he trees which his soldiers felled in the great Hercynian forest
of Central Germany were fashioned into rude rafts or canoes, on which
they crossed the Rhine; and soon the terrible Hun and his "horde of
many-nationed spoilers" were passing over the regions which we now call
Belgium and Lorraine in a desolating stream. The Huns, not only
barbarians, but heathens, seem in this invasion to have been animated by
an especial hatred to Christianity. Many a fair church of Gallia Belgica
was laid in ashes: many a priest was slain before the altar, whose
sanctity was vain for his protection. The real cruelties thus committed
are wildly exaggerated by the mythical fancy of the Middle Ages, and
upon the slenderest foundations of historical fact arose stately
edifices of fable, like the story of the Cornish Princess Ursula, who
with her eleven thousand virgin companions was fabled to have suffered
death at the hands of the Huns in the city of Cologne.

The barbarian tide was at length arrested by the strong walls of
Orleans, whose stubborn defence saved all that part of Gaul which lies
within the protecting curve of the Loire from the horrors of their
invasion. At midsummer Attila and his host were retiring from the
untaken city, and beginning their retreat towards the Rhine, a retreat
which they were not to accomplish unhindered. The extremity of the
danger from these utterly savage foes had welded together the old Empire
and the new Gothic kingdom, the civilised and the half-civilised power,
in one great confederacy, for the defence of all that was worth saving
in human society. The tidings of the approach of the Gothic king had
hastened the departure of Attila from the environs of Orleans, and,
perhaps about a fortnight later, the allied armies of Romans and Goths
came up with the retreating Huns in "the Catalaunian plains" not far
from the city of Troyes. The general of the Imperial army was Aetius;
the general and king of the Visigoths was Theodoric, a namesake of our
hero. Both were capable and valiant soldiers. On the other side,
conspicuous among the subject kings who formed the staff of Attila, were
the three Ostrogothic brethren, and Ardaric, king of the Gepidae. The
loyalty of Walamir, the firm grasp with which he kept his master's
secrets, and Ardaric's resourcefulness in counsel were especially prized
by Attila. And truly he had need of all their help, for, though it is
difficult to ascertain with any degree of accuracy