Charles spent the winter of 774–775 in his palace at Quierzy, on the Oise, and there came to the conclusion “that he would attack the perfidious and truce-breaking nation of the Saxons in war, and would persevere therein until they were either conquered and made subject to the Christian religion or were altogether swept off the face of the earth.” It was easier to form a ruthless resolution like this in the privacy of the palace than to carry it into actual execution. The campaign of 775, though planned on a large scale, does not differ greatly from previous campaigns in character. The king held a general assembly at Düren, at which apparently the programme of “Christianity or death” for the Saxons was submitted and approved.[38] Then, in August, Charles marched eastwards, took from the Westphalians their strong fortress of Sigiburg, on the Ruhr; retook Eresburg, which had been taken by the Angarii; and then pressed on into the land of the Eastphalians, who do not appear to have offered any serious resistance to his arms. But both with the Angarii and the Eastphalians the campaign ended with the usual formalities of oaths of fealty and surrender of hostages; we do not yet hear of that wholesale conversion or extirpation which Charles had vowed at his setting forth. Moreover, while he was thus penetrating into the recesses of the enemies’ country, part of his force, which he had left in Westphalia to guard his communications with the Rhine, suffered a serious loss from a Saxon surprise. Their camp was pitched at Lidbach, near Minden; it was three o’clock in the afternoon; some of the cavalry had gone forth to forage for their horses; the rest of the army was indulging in a siesta; a troop of Saxons mingled with the returning foragers, feigning themselves to be their comrades (of course the warriors of that day wore no uniform), and thus obtained admission to the camp, where they made great slaughter of the half-asleep and unarmed soldiers. It is said that the Franks succeeded at last in driving the invaders out of the camp, and that Charles, hurrying from the east, slew a multitude of the retreating Saxons, but it is probable that we have here the story, only slightly veiled, of a serious Frankish reverse. Next year (776) Eresburg, taken and retaken, was again the prize of war. Sigiburg was attacked, but bravely and successfully defended. Charles came with impetuous rush to the sources of the Lippe, and found there a multitude of Saxons, who had flocked thither from all quarters, and who, terrified by Charles’s successes, declared their willingness to embrace Christianity, to become faithful subjects of Charles and of the Franks, and to perform the symbolical act by which they would give him corporal possession of the soil of their country. An innumerable multitude of Saxons, with their wives and children, were baptized in the Lippe stream that flowed past the Frankish camp; hostages, as many