Such was the various army which, under the conduct of Aetius and
Theodoric, advanced, by rapid marches, to relieve Orleans and to give
battle to the innumerable host of Attila.
On their approach, the king of the Huns immediately raised the siege,
and sounded a retreat to recall the foremost of his troops from the
pillage of a city which they had already entered. The valor of Attila
was always guided by his prudence; and as he foresaw the fatal
consequences of a defeat in the heart of Gaul, he repassed the Seine,
and expected the enemy in the plains of Chalons, whose smooth and level
surface was adapted to the operations of his Scythian cavalry. But in
this tumultuary retreat, the vanguard of the Romans and their allies
continually pressed, and sometimes engaged, the troops whom Attila had
posted in the rear; the hostile columns, in the darkness of the night
and the perplexity of the roads, might encounter each other without
design; and the bloody conflict of the Franks and Gepidae, in which
fifteen thousand barbarians were slain, was a prelude to a more general
and decisive action.
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