il reconstituted and defended. Pepin had Neustria,
Burgundy, Provence, and the suzerainty of Aquitaine; Carloman,
Austrasia, Thuringia, and Alemannia. They both, at their father's death,
took only the title of mayor of the palace, and, perhaps, of duke. The
last but one of the Merovingians, Thierry IV, had died in 737. For four
years there had been no king at all.

But when the works of men are wise and true, that is, in conformity with
the lasting wants of peoples and the natural tendency of social facts,
they get over even the mistakes of their authors. Immediately after the
death of Charles Martel, the consequences of dividing his empire became
manifest. In the North, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Alamannians
renewed their insurrections. In the South, the Arabs of Septimania
recovered their hopes of effecting an invasion; and Hunald, duke of
Aquitaine, who had succeeded his father Eudes after his death in 735,
made a fresh attempt to break away from Frankish sovereignty and win his
independence. Charles Martel had left a young son, Grippo, whose
legitimacy had been disputed, but who was not slow to set up pretensions
and to commence intriguing against his brothers.

Everywhere there burst out that reactionary movement which arises
against grand and difficult works when the strong hand that undertook
them is no longer by to maintain them; but this movement was of short
duration and to little purpose. Brought up in the school and in the fear
of their father, his two sons, Pepin and Carloman, were inoculated with
his ideas and example; they remained united in spite of the division of
dominions, and labored together, successfully, to keep down, in the
North the Saxons and Bavarians, in the South the Arabs and Aquitanians,
supplying want of unity by union, and pursuing with one accord the
constant aim of Charles Martel--abroad the security and grandeur of the
Frankish dominion, at home the cohesion of all its parts and the
efficacy of its government.

Events came to the aid of this wise conduct. Five years after the death
of Charles Martel, in 746 in fact, Carloman, already weary of the burden
of power, and seized with a fit of religious zeal, abdicated his share
of sovereignty, left his dominions to his brother Pepin, had himself
shorn by the hands of Pope Zachary, and withdrew into Italy to the
monastery of Monte Cassino. The preceding year, in 745, Hunald, duke of
Aquitaine, with more patriotic and equally pious