The struggle with the Saxons lasted thirty years in all, and its completion brings us almost to the end of Charles’ reign. In order to close our survey of the military operations by which the integrity of the Carolingian Empire was preserved, or its frontiers enlarged, it is necessary to take up the narrative of various warlike expeditions and operations which demanded the ruler’s attention while the Saxons were making their heroic struggle to cast off the Frankish yoke. Hardly two years after the destruction of the Lombard monarchy, there was such unrest in the small Duchy of Friuli, which was ruled over by Hrodgaud, that a punitive expedition was needed to restore order. Apparently Hrodgaud was intriguing with other Lombard leaders to procure the restoration of the exiled son of Desiderius and so to reëstablish Lombard independence. The project failed. Hrodgaud’s allies among his own people withdrew support. Adalghis, the “pretender,” did not leave Constantinople to head the revolt, consequently the Duke of Friuli was obliged single-handed to meet the avenging Frankish army. The revolted cities were soon captured; Hrodgaud himself appears to have lost his life on the battlefield, and after this short campaign, which took place in the early months of 776, Charles crossed the Alps in June to take up again the conquest of the Saxon lands. This Lombard revolt, although it was an incident, and involved only a small territory, was followed by stringent measures of repression. Paul the Deacon, the Lombard historian, tells of the treatment of his brother, who, it seems, took part in this insurrection. “My brother languishes a captive in your land, broken-hearted, in nakedness and want. His unhappy wife, with grieving lips, begs for bread from street to street. Four children must she support in this humiliating manner, whom she is scarce able to cover even with rags.”