errupted career of success had fed their
arrogance and filled them with a proud confidence in the
invincibility of their arms, and their farther advance into the
heart of Europe seemed, in the eyes of Christian and pagan alike,
to be the irresistible march of destiny.

The Saracen host had not penetrated far into the Frankish territory
when they encountered "a lion in the path," in the person of
Charles (or Karl), the great palace-mayor--so called, but who was
in reality the _defacto_ sovereign of the Frankish kingdoms.

To Charles, famous for his military skill and prestige, came the
recently defeated Eudes, the count of Aquitaine, and the remnant of
his force, craving his protection and leadership against the
advancing Saracen horde.

Charles' signal victory over the Saracen invaders proved to be the
turning-point in the Moslem career of conquest. The question
whether the _Koran_ or the Bible, the Crescent or the Cross,
Mahomet or Christ, should rule Europe and the western world was
decided forever upon the bloody field of Tours.

The broad tract of champaign country which intervenes between the cities
of Poitiers and Tours is principally composed of a succession of rich
pasture lands, which are traversed and fertilized by the Cher, the
Creuse, the Vienne, the Claine, the Indre, and other tributaries of the
river Loire. Here and there the ground swells into picturesque
eminences, and occasionally a belt of forest land, a brown heath, or a
clustering series of vineyards breaks the monotony of the widespread
meadows; but the general character of the land is that of a grassy
plain, and it seems naturally adapted for the evolutions of numerous
armies, especially of those vast bodies of cavalry which principally
decided the fate of nations during the centuries that followed the
downfall of Rome and preceded the consolidation of the modern European
powers.

This region has been signalized by more than one memorable conflict; but
it is principally interesting to the historian by having been the scene
of the great victory won by Charles Martel over the Saracens, A.D. 732,
which gave a decisive check to the career of Arab conquest in Western
Europe, rescued Christendom from Islam, preserved the relics of ancient
and the germs of modern civilization, and reestablished the old
superiority of the Indo-European over the Semitic family of ma