Oise

Two, the districts of the Loire and Garonne, reaching as far west as Spain and inland as far as Bourges.

Three, those of the Seine, Somme, and Oise.

The invasions of Gaul by the Northmen differ from those of England by the Danes in one material point.

Numerous as they were, they were isolated and scattered, those of the Danes in England continuous.

They were now without hesitation called his, among his three sons.

On the 22nd of October, 741, he died at his villa of Quierzy on the Oise, and was buried in that great Abbey of Saint-Denis, which was to receive the corpses of so many sovereigns of his own and other races.

Though the descendant of the sainted Arnulf, though the champion of Christendom against the Saracens, and the strong protector of the apostles who, relying on the sharpness of the Frankish battle-axe, went forth to convert the heathen Frisians and Saxons, Charles Martel was looked upon with no favour by the ecclesiastics of his time.

By the grants of Fénelon kings and honourable women, the possessions of the Church in Gaul had grown so enormously as to weaken the resources of the kingdom, and Charles found himself or believed himself compelled to lay his hand upon some of all this accumulated wealth for the defence of Gaul and Christendom.

The fourth marched through their land unopposed.

All returned laden with booty to the Rhine.

Charles spent the winter of 774 and 775 in his palace at Kirzi on the Oise, and there came to the conclusion that he would attack the perfidious and truce-breaking nation of the Saxons in war and would persevere therein until they were either conquered and made subject to the Christian religion or were altogether swept off the face of the earth.

It was easier to form a ruthless resolution like this in the privacy of the palace than to carry it into actual execution.