t was not without umbrage or without all the
feelings of a true son of Waifre that he saw the Franks and the son of
Pepin so close to him."

The aggressive campaign was an easy and a brilliant one. Charles with
his army entered Spain by the valley of Roncesvalles without
encountering any obstacle. On his arrival before Pampeluna the Arab
governor surrendered the place to him, and Charlemagne pushed forward
vigorously to Saragossa. But there fortune changed. The presence of
foreigners and Christians on the soil of Spain caused a suspension of
interior quarrels among the Arabs, who rose in mass, at all points, to
succor Saragossa. The besieged defended themselves with obstinacy; there
was more scarcity of provisions among the besiegers than inside the
place; sickness broke out among them; they were incessantly harassed
from without; and rumors of a fresh rising among the Saxons reached
Charlemagne. The Arabs demanded negotiation. To decide the King of the
Franks upon an abandonment of the siege, they offered him "an immense
quantity of gold," say the chroniclers, hostages, and promises of homage
and fidelity. Appearances had been saved; Charlemagne could say, and
even perhaps believe, that he had pushed his conquests as far as the
Ebro; he decided on retreat, and all the army was set in motion to
recross the Pyrenees. On arriving before Pampeluna Charlemagne had its
walls completely razed to the ground, "in order that," as he said, "that
city might not be able to revolt." The troops entered those same passes
of Roncesvalles which they had traversed without obstacle a few weeks
before; and the advance-guard and the main body of the army were already
clear of them. The account of what happened shall be given in the words
of Eginhard, the only contemporary historian whose account, free from
all exaggeration, can be considered authentic. "The King," he says,
"brought back his army without experiencing any loss, save that at the
summit of the Pyrenees he suffered somewhat from the perfidy of the
Vascons (Basques). While the army of the Franks, embarrassed in a narrow
defile, was forced by the nature of the ground to advance in one long
close line, the Basques, who were in ambush on the crest of the
mountain--for the thickness of the forest with which these parts are
covered is favorable to ambuscade--descend and fall suddenly on the
baggage-train and on the troops of the rear-guard, whose duty it was to
cover all in their fron