a long while
celebrated in the church of Orleans, as the date of a signal deliverance.
The Huns retired towards Champagne, which they had already crossed at
their coming into Gaul; and when they were before Troyes, the bishop, St.
Lupus, repaired to Attila's camp, and besought him to spare a defenceless
city, which had neither walls nor garrison. "So be it!" answered Attila;
"but thou shalt come with me and see the Rhine; I promise then to send
thee back again." With mingled prudence and superstition, the barbarian
meant to keep the holy man as a hostage. The Huns arrived at the plains
hard by Chalons-sur-Marne; Aetius and all his allies had followed them;
and Attila, perceiving that a battle was inevitable, halted in a position
for delivering it. The Gothic historian Jornandes says that he consulted
his priests, who answered that the Huns would be beaten, but that the
general of the enemy would fall in the fight. In this prophecy Attila
saw predicted the death of Aetius, his most formidable enemy; and the
struggle commenced. There is no precise information about the date; but
"it was," says Jornandes, "a battle which for atrocity, multitude,
horror, and stubbornness has not the like in the records of antiquity."
Historians vary in their exaggerations of the numbers engaged and killed:
according to some, three hundred thousand, according to others, one
hundred and sixty-two thousand were left on the field of battle.
Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, was killed. Some chroniclers name
Meroveus as King of the Franks, settled in Belgica, near Tongres, who
formed part of the army of Aetius. They even attribute to him a
brilliant attack made on the eve of the battle upon the Gepidians, allies
of the Huns, when ninety thousand men fell, according to some, and only
fifteen thousand according to others. The numbers are purely imaginary,
and even the fact is doubtful. However, the battle of Chalons drove the
Huns out of Gaul, and was the last victory in Gaul, gained still in the
name of the Roman empire, but in reality for the advantage of the German
nations which had already conquered it. Twenty-four years afterwards the
very name of Roman empire disappeared with Augustulus, the last of the
emperors of the West.

[Illustration: The Huns at the Battle of Chalons----135]

Thirty years after the battle of Chalons, the Franks settled in Gaul were
not yet united as one nation; several tribes with this name, independent
o