134
THE DECLINE AND FALL
numerous inhabitants displayed a singular trophy: the sword of Cæsar himself, which he had lost when he was repulsed before the walls of Gergovia.[1] As the common offspring of Troy, they claimed a fraternal alliance with the Romans;[2] and, if each province had imitated the courage and loyalty of Auvergne, the fall of the Western empire might have been prevented, or delayed. They firmly maintained the fidelity which they had reluctantly sworn to the Visigoths; but, when their bravest nobles had fallen in the battle of Poitiers, they accepted, without resistance, a victorious and catholic sovereign. This easy and valuable conquest was achieved, and possessed, by Theodoric, the eldest son of Clovis; but the remote province was separated from his Austrasian dominions by the intermediate kingdoms of Soissons, Paris, and Orleans, which formed, after their father's death, the inheritance of his three brothers. The king of Paris, Childebert, was tempted by the neighbourhood and beauty of Auvergne.[3] The Upper country, which rises towards the south into the mountains of the Cevennes, presented a rich and various prospect of woods and pastures; the sides of the hills were clothed with vines; and each eminence was crowned with a villa or castle. In the Lower Auvergne, the river Allier flows through the fair and spacious plain of Limagne; and the inexhaustible fertility of the soil supplied, and still supplies, without any interval of repose, the constant repetition of the same harvests,[4] On the false report that their lawful sovereign had been slain in Germany, the city and diocese of Auvergne were betrayed by the grandson of Sidonius Apollinaris. Childebert enjoyed this clandestine victory; and the free subjects of Theodoric threatened to desert his standard, if he indulged his
- ↑ When Cæsar saw it, he laughed (Plutarch, in Cæsar. in tom. i. p. 409 [c. 26]); yet he relates his unsuccessful siege of Gergovia with less frankness than we might expect from a great man to whom victory was familiar. He acknowledges, however, that in one attack he lost forty-six centurions and seven hundred men (de Bell. Gallico, l. vi. c. 44-53, in tom. i. p. 270-272).
- ↑ Audebant se quondam fratres Latio dicere, et sanguine ab Iliaco populos computare (Sidon. Apollinar. l. vii. epist. 7, in tom. i. p. 799). I am not informed of the degrees and circumstances of this fabulous pedigree.
- ↑ Either the first or second partition among the sons of Clovis had given Berry to Childebert (Greg. Turon. l. iii. c. 12, in tom. ii. p. 192). Velim (said he) Arvernam Lemanem, quæ tantâ jocunditatis gratia refulgere dictitur oculis cernere (l. iii. c. 9, p. 191). The face of the country was concealed by a thick fog, when the king of Paris made his entry into Clermont.
- ↑ For the description of Auvergne, see Sidonius (l. iv. epist. 21, in tom. i. p. 793) with the notes of Savaron and Sirmond (p. 279 and 51 of their respective editions), Boulainvilliers (Etat de la France, tom. ii. p. 242-268), and the Abbé de la Longuerue (Description de la France, part i. p. 132-139).
