For the Toledans, Wamba remains a personage of fabulous virtue and merit. We first meet him at the funeral of Recesvinthus, when by general election he was proclaimed king. He was an old warrior, neither ambitious nor over-confident, it would appear, and he humbly declined an honour he did not feel fitted to accept. So frantic was the sense of disappointment that a duke walked up to him angrily and threatened to kill him on the spot if he persisted in his refusal, and confronted with a crown and a formidable Toledan blade, the humblest sage that ever drew breath would naturally choose the crown. Wamba bowed to spontaneous choice, and made his triumphal entry into the capital, Sep. 20, 672, nineteen days after his compulsory acceptance of the throne. It was no easy seat, and all his prowess, his undoubted genius and his popularity could not keep him thereon unmolested, though Bishop Quiricus had anointed him amid universal rejoicings. Lope de Vega assumes that this really remarkable man was of peasant origin, but later historians agree that he was of good blood, a much more likely fact, as the barbarous Goths were sticklers for aristocratic prestige, and the law kept very distinct the _nobiles_ and the _vilidies_. However virtuous the man of obscure origin might be, it is doubtful if a fierce Gothic duke would have threatened to murder him if he declined so stupendous an honour as the right of ruling that duke and his fellow-nobles. The start of Wamba's brief but glorious reign was marked by treachery and revolt. His general, of Greek origin, Count Paul, in conspiracy with the Count of Nîmes and the Bishop of Maguelonne, rose against him in Narbonese Gaul. Wamba was then fighting the eternal Vascon, the hereditary enemy of the Kings of Toledo, but he left the Basque country and marched into Gaul, capturing the Pyrenean fortresses, attacking Narbonne by land and sea, and seizing Béziers, Agde, Maguelonne, and then he fell upon Nîmes. Never were French prisoners treated with greater courtesy and consideration. Not only did he free them but sent them off with splendid gifts. For Count Paul alone was he adamantine. He condemned the rebel to walk barefooted between two dukes on horseback, who led him in leash by the hair of his Greek head through the Gothic ranks at Nîmes. Then Wamba on horseback coldly surveyed the ignoble procession, while poor Paul was forced to prostrate himself before his outraged master. In public the King rebuked him, and then we are sorry to record of so great a man, publicly kicked him and ordered his head to be shaved. The shaving and the kick might fittingly have been suppressed with dignity added to the picture of stern Wamba on horseback. To see his enemy grovelling at his feet ought to have contented even a Goth. But no. When Wamba made his triumphal entry into Toledo, the unfortunate Paul and his accomplices walked behind--shaven, forlorn, barefooted,