Valentinian replied that the Empire was not at war with the Visigoths, and that if it were it would conduct its own quarrels in its own way. The Visigoths, said he, dwelt in Gaul as the guests and under the protection of the Roman Empire, and in consequence to strike at them was to strike at the Empire. But Attila would not hear or understand. He insisted that he was about to render Valentinian a service, and then, confirming us in our opinion that his object was merely loot, sent to Theodoric bidding him not to be uneasy, for that he was about to enter Gaul to free him from the Roman yoke. At the same time that the Visigoth received this message he also received one from Valentinian, greeting him as the “bravest of the Barbarians,” and bidding him resist “the tyrant of the universe” who, like the modern Prussian, “knows only his necessity, regards whatever suits him as lawful and legitimate, and is determined to bring the whole world under his domination.” Theodoric, in much the same position as modern Belgium, according to Jornandes, cried out, as King Albert might have done in August last: “O Romans, you have then at last your desire; you have made Attila at last our enemy also.” But the Romans were as little to blame or able to help it as England or France. Attila, “the tyrant of the universe,” had prepared and was intent upon war. All Theodoric could do was to be ready to defend himself. Attila prepared to attack the West, but the same problem confronted the defenders then as yesterday, namely, by which road that attack would come. The Hun thundered against the Visigoths, but on this very account Aetius, like the French, thinking more subtly than the enemy, remained uncertain whether after all Italy would not be the victim rather than Gaul. He was wrong, like his representatives of to-day; the Barbarian was a barbarian, he believed in his own boasts. An enormous army of every kind of Barbarian was gathered upon the Danube and in the provinces to the south of that river. This host may have numbered anything from half a million men upward; it was not less than half a million strong. Each tribe had its chief, among which the two most famous were the kings of the Gepidae and the Ostrogoths; but all alike trembled before Attila, who had thus beneath his hands the most formidable and numerous hosts that had ever yet threatened civilisation. It was barbarism itself in all its innumerable multitude which was about to fling itself upon Gaul. The plan of Attila--if plan it can be called--was well chosen. Gaul was more easily attacked than Italy and was little less essential to the future of Roman civilisation. It was then, as it has been ever since, the very heart of Europe. To destroy it was to destroy the future.