In retiring, Attila had demanded once more the hand and dower of Honoria, the disgraced sister of Theodosius II. But in 453 he added a beautiful maiden, Ildico, to his innumerable wives. He retired from the banquet after a deep carouse, and in the morning was found dead amid a flood of gore by which he had been suffocated, while Ildico sat weeping beneath her veil by the dead king's bedside. He died as a fool dieth; and his warriors gashed their cheeks and wept tears of blood, and gave him a splendid burial. And his name passed into legend as the King Etzel of the Niebelungen Lied, and Alti of the Saga. But his "loutish sons" quarrelled among themselves. The Teutons, Goths, Gepidae, Alani, and Heruli reasserted their independence in the great victory of Netad in Pannonia in 454; and though the Huns left their name in Hungary, henceforth the empire of Attila became mere "drift-wood, on its way to inevitable oblivion." CLOVIS THE FIRST By THOMAS WYATT, A.M. (465-511) [Illustration: Clovis on horse. [TN]] The honor of having established the French monarchy and the French nation, of having raised himself from his position as chief of a petty and turbulent tribe to be the ruler of a powerful and permanent kingdom, unquestionably belongs to Clovis the First, who was born in the year 465. The multitude of petty kingdoms subsisting in Gaul at this time, forms, says an illustrious historian, one of the greatest difficulties in the ancient history of France. In a manuscript work, still preserved in the King's library at Paris, it is imputed to the disorders which prevailed after the expulsion of Childeric, father of Clovis, when such as were sufficiently powerful took advantage of the anarchy in which the nation was involved, to establish independent monarchies of their own. Clovis ascended the throne at the age of fifteen, and at the early age of twenty began to show his jealousy toward those whom he considered usurpers of his territories. His courtiers, ever ready to fan into a flame the spark they had discovered in the breast of their master, incited him to challenge Syagrius, a Roman who still had possession of Soissons and a part of the adjacent country. The challenge was accepted by this self-made prince, and a bloody battle was the result. Syagrius saved himself by flight, taking refuge among the Visigoths; but Alaric II., then king, fearing the threats of Clovis delivered the refugee into his power, who caused him to be beheaded.