He came thither accompanied by the officers who were
to form his council of guardians, men chosen by Charlemagne, with care,
among the Frankish _Leudes_, distinguished not only for bravery and
firmness, but also for adroitness, and such as they should be to be
neither deceived nor scared by the cunning, fickle, and turbulent
populations with whom they would have to deal. From this period to the
death of Charlemagne, and by his sovereign influence, though all the
while under his son's name, the government of Aquitaine was a series of
continued efforts to hurl back the Arabs of Spain beyond the Ebro, to
extend to that river the dominion of the Franks, to divert to that end
the forces as well as the feelings of the populations of Southern Gaul,
and thus to pursue, in the South as in the North, against the Arabs as
well as against the Saxons and Huns, the grand design, of Charlemagne,
which was the repression of foreign invasions and the triumph of
Christian France over Asiatic paganism and Islamism.
Although continually obliged to watch, and often still to fight,
Charlemagne might well believe that he had nearly gained his end.
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