and small, that gleam'd
Strangely in wrath as though some spirit unclean
Within that corporal tenement install'd
Look'd from its windows, but with temper'd fire
Beam'd mildly on the unresisting. Thin
His beard and hoary; his flat nostrils crown'd
A cicatrized, swart visage; but, withal,
That questionable shape such glory wore
That mortals quail'd beneath him."

Two chiefs of the Franks, who were then settled on the Lower Rhine, were
at this period engaged in a feud with each other, and while one of them
appealed to the Romans for aid, the other invoked the assistance and
protection of the Huns. Attila thus obtained an ally whose cooeperation
secured for him the passage of the Rhine, and it was this circumstance
which caused him to take a northward route from Hungary for his attack
upon Gaul. The muster of the Hunnish hosts was swollen by warriors of
every tribe that they had subjugated; nor is there any reason to suspect
the old chroniclers of wilful exaggeration in estimating Attila's army
as seven hundred thousand strong. Having crossed the Rhine probably a
little below Coblentz, he defeated the king of the Burgundians, who
endeavored to bar his progress. He then divided his vast forces into two
armies, one of which marched northwest upon Tongres and Arras and the
other cities of that part of France, while the main body, under Attila
himself, advanced up the Moselle, and destroyed Besancon and other towns
in the country of the Burgundians.

One of the latest and best biographers of Attila well observes that,
"having thus conquered the eastern part of France, Attila prepared for
an invasion of the West-Gothic territories beyond the Loire. He marched
upon Orleans, where he intended to force the passage of that river, and
only a little attention is requisite to enable us to perceive that he
proceeded on a systematic plan: he had his right wing on the north for
the protection of his Frank allies; his left wing on the south for the
purpose of preventing the Burgundians from rallying and of menacing the
passes of the Alps from Italy; and he led his centre toward the chief
object of the campaign--the conquest of Orleans, and an easy passage
into the West-Gothic dominion. The whole plan is very like that of the
allied powers in 1814, with this difference, that their left wing
entered France through the defiles of the Jura, in the direction of
Lyons, and that the military object of the campa