Note 035 The scepticism of the Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples, tom. vii. p. 539, 540) cannot be reconciled with any principles of reason or criticism. Is not Gregory of Tours precise and positive in his account of the destruction of Metz? At the distance of no more than an hundred years could he be ignorant, could the people be ignorant, of the fate of a city, the actual residence of his sovereigns the kings of Austrasia? The learned Count, who seems to have undertaken the apology of Attila and the barbarians, appeals to the false Idatius, parcens civitatibus Germaniae et Galliae, and forgets that the true Idatius had explicitly aflirmed, plurimae civitates effractae, among which he enumerates Metz.

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The History Of The Decline and Fall Of The Roman Empire— Chapter 35