published in Latin, and the treasure went first to the Habsburgs in Vienna, then as a gift to Louis XIV, who was not impressed with them and stored them in the royal library, which became the Bibliothèque National at the Revolution. Napoleon was more impressed with Childeric's bees: looking for a heraldic symbol to trump the Bourbon fleur-de-lys, he settled on Childeric's bees as symbols of the French Empire.