of total
submission. But no sooner had he set out for Italy, whither he was
called by many pressing affairs, than Witikind, the great leader of
the Westphalians, started forth from his retreat in Denmark and
stimulated all Saxony to a renewed contest. The time was well chosen.
Witikind, who appears to have been as superior to the generals of
Charlemagne as he was inferior to the king himself, gave the Franks a
complete overthrow.

[Illustration: Charlemagne at Witikind's baptism.]

When these tidings were brought to Charlemagne, he returned in all
haste to the northern frontiers. The scene was at once reversed. Cowed
by his name alone, they had recourse, as usual, to submission,
guaranteed by oaths which they never meant to keep, and by hostages
who did not hesitate to incur the fatal penalty attached to the
certain faithlessness of their countrymen. But this time the king
would listen to no terms short of ample vengeance. He demanded that
four thousand of the most hostile and turbulent should be delivered up
to him, all of whom he had executed in one day, in order to do by
intimidation what he had failed to do by kindness. His severity,
however, failed in producing the desired effect. It was not long
before the Saxons again flew to arms, when they sustained so signal a
defeat that very few of all their host escaped from the bloody field.
Yet still the spirit of the barbarians, supported by an indomitable
passion for war and plunder, continued as little quelled as ever.
Witikind and Albion, their most popular chiefs, still maintained the
contest, even when suffering nothing but disasters, until at length,
their conqueror, subduing them more by policy than by arms, won them
over to the Christian faith, which was then embraced by all Saxony.[9]
This, for the time, produced a better feeling, though the truce was
not of long duration.

[Footnote 9: Witikind was baptized with solemn ceremony by
the great bishops of the realm, in presence of his conqueror.
Paul Thumann has vividly portrayed the scene in the painting
here copied.]

Hildegarde, the wife of Charlemagne, had now been dead some short
time, when he married Fastrada, the daughter of a Frankish noble. It
is said that from this union there arose a spirit of discontent among
some of the leading men of his nation, who in consequence rebelled
against him; but, finding themselves too weak to contend with him,
dispersed, and endea