Hesse_ and _Thuringia_ were recently incorporated with the
victors, by the conformity of religion and government. The _Alemanni_,
so formidable to the Romans, were the faithful vassals and confederates
of the Franks; and their country was inscribed within the modern limits
of _Alsace_, _Swabia_, and _Switzerland_. The _Bavarians_, with a
similar indulgence of their laws and manners, were less patient of a
master: the repeated treasons of Tasillo justified the abolition of
their hereditary dukes; and their power was shared among the counts, who
judged and guarded that important frontier. But the north of Germany,
from the Rhine and beyond the Elbe, was still hostile and Pagan; nor was
it till after a war of thirty-three years that the Saxons bowed under
the yoke of Christ and of Charlemagne. The idols and their votaries were
extirpated: the foundation of eight bishoprics, of Munster, Osnaburgh,
Paderborn, and Minden, of Bremen, Verden, Hildesheim, and Halberstadt,
define, on either side of the Weser, the bounds of ancient Saxony these
episcopal seats were the first schools and cities of that savage land;
and the religion and humanity of the children atoned, in some degree,
for the massacre of the parents. Beyond the Elbe, the _Slavi_, or
Sclavonians, of similar manners and various denominations, overspread
the modern dominions of Prussia, Poland, and Bohemia, and some transient
marks of obedience have tempted the French historian to extend the
empire to the Baltic and the Vistula. The conquest or conversion
of those countries is of a more recent age; but the first union of
_Bohemia_ with the Germanic body may be justly ascribed to the arms of
Charlemagne. V. He retaliated on the Avars, or Huns of Pannonia, the
same calamities which they had inflicted on the nations. Their rings,
the wooden fortifications which encircled their districts and villages,
were broken down by the triple effort of a French army, that was poured
into their country by land and water, through the Carpathian mountains
and along the plain of the Danube. After a bloody conflict of eight
years, the loss of some French generals was avenged by the slaughter
of the most noble Huns: the relics of the nation submitted the
royal residence of the chagan was left desolate and unknown; and the
treasures, the rapine of two hundred and fifty years, enriched the
victorious troops, or decorated the churches of Italy and Gaul. After
the reduction of Pannonia, the empi