A most tremendous battle was now fought, that of Catalaunia (Châlons-sur-Marne), in which contemporary historians tell us 300,000 men were left on the field; but that number has been reduced to 200,000. Such battles, thank God! we seldom hear of now-a-days. Attila, routed, immediately took to flight, and got clear away from his pursuers. He went through Belgium, destroying city after city, leaving nothing standing, and massacring the people in the most barbarous way.
Here comes the most difficult knot of the whole history. Authors agree that Attila now made his way into Thuringia, that is to the heart of Germany; he must therefore be supposed to have got clear over the Rhine, and marched a long way through the country. On this subject De Buck has one of the most exquisite and beautiful geographical investigations, I should think, that have ever appeared. He proves, so that you can no more doubt it than you can doubt my having this paper before me, that there was Thuringia which lay on this side of the Rhine; he proves it by a series documents taken from mediaeval writers, and from inscriptions, that there was a Thuringia which stretched from Louvain to the Rhine. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive how Attila could have got, as by a leap, into the very midst of Germany. He traces the natural course of march (which you can follow by any map), taking the cities destroyed as landmarks, and brings him to this province; and when there, there was no possible way of crossing the Rhine but by Cologne; there was the only bridge, the only military pass of any sort. So there can be no doubt that the Huns, exasperated by their tremendous losses, and by being driven [{445}] out of Gaul, which they intended to occupy, having revenged themselves as they went on, were obliged to go through Cologne; and if you calculate the date of the victory, and consider the country through which Attila passed, destroying everything as he went, you bring him almost to a certainty to Cologne about the 21st of October, nearly the day of the martyrdom. The "Regnante Domino," which attributes the martyrdom to the Huns, corroborates all this account, which is the result of a most painstaking examination, extending over many pages.
Next we come to another important point. Why attribute this massacre to the Huns? Because there was no other invasion and passage of savages except that one. It accords, then, both with geographical and chronological facts. We have the martyrs at Cologne at the very time when these barbarians came.
But we must needs say something about the Huns. There is no question that the Huns were the most frightful, cruel, and licentious barbarians that ever invaded the Roman empire. They were not of a northern race, Germans or Scandinavians; they were, no doubt, Mongols or Tartars; they came from Tartary, from Scythia, and settled on the Caspian sea; they then moved on to the mouths of the Danube, and again to Hungary, and rolled on in this way toward the richer countries of the west. There are several authors of that period—Jornandes, Procopius, and others—who describe them to us. [Footnote 87] They tell us that when they were infants their mothers bound down their noses, and flattened them in such a way that they should not come beyond the cheek-bones; that their eyes were so sunk that they looked like two caverns; that they scarified all the lower part of the face with hot irons when young, so that no hair could grow; that they had no beard, and were more hideous than demons; that they wore no dress except a shirt fabricated by the women in the carts in which they entirely lived; it was never changed, but was worn till it dropped off, under a mantle made entirely of wild-rat skins. Their chaussure consisted of kid skins round their legs, with most extraordinary shoes or sandals, which had no shape whatever, and did not adapt themselves to the form; the consequence was that they could not walk, and they fought entirely on their wretched horses. They had no cuisine except between the saddle and the back of the horse, where they put their steaks and softened them a little before eating; but as to drink, they could take any amount of it. With regard to their morality it cannot be described. The writers of that age tell us that no Roman woman would allow herself to be seen by a Hun. They were licentious to a degree, and they carried off all the women they could into captivity; probably they destroyed a great many; which was their custom when they became a burden to them. These, then, were the sort of savages that reached Cologne.
[Footnote 87: Ammianua Marcellinus, lib. xxxi., cap. ii. ]
They had another peculiarity; of all the hordes of savages that invaded the Roman empire, they are the only ones that used the bow and arrow. The Germans hardly made any use of the bow, except a few men who mixed in the ranks; as a body their execution was with the sword, the lance, and the pike. The use of the bow was distinctly Tartar, or Scythian. Then we are told that their aim from horseback was infallible; that when flying from a foe they could turn round and shoot with perfect facility; that they rode equally well astride or seated sideways like a woman; in fact that they flew and turned just like the Parthians and Scythians from whom they were descended. In this great battle of Catalaunia they either lost heart or steadiness, and they could not fire upon their enemies, so that they were pursued and tremendously routed. That their mode of fighting was by the bow and arrow, you [{446}] will see in the representations given in the beautiful shrine at Hamelink, where the martyrs are fired into by the barbarians with bows and arrows. Let us see what this has to do with our question. The "Regnante Domino," which we have mentioned as legendary, gives a most beautiful description of the mode of dealing with the bodies. The writer says that when the inhabitants saw that the enemy were gone they came out, and in a field they found this great number of virgins lying on the ground. They collected their blood, got sarcophagi, or made graves, and put them in; "and there they lay, as they were placed," the writer says, "as any one can tell who has seen them," evidently suggesting that he had seen them. Now, in the year 1640, on July 2, Papebroch, an authority beyond all question, and Crombach, whose word may be relied on as that of a most excellent and holy man, were at the opening of the tombs. From all tradition this was no doubt the place of the stone of Clematius; there has always been a convent there; and you remember that part of the inscription which threatens eternal punishment to those who should bury any but virgins there. It is now called "St. Ursula's Acker," a sort of sacred field where the basilica was. Here they were buried, and so they remained undisturbed except by some translations of the middle ages, which do not concern us. In 1640 there was a formal exhumation, and eye-witnesses tell us what they saw. A nuncio came afterward to verify the facts.
I will give you the account of how these bodies were found. Many of them were in graves, in rows, but each body separate, there being a space of a foot between them. In other places there were stone sarcophagi in which they were laid separately. Then Crombach describes that there were some large fosses, sixty feet long, eight feet deep, and sixteen wide, containing a large number of bodies. They were placed in a row with a space between them; at their feet was another row; then a quantity of earth was thrown on, and another row was placed, and so on, until you came to the fourth. Every skeleton in the three rows was entire, and they all looked toward the east. They had their arms crossed upon their bosoms, and almost every one had a vessel containing blood, or sand tinged with blood. The fourth, or upper stratum, consisted of disjointed bones, and with these also there were vessels containing blood or colored sand. In this way, the writer says, he saw a hundred bodies. Then there was this remarkable circumstance about their clothes. Eutychianus, [Footnote 88] the pope, had published a decree that no body of a martyr was ever to be buried without having a dalmatic put upon it; and clothes in abundance were found upon these bodies.
[Footnote 88: Acta SS. Bolland. Octob., tom, ix., p. 139. Constant. Rom. Pont. Epist. Paris, 1721, p. 299. ]
Another important discovery was, that immense quantities of arrows were found mingled with the bones; some sticking in the skull, others in the breast, others in the arms—right in the bones. So it was clear that all these bodies had been put to death by means of arrows, and there was no other tribe but the Huns which made use of the arrow as its instrument of death. I may add that there were no signs of burning, or of any heathen burial about them. This also is most important. I have said that there had been other exhumations in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. There are pictures of these, and there are sarcophagi preserved in which bodies were found. These are laid in exactly the same manner as others were found in 1640. Crombach says the whole had been done most scientifically, that the distances were all arranged by measure, so that there was not a quarter of a foot difference anywhere.
Now, I ask, could these bodies have been put there in consequence of a plague, or an earthquake, or any event of that kind? Putting aside the arrows found in immense quantities, and the [{447}] vessels containing blood, we know that when people die in a plague to the number of hundreds, a foss is made, and they are thrown in, and there is an end of them. This could not have been a common cemetery. It contained nothing but the bodies of these women (I will speak of their physical characteristics later), all laid in studied order, with great care, and with such peculiarities, and all evidently buried at the same time. After reading all this, may we not exclaim with St. Ambrose, "We have found the signs of martyrdom," and with St. Gaudentius, "What can you desire more to show that they were all martyred?" [Footnote 89] And who does not see here confirmed the history of Clematius? Comparing the whole with traditions, both English and German, it seems to me that you have as much proof as you can reasonably require.