found that the hosts of the Ishmaelites had fled away silently under cover of the night, seeking their own country. Fearing, however, a feigned flight, and a sudden return by hidden ways, they circled round and round with amazed caution and thus the invaders escaped, but the Europeans after dividing the spoils and the captives in orderly manner among themselves returned with gladness to their homes.” So, in uncouth and not always intelligible words, does the Spanish ecclesiastic tell the story of that great day, which decided that not the Koran but the Gospel was to be the guide of the conscience of Europe. To Charles Martel and his stalwart Austrasians struggling through that terrible Saturday in October,[20] is it due that the muezzin is not at noon to-day calling the faithful to prayer from some high minaret by the Seine. It was said that the Franks on this day slew 375,000 Saracens, losing only 1500 of their own men. The numbers are evidently but a wild and baseless guess, but the strange thing is that they could be thus reported by a sober and cautious historian, and one not of the Frankish nation (Paulus Diaconus),[21] writing barely sixty years after the date of the famous victory. The Moslem invaders were weakened, but not absolutely crushed by this great encounter. They still kept their hold on the sea-coast of Languedoc, the region which having been for three centuries in the possession of the Visigoths was still known as Gothia. In 737 they crossed the Rhone, and forming a league with a certain Maurontus (who was perhaps Duke of Provence), they obtained possession of the strongly fortified city of Avignon. Charles, whose normal occupation was warfare with the Frisians and Saxons, was recalled from the Rhine-lands in order to do battle with the Islamite in the valley of the Rhone. Avignon was recaptured and Charles marched on to Narbonne, the citadel of the Saracen power in Gaul. But though he defeated the Mussulmans in a great battle by the sea-coast, he failed to take Narbonne. Nismes and several other towns in Languedoc were recovered from the misbelievers; their walls were demolished, and the great amphitheatre of Nismes was somehow dismantled so as to prevent its again affording cover to the enemy, but Narbonne was still Islamite at the death of Charles. In the same year in which this encounter took place, died Theodoric IV., the _fainéant_ Merovingian who for seventeen years had been the figure-head at the prow of the vessel of the State. Charles did not covet the mere name of royalty, nor was he disposed to imitate the disastrous example of his great-uncle Grimwald; but, as the needful Childeric or Chilperic was not at the time forthcoming, he dispensed with the luxury of a _roi fainéant_, and for the remaining four years of his life reigned alone, mayor of a palace in which no king was to be found.