[A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot]@TWC D-Link book
A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times

CHAPTER IX
18/44

They cut off his head, which was forthwith carried to Abdel- Rhaman, to whom they led away prisoner the hapless daughter of Eudes.
She was so lovely in the eyes of Abdel-Rhaman, that he thought it his duty to send her to Damascus, to the commander of the faithful, esteeming no other mortal worthy of her." (Fauriel, _Historie de la Gaulle,_ &c., t.

III., p.

115.) Abdel-Rhaman, at ease touching the interior of Spain, reassembled the forces he had prepared for his expedition, marched towards the Pyrenees by Pampeluna, crossed the summit become so famous under the name of Port de Roncevaux, and debouched by a single defile and in a single column, say the chroniclers, upon Gallic Vasconia, greater in extent than French Biscay now is.

M.Fauriel, after scrupulous examination, according to his custom, estimates the army of Abdel-Rhaman, whether Mussulman adventurers flocking from all parts, or Arabs of Spain, at from sixty-five to seventy thousand fighting men.

Duke Eudes made a gallant effort to stop his march and hurl him back towards the mountains; but exhausted, even by certain small successes, and always forced to retire, fight after fight, up to the approaches to Bordeaux, he crossed the Garonne, and halted on the right bank of the river, to cover the city.
Abdel-Rhaman who had followed him closely, forced the passage of the river, and a battle was fought, in which the Aquitanians were defeated with immense loss.


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