(1476-1524)
[Illustration: The Chevalier Bayard.]
Pierre Du Terrail was born in 1476, at Castle Bayard, in Dauphiny. The
house of Terrail belonged to the Scarlet of the ancient peers of France.
The Lords of Bayard, during many generations, had died under the flags
of battle. Poictiers, Agincourt, and Montlhéry had taken, in succession,
the last three; and in 1479, when Pierre was in his nurse's arms, his
father, Aymon du Terrail, was carried from the field of Guinegate with a
frightful wound, from the effects of which, although he survived for
seventeen years to limp about his castle with the help of sticks, he
never again put on his shirt of mail.
The old knight was thus debarred from bringing up his son as his own
squire. But the Bishop of Grenoble, his wife's brother, was a close
friend of Charles the Warrior, the great Duke of Savoy. When Pierre was
in his fourteenth year it was proposed that he should begin his knightly
education among the pages of the duke. The bishop promised to present
him. A little horse was bought; a tailor was set to work to make a
gorgeous suit of silk and velvet; and Pierre was ready to set out.
During six months the palace of Charles became his home. The lovable and
handsome boy soon won all hearts about him. The duke with delight saw
him leap and wrestle, throw the bar, and ride a horse better than any
page about the court. The duchess and her ladies loved to send him on
their dainty missions. His temper was bright and joyous; his only fault,
if fault it can be called, was an over-generosity of nature. His purse
was always empty; and when he had no money, any trifling service of a
lackey or a groom would be requited with a silver button, a dagger, or a
clasp of gold. And such was to be his character through life. Time after
time, in after years, his share of treasure, after some great victory,
would have paid a prince's ransom; yet often he could not lay his hand
on five gold pieces.
When Pierre had lived at the palace about half a year, the duke made a
visit to Lyons, to pay his duty to the king. That king was Charles the
Eighth, then a boy of twenty, who was making his days fly merrily with
tilts and hawking parties, and his nights with dances and the whispers
of fair dames. The duke desired to carry with him to his sovereign a
present worthy of a king's acceptance. A happy notion struck him. He
resolved to present the king with Bayard and his horse.
King Charles, delighted with his new page, placed him in the palace of
Lord Ligny, a prince of the great house of Luxemburg, and there for
three years he continued to reside. During that time his training was
the usual training of a page. But the child was the father of the man.
Thoughts of great deeds, of tilts and battle-fields, of champions going
down before his lance, of crowns of myrtle, and the smiles of lovely
ladies--such already were the dreams which set his soul on fire.
At seventeen Pierre received the rank of gentleman. Thenceforward he was
free to follow his own fortune; he was free to seek the glorious
Dulcinea of his dreams--a fame as bright and sparkling as his sword. And
thereupon begins to pass before us, brilliant as the long-drawn scenes
of a dissolving view, the strange and splendid series of his exploits.
He had not ceased to be a page ten days before the court was ringing
with his name.
Sir Claude de Vauldre, Lord of Burgundy, was regarded as the stoutest
knight in France. He was then at Lyons, and was about to hold a tilt,
with lance and battle-axe, before the ladies and the king. His shield
was hanging in the Ainay meadows, and beside it Montjoy, the
king-at-arms, sat all day with his book open, taking down the names of
those who struck the shield. Among these came Bayard. Montjoy laughed as
he wrote down his name; the king, Lord Ligny, and his own companions,
heard with mingled trepidation and delight that Bayard had struck the
blazon of Sir Claude. But no one had a thought of what was coming. The
day arrived, the tilt was held, and Bayard, by the voice of all the
ladies, bore off the prize above the head of every knight in Lyons.
The glory of this exploit was extreme. It quickly spread. Three days
later Bayard went to join the garrison at Aire. He found, as he rode
into the little town, that the fame of his achievement had arrived
before him. Heads were everywhere thrust out of windows, and a band of
fifty of his future comrades issued on horseback from the garrison to
bid him welcome. A few days after his arrival he held a tilt in his own
person, after the example of Sir Claude. The palms were a diamond and a
clasp of gold. Forty-eight of his companions struck his shield, and rode
into the lists against him. Bayard overthrew the whole band, one by one,
and was once more hailed at sunset by the notes of trumpets as the
champion of the tourney.
It is not in tournaments and tilts, however, that a knight can win his
spurs. Bayard burned for battle. For many months he burned in vain; but
at last the banners of the king were given to the wind, and Bayard, to
his unspeakable delight, found himself marching under Lord Ligny against
Naples.
The two armies faced each other at Fornovo. The odds against the French
were six to one, and the fight was long and bloody. When the great
victory was at last decided, Bayard was among the first of those called
up before the king. That day two horses had dropped dead beneath him;
his cuirass and sword were hacked and battered, and a captured standard,
blazing with the arms of Naples, was in his hand. At the king's order he
knelt down, and received upon the spot the rank of knight. At one bound
he had achieved the height of glory--to be knighted by his sovereign on
the field of battle.
Bayard was not yet nineteen. His figure at that age was tall and
slender; his hair and eyes were black; his complexion was a sunny brown;
and his countenance had something of the eagle's.
He was now for some time idle. He was left in garrison in Lombardy. But
fiercer fields were soon to call him. Ludovico Sforza took Milan. At
Binasco, Lord Bernardino Cazache, one of Sforza's captains, had three
hundred horse; and twenty miles from Milan was Bayard's place of
garrison. With fifty of his comrades he rode out one morning, bent on
assaulting Lord Bernardino's force. The latter, warned by a scout of
their approach, armed his party, and rushed fiercely from the fort. The
strife was fought with fury; but the Lombards, slowly driven back toward
Milan, at length wheeled round their horses and galloped like the wind
into the city.
Bayard, darting in his spurs, waving his bare blade, and shouting out
his battle-cry of "France," was far ahead of his companions. Before he
knew his danger, he had dashed in with the fugitives at the city gates
and reached the middle of the square in front of Sforza's palace. He
found himself alone in the midst of the fierce enemy--with the white
crosses of France emblazoned on his shield.
Sforza, hearing a tremendous uproar in the square, came to a window of
the palace and looked down. The square was swarming with the soldiers
of Binasco, savage, hacked, and bloody; and in the centre of the yelling
tumult, Bayard, still on horseback, was slashing at those who strove to
pull him from his seat.
Sforza, in a voice of thunder, bade the knight be brought before him.
Bayard, seeing that resistance was mere madness, surrendered to Lord
Bernardino, and was led, disarmed, into the palace. Sforza was a soldier
more given to the ferocity than to the courtesies of war. But when the
young knight stood before him, when he heard his story, when he looked
upon his bold yet modest bearing, the fierce and moody prince was moved
to admiration. "Lord Bayard," he said, "I will not treat you as a
prisoner. I set you free; I will take no ransom; and I will grant you
any favor in my power." "My Lord Prince," said Bayard, "I thank you for
your courtesy with all my soul. I will ask you only for my horse and
armor." The horse was brought; Bayard sprang into the saddle, and an
hour later was received by his companions with raptures of surprise and
joy, as one who had come alive out of the lion's den.
Milan fell; Sforza was taken; and Bayard went into garrison at
Monervino. At Andri, some miles distant, was a Spanish garrison under
the command of Don Alonzo de Sotomayor, one of the most famous knights
in Spain. Bayard, with fifty men, rode out one morning, in the hope of
falling in with some adventure. It happened that he came across Alonzo,
with an equal party, abroad on the same quest. Their forces met; both
sides flew joyously to battle, and for an hour the victory hung in the
balance. But at last Bayard, with his own sword, forced Alonzo to
surrender; and his party, carrying with them a large band of prisoners,
rode back in triumph to the garrison.
Sotomayor behaved in most unknightly fashion, and after being ransomed,
accused Bayard of ill-treating him. Bayard sent him the lie, and
challenging him to a duel to the death, slew him. A few days later, the
Spaniards, panting for reprisal, proposed to meet a party of the French
in combat, for the glory of their nations. Bayard received the challenge
with delight. On the appointed day, thirteen knights of either side,
glittering in full harness, armed with sword and battle-axe, and
prepared for a contest to the death, rode forth into the lists.
By the laws of such a tilt a knight unhorsed, or forced across the
boundary, became a prisoner, and could fight no longer. The Spaniards,
with great cunning, set themselves to maim the horses; and by these
tactics, eleven of the French were soon dismounted. Two alone were left
to carry on the contest, Bayard and Lord Orose.
Then followed such a feat of arms as struck the gazers dumb. For four
hours these two held good their ground against the whole thirteen. The
Spaniards, stung with rage and shame, spurred till their heels dripped
blood. In vain. Night fell; the bugles sounded; and still the
unconquerable pair rode round the ring.
But great as this feat was, it was soon to be succeeded by a greater. A
few weeks afterward the French and Spanish camps were posted on opposite
sides of the river Gargliano. Between them was a bridge, in the
possession of the French; and some way farther down the river was a
ford, known only to the Spanish general, Pedro de Paez. He proposed to
lure the French guards from the bridge, and then to seize it. And his
stratagem was ready.
Early in the morning the French soldiers at the bridge were startled to
perceive a party of the enemy, each horseman bearing a foot-soldier on
his crupper, approach the river at the ford and begin to move across it.
Instantly, as Paez had intended, they left the bridge and rushed toward
the spot. Bayard, attended by Le Basque, was in the act of putting on
his armor. He sprang into the saddle, and was about to spur after his
companions, when he perceived, across the river, a party of two hundred
Spaniards making for the bridge. The danger was extreme; for if the
bridge were taken the camp itself would be in the most deadly peril.
Bayard bade Le Basque gallop for his life to bring assistance. And he
himself rode forward to the bridge, alone.
The Spaniards, on seeing a solitary knight advance against them, laughed
loudly at his folly. Their foremost horsemen were already half-way over
when Bayard, with his lance in rest, came flying down upon them. His
onset swept the first three off the bridge into the river, and instantly
the rest, with cries of vengeance, rushed furiously upon him. Bayard,
not to be surrounded, backed his horse against the railing of the
bridge, rose up in his stirrups, swung his falchion with both hands
above his head, and lashed out with such fury that, with every blow a
bloody Spaniard fell into the river, and the whole troop recoiled in
wonder and dismay, as if before a demon. While they still stood,
half-dazed, two hundred glaring at one man, a shout was heard, and Le
Basque, with a band of horsemen, was seen approaching like a whirlwind.
In two minutes the Spaniards were swept back upon the land in hopeless
rout--and the French camp was saved.
Bayard received for this great feat the blazon of a porcupine, with this
inscription, _Unus agminis vires habet_--"One man has the might of
armies."
And still came exploit after exploit in succession--exploits of every
kind of fiery daring. At Genoa, when the town revolted, Bayard stormed
the fort of the insurgents, quelled the riot, forced the city to
surrender, and hanged the leader on a pole. At Agnadello, against the
troops of Venice, he waded with his men through fens and ditches, took
the picked bands of Lord d'Alvicino on the flank, scattered them to the
winds, and won the day. At Padua, during the long siege, he scoured the
country with his band of horse, and frequently rode back to camp at
nightfall with more prisoners than armed men. At Mirandola, where he
faced the papal armies, he laid a scheme to take the Pope himself. A
snowstorm kept the fiery Julius in his tent, and Bayard lost him. A few
days afterward the pontiff's life was in his hands. A traitor offered,
for a purse of gold, to poison the Pope's wine. But it is not the
Bayards of the world who fight with pots of poison; and the slippery
Judas had to fly in terror from the camp, or Bayard would infallibly
have hanged him.
So far, amid his life of perils, Bayard had escaped without a wound. But
now his time had come.
Brescia was taken by the troops of Venice. Gaston de Foix, the
thunderbolt of Italy, marched with 12,000 men to its relief. Bayard was
among them. At the head of the storming-party he was first across the
ramparts, and was turning round to cheer his men to victory when a pike
struck him in the thigh. The shaft broke off, and the iron head remained
embedded in the wound.
Two of his archers caught him as he fell, bore him out of the rush of
battle, and partly stanched the wound by stripping up the linen of their
shirts. They then bore him to a mansion close at hand. The master of the
house, who seems to have been a person of more wealth than valor, had
disappeared, and was thought to be hiding somewhere in a convent,
leaving his wife and his two daughters to themselves. The girls had fled
into a hay-loft, and plunged themselves beneath the hay; but, on the
thunderous knocking of the archers, the lady of the house came trembling
to the door. Bayard was carried in, a surgeon was luckily discovered
close at hand, and the pike-head was extracted. The wound was pronounced
to be not dangerous. But Bayard, to his great vexation, found he was
doomed to lie in idleness for several weeks.
According to the laws of war, the house was his, and all the inmates
were his prisoners. And the fact was well for them. Outside the house
existed such a scene of horror as, even in that age, was rare. Ten
thousand men lay dead in the great square; the city was given up to
pillage, and it is said that the conquerors gorged themselves that day
with booty worth three million crowns. The troops were drunk with
victory and rapine. No man's life, no woman's honor, was in safety for
an instant.
Bayard set his archers at the door-way. His name was a talisman against
the boldest; and in the midst of the fierce tumult that raged all round
it, the house in which he lay remained a sanctuary of peace.
The ladies of the house were soon reassured. Bayard refused to regard
them as his prisoners or to take a coin of ransom. The daughters, two
lovely and accomplished girls, were delighted to attend the wounded
knight. They talked and sang to him, they touched the mandolin, they
woke the music of the virginals. In such society the hours flew lightly
by. The wound healed, and in six weeks Bayard was himself again.
On the day of his departure the lady of the house came into his
apartment, and besought him, as their preserver, to accept a certain
little box of steel. The box contained two thousand five hundred golden
ducats. Bayard took it. "But five hundred ducats," he said, "I desire
you to divide for me among the nuns whose convents have been pillaged."
Then, turning to her daughters, "Ladies," he said, "I owe you more than
thanks for your kind care of me. Soldiers do not carry with them pretty
things for ladies; but I pray each of you to accept from me a thousand
ducats, to aid your marriage portions." And with that he poured the
coins into their aprons.
[Illustration: Bayard taking Leave of the Ladies of Brescia.]
His horse was brought, and he was about to mount, when the girls came
stealing down the steps into the castle court, each with a little
present, worked by their own hands, which they desired him to accept.
One brought a pair of armlets, made of gold and silver thread; the
other, a purse of crimson satin. And this was all the spoil that Bayard
carried from the inestimable wealth of Brescia--the little keepsakes of
two girls whom he had saved.
The scenes of Bayard's life at which we have been glancing have been
chiefly those of his great feats of arms. And so it must be still; for
it is these of which the details have survived in history. And yet it
was such incidents as these at Brescia which made the fame of Bayard
what it was and what it is. To his foes, he was the flower of chivalry;
but to his friends, he was, besides, the most adored of men. It is said
that in his native province of Dauphiny, at his death, more than a
hundred ancient soldiers owed to him the roof that covered their old
age; that more than a hundred orphan girls had received their marriage
portions from his bounty. But of such acts the vast majority are
unrecorded; for these are not the deeds which shine in the world's eye.
Gaston de Foix was now before Ravenna. Bayard rode thither with all
speed; he was just in time. Two days after his arrival came the battle.
Weak though he still was from his long illness, Bayard on that day was
seen, as ever, "shining above his fellow-men." He turned the tide of
victory; he tore two standards from the foe with his own hand; and he
was first in the pursuit.
Two months after, Bayard was at Pavia. The little troop with which he
was then serving had there sought refuge under Louis d'Ars. The armies
of the Swiss burst in upon them. Bayard, with a handful of soldiers in
the market-place, held, for two hours, their whole force at bay, while
his companions were retreating from the town across a bridge of boats.
As he himself was crossing, last of all, a shot struck him in the
shoulder, and stripped it to the bone. No surgeon was at hand. The
wound, roughly stanched with moss, brought on a fever, and for some time
he lay in danger of his life.
And now Bayard was to follow a new master. Louis XII. died; Francis I.
received the crown; and Bayard, with the young king, marched to Milan,
which the Swiss had seized and held.
On Thursday, September 13, 1515, King Francis pitched his camp at
Marignano, before the city of the spires. No danger of attack was
apprehended; the king sat calmly down to supper in his tent; when all at
once the Swiss, aroused to madness by the fiery eloquence of Cardinal de
Sion, broke like a tempest from the city, and fell upon the camp. The
French, by the red light of sunset, flew to arms, and fought with fury
till night fell. Both armies sat all night on horseback, waiting for the
dawn; and with the first streaks of morning, flew again to battle. It
was noon before the bitter contest ended, and the Swiss, still fighting
every inch of ground, drew slowly back toward the city. It had been,
indeed, as Trevulzio called it, a Battle of the Giants. And the greatest
of the giants had been Bayard and the king.
That evening Francis held, before his tent, the ceremony of creating
knights of valor. But before the ceremony began, a proclamation by the
heralds startled and delighted all the camp. Francis had determined to
receive the rank in his own person. Bayard was to knight the king!
In the days of the primeval chivalry, when even princes were compelled
to win their spurs, such a spectacle was not uncommon. But not for ages
had a king been knighted by a subject on a field of battle. Nor was any
splendor wanting that could make the spectacle impressive. Nowhere in
Ariosto is a picture of more gorgeous details than is presented by this
scene of history; the great crimson silk pavilion, the seat spread with
cloth of gold, the blazoned banners, the heralds with their silver
trumpets, the multitude all hushed in wonder, the plumed and glittering
company of knights and men-at-arms. Such were the surroundings amid
which Francis knelt, and Bayard, with his drawn sword, gave the
accolade.
The sword with which he had performed the ceremony Bayard kept
religiously until his death. It was then mislaid, and never
rediscovered. The loss is a misfortune. For few relics could exist of
more romantic interest than the sword with which the noblest of all
knights did honor to the most magnificent of kings.
Bayard's glory had long been at such a height that hardly any exploit
could increase it. And yet an exploit was at hand at which, even when
Bayard was the actor of it, all France and Germany were to stand in
wonder.
The German emperor, marching with a mighty army on Champagne, took
Monson by surprise, and advanced against Mézières. If Mézières were
taken, the whole province would be in the most deadly peril. And yet
defence seemed hopeless; the place had no artillery, and the ramparts
were in ruins. At this crisis Bayard volunteered to hold the crazy city.
"No walls are weak," he said, in his own noble style, "which are
defended by brave men."
With a small but chosen band he hastened to Mézières. Two days after his
arrival the Count of Nassau, with a vast array of men and cannon,
appeared before the walls. The siege began--a siege which seemed
impossible to last twelve hours.
But day after day went by, and still the town was standing. Every day
the ramparts gaped with cannon-shot; but every night, as if by miracle,
they rose again. The defenders suffered from wounds, pestilence, and
famine; but Bayard had put every man on oath to eat his horse, and then
his boots, before he would surrender. Three weeks passed; and when at
last the king arrived with forces to relieve the town, he found a few
gaunt spectres still glaring defiance from the battered ramparts against
a hundred cannon and more than forty thousand men.
Nothing can more strikingly describe the part of Bayard than the
testimony of his enemies themselves. Some time after, Mary of Hungary
asked the Count of Nassau in disdain how it came to pass that with a
host of troops and guns he could not take a crazy pigeon-house.
"Because," replied the count, "there was an eagle in it."
It was Bayard's last great exploit. It had been his lifelong wish that
he might fall upon the field of battle. And so it was to be.
Early in the spring of 1524, the French camp was posted at Biagrasso.
Lord Bonnivet, who was in command, found himself, after a prolonged
resistance, at last compelled by famine and sickness to retire before
the Spaniards. It was Bayard's constant custom to be first in an
advance and last in retreat, and that day he was, as usual, in the post
of danger. It was for the last time. Friends and enemies were to hear,
before night fell, the thrilling tidings that Bayard was no more.
On both sides of the road which the retreating army had to traverse the
Spaniards had placed in ambush a large force of arquebusiers. It was a
weapon which Bayard held in detestation; for while skill and courage
were required to wield a spear or sword, any skulking wretch could pull
a trigger from behind a stone. From one of these hated weapons he
received his death. As he was retreating slowly with his face toward the
foe, a stone from a cross-arquebus struck him on the side. He instantly
sank forward on his saddle-bow, exclaiming in a faint voice, "Great God!
I am killed."
His squire helped him from his horse, and he was laid beneath a tree.
His spine was broken in two places; and he felt within himself that he
was dying. He took his sword, and kissed the cross-hilt, murmuring aloud
the Latin prayer, "_Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam
tuam_."
The Spaniards were approaching. His friends made some attempt to raise
him and to bear him from the field. But the least movement made him
faint with agony; and he felt that all was vain. He charged his
companions, as they loved him, to turn his face toward the enemy, and to
retire into a place of safety; and he sent, with his last breath, his
salutation to the king. With breaking hearts they did as he desired, and
he was left alone.
When the Spaniards reached the spot, they found him still alive, but
sinking fast. The conduct of Lord Pescara, the Spanish general, toward
his dying foe, was worthy of a great and noble knight. He bade his own
pavilion to be spread above him; cushions were placed beneath his head;
and a friar was brought, to whom he breathed his last confession. As he
was uttering the final words, his voice faltered, and his head fell. The
friar looked upon his face--and saw that all was over.