This brings us to the record of the dealings of Charlemagne with the Huns, who had thus dared to invade his far-extending kingdom. Vast had been the work of this mighty monarch in subduing the unquiet realms around him. Italy had been made a part of his dominions, Spain invaded and quieted, and the Saxons, the fiercest people of the north, forced to submit to the power of the Franks. Now the Avars of Hungary, the most dangerous of the remaining neighbors of Charlemagne's great empire, were to be dealt with. During the two years succeeding their defeat, overtures for peace passed between the Avars and Charlemagne, overtures which, perhaps, had their chief purpose in the desire to gain time to prepare for war. These nomadic hordes were celebrated alike for their cunning and their arrogance,--cunning when they had an object to gain, arrogance when they had gained it. In their dealings with Charlemagne they displayed the same mixture of artfulness and insolence which they had employed in their dealings with the empire of the East. But they had now to do with a different man from the weak emperors of Constantinople. Charlemagne continued his negotiations, but prepared for hostilities, and in the spring of 791 put himself at the head of a powerful army, prepared to repay the barbarian hordes with some of the havoc which they had dealt out to the other nations of Europe. It was no light task he had undertaken, and the great general made ready for it with the utmost care and deliberation. He was about to invade a country of great resources, of remarkable natural and artificial defences, and inhabited by a people celebrated for their fierceness and impetuosity, and who had hitherto known little besides victory. And he was to leave behind him in his march a kingdom full of unquiet elements, which needed the presence of his strong arm and quick mind to keep it in subjection. He knew not but that the Saxons might rise upon his march and spread ruin upon his path. There was one way to avoid this, and that he took. Years before, he had incorporated the Lombards with his army, and found them to fight as valiantly for him as against him. He now did the same with the Saxons, drafting a large body of them into his ranks, with the double purpose of weakening the fighting power of the nation, and employing their fierce courage in his own service. All winter the world of the Franks was in commotion, preparing for war. The chroniclers of the times speak of "innumerable multitudes" which the great conqueror set in motion in the early spring.