Learned Huns, scientific Huns, but
always Huns, repeating history on a higher scale, barbarously bent on
pulling down the liberty of the world by the power of brute force. Again
they're destined to be conquered as before, at a far bigger price. What
will the next turn of their spiral bring, I wonder? A vast battle of
intellect, perhaps, when wars of blood have been forgotten. And I
wonder, too, where has Attila been, since he was beaten in this
Champagne country of the Marne, and died two years later at his
wedding-feast in Hungary!
Did he appear in our world again, in the form of some great, cruel
general or king, or did his soul rest until it was reincarnated in the
form that claims his name to-day?
I could scarcely concentrate upon Chalons, though it's a noble town,
crowded with grand old buildings. My mind was busily travelling back,
back into history, as Peter Ibbetson travelled in his prison-dreams. It
didn't stop on its way to see the city capitulate to the Allies in 1814,
just one hundred years before the great new meaning came into that word
"allies." I ran past the brave fifteenth-century days, when the English
used to attack Chalons-sur-Marne, hoping to keep their hold on France. I
didn't even pause for Saint-Bernard, preaching the Crusade in the
gorgeous presence of Louis VII and his knights. It was Attila who lured
me down, down into his century, buried deep under the sands of Time. I
heard the ring of George Meredith's words: "Attila, my Attila!" But I
saw the wild warrior Attila, fighting in Champagne, not the dead man
adjured by Ildico, his bride.
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