The interests of the Romans and the Franks, of the Papacy and the Frankish kingdom, of Adrian and Charles, became in this period blent together.(250) An indivisible unity and sincere alliance existed between them. They were the result of that great visit of Charles to Rome in 774. When that visit took place, Charles was almost at the beginning of that wonderful career which has placed him at the head of modern history. By the death of his brother Carloman two years before, the whole Frank inheritance came into his hands. In the three years since 768, when Charles and Carloman had been crowned on the same day as kings of the Franks, but in different cities, there had been dissension between them, and had Carloman lived, it was to be feared that the young strength of the greatest western monarchy would have been turned against itself, instead of being gathered up together against the Saracen enemy who was bent on the conquest of the world. But now the single hand of Charles wrought it to a unity of power, moderation and wisdom, which first became conspicuous on this visit to Rome. By this act of spontaneous devotion he may be said to have inaugurated the unequalled success which afterwards attended on him. From that time, forty-two years of reign were appointed to him, in which he became greater and greater. The root may have been that first visit which he made to Rome, shortly after that Pontificate of Adrian began, in answer to his appeal. They became from this time fast personal friends. It is to be observed with what magnificent loyalty Charles took up, repeated, and ratified in his own person, the act of his father, Pipin, made twenty years before. That act of Pipin is almost unique in history. When Stephen II. came to him at Pontigny in 754, Pipin promised him _for __ the love of St. Peter_ to defend the city and duchy of Rome from the intruding Lombard king, Aistulf, and so not to _give_, but to _preserve_ its sovereignty to St. Peter, as throned in his successors, alike from Lombard robbery and Byzantine neglect and impotence. He promised also to recover the exarchate of Ravenna, and the province on the Adriatic called the Pentapolis, already taken by Aistulf from the Byzantine, and in his occupation, and to _give_ them an inheritance to St. Peter. Also, he received the title of Patricius of the Romans, then bestowed upon him by Stephen II., with the engagement and the right of protection carried by it. His sons Charles and Carloman, then children, were associated with him in these promises, and in the dignity of Patricius. The nobles of the Franks assembled in diet gave their sanction to these things: Pipin accomplished them. He would not take to himself a palm of ground in that rich territory which he partly preserved for St. Peter alone, and partly bestowed upon him. Rome and its duchy he preserved; the exarchate and Pentapolis he bestowed. Stephen II. _reigned_, when he returned to Rome, in 756, and his brother, Paul I., after him.