The Treaty of Verdun gave the territory of France as extending up to the Pyrenees _and beyond_ (to include the Comté de Barcelone), but this limit in time was rearranged to stop at the mountain barrier. The graft didn't work! Roussillon remained for long in the possession of the house of Aragon, and its people were, in the main, closely related with the Catalans over the border, but the Treaty of the Pyrenees, in 1659, definitely acquired this fine wine-growing province for the French. The frontier of the Pyrenees is much better defended by natural means than that of the Alps. For four hundred kilometres of its length--quite two-thirds of its entirety--the passages and breaches are inaccessible to an army, or even to a carriage. From the times of Hannibal and Charlemagne up to the wars of the Empire only the extremities have been crossed for the invasion of alien territory. It is in these situations that one finds the frontier fortresses of to-day; at Figueras and Gerone in Spain; in France at Bellegarde (Col de Perthus), Prats-de-Mollo, Mont Louis, Villefranche and Perpignan, in the east; and at Portalet, Navarrino, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (guarding the Col de Ronçevaux) and Bayonne in the west. Bayonne and Perpignan guard the only easily practicable routes (Paris-Madrid and Paris-Barcelona). Hannibal and Charlemagne are the two great names of early history identified with the Pyrenees. Hannibal exploited more than one popular scenic touring ground of to-day, and for a man who is judged only by his deeds--not by his personality, for no authentic portrait of him exists, even in words--he certainly was endowed with a profound foresight. Charlemagne, warrior, lawgiver and patron of letters, predominant figure of a gloomy age, met the greatest defeat of his career in the Pyrenees, at Ronçevaux, when he advanced on Spain in 778. Close by the Cap Cerbère, where French and Spanish territory join, is the little town and pass of Banyuls. This Col de Banyuls was, in 1793, the witness of a supreme act of patriotism. The Spaniards were biding their time to invade France via Roussillon, and made overtures to the people of the little village of Banyuls--famous to-day for its _vins de liqueur_ and not much else, but at that time numbering less than a thousand souls--to join them and make the road easy. The _procureur du roi_ replied simply: "_Les habitants de Banyuls étant français devaient tous mourir pour l'honneur et l'indépendance de la France_." Three thousand Spaniards thereupon attacked the entire forces of the little commune--men, women and children--but finding their efforts futile were forced to retire. This ended the "Battle of Banyuls," one of the "little wars" that historians have usually neglected, or overlooked, in favour of something more spectacular.