Now it happened that on the day of the murder Ganelon had passed through Paris on his way to Brittany. The Saxons, taking advantage of Charlemagne’s absence, had invaded the territory lying between the Rhine and the Weser. The Emperor, but just returned from Lombardy, sent against them four formidable armies; then, having held an assembly at Duren, he placed himself at the head of a fifth column and crossed the Rhine (775). He made himself master of Eresburg, and left a garrison there to hold it, and next defeated at Brunsberg the masses of Saxons that endeavoured to stop his passage of the Weser. He advanced as far as the Oder, cutting the Westphalian forces into pieces on his route, and then marched back after having reinforced the garrison of Eresburg, which was to serve as a prison for his Saxon captives. This year Hildegarde presented Charlemagne with a daughter, who was christened Rotrude. The Emperor was so delighted with her that Roland ventured to renew his request. “Sire, you bade me share the campaigns in Saxony and Lombardy, and I did my duty to the best of my power. Is it not time----” “My dear nephew, spare your eloquence. I see you coming, and begin to know your petition by heart. Well, by St. Nazaire! I will grant you the request you press so warmly. In one month you shall be wed.” Five days after they had to mount, and march for Italy again. Rotgause, Duke of Friuli, and Adalgisus, son of Didier, had resolved to attack Rome and Italy by sea and land (776). Charles once more crossed the Alps, took Rotgause a prisoner, and, having cut his head off, handed over the government of Friuli to one of his French nobles, the Count Markaire. Then he set out for Worms. One day the Emperor was riding at the head of his army, with Roland beside him. They were marching alongside of a splendid corn land. The reapers, terrified at the sight of the soldiers, had flung down their sickles, and fled; but, their curiosity restoring them their courage to some o o degree, they ventured to watch the column from a safe distance. “Have you never, sire, envied the lot of these peasants?” asked the Count of Mans. Charles looked at his nephew in wonderment, thinking he was gone mad. “When once their work is over,” continued Roland, “they return to their homes to find a wife waiting on the threshold to embrace them, and a bevy of children who storm them for kisses; while we----” “I understand you, nephew mine. This is a new way of putting it that you are trying, and if I let you have your talk out, it would infallibly end in the old question, ‘When is the marriage to be?’ I am not more hard-hearted than most people; and, by the mass! on my return---” The Emperor paused. He had just caught sight of a whirlwind of dust a long way off. By degrees the whirlwind lessened to a cloud--the cloud turned into a horseman--the horseman proved to be Hugo of Cotentin. [Illustration: 107]