Great as was this disaster, Vercingetorix felt his position to be strengthened by it. He could now say to his countrymen, "Avaricum has perished, after all, but the Romans have got the stores." Cæsar's next proceeding was to lay siege to Gergovia, a town which cannot be identified. Here he met with a decided reverse. One division of his army persisted in an attack upon the walls after the recall had been sounded, and were repulsed with heavy loss, 700 men, of whom nearly fifty were officers, falling in the action. Cæsar himself seems to have had a narrow escape. He does not mention it himself, not thinking, perhaps, that it was of sufficient importance to be recorded. But Servius, an ancient commentator on Virgil, relates it on the authority of a Diary (_Ephemeris_) which was extant in his time. In Virgil, Tarchon, an Etrurian chief and ally of Æneas, drags one Venulus, in full armour, from off his horse. The same thing, he says, happened to Cæsar at Gergovia. One of the Gauls recognised him as he was being carried away, and shouted out _Cæsar_! The name was very like the Gallic words for "Let him go!" And Cæsar's captor relaxing his hold, the great man escaped. Plutarch tells another story of how the Auverni had a sword hanging up in one of their temples which they declared to be Cæsar's, and that when it was shown to him, he smiled. Nor was the defeat at Gergovia the last of his troubles. The Ædui, who had been loyal to Rome from the beginning, now joined the rebellion. They seized Cæsar's _depôt_ at Noviodunum (site unknown), slaughtered the garrison, and possessed themselves of the stores, and with them, of the hostages, who were pledges of the fidelity of the other tribes. They then tried to stop him from crossing the Loire. As usual, he was too quick for them. His legions forded the river, though the river, swollen with the melted snows, was breast-high. Labienus, who was operating in the neighbourhood of Paris, had had difficulties of his own, but had surmounted them with his usual skill. He was Cæsar's ablest lieutenant, as useful to his chief as Lord Hill was to Wellington in the Peninsula. He now succeeded in joining the main army. Notwithstanding this addition of strength, the Roman commander was compelled to retreat. He was not far from the _Provincia_ when he turned upon Vercingetorix and defeated him, largely by the help of the German cavalry. The Romans, among other qualifications of a ruling race, had the gift of turning to the best account the qualities of others. Eight or nine years before there was not a trooper of German race in the Roman army; now that nation furnishes it with an efficient arm.