Like Joffre, too, when Aetius at last found himself face to face with the reality of the situation he must have dared only not to despair. The successes of the Huns had decided the Visigoths to remain on the defence within their own confines; they refused to attack. Everywhere the Roman delay had discovered treason among the tribes who should have been their allies against a common foe. Aetius could only not despair. He addressed the Visigoths, though perhaps with more right, much as we might address to-day the Americans. “If we are beaten you will be the next to be destroyed; while if you help us to win yours will be the glory.” The Visigoths replied as America is doing to-day: “It is not our business; see you to it.” They were wrong, the victory of Rome was as necessary for the future as our victory is to-day. Much indeed was already achieved to that end by the mere presence of Aetius in Gaul. Suddenly the whole country was changed, everywhere the peoples sprang to arms, the noble and the peasant, the bourgeois of the cities, the bond and the free. From Armorica came an heroic company, the Ripuarian Franks and the Salian Franks having seen the ruin of the Roman cities of the country they had been permitted to occupy, the Burgundians also returned to, if they had indeed ever left, their old allegiance. So successful at last was the diplomacy of Rome that when even Sangibanus appeared Aetius feigned to be ignorant of his treason. The great general prepared with a good heart for the attack, but was determined to do everything possible to mobilise the Visigoths with his other forces. It was with this object that at last he sought the aid of Avitus, the senator, a very great Gaulish nobleman who lived in the city of Clermont, the chief town of the Auvergne.