At first attempts were made to intimidate the Jews. Egica declared that he had learned, by their open avowal, that the Jews had plotted with enemies beyond the sea to effect the ruin of Christendom. Therefore, to counteract their efforts, all Jewish children upwards of seven years old were to be taken from their parents, the males married to Christian girls, and the girls to Christian men, and the children in all instances brought up in the Christian belief, so that in the next generation the Jews might cease altogether to exist as a separate people. This seems to have had no other effect than that of causing a general flight of Jews from Spain, the very thing of all others likely to bring about the mischief that was dreaded. Witiza endeavoured to repair the mistake. He issued a proclamation permitting all Jews to return to Spain, and enjoy there the full rights of freedom and citizenship. But the step was taken too late. If the Jews had concerted with Muza the invasion of Spain, as their enemies affirmed, their intrigues could not be annulled. In the year 711, two years after the accession of a new sovereign, Roderic,[82] to the throne, the Moors crossed into Spain; a decisive battle was fought on the banks of the Guadelete, in which the Moslems were victorious, and the Gothic kingdom of Spain ceased to exist. Once more the miseries of fire and sword, which laid waste the whole of the Spanish peninsula, inflicted no suffering on the Jews residing within it. Whether any of the accusations with which the Christians have assailed them—of leaguing with the Moslem, furnishing them with secret information, opening the gates of beleaguered cities to them and the like—contain any admixture of truth, it would be difficult to say. In some instances the charges are manifestly false; in others the decision is very doubtful. But even allowing them to be true, it cannot be matter of wonder that men so persistently wronged and slandered should turn on their oppressors, when the opportunity was given them. The settlement of the Moors in Spain was followed by a long period of prosperity and peace, during which the Jews became famous throughout Europe for their wealth, their intelligence, and their learning. A famous Hebrew school was founded at Cordova, to which students from all parts of Europe are said to have resorted. In France, during this century, something of the same spirit seems to have prevailed, by which the Catholic kings of Spain were actuated. Chilperic, as has been already recorded, towards the end of the previous century had insisted on the compulsory baptism of his Jewish subjects.