Meroveus and his
Franks, observing a prudent distance, and magnifying the opinion of
their strength by the numerous fires which they kindled every night,
continued to follow the rear of the Huns till they reached the confines
of Thuringia. The Thuringians served in the army of Attila: they
traversed, both in their march and in their return, the territories of
the Franks; and it was perhaps in this war that they exercised the
cruelties which, about fourscore years afterward, were revenged by the
son of Clovis. They massacred their hostages, as well as their captives:
two hundred young maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting
rage; their bodies were torn asunder by wild horses or their bones were
crushed under the weight of rolling wagons, and their unburied limbs
were abandoned on the public roads as a prey to dogs and vultures. Such
were those savage ancestors whose imaginary virtues have sometimes
excited the praise and envy of civilized ages!
FOOTNOTES:
[24] In the _Nibelungenlied_, the old poet who describes the reception
of the heroine Chrimhild by Attila [Etsel], says that Attila's dominions
were so vast that among his subject warriors there were Russian, Greek,
Wallachian, Polish, _and even Danish knights_.
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