“So Abderrahman and his host attacked Tours to gain still more spoil, and they fought against it so fiercely that they stormed the city almost before the eyes of the army that came to save it, and the fury and the cruelty of the Moslems toward the inhabitants of the city were like the fury and cruelty of raging tigers.  It was manifest,” adds the Arab, “that God’s chastisement was sure to follow such excesses, and Fortune thereupon turned her back upon the Moslems.

“Near the river Owar,[71] the two great hosts of the two languages and the two creeds were set in array against each other.  The hearts of Abderrahman, his captains, and his men, were filled with wrath and pride, and they were the first to begin the fight.  The Moslem horsemen dashed fierce and frequent forward against the battalions of the Franks, who resisted man-fully, and many fell dead on either side, until the going down of the sun.  Night parted the two armies, but in the gray of the morning the Moslems returned to the battle.  Their cavaliers had soon hewn their way into the centre of the Christian host.  But many of the Moslems were fearful for the safety of the spoil which they had stored in their tents, and a false cry arose in their ranks that some of the enemy were plundering the camp; whereupon several squadrons of the Moslem horsemen rode off to protect their tents.  But it seemed as if they fled, and all the host was troubled.

“And while Abderrahman strove to check their tumult and to lead them back to battle, the warriors of the Franks came around him, and he was pierced through with many spears, so that he died.  Then all the host fled before the enemy and many died in the flight.  This deadly defeat of the Moslems, and the loss of the great leader and good cavalier Abderrahman, took place in the hundred and fifteenth year."[72]

It would be difficult to expect from an adversary a more explicit confession of having been thoroughly vanquished than the Arabs here accord to the Europeans.  The points on which their narrative differs from those of the Christians—­as to how many days the conflict lasted, whether the assailed city was actually rescued or not, and the like—­are of little moment compared with the admitted great fact that there was a decisive trial of strength between Frank and Saracen, in which the former conquered.  The enduring importance of the battle of Tours in the eyes of the Moslems is attested not only by the expressions of “the deadly battle” and “the disgraceful overthrow” which their writers constantly employ when referring to it, but also by the fact that no more serious attempts at conquest beyond the Pyrenees were made by the Saracens.

Charles Martel and his son and grandson were left at leisure to consolidate and extend their power.  The new Christian Roman Empire of the West, which the genius of Charlemagne founded, and throughout which his iron will imposed peace on the old anarchy of creeds and races, did not indeed retain its integrity after its great ruler’s death.  Fresh troubles came over Europe, but Christendom, though disunited, was safe.  The progress of civilization, and the development of the nationalities and governments of modern Europe, from that time forth went forward in not uninterrupted, but ultimately certain, career.