The Moslem army, proceeding along the coast as far as the Rhone, turned towards the interior, and ascended the valley of the river, ravaging its settlements with fire and sword. Advancing to Lyons, it took that city, and thence directing its course into Burgundy, it stormed and pillaged the town of Autun. Hitherto the invaders had encountered no organized opposition, but a hastily collected militia now began to harass their march, encumbered as they were with a prodigious booty; and, in a skirmish in which the peasantry displayed an unusual amount of daring, Anbasah, having rashly exposed himself, was mortally wounded. The dying Emir bequeathed his authority to Odrah-Ibn-Abdallah, an appointment distasteful to the members of the Divan; and, in accordance with their demands, the Viceroy of Africa designated Yahya-Ibn-Salmah as the successor of Anbasah. The austere and inflexible spirit of this commander, his keen sense of justice, and his determination to enforce the strictest discipline among the soldiery, made him everywhere unpopular. The pliant Viceroy of Africa was once more appealed to, and such was his subserviency to the clamors of the discontented chieftains that not only was Yahya-Ibn-Salmah removed, but within a few months his two successors, Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa and Hodheyfa-Ibn-al-Ahwass, were appointed and deposed. Finally the Khalif himself sent to Al-Haytham-Ibn-Obeyd the royal commission as his representative. This official was a Syrian by birth, and inherited all the bitter prejudices of his faction which had been fostered by the pride and insolence of the triumphant Ommeyades. Merciless by nature, fierce and rapacious, Al-Haytham spared neither Moslem nor Christian. Especially was his animosity directed towards the descendants of the Companions of Mohammed, and their proselytes and adherents, the Berbers. The complaints now lodged with the Viceroy of Africa were unheeded, as the offensive governor had received his appointment directly from the hands of the Commander of the Faithful. In their extremity, the victims of Al-Haytham preferred charges before the Divan of Damascus; and the Khalif Hischem, convinced that the Emir was exceeding his authority, appointed one of the most distinguished personages of his court, Mohammed-Ibn-Abdallah, as special envoy to investigate the administration of Al-Haytham, and to depose and punish him if, in his judgment, the well-being of Islam and the interests of good government demanded it. Arriving incognito at Cordova, the plenipotentiary of the Khalif, without difficulty or delay, obtained the necessary evidence of the guilt of the unworthy official. Then, exhibiting his commission, he publicly stripped the latter of the insignia of his rank, and, having shaved his head, had him paraded through the city upon an ass, amidst the jeers and insults of the people he had robbed and persecuted. All his property was confiscated, and Mohammed made amends as far as possible by bestowing upon the surviving victims of the disgraced Emir the immense treasures he had amassed during a reign of indiscriminate extortion. Then placing Al-Haytham in irons he sent him under guard to Africa. Two months sufficed to redress the grievances which had threatened a revolution—to recompense the plundered, to liberate the imprisoned, to console the tortured, to expel from their places the cruel subordinates of the oppressor; and, having elicited the approbation and received the blessings of all classes, including the hereditary enemies of his tribe, Mohammed departed for Syria, after conferring the viceregal authority upon the renowned captain Abd-al-Rahman, who thus a second time ascended the throne of the Emirate of the West.
Of noble birth and distinguished reputation, Abd-al-Rahman united to the eminent qualities of a successful ruler and general all the insufferable arrogance of the Arab race. Connected by ties of the closest friendship with one of the sons of the Khalif, Omar-al-Khattah, he had received from him many particulars regarding the life and habits of Mohammed, and this intimacy contributed to increase the feeling of superiority, not unmingled with contempt, with which he regarded the horde of barbarian proselytes attracted to his banner rather by thirst for plunder than from religious zeal. His generosity endeared him to the soldiery, but his inflexible sense of right alienated the powerful officials of the Divan enriched by years of unmolested peculation. The knowledge of his Syrian origin, constantly evinced by a marked partiality for his countrymen, at once aroused the secret hostility of the crowd of turbulent adventurers who, collected from every district of Africa and Asia, composed his subjects, and who, destitute of loyalty, religion, principle, or gratitude, regarded an Arab as their natural enemy, an heterogeneous assemblage wherein the Berber element, dominated by the rankling prejudices of the Yemenites, their spiritual guides, greatly preponderated.
Visiting, in turn, the different provinces subject to his rule, Abd-al-Rahman confirmed the good dispositions of his predecessor, the plenipotentiary Mohammed-Ibn-Abdallah, and corrected such abuses as had escaped the attention of the latter. In some instances, the injustice of the walis had wantonly deprived the Christians of their houses of worship, in defiance of the agreement permitting them to celebrate their rites without molestation; in others, their rapacity had connived at the erection of new churches, prohibited by the provisions of former treaties, and in absolute contravention of Mohammedan law. This evil of late years had become so general that scarcely a community in the Peninsula was exempt from it. Through the care and firmness of the Emir the confiscated churches were restored to their congregations; the new edifices were razed to the ground; the bribes which had purchased the indulgence of the walis were surrendered to the public treasury; and the corrupt officials paid the penalty of their malfeasance with scourging and imprisonment.
His reforms completed, and secure in the apparent submission and attachment of his subjects, Abd-al-Rahman now turned his attention to the prosecution of a design which, in spite of fearful reverses in the past and of unknown dangers impending in the future, had long been the cherished object of his ambition—the conquest of France. As the representative of the Khalif, and consequently vested with both spiritual and temporal power, he had caused to be proclaimed from the pulpit of every mosque visited by him in his progress, the obligation of all faithful Moslems to avenge the deaths of the martyrs fallen in former invasions, and to add to the empire of Islam the rich and productive territory of Europe.
Fully aware of the vast difficulties which would necessarily attend such an undertaking, and enlightened by his former experience, Abd-al-Rahman resolved to provide, as far as possible, against any contingency that might arise from too hasty preparation, or an inferiority in numbers, sent messengers to almost every country acknowledging the authority of the Khalif, to proclaim the Djihad, or Holy War, and to solicit the pecuniary aid of all devout and liberal believers. The call was promptly answered. The riches of the East and West poured in a constant stream into the treasury of Cordova. Wealthy merchants sent their gold; female devotees their jewels; even the beggar was anxious to contribute his pittance for the advancement of the Faith and the confusion of the infidel. From neighboring lands, and from the remotest confines of the Mohammedan world alike, from Syria, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Al-Maghreb, and Persia, military adventurers, soldiers of fortune, desperate fanatics, half-naked savages from Mauritania, the proud and ferocious tribesmen of the Desert, astonished the inhabitants of the cities of Andalusia with their multitudes, their tumultuous and unintelligible cries, and their fierce enthusiasm. The entire force of the Hispano-Arab army, disciplined by many a scene of foreign and internecine conflict, was marshalled for the coming crusade, which, unlike those expeditions which had preceded it, aimed not merely at the spoliation of cities and the enslavement of their inhabitants, but at the permanent occupation and settlement of the country from the Pyrenees to the frontier of Germany, from the Rhætian Alps to the ocean.
The several walis had been ordered to assemble with their forces at a designated rendezvous on the northern border of the Peninsula. This district, which included the mountain passes and the fortresses defending them, was then under the command of Othman-Ibn-Abu-Nesa, a native of Africa, who had, for a few months, enjoyed and abused the power of the emirate, and whom the generous policy of Abd-al-Rahman had retained in this important post, bestowed upon the African chieftain after his deposition. A man of violent passions and without principle, Othman was, however, not deficient in those talents which confer distinction upon soldiers of fortune. Of obscure birth and low associations, he had, by sheer force of character and daring, won the confidence of the Viceroy of Africa, who had conferred upon him the government of Spain; a position from which he was barred by the unwritten law of the Conquest, which discouraged the aspirations of individuals of his nationality. Deeply chagrined that he had not been reinstated in the office whose delights he had scarcely tasted, and devoured by envy, whose bitterness was increased by the antipathies of a party of which he was the acknowledged head, Othman determined to revenge his fancied wrongs, and to secure for himself the advantages of independent sovereignty. His influence extended even to the Ebro, to the north and east of which stream the Berbers, who were devoted to him, had established themselves in great numbers. At that time the condition of the redoubtable Eudes, Duke of Aquitaine, had become desperate. He had long waged a doubtful war with the Franks, whose superior strength rendered his ultimate subjection certain. Upon the south, he was menaced by the encroachments of the marauding Arabs, whose expeditions kept his dominions in perpetual turmoil. Thus placed between two fires, he readily hearkened to the overtures of Othman, who proposed an alliance to be cemented by the marriage of the wali with the daughter of the Gothic noble. A treaty was made and ratified; the damsel—who was not compelled to renounce her faith—was delivered to her father’s new ally; and the latter returned to his government, resolving to baffle by diplomacy the design of his master, and, if that were found impossible, confident that the strength of his mountain defences was sufficient to defy all the power of the emirate. To the orders of Abd-al-Rahman to attend him with his troops he returned evasive replies, pleading the engagement he had entered into, and his obligation to observe it. His repeated commands being ignored, and the patience of the army to advance growing uncontrollable, Abd-al-Rahman secretly despatched a squadron of light horsemen, under Gedhi-Ibn-Zeyan, a Syrian officer, with directions to bring in the refractory wali dead or alive. Pressing forward with the utmost diligence, the troopers came suddenly upon Othman, at Castrum Liviæ, before he was even aware of the intentions of the Emir. He had barely time to take refuge with a few attendants and his bride in the neighboring mountains, before his enemies entered the town and, without halting, spurred on through the rugged defiles in hot pursuit. Overtaken near a brook where the party had stopped from fatigue, the rebel escort was killed or put to flight; the Gothic princess was taken; and Othman paid the forfeit of his treason with his life. The enterprising Gedhi cast at the feet of Abd-al-Rahman the head of the traitor as the proof of his success; and the captive, whose wondrous beauty charmed the eyes of all who saw her, was sent to grace the royal harem at Damascus.
And now, the gateways of the Pyrenees being open, the mighty host of Moslems poured through, like an inundation, upon the sunny fields of France. No reliable basis is available by which we can even approach to an accurate estimate of its numbers. Considering the publicity given to the crusade, the different sources whence the foreign recruits were drawn, the regular army of the Emir, and the bodies of cavalry furnished by the Viceroys of Africa and Egypt, it would seem that the invading army must have amounted to at least a hundred thousand men. Assembled without order, and wholly intolerant of discipline, the mutual jealousy and haughty independence of its unruly elements greatly impaired its efficiency. The members of each tribe mustered around their chieftain, who enjoyed but a precarious authority; while the obedience which all professed to the representative of the majesty of the Khalif was observed only so long as his commands did not clash with their wishes or run counter to the indulgence of their passions and inherited prejudices.
Meanwhile, the rumor of the approaching peril, exaggerated by distance, had spread consternation through every Christian community. It recalled the disastrous times of barbarian conquest, when the ferocious hordes of Goths and Huns swept with ruin and death the fairest provinces of the Roman Empire. Throughout the Orient, in the lands which acknowledged the supremacy of the Successor of Mohammed, the pious Moslem awaited, with confidence not unmingled with a feeling of exultation, tidings of the anticipated triumph of his brethren. The eyes of the entire world were turned in expectancy to the spot where must speedily be tested the respective prowess of the North and South; to the struggle which would forever determine the future of Europe, and decide without appeal the fate of Christianity. Onward, resistlessly, pitilessly, rolled the devastating flood of invasion. The Duke of Aquitaine had bravely met his enemies on the very slopes of the mountain barrier, but all his efforts were powerless to stay their progress. Cities were reduced to ashes and their inhabitants driven into slavery. The pastures were swept clean of their flocks; the blooming hill-sides and fertile valleys of the Garonne were transformed into scenes of desolation. Bordeaux, the populous and wealthy emporium of Aquitaine, paid for a short and ineffectual resistance with the plunder of its treasures, the massacre of its citizens, and its total destruction by fire. The Moorish army, encumbered with thousands of captives and the booty of an entire province, crossed the Garonne with difficulty, and resumed its slow and straggling march towards the interior. Upon the banks of the Dordogne Eudes had marshalled his followers to contest its passage. A fierce battle ensued; the Christians, overwhelmed by numbers, were surrounded and cut to pieces; and the carnage was so horrible as to excite the pity of the rude historians of an age prolific in violence and bloodshed. The conquest of Aquitaine achieved, the Emir moved on to Poitiers, and after ravaging the suburbs of that city, where stood the famous Church of St. Hilary, which was utterly destroyed, planted the white standard of the Ommeyades before its walls. That country, whose hostile factions were subsequently reconciled and consolidated by the genius of Charlemagne, and which is known to us as France, was, during the seventh century, in a state of frightful anarchy. In the South, the important province of Septimania had formerly acknowledged the supremacy of the Visigoths, and after the overthrow of their empire had enjoyed a nominal independence. Aquitaine was subject to its dukes, who maintained an unequal contest with the growing powers of the North and the insatiable ambition of the Saracens. Towards the East, the petty lord of Austrasia was involved in perpetual intrigues and hostilities with his turbulent neighbors, the princes of Neustria and Burgundy. In the year 638, with the death of the renowned Dagobert, whose dominions extended to the Danube, disappeared the last vestige of independence and authority possessed by the monarchs of the Merovingian dynasty. Henceforth the regal power was vested in, and practically exercised by, the bold and able mayors of the palace, the prime ministers of the rois fainéants, who, through indifference or compulsion, were apparently contented with the titles and glittering baubles of royalty. The superior talents of the priest were industriously employed in enriching his church or his abbey, and the zeal and fears of the devout co-operating with the avarice of the clergy, the sacred edifices became depositories of treasures which dazzled the eyes of the greedy freebooters of Abd-al-Rahman with their magnificence and value. No sovereign in Europe could boast of such wealth as had been accumulated through the lavish generosity of pilgrims and penitents by the shrines of St. Hilary of Poitiers and St. Martin of Tours. The ecclesiastics habitually represented themselves as the treasurers of heaven, the chosen intermediaries with the saints; and the most costly gift was scarcely considered an equivalent for a hasty blessing or a relic of more than doubtful authenticity, graciously bestowed upon the humble and delighted contributor to clerical rapacity and monkish imposture.
The manly vigor inherited from a barbarian ancestry, developed and strengthened by military exercises, had formed of the Franks a nation of heroes. Their gigantic forms, encased in mail, enabled them to resist assaults which must have overwhelmed mortals of less ponderous build. A phlegmatic temperament, joined to a devotion to their lords which never questioned the justice of their commands, imparted to them steadiness and inflexible constancy in the field. Their naturally ferocious aspect was increased by grotesque helmets of towering height, and by the skins of wild beasts which draped their massive shoulders, while their weapons were of a size and weight that the demigods of old alone might wield. Such were the warriors to whose valor were now committed the destinies of the Christian world. The throne of the Franks was then occupied by Thierry IV., one of a series of royal phantoms, who had been exalted to this nominal dignity by a certain mayor of the palace named Charles, the natural son of Pepin d’Heristal, Duke of Austrasia. It was the policy of these officials, necessarily men of talent, whose abilities had raised them to prominence, and who controlled the empire of the state, to bestow the crown upon princely youths purposely familiarized with vice, that every noble aspiration might be stifled and every patriotic impulse repressed in the indulgence of the most wanton and effeminate luxury. The profligate habits of these sovereigns, which shortened their reigns, account for their number and rapid succession in the annals of France.
The chroniclers of the eighth and ninth centuries, garrulous upon the martyrdom of saints and the performance of miracles, have scarcely mentioned the achievements of the most remarkable personage of his time. Their well-known enmity to his name, associated with the appropriation of church property, although employed for the preservation of Christendom, has had, no doubt, much to do with this contemptuous silence. Pepin, using the privilege sanctioned by the depraved manners of the age, lived in concubinage with Alpäide, the mother of Charles, whose social position was yet so little inferior to that of a matrimonial alliance that she is often spoken of as a second wife. An austere prelate, Lambert by name, who occupied the See of Maestricht, with a boldness and zeal unusual in the complaisant churchmen of the eighth century, saw fit to publicly rebuke Pepin for this unlawful connection, and, with studied insult, rejected the hospitality which the kindness of the Mayor of the Palace had tendered him. Offended by this exhibition of ill-breeding and independence, the brother of the lady procured the murder of the bishop, who was forthwith canonized, and is still prominent among the most efficient intercessors of the Roman Catholic calendar. The murderers, careless alike of the anathemas of the Church and of the process of the law, remained unpunished; while the populace of Liege, where the bishop was a favorite, erected a chapel to the memory of the fearless ecclesiastic. The whole occurrence affords a curious and striking commentary on the immorality, lawlessness, and peculiar domestic habits of the Middle Ages in France.