o render it
permanent by acts of wisdom and liberality. He frequently called
together the national assemblies, and included in the summons bishops
as well as chieftains. Consulting with them as to the most prudent
course of action, he preserved their affection to his person and
obedience to his orders. He especially courted the favor of the
Church, and showed his gratitude for the sanction which Pope Zachariah
had given to his accession, by assisting the next Pope, Stephen III.,
in a serious contest which broke out in 753 with the Lombards. Their
king, Astolpho, took an active part in the great religious quarrel
which then agitated Christendom, with respect to the worship of
images, espousing the cause of the image-breakers, while Pope Stephen
supported the opposite side. Threatened with invasion, the Pope flew
to the court of Pepin, who received him with much reverence, and in
return was crowned king for the second time. Stephen even pronounced
sentence of excommunication against all who should dare to choose a
king of France from any other than Pepin's family. At the Pope's
request the king assembled an army, and marched against Astolpho. The
war lasted for two years, but eventually terminated in the success of
Pepin, who compelled Astolpho to yield up to the Pope the exarchate of
Ravenna, the last relic of the great Roman empire in Italy, and of
which the Lombards had deprived the Eastern emperors.

[Illustration: Pepin after the murder of Duke Waifre.]

Pepin, however, had in view a more national war than this. The duchy
of Aquitaine was perpetually in a state of resistance to the authority
of the Frankish kings. This was owing, in some measure, to the
difference of language and civilization which prevailed between the
people of the duchy and those of the kingdom. A spirit of hostility
was also fostered by the increase of population which Aquitaine
obtained from the Gascons, a tribe from the Pyrenees, not subject to
the Franks. After a long period of uncertain warfare, Pepin determined
to decide the struggle by active operations. He accordingly, in 759,
took advantage of a rising of the people of Septimania against their
Arabian rulers. He made himself master of Narbonne and other towns,
and freed the Septimanians. Then turning upon Waifre, Duke of
Aquitaine, he summoned him to disgorge the spoils which he had seized
from the Aquitanian lands of certain churches of France. Waifre
replied in defiant terms, and for