He was taken by treachery at last. As he drew near the city of Lyons, he perceived, on the opposite bank of the Rhone, a litter hurrying along escorted only by a few servants. Some one told him that the traveller was Læta, the beautiful girl he had just married, Constantia having died some little time before. He insisted on crossing the river—rushed to the litter—and was instantly caught in the arms of Andragathius, triumphant at the success of the snare he had prepared. Gratian was conducted, with some show of respect, to Lyons, where, with every appearance of sincere deference, he was invited to wear the Imperial Purple and to take his place at a magnificent banquet. He was not wholly deceived by these specious attentions, and asked his entertainers to give their oath that no harm was intended. This they did, most solemnly; Gratian, incapable of believing in their deliberate perjury, consented to their request, and a few moments later fell, stabbed to the heart, calling on Ambrose with his last breath.
The great Bishop had suffered agonies of suspense about his beloved pupil from the moment he had received the news of his discomfiture. He followed him in spirit on his flight, saw in mind all his suffering and danger, and was utterly broken-hearted when he learnt of his cruel and untimely death at the hands of the usurper Maximus. But the bitterest moment in the Saint’s whole life must have come, when, a little later, Justina, wild with anxiety as to the fate meditated for her own young son Valentinian (he had been associated with Gratian as Emperor, dethroned by Maximus, and was now twelve years old), twice prevailed upon him to travel to Treves and intercede with the murderer for the boy’s life and for peace. The studied insults inflicted upon Ambrose by Maximus on that occasion were hard to bear, but we have it from his own lips that the internal trial of holding intercourse with the slayer of his beloved pupil was a furnace of tribulation, which at times threatened to overcome every consideration of policy and necessity, and for which the partial success of his missions in no way consoled him. For Maximus, after being foiled in his attempts to get possession of the person of Valentinian, decided that he had gone far enough in extermination and, being firmly seated on the throne, consented to let the boy appear to share it with him for a time. Of Gratian’s two friends, Merobaudes and Vallio—the former, seeing a disgraceful death awaiting him, took his own life; the latter, apparently by the orders of Maximus, was privately hanged, and it was given out that he had killed himself in this cowardly manner because he—the staunch fighting man—was afraid of cold steel! The incident reminds one of the recent murder of the French Freemason, who, on his conversion to Christianity, became the victim of a similar fate and a similar calumny, inflicted by former associates. Even the Devil makes very stupid mistakes sometimes.