fresh invasion Duke Eudes
hurried from Aquitania, collecting on his march the forces of the
country, and, after having waited some time for a favorable opportunity,
gave the Arabs battle in Provence. It was indecisive at first, but
ultimately won by the Christians without other result than the retreat of
Anbessa, mortally wounded, upon the right bank of the Rhone, where he
died without having been able himself to recross the Pyrenees, but
leaving the Arabs masters of Septimania, where they established
themselves in force, taking Narbonne for capital and a starting-point
for their future enterprises.

The struggle had now begun in earnest, from the Rhone to the Garonne and
the Ocean, between the Christians of Southern Gaul and the Mussulmans of
Spain. Duke Eudes saw with profound anxiety his enemies settled in
Septimania, and ever on the point of invading and devastating Aquitania.
He had been informed that the Khalif Hashem had just appointed to the
governor-generalship of Spain Abdel-Rhaman (the Abderame of the
Christian chronicles), regarded as the most valiant of the Spanish Arabs,
and that this chieftain was making great preparations for resuming their
course of invasion. Another peril at the same time pressed heavily on
Duke Eudes: his northern neighbor, Charles, sovereign duke of the Franks,
the conqueror, beyond the Rhine, of the Frisons and Saxons, was directing
glances full of regret towards those beautiful countries of Southern
Gaul, which in former days Clovis had won from the Visigoths, and which
had been separated, little by little, from the Frankish empire. Either
justly or by way of ruse Charles accused Duke Eudes of not faithfully
observing the treaty of peace they had concluded in 720; and on this
pretext he crossed the Loire, and twice in the same year, 731, carried
fear and rapine into the possession of the Duke of Aquitania on the left
bank of that river. Eudes went, not unsuccessfully, to the rescue of
his domains; but he was soon recalled to the Pyrenees by the news he
received of the movements of Abdel-Rhaman and by the hope he had
conceived of finding, in Spain itself and under the sway of the Arabs,
an ally against their invasion of his dominions. The military command
of the Spanish frontier of the Pyrenees and of the Mussulman forces
there encamped had been intrusted to Othman-ben-Abi-Nessa, a chieftain
of renown, but no Arab, either in origin or at heart, although a
Mussulman. He belon