difficult
wars. It were undesirable to recount them in detail, for the relation
would be monotonous and useless; but it is obligatory to make fully
known their causes, their characteristic incidents, and their results.

Under the last Merovingian kings, the Saxons were, on the right bank of
the Rhine, in frequent collision with the Franks, especially with the
Austrasian Franks, whose territory they were continually threatening and
often invading. Pepin the Short had more than once hurled them back far
from the very uncertain frontiers of Germanic Austrasia; and, on
becoming king, he dealt his blows still farther, and entered, in his
turn, Saxony itself. "In spite of the Saxon's stout resistance," says
Eginhard, "he pierced through the points they had fortified to bar
entrance into their country, and, after having fought here and there
battles wherein fell many Saxons, he forced them to promise that they
would submit to his rule; and that every year, to do him honor, they
would send to the general assembly of Franks a present of three hundred
horses. When these conventions were once settled, he insisted, to insure
their performance, upon placing them under the guarantee of rites
peculiar to the Saxons; then he returned with his army to Gaul."

Charlemagne did not confine himself to resuming his father's work; he
before long changed its character and its scope. In 772, being left sole
master of France after the death of his brother Carloman, he convoked at
Worms the general assembly of the Franks, "and took," says Eginhard,
"the resolution of going and carrying war into Saxony. He invaded it
without delay, laid it waste with fire and sword, made himself master of
the fort of Ehresburg, and threw down the idol that the Saxons called
_Irminsul_." And in what place was this first victory of Charlemagne
won? Near the sources of the Lippe, just where, more than seven
centuries before, the German Arminius (Herman) had destroyed the legions
of Varus, and whither Germanicus had come to avenge the disaster of
Varus. This ground belonged to Saxon territory; and this idol, called
_Irminsul_, which was thrown down by Charlemagne, was probably a
monument raised in honor of Arminius (_Hermann-Seule,_ or _Herman's
pillar_), whose name it called to mind. The patriotic and hereditary
pride of the Saxons was passionately roused by this blow; and, the
following year, "thinking to find in the absence of the King the most
favorable opportuni