So ended the danger of western Christendom from the Moslem invader, a danger which has not unfrequently been exaggerated, especially by French writers anxious to glorify the Austrasian mayor, whom they have chosen to make into a French national hero. It is probable that even if Abderahman had been victorious nothing more than the duchy of Aquitaine would have fallen into his hands, for this invasion after leaving Bordeaux was degenerating into an incursion for plunder, like that which in 725 had ended with the sack of Aûtun. The Moslems of Spain had proved themselves during the last forty years so factious and unruly, that we cannot believe that even under a leader of exceptional ability they would have held together long and loyally enough to ensure the conquest of central Gaul. Neustria, and still more Austrasia, were states of a very different degree of vigour from the decrepit Visigothic monarchy which fell in 711. Even if Poictiers had fared as Aûtun, there was strength and courage enough in the Franks to face many such another blow, and we may doubt the judgment of Gibbon when he draws his gloomy forecast of the probable results of a victory for Abderahman, ending in a picture of the Muezzin calling the True Believers to prayer in the Highlands of Scotland, and the Mollahs of Oxford disputing on the attributes of a Unitarian Godhead. The remnants of the Saracen host made no attempt to hold Aquitaine, but fled hastily across the Pyrenees, so that duke Eudo was able to reoccupy Bordeaux and Toulouse, and rule once more over the whole of his former dominions as the vassal of the Frank. Meanwhile, Charles returned to Austrasia laden with booty, and was hailed by all western Christendom as the greatest conqueror since Constantine. The Frankish poets and chroniclers continued to celebrate his triumph with such fervour that ere long the world was told and believed that he had slain 375,000 Saracens, with the loss of no more than 1500 men on his own side! If only he had been more of a favourite with the Church he would have been enshrined in history as the equal of his grandson, Charles the Great. But the zeal with which he forwarded the conversion of Germany, and smote the infidel, did not atone, in the eyes of the monkish historians, for the high-handed way in which he had dealt with the Gaulish church. Because he banished bishops, and forbade synods to be held without his leave, and occasionally laid military burdens on church-land, he received a very half-hearted blessing from the annalists of his day.