wn. In 759, then,
after forty years of Arab rule, Narbonne passed definitively under that
of the Franks, who guaranteed to the inhabitants free enjoyment of their
Gothic or Roman law and of their local institutions. It even appears
that, in the province of Spain bordering on Septimania, an Arab chief,
called Soliman, who was in command at Gerona and Barcelona, between the
Ebro and the Pyrenees, submitted to Pepin, himself and the country under
him. This was an important event indeed in the reign of Pepin, for here
was the point at which Islamism, but lately aggressive and victorious in
Southern Europe, began to feel definitively beaten and to recoil before
Christianity.

The conquest of Aquitaine and Vasconia was much more keenly disputed and
for a much longer time uncertain. Duke Waifre was as able in negotiation
as in war: at one time he seemed to accept the pacific overtures of
Pepin, or, perhaps, himself made similar, without bringing about any
result, at another he went to seek and found even in Germany allies who
caused Pepin much embarrassment and peril. The population of Aquitaine
hated the Franks; and the war, which for their duke was a question of
independent sovereignty, was for themselves a question of passionate
national feeling. Pepin, who was naturally more humane and even more
generous, it may be said, in war than his predecessors had usually been,
was nevertheless induced, in his struggle against the Duke of Aquitaine,
to ravage without mercy the countries he scoured, and to treat the
vanquished with great harshness. It was only after nine years' war and
seven campaigns full of vicissitudes that he succeeded, not in conquering
his enemy in a decisive battle, but in gaining over some servants who
betrayed their master. In the month of July, 759, "Duke Waifre was slain
by his own folk, by the king's advice," says Fredegaire; and the conquest
of all Southern Gaul carried the extent and power of the Gallo-Frankish
monarchy farther and higher than it had ever yet been, even under Clovis.

In 753, Pepin had made an expedition against the Britons of Armorica, had
taken Vannes, and "subjugated," add certain chroniclers, "the whole of
Brittany." In point of fact Brittany was no more subjugated by Pepin
than by his predecessors; all that can be said is, that the Franks
resumed, under him, an aggressive attitude towards the Britons, as if to
vindicate a right of sovereignty.

Exactly at this epoch Pepin