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.