mbroidery. Afterwards they had an
opportunity of seeing his council; the supreme tribunal was held in the
gate of the palace according to Oriental custom, perpetuated even to
this day in the title of the "Ottoman Porte." They were invited to two
solemn banquets, in which Attila feasted with the princes and nobles of
Scythia. The royal couch and table were covered with carpets and fine
linen. The swords, and even the shoes of the nobles, were studded with
gold and precious stones; the tables were profusely spread with gold
and silver plates, goblets, and vases. Two bards stood before the King's
couch, and sung of his victories. Wine was drunk in great excess; and
buffoons, Scythian and Moorish, exhibited their unseemly dances before
the revellers. When the Romans were to depart, Attila discovered to them
his knowledge of the treachery which had been carried on against him.

Such were some of the untoward circumstances under which the great
Pontiff I have mentioned undertook a new embassy to the King of the
Huns. He was not, we may well conceive, to be a spectator of their
barbaric festivities, or to be a listener to their licentious
interludes; he was rather an object to be gazed upon, than to gaze; and
in truth there was that about him, in the noble aspect and the spare
youthful form, which portraits give to Pope Leo, which was adapted to
arrest and subdue even Attila. Attila had seen many great men in his
day; he had seen the majesty of the Caesars, and the eagles of their
legions; he had never seen before a Vicar of Christ. The place of their
interview has been ascertained by antiquarians;[10] it is near the great
Austrian fortress of Peschiera, where the Mincio enters the Lago di
Garda, close to the farm of Virgil. It is said he saw behind the Pontiff
the two Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, as they are represented in the
picture of Raffaelle; he was subdued by the influence of religion, and
agreed to evacuate Italy.

A few words will bring us to the end of his career. Evil has its limit;
the Scourge of God had accomplished His mission. Hardly had St. Leo
retired, when the barbarian king availed himself of the brief interval
in his work of blood, to celebrate a new marriage. In the deep
corruption of the Tartar race, polygamy is comparatively a point of
virtue: Attila's wives were beyond computation. Zingis, after him, had
as many as five hundred; another of the Tartar leaders, whose name I
forget, had three hundred