in turns to entertain him. There are games of tennis on the lawn before
breakfast or backgammon for the older men. There is an hour or two in
the library before we sit down to an excellent luncheon followed by a
siesta. Then we go out riding and return for a hot bath and a plunge in
the river. I should like to describe our luscious dinner parties, he
concludes, but I have no more paper. However, come and stay with us and
you shall hear all about it. Clearly this is no Britain, where in the
sixth century half-barbarian people camped in the abandoned villas and
cooked their food on the floors of the principal rooms.

And yet ... it had gone a long way downhill since the days of Ausonius,
and Sidonius could not now ignore the very existence of the barbarians.
He has indeed left notable protraits of them, especially of the king of
the Visigoths and of the Burgundians who ruled Lyons, where he was born.
Whenever he went to stay there, he complains, they flocked about him in
embarrassing friendliness, breathing leeks and onions and dressing their
hair with rancid butter (they were not, it appears, constrained to
choose between spears and butter). How can he compose six foot metres,
he asks, with so many seven foot patrons around him, all singing and all
expecting him to admire their uncouth stream of non-Latin words? The
shrug of the shoulder, the genial contempt of one conscious of an
infinite superiority--how clear it is. One is reminded of a verse
of Verlaine

Je suis l'empire a la fin de la decadence
qui regarde passer les grands barbares blancs

But Sidonius's good nature was to be rudely shaken. All barbarians were
not friendly giants, and the Visigoths next door, under their new king
Euric, turned covetous eyes upon Auvergne. Sidonius had not been two