"
Pepin, after he had been proclaimed king and had settled matters with
the Church as well as the warlike questions remaining for him to solve
permitted, directed all his efforts toward the two countries which,
after his father's example, he longed to reunite to the Gallo-Frankish
monarchy, that is, Septimania, still occupied by the Arabs, and
Aquitaine, the independence of which was stoutly and ably defended by
Duke Eudes' grandson, Duke Waifre. The conquest of Septimania was rather
tedious than difficult. The Franks, after having victoriously scoured
the open country of the district, kept invested during three years its
capital, Narbonne, where the Arabs of Spain, much weakened by their
dissensions, vainly tried to throw in reinforcements. Besides the
Mussulman Arabs, the population of the town numbered many Christian
Goths, who were tired of suffering for the defence of their oppressors,
and who entered into secret negotiations with the chiefs of Pepin's
army, the end of which was that they opened the gates of the town. 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.
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