That is, as I say, the most characteristic and the most significant episode, as it is the most amazing, of the defence. Paris was not to fall, was not even to be attacked. Attila was surfeited with destruction and loot, he was forced now to concentrate his attention upon the attack on the Visigoths of the south lest Rome and Aetius should stand in his way and imperil his whole campaign. His plan must be to defeat the Visigoths before he was forced to face Aetius coming up out of Italy, and with this on his mind he set out from Metz with his main army, passed through Toul and Rheims, which were gutted, through Troyes and Sens, which he was in too great haste to destroy, and over the Sologne, held then by his ally the King of the Alans, Sangibanus, and marched directly upon Orleans. That march represented the work of a whole month. He left Metz in the early days of April, he arrived before Orleans in the early days of May. Orleans stands upon the most northern point of the Loire, the great river which divides Gaul east and west into a northern and a southern country. It has been the point around which the destinies of the Gauls have so often been decided--one has only to recall the most famous instance of all, the deliverance under Joan of Arc--that it is without surprise we see it fulfilling its rôle in the time of Attila also. From time immemorial, before the beginning of history, it had been an important commercial city, for it stood not only on one of the greatest and most fruitful rivers of western Europe, but, as I have said, upon the marches of the north and south, whose gate it was. No one could pass without its leave, at least in safety. Anciently it was known as Genabum and there had been planned and conceived the great revolt which so nearly engulfed Julius Cæsar, who burnt it to the ground. It stood then, as later when it rose again, upon the northern bank of the river and was joined with the south by a great bridge. The resurrection after that burning was not long delayed, but it seems to have been less magnificent than might have been expected and it certainly suffered much from war, so that in 272, in the time of Aurelian, it was rebuilt with a wall about it, and for this cause took the name of the Emperor. Times, however, were sadly changed with the great city when Attila came into Gaul. Much certainly was in ruin, the municipal government in full decadence or transition and it was therefore with a dreadful fear in her heart that Orleans watched the oncoming of the Huns. Nevertheless the city put herself into a state of defence. The first direct assault upon her was made by that Sangibanus, King of the Alans, and Attila’s ally, who requested to be allowed to garrison it. Orleans refused and closed her gates. At the same time she sent forth her bishop (and this is as significant of the true state of affairs of government in Gaul as the facts about Tongres, Rheims and Paris) into the south, still Roman,