stantinople, subjugating the Frank,
German, and Italian barbarians by the way. At this time it seemed
impossible that France could escape the fate of Spain; and if she fell,
the threat of Musa would inevitably have come to pass, that he would
preach the Unity of God in the Vatican. But a quarrel had arisen between
him and Tarik, who had been imprisoned and even scourged. The friends of
the latter, however, did not fail him at the court of Damascus. An envoy
from the Khalif Alwalid appeared, ordering Musa to desist from his
enterprise, to return to Syria, and exonerate himself of the things laid
to his charge. But Musa bribed the envoy to let him advance. Hereupon
the angry khalif dispatched a second messenger, who, in face of the
Moslems and Christians, audaciously arrested him, at the head of his
troops, by the bridle of his horse. The conqueror of Spain was compelled
to return. He was cast into prison, fined 200,000 pieces of gold,
publicly whipped, and his life with difficulty spared. As is related of
Belisarius, Musa was driven as a beggar to solicit charity, and the
Saracen conqueror of Spain ended his days in grief and absolute want.

[Sidenote: Arrest of Mohammedanism in Western Europe.] The dissensions
among the Arabs, far more than the sword of Charles Martel, prevented
the Mohammedanization of France. Their historians admit the great check
received at the battle of Tours, in which Abderrahman was killed; they
call that field the Place of the Martyrs; but their accounts by no means
correspond to the relations of the Christian authors, who affirm that
375,000 Mohammedans fell, and only 1500 Christians. The defeat was not
so disastrous but that in a few months they were able to resume their
advance, and their progress was arrested only by renewed dissensions
among themselves--dissensions not alone among the leaders in Spain, but
also more serious ones of aspirants for the khalifate in Asia. On the
overthrow of the Ommiade house, Abderrahman, one of that family, escaped
to Spain, which repaid the patronage of its conquest by acknowledging
him as its sovereign. He made Cordova the seat of his government.
Neither he nor his immediate successors took any other title than that
of Emir, out of respect to the khalif, who resided at Bagdad, the
metropolis of Islam, though they maintained a rivalry with him in the
patronage of letters and science. Abderrahman himself strengthened his
power by an alliance with Charlemagne.