ing valor was
fatal only to themselves. The loaded wagons, which had followed their
march, afforded a rich booty; and the virgin-bride, with her female
attendants, submitted to the new lovers, who were imposed on them by the
chance of war. This advance, which had been obtained by the skill and
activity of AEtius, might reflect some disgrace on the military prudence
of Clodion; but the king of the Franks soon regained his strength and
reputation, and still maintained the possession of his Gallic kingdom
from the Rhine to the Somme. Under his reign, and most probably from
the thee enterprising spirit of his subjects, his three capitals, Mentz,
Treves, and Cologne, experienced the effects of hostile cruelty and
avarice. The distress of Cologne was prolonged by the perpetual dominion
of the same Barbarians, who evacuated the ruins of Treves; and Treves,
which in the space of forty years had been four times besieged and
pillaged, was disposed to lose the memory of her afflictions in the vain
amusements of the Circus. The death of Clodion, after a reign of twenty
years, exposed his kingdom to the discord and ambition of his two sons.
Meroveus, the younger, was persuaded to implore the protection of Rome;
he was received at the Imperial court, as the ally of Valentinian, and
the adopted son of the patrician AEtius; and dismissed to his native
country, with splendid gifts, and the strongest assurances of friendship
and support. During his absence, his elder brother had solicited, with
equal ardor, the formidable aid of Attila; and the king of the Huns
embraced an alliance, which facilitated the passage of the Rhine, and
justified, by a specious and honorable pretence, the invasion of Gaul.

Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.--Part II.

When Attila declared his resolution of supporting the cause of his
allies, the Vandals and the Franks, at the same time, and almost in the
spirit of romantic chivalry, the savage monarch professed himself
the lover and the champion of the princess Honoria. The sister of
Valentinian was educated in the palace of Ravenna; and as her marriage
might be productive of some danger to the state, she was raised, by the
title of _Augusta_, above the hopes of the most presumptuous subject.
But the fair Honoria had no sooner attained the sixteenth year of her
age, than she detested the importunate greatness which must forever
exclude her from the comforts of honorable love; in the midst of vain
and uns