PIERRE BAYARD, THE PERFECT KNIGHT

Pierre Bayard was born in a castle perched on a rocky crag in the mountains of Dauphiné, in France. It had dungeons and trap doors and gloomy passages, quite according to the old storybooks; but it also had a great hall with a cheerful wood fire, with rushes on the floor, and skins of bears and wolves laid here and there.

The four children, all boys, learned nothing of books, but they did learn to tell the truth, to say their prayers, and to fear nothing. They had a wild, happy, out-of-door life; but children grow up fast, and one day their father called them to him and asked what they would like to do when they were men. When it was Pierre’s turn to choose, he said he wanted to be a knight, like his grandfather. “My boy,” said his father, “you shall have your wish. Your grandfather was one of the best knights of his day, and I believe that you will not be unworthy of him.”

The first step toward knighthood was to become a member of some household whose master was of high rank, and very soon the boy of thirteen was on his horse, ready to gallop away to become a page at the castle of the Duke of Savoy. When he said good-bye to his mother, she said, “My boy, I bid you to serve God and pray to Him morning and night; to be gentle and courteous to all; and to be charitable to the poor.” Pierre promised her, and this promise he kept to the last day of his life.

In the castle of the Duke of Savoy Pierre learned to use arms, to run, leap, and swim, to play all sorts of athletic games, and never to fail in courtesy or in neatness of dress. He learned also to read and write, to play chess and backgammon and other indoor games. Before many months had passed, the duke decided to go to court and to take the young page with him. The king, Charles VIII, took a great fancy to Pierre and his wonderful riding, and in a fit of generosity the duke presented him with the boy. In the royal court he was taught still more of wrestling, fencing, of the use of the sword and the crossbow; and he learned so rapidly that when he was only seventeen he was made a squire.

Every man of arms longed, of course, to get a taste of real warfare; and Pierre was delighted when King Charles brought forward his claim to the throne of Naples and set out on an expedition to Italy. This did not accomplish much, but Charles’s successor, Louis XII, was fully as eager as Charles to make conquests in Italy. The Pope, the Emperor of Germany, the King of Spain, and the King of England were all afraid of letting France become too powerful. They all fought against her, and it would seem as if even Bayard might have had enough of fighting; but he was never tired of it. Once when there was a truce of two months, he and a friend met a company of thirteen Spaniards and saluted them courteously. After a little conversation, one of the Spaniards said: “We are utterly tired of this truce, and perhaps you feel the same. Here are thirteen of us; supposing you and eleven others come out against us and see which side will conquer.” Bayard was ready, of course, and a week later the fight took place.

This contest was somewhat like a tournament; that is, at a given signal the two parties put spurs to their horses, and with leveled lances galloped together to try to unhorse their adversaries. Now the armor worn in those days was very heavy, sometimes weighing as much as two hundred pounds, and the bravest knight in the field was helpless if once thrown from his horse. For this reason it was entirely against the laws of chivalry to aim at the horse of an adversary. The Spaniards, however, had a grudge against Bayard, and they paid no attention to this law, but aimed at the horses, and soon eleven of them lay dead. There was one result of the trickery, however, which they had not counted upon, for their own steeds refused to step over the bodies, and therefore the line of dead horses made so good a rampart that the two French knights, Bayard and his friend, rode away with the honors of the fight.

The story of this engagement was told and retold with the greatest delight by the admirers of Bayard; but perhaps they took even more pleasure in the tale of his holding the bridge quite in the fashion of Horatius of the early Roman days. When this took place, the French were encamped on one side of the river Garigliano in southern Italy, and the Spanish on the other side. The bridge was in the hands of the French, and Bayard, quite as a matter of course, had his quarters close to it; that is, in the place of greatest danger. One day the French were amazed to see that Spanish troops had succeeded in crossing the river by a ford and were coming up the bank. The whole army were upon them, the French thought. Bayard was always clear-headed, and he saw that there were not more than two hundred Spaniards, and that they were aiming at the bridge. He sent a messenger off at full speed for troops, and he took his stand at the end of the bridge, striking out so vigorously that, as the old chronicler says, the Spaniards thought they were fighting a devil and not a man. Reinforcements came to the French, and Bayard chased the Spanish over the bridge and a mile or two farther on the other side. Then seven or eight hundred men were seen coming to help them, and he ordered a retreat. He was last in line, and, when thirty or forty Spaniards surrounded him, he was forced to surrender. His friends turned and dashed upon the enemy to rescue him; but Bayard’s captors had not realized what a prize they had taken, and they had not even disarmed him. His own horse was exhausted, so he sprang upon a fresh one belonging to the Spaniards and fought desperately. The end of it was that the Spaniards galloped away at full speed, while the French sat at ease on their horses, laughing to see them go.

The war continued, and now Venice joined the Italian forces. The French king’s nephew, Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours, was in command of the French. He was determined to capture the town of Brescia, strongly fortified as it was. All the knights agreed to his plan of attack except Bayard alone. “Our foot soldiers who are to lead the advance will have to meet picked men of the enemy,” he said, “and I advise that they have one hundred and fifty horsemen to support them.” “What you say is true,” replied the duke, “but the first aim of the enemy would be to shoot every horseman. Who would put himself and his men at the mercy of the Italian arquebuses?” “I will,” said Bayard quietly, “and I will answer for it that my company will do good service to our king.” This was all the more noble in Bayard because he had such detestation of fighting with arquebuses or any other machines for throwing balls. To be slain in a contest of swords or lances or battle-axes he looked upon as fair and just, but, as he said, “It is a shame that a man of spirit should be exposed to be killed by a miserable stone or iron ball against which he cannot defend himself.”

The attack upon the town began with such a noise of clarions and trumpets and drums that it was “enough to make the hair of the boldest stand on end,” said one who was present. The troops in the town responded with volleys of cannon shot. These cannon cannot have been very dangerous, for it was said that one shot straight into the midst of the duke’s company, but not a man was killed or wounded! Before long came the dash upon the walls. Bayard was the first to cross the rampart, but he paid dearly for the honor, for he was wounded so severely that he had to be carried from the field. The French swore vengeance for the injury to their beloved knight and attacked the town more furiously than ever. Their valor was needed, for they had to meet not only the fire of the troops within the walls, but also the stones and bricks and boiling water and pieces of furniture which the women were throwing over the walls and down upon the besiegers. Nevertheless, Brescia fell.

On one occasion Bayard and his men were entirely surrounded in battle, and he was forced to advise them to yield. He caught sight of a Burgundian soldier too exhausted to think of taking prisoners. He had removed his helmet and sat on the bank of a stream. “Yield, or you are a dead man,” cried Bayard, with his sword at the man’s throat. “I yield,” said the man, for he could do nothing else, “but who are you?” “I am the Captain Bayard,” replied the knight; “take my sword, for now I yield myself to you.” After a few days in camp, Bayard remarked that he wished to go home. “But we have said nothing about your ransom,” exclaimed the Burgundian. “_My_ ransom!” cried the knight. “But what about _yours_? I might have slain you if I had chosen. We’ll fight it out between us.” But the Burgundian had no wish to fight the great Bayard, and they agreed to leave the question to the commanders. So it was brought before the Emperor of Germany and the King of England, Henry VIII. The emperor looked at the king, and the king looked at the emperor. Finally they agreed--and Bayard and the Burgundian agreed with them--that the two prisoners might well consider themselves quits. Henry VIII afterwards offered Bayard great riches and honors to enter his service, but Bayard refused. “I have only one master in heaven, who is God,” he said, “and one on earth, who is the King of France, and I shall never serve any other.”

Bayard’s death came about by the obstinacy of one Admiral Bonivet. In spite of Bayard’s explanations that the place could not be held, the admiral insisted upon his occupying a little village with neither walls nor ditches nor barricades, and close to the camp of the enemy. Bayard did everything that a brave knight could do, but he was struck by a stone from an arquebus. “O God, I am slain!” he cried, and raising the cross-hilt of his sword to his lips, he kissed it as if it were a crucifix. His friends were about to carry him away, but he said: “I have never turned my back to a foe, and I will not do it now. Put me at the foot of a tree with my face to the enemy, and then charge upon them.” After he had been laid tenderly down, he bade farewell and sent messages to his king and his friends.

When it was known that the great Bayard was dying, warfare was forgotten, and both friends and enemies gathered around him. Among them was the Constable of Bourbon, who had deserted the French king and entered the service of Spain. “How much I pity you,” he said to the suffering knight; but Bayard replied: “I thank you, but pity is not for me, who die a true man, serving my king. Pity is for you, who bear arms against your prince, your country, and your oath.” The Italian Marquis of Pescara had his own tent brought for Bayard, and his own bed, and he himself helped to lay the wounded man upon it. In the midst of an earnest and trustful prayer to God to receive his spirit, the good knight passed away. He had been faithful to the three French kings under whom he had lived. He had fought with Italians, Spaniards, and Englishmen, and had won the respect of every adversary. He was the model of all chivalric virtues, a knight without fear and without reproach.