they opened the gates of the town.  In 759, then, after forty years of Arab rule, Narbonne passed definitively under that of the Franks, who guaranteed to the inhabitants free enjoyment of their Gothic or Roman law and of their local institutions.  It even appears that, in the province of Spain bordering on Septimania, an Arab chief, called Soliman, who was in command at Gerona and Barcelona, between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, submitted to Pepin, himself and the country under him.  This was an important event indeed in the reign of Pepin, for here was the point at which Islamism, but lately aggressive and victorious in Southern Europe, began to feel definitively beaten and to recoil before Christianity.

The conquest of Aquitaine and Vasconia was much more keenly disputed and for a much longer time uncertain.  Duke Waifre was as able in negotiation as in war:  at one time he seemed to accept the pacific overtures of Pepin, or, perhaps, himself made similar, without bringing about any result, at another he went to seek and found even in Germany allies who caused Pepin much embarrassment and peril.  The population of Aquitaine hated the Franks; and the war, which for their duke was a question of independent sovereignty, was for themselves a question of passionate national feeling.  Pepin, who was naturally more humane and even more generous, it may be said, in war than his predecessors had usually been, was nevertheless induced, in his struggle against the Duke of Aquitaine, to ravage without mercy the countries he scoured, and to treat the vanquished with great harshness.  It was only after nine years’ war and seven campaigns full of vicissitudes that he succeeded, not in conquering his enemy in a decisive battle, but in gaining over some servants who betrayed their master.  In the month of July, 759, “Duke Waifre was slain by his own folk, by the king’s advice,” says Fredegaire; and the conquest of all Southern Gaul carried the extent and power of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy farther and higher than it had ever yet been, even under Clovis.

In 753, Pepin had made an expedition against the Britons of Armorica, had taken Vannes, and “subjugated,” add certain chroniclers, “the whole of Brittany.”  In point of fact Brittany was no more subjugated by Pepin than by his predecessors; all that can be said is, that the Franks resumed, under him, an aggressive attitude towards the Britons, as if to vindicate a right of sovereignty.

Exactly at this epoch Pepin was engaging in a matter which did not allow him to scatter his forces hither and thither.  It has been stated already, that in 741 Pope Gregory III. had asked aid of the Franks against the Lombards who were threatening Rome, and that, whilst fully entertaining the Pope’s wishes, Charles Martel had been in no hurry to interfere by deed in the quarrel.  Twelve years later, in 753, Pope Stephen, in his turn threatened by Astolphus, king of the Lombards, after vain attempts to obtain