Aëtius, having been banished, had betaken himself to the Huns, from whence, however, he returned: under their protection, he laid the foundations of his power in the empire, until he was so firmly established that he could do without them. He had revived the authority of Rome beyond all expectation: in Gaul, he had reduced the distant countries on the coast, which had made themselves independent; he also restored the frontier of the Rhine, though indeed the Franks still dwelled from Belgium to the Saone, and the Burgundians lived under their own kings, being tributary to the Romans. Provence, however, part of Dauphiné, Lower Languedoc, Lower Loire, Auvergne, and the north-west of Gaul, as well as Spain on the side of the Mediterranean, with the exception of Catalonia, were subject to the latter: the Visigoths had the South. No European country is so torn in pieces as the western empire then was: the countries there were for the most part covered with heaps of ruins, even as a land brought down to the deepest misery; of which we may form an idea by reading the poems of Logau at the end of the Thirty Years’ War. Attila had been led by a quarrel with a Frankish royal house to march into Gaul. Here Aëtius united with the feeble forces of the empire against him, the warriors of the Visigoths, the ruling party of the Franks in Gaul under Merovæus, and the Burgundians: nearly all his troops were barbarians, but the spirit was his. Attila laid siege to Orleans, which was on the point of surrendering, and it would have been destroyed like the places on the banks of the Rhine, when Aëtius and Theodoric the king of the Visigoths came to its relief. Attila fell back into Champagne (_Campi Catalaunici_). The decisive battle in the year 451, is wrongly called the battle near Chalons, which I do not at all look upon as certain: _Campi Catalaunici_ mean Champagne; so that it does not necessarily follow that the battle was precisely near Chalons. In this mighty combat, Attila led the barbarians of the East, the majority of them being German tribes, against the barbarians of the West. Yet Aëtius had to contend not only against superior numbers, but also against treachery, as the Alans, who were placed in the centre of his host, gave way, and the Huns were enabled to break through his ranks. The Visigoths were about to be overpowered, Theodoric being dead; but Thorismund, his heir, made a decisive charge and Aëtius also conquered at last. The Huns were not driven back, but retreated behind their rampart of waggons, where Aëtius did not venture to attack them; so that both parties retired. The numbers which have been given of those who were killed and taken prisoners, are beyond all belief.