Here were clearly no vague and meaningless words, written to satisfy solicitation, and without a thought of their consequences:  they were urgent recommendations and precise injunctions, the most proper for securing success to the protected in the name of the protector.  Accordingly St. Boniface wrote, soon after, from the heart of Germany, “Without the patronage of the prince of the Franks, without his order and the fear of his power, I could not guide the people, or defend the priests, deacons, monks, or handmaids of God, or forbid in this country the rites of the Pagans and their sacrilegious worship of idols.”

At the same time that he protected the Christian missionaries launched into the midst of Pagan Germany, Charles Martel showed himself equally ready to protect, but with as much prudence as good-will, the head of the Christian Church.  In 741, Pope Gregory III. sent to him two nuncios, the first that ever entered France in such a character, to demand of him succor against the Lombards, the Pope’s neighbors, who were threatening to besiege Rome.  These envoys took Charles Martel “so many presents that none had ever seen or heard tell of the like,” and amongst them the keys of St. Peter’s tomb, with a letter in which the Pope conjured Charles Martel not to attach any credit to the representations or words of Luitprandt, king of the Lombards, and to lend the Roman Church that effectual support which, for some time past, she had been vainly expecting from the Franks and their chief.  “Let them come, we are told,” wrote the Pope, piteously, “this Charles with whom ye have sought refuge, and the armies of the Franks; let them sustain ye, if they can, and wrest ye from our hands.”  Charles Martel was in fact on good terms with Luitprandt, who had come to his aid in his expeditions against the Arabs in Provence.  He, however, received the Pope’s nuncios with lively satisfaction and the most striking proofs of respect; and he promised them, not to make war on the Lombards, but to employ his influence with King Luitprandt to make him cease from threatening Rome.  He sent, in his turn, to the Pope two envoys of distinction, Sigebert, abbot of St. Denis, and Grimon, abbot of Corbie, with instructions to offer him rich presents and to really exert themselves with the king of the Lombards to remove the dangers dreaded by the Holy See.  He wished to do something in favor of the Papacy to show sincere good-will, without making his relations with useful allies subordinate to the desires of the Pope.

Charles Martel had not time to carry out effectually with respect to the Papacy this policy of protection and at the same time of independence; he died at the close of this same year, October 22, 741, at Kiersy-sur-Oise, aged fifty-two years, and his last act was the least wise of his life.  He had spent it entirely in two great works, the reestablishment throughout the whole of Gaul of the Franco-Gallo-Roman empire, and the driving back from the frontiers of this empire,