A smooth run southwards on a broad, straight road above the Vienne soon brings the busy manufacturing town of CHÂTELLERAULT in sight. Its great industry is the manufacture of firearms, which has been established in the town since 1819. All the rifles in use in the French army are made in the town, and the daily output can, under pressure, reach 1,200, with between 5,000 and 6,000 workmen. The manufacture of cutlery, established some 500 years ago, flourished until the small-arms industry rather overshadowed it. The works are at the villages of Naintré and Cénon, south of the town. The Church of St. Jacques, in the broad main street, has a modern façade--a copy of that of Notre Dame at Poitiers--in front of a building of Romanesque and fourteenth-century work. Besides this building and a few old houses, the only feature of interest is the imposing bridge across the Vienne, passed over on leaving for Poitiers. It was commenced in 1525, and finished in 1609, and has two big towers at the west end. The famous Battle of Tours, as it is generally known to the English, was fought at the junction of the Vienne and the Clain, about 5 kilometres south of Châtellerault (see map). It was in the year 732 when a great Saracen host, led by Abderahman, was marching northwards through Frankland, plundering and spreading desolation as they went. Before they reached the Loire, however, the Saracens were met by Charles Martel (or Charles of the Hammer), who had hurried from the Rhine with his army of Austrasians in time to forestall the invaders, and to win a most decisive victory. The beaten Saracens, numbering 80,000, according to Arab authorities, retreated to the Pyrenees, although Charles Martel made no attempt at pursuit. This battle has generally been considered one of the great decisive conflicts of the world, and the Mayor of the Palace, surnamed of the Hammer, has been regarded as the man who rolled back the Saracen power in Western Europe. In a scholarly article which appeared recently,[B] Mr. E. A. Foord produces a great deal of valuable evidence to show that the invasion of France from Spain would have been something of a much more serious character but for the heavy defeats inflicted on the forces of the Caliphate at Constantinople by Constantine IV. and in 718 by Leo III. Mr. Foord’s comments on the invasion of Frankland are most interesting: