Meanwhile, the rumor of the approaching peril, exaggerated by distance, had spread consternation through every Christian community. It recalled the disastrous times of barbarian conquest, when the ferocious hordes of Goths and Huns swept with ruin and death the fairest provinces of the Roman Empire. Throughout the Orient, in the lands which acknowledged the supremacy of the Successor of Mohammed, the pious Moslem awaited, with confidence not unmingled with a feeling of exultation, tidings of the anticipated triumph of his brethren. The eyes of the entire world were turned in expectancy to the spot where must speedily be tested the respective prowess of the North and South; to the struggle which would forever determine the future of Europe, and decide without appeal the fate of Christianity. Onward, resistlessly, pitilessly, rolled the devastating flood of invasion. The Duke of Aquitaine had bravely met his enemies on the very slopes of the mountain barrier, but all his efforts were powerless to stay their progress. Cities were reduced to ashes and their inhabitants driven into slavery. The pastures were swept clean of their flocks; the blooming hill-sides and fertile valleys of the Garonne were transformed into scenes of desolation. Bordeaux, the populous and wealthy emporium of Aquitaine, paid for a short and ineffectual resistance with the plunder of its treasures, the massacre of its citizens, and its total destruction by fire. The Moorish army, encumbered with thousands of captives and the booty of an entire province, crossed the Garonne with difficulty, and resumed its slow and straggling march towards the interior. Upon the banks of the Dordogne Eudes had marshalled his followers to contest its passage. A fierce battle ensued; the Christians, overwhelmed by numbers, were surrounded and cut to pieces; and the carnage was so horrible as to excite the pity of the rude historians of an age prolific in violence and bloodshed. The conquest of Aquitaine achieved, the Emir moved on to Poitiers, and after ravaging the suburbs of that city, where stood the famous Church of St. Hilary, which was utterly destroyed, planted the white standard of the Ommeyades before its walls. That country, whose hostile factions were subsequently reconciled and consolidated by the genius of Charlemagne, and which is known to us as France, was, during the seventh century, in a state of frightful anarchy. In the South, the important province of Septimania had formerly acknowledged the supremacy of the Visigoths, and after the overthrow of their empire had enjoyed a nominal independence. Aquitaine was subject to its dukes, who maintained an unequal contest with the growing powers of the North and the insatiable ambition of the Saracens. Towards the East, the petty lord of Austrasia was involved in perpetual intrigues and hostilities with his turbulent neighbors, the princes of Neustria and Burgundy. In