ionate peasants who were
impatient to welcome their deliverer, could easily betray some unknown
or unguarded ford: the merit of the discovery was enhanced by the useful
interposition of fraud or fiction; and a white hart, of singular size
and beauty, appeared to guide and animate the march of the Catholic
army. The counsels of the Visigoths were irresolute and distracted.
A crowd of impatient warriors, presumptuous in their strength, and
disdaining to fly before the robbers of Germany, excited Alaric to
assert in arms the name and blood of the conquerors of Rome. The advice
of the graver chieftains pressed him to elude the first ardor of the
Franks; and to expect, in the southern provinces of Gaul, the veteran
and victorious Ostrogoths, whom the king of Italy had already sent to
his assistance. The decisive moments were wasted in idle deliberation
the Goths too hastily abandoned, perhaps, an advantageous post; and the
opportunity of a secure retreat was lost by their slow and disorderly
motions. After Clovis had passed the ford, as it is still named, of the
_Hart_, he advanced with bold and hasty steps to prevent the escape
of the enemy. His nocturnal march was directed by a flaming meteor,
suspended in the air above the cathedral of Poitiers; and this signal,
which might be previously concerted with the orthodox successor of St.
Hilary, was compared to the column of fire that guided the Israelites
in the desert. At the third hour of the day, about ten miles beyond
Poitiers, Clovis overtook, and instantly attacked, the Gothic army;
whose defeat was already prepared by terror and confusion. Yet they
rallied in their extreme distress, and the martial youths, who had
clamorously demanded the battle, refused to survive the ignominy of
flight. The two kings encountered each other in single combat. Alaric
fell by the hand of his rival; and the victorious Frank was saved by the
goodness of his cuirass, and the vigor of his horse, from the spears of
two desperate Goths, who furiously rode against him to revenge the death
of their sovereign. The vague expression of a mountain of the slain,
serves to indicate a cruel though indefinite slaughter; but Gregory has
carefully observed, that his valiant countryman Apollinaris, the son of
Sidonius, lost his life at the head of the nobles of Auvergne. Perhaps
these suspected Catholics had been maliciously exposed to the blind
assault of the enemy; and perhaps the influence of religion was