218 THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 



beyond any whose deeds have been recorded in history. His 

 appearance is well described in these lines of Herbert : 



"Terrific was his semblance, in no mould 

 Of beautiful proportion cast; his limbs 

 Nothing exalted, but with sinews braced 

 Of Chalybean temper, agile, lithe, 

 And swifter than the roe ; his ample chest 

 Was overbrowed by a gigantic head, 

 With eyes keen, deeply sunk, and small, that gleamed 

 Strangely in wrath, as though some spirit unclean, 

 Within that corporal tenement installed, 

 Looked from its windows, but with tempered fire 

 Beamed mildly on the unresisting. Thin 

 His beard and hoary; his flat nostrils crowned 

 A cicatrized swart visage. But withal 

 That questionable shape such glory wore 

 That mortals quailed beneath him." 



It was the great absorbing desire of this ambitious man to 

 make of all Europe, from the midland sea to the frozen ocean, 

 one wide domain of anti-Christ, and himself the barbaric mon- 

 arch. To this purpose bent all his aims and his energies. He 

 styled himself " The scourge of God ; " and with Heaven-daring 

 zeal he strove to make good the impious appellation. His pre- 

 decessors had achieved for him the conquest of all but the 

 western Roman Empire, with Gallic France and the Peninsula. 

 For the subjugation of France then did Attila gather together 

 his clans and his native armies, swelled by the accretion of 

 numberless tribes and levies ; and westward again swept on the 

 flood of irruption. The track of the Huns as heretofore was 

 one broad scene of havoc and slaughter, 1 until in the heart 

 of France they laid siege to the city of Orleans. But the 

 unexpected appearance of the allied armies of Italy and of 

 Gaul compelled them to raise the siege and for a time to retreat. 



One midsummer day, in the year 451, on the banks of a little 

 rivulet in the north-eastern part of France, a traveler paused to 

 rest him on his journey and to look out on the broad plains of 

 Chalons. Through all this champaign country, extending a 

 hundred miles around, which was in later years to be beautified 

 by countless vineyards, could now be seen only the desolate waste 

 left by the barbarian armies in their recent passage southward. 



