The better to make them content with his rule he treated
them with great kindness and affability, and sent among them
missionaries of their own race, being the hostages whom he had taken in
previous years, and who had been educated in monasteries. All went well,
the Saxons were to all appearance in a state of peaceful satisfaction,
and Charles felicitated himself that he had finally added Saxony to his
empire.
He deceived himself sadly. He did not know the spirit of the free-born
Saxons, or the unyielding perseverance of their patriotic leader. In the
silent depths of their forests, and in the name of their ancient gods,
they vowed destruction to the invading Franks, and branded as traitors
all those who professed Christianity except as a stratagem to deceive
their powerful enemy. Entertaining no suspicion of the true state of
affairs, Charlemagne at length left the country, which he fancied to be
fully pacified and its people content. With complete confidence in his
new subjects, he commissioned his generals, Geil and Adalgis, to march
upon the Slavonians beyond the Elbe, who were threatening France with a
new barbarian invasion.
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