of the colony, and rank, property, and personal qualities alike
rendered him the first man in the district, its chief magistrate,
and protector from the Visigoths, who claimed it as part of their
kingdom of Aquitania.

So much of the spirit of Vercingetorix survived among the remnant of
his tribe that Arvernia had never been overrun and conquered, but
had held out until actually ceded by one of the degenerate Augusti
at Ravenna, and then favourable terms had been negotiated, partly by
AEmilius the Senator, as he was commonly called, and partly by the
honoured friend who sat beside him, another relic of the good old
times when Southern Gaul enjoyed perfect peace as a favoured
province of the Empire. This guest was a man of less personal
beauty than the Senator, and more bowed and aged, but with care and
ill-health more than years, for the two had been comrades in school,
fellow-soldiers and magistrates, working simultaneously, and with
firm, mutual trust all their days.

The dress of the visitor was shaped like that of the senator, but of
somewhat richer and finer texture. He too wore the TOGA
PRAETEXTATA, but he had a large gold cross hanging on his breast and
an episcopal ring on his finger; and instead of the wreath of bay he
might have worn, and which encircled his bust in the Capitol, the
scanty hair on his finely-moulded head showed the marks of the
tonsure. His brow was a grand and expansive one; his gray eyes were
full of varied expression, keen humour, and sagacity; a lofty
devotion sometimes changing his countenance in a wonderful manner,
even in the present wreck of his former self, when the cheeks showed
furrows worn by care and suffering, and the once flexible and
resolute mouth had fallen in from loss of teeth. For this was the