fluous to
repeat, may be corrected and illustrated by Gregory of Tours, l. ii. c.
5, 6, 7, and the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, and the two Prospers.
All the ancient testimonies are collected and inserted in the Historians
of France; but the reader should be cautioned against a supposed extract
from the Chronicle of Idatius, (among the fragments of Fredegarius, tom.
ii. p. 462,) which often contradicts the genuine text of the Gallician
bishop.]

[Footnote 34: The ancient legendaries deserve some regard, as they
are obliged to connect their fables with the real history of their own
times. See the lives of St. Lupus, St. Anianus, the bishops of Metz,
Ste. Genevieve, &c., in the Historians of France, tom. i. p. 644, 645,
649, tom. iii. p. 369.]

[Footnote 35: The scepticism of the count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples,
tom. vii. p. 539, 540) cannot be reconciled with any principles of
reason or criticism. Is not Gregory of Tours precise and positive in his
account of the destruction of Metz? At the distance of no more than a
hundred years, could he be ignorant, could the people be ignorant of
the fate of a city, the actual residence of his sovereigns, the kings of
Austrasia? The learned count, who seems to have undertaken the apology
of Attila and the Barbarians, appeals to the false Idatius, parcens
Germaniae et Galliae, and forgets that the true Idatius had explicitly
affirmed, plurimae civitates effractoe, among which he enumerates Metz.]

The facility with which Attila had penetrated into the heart of Gaul,
may be ascribed to his insidious policy, as well as to the terror of his
arms. His public declarations were skilfully mitigated by his private
assurances; he alternately soothed and threatened the Romans and the
Goths; and the courts of Ravenna and Thoulouse, mutually suspicious of
each other's intentions, beheld, with supine indifference, the approach
of their common enemy. Aetius was the sole guardian of the public
safety; but his wisest measures were embarrassed by a faction, which,
since the death of Placidia, infested the Imperial palace: the youth
of Italy trembled at the sound of the trumpet; and the Barbarians, who,
from fear or affection, were inclined to the cause of Attila, awaited
with doubtful and venal faith, the event of the war. The patrician
passed the Alps at the head of some troops, whose strength and numbers
scarcely deserved the name of an army. [36] But on his arrival at Arles,
or Lyons, he wa