invaders; a contemporary writer remarking,—that amongst five of them there was not one who possessed common sense. But a new pontiff succeeded-Alexander the Sixth, who, though restless, rapacious, and profligate, was a man of action as well as ambition. In martial affairs, he acted with energy and promptness; and though such spirit may seem incongruous in a priest, it had the result of causing Charles the Bold to lose his advantages in Italy, almost as rapidly as he had acquired them.

The French king spent the remainder of his life in the primitive duty of wandering up and down his dominions, dispensing justice to his subjects; but Louis the Twelfth, his successor, renewed the Italian inroads ; and Bayard, who had been left in garrison in Lombardy, was consequently again called into action. In the interval he had held a tournay in honour of the Lady Blanche, widow of his first master; and also, it is said, of another lady, the Signora de Fluxas, who had in early life gained his affections, but subsequently bestowed her own upon another knight, when Bayard became less intent on love than war. From such amusements, however, he was summoned away by sterner realities. Sforza had rushed into the Duchy of Milan at the head of an irresistible German force; and Bayard having alone followed a body of his horse into Binasco with more courage than prudence, was captured before Sforza's headquarters. The knight is extolled by a chronicler for having satisfactorily "hewn at heads and limbs" before the unlucky reverse; and his prowess only secured him more distinction at the hands of his foe. Having told the captor that there were fourteen or fifteen thousand men at arms, and a still greater number of plebeian foot ready to dispute for the prize of Lombardy, and lamented his own inability to take part in the expected encounter, Sforza generously liberated him with his horse and arms; and the knight ever afterwards professed his devotion, lamenting that the introduction of fire-arms, and the employment of mercenaries, were likely to put an end to such courtesies, "as chivalry could no longer be expected when men barbarously fought on foot, and the principal strength of an army was to consist of a mercenary rabble." Yet the knights themselves, in this respect, were anything but pure, as they almost invariably gave their own services for "guerison," and cared little whether the cause in which they fought was right or wrong, provided they had their spoils or money. A circumstance which shortly afterwards occurred increased Bayard's repugnance to foot. Having himself captured Sotomayor, a Spanish knight, and relative of the celebrated Captain Gonzalo de Cordova, either he or his adherents by no means exhibited the generous courtesy he lately experienced, and the Spaniard was roughly handled for attempting to escape without ransom ; that on paying his thousand crowns he also sent a challenge to Bayard to fight him on foot. Bayard at this period was suffering from ague, and a knowledge of his illness is supposed to have prompted the peculiar choice of the other, who is loudly arraigned by a troubadour of Bayard's, though he seems to have had most cause to complain, as he was killed by a thrust in the throat at the first attack, A combat of thirteen followed, and such was the violence of the Spaniards, that eleven of the French horses were overthrown on the first encounter. Bayard and another French knight alone remained uninjured, and as these maintained the field throughout the day against their opponents,

they were in honour deemed the victors. Their companions having been driven beyond the lists, were pronounced hors de combat-a designation which in our day has received a different interpretation. They fell not, however, to the lot of their opponents, and hence no gain resulted from the conflict-a circumstance of considerable importance at that period, when warriors depended chiefly for subsistence on the ransom of their prisoners, and could not afford to contend solely for the ephemera of glory. Bayard, however, seems more free from reproach in this respect than most of his contemporaries; and one source of his popularity with his followers was, that he invariably divided the greater part, if not the whole, of the "guerison" amongst them. His "faithful servitera," who records this, indeed informs us that he distributed the whole; but as the knight, if he freely gave, seems as freely to have received, and maintained an expensive establishment without what, in modern phraseology, would be termed any "visible means of support," it may be inferred that the "servitor" is inclined to magnify the munificence of his master. Yet Bayard, amidst all his generosity, sometimes indulged in what would be considered something like highway robbery in our degenerate times. On one occasion, especially, he kidnapped a banker, or money-changer, en route to join Gonzalo de Cordova, and succeeded in appropriating the whole booty, fifteen thousand ducats, to himself, because another captain, who joined him in the enterprise, chanced to have taken up his position on another road from that the money-changer passed. With liberality, however, which seems no more than just, Bayard presented him with half the amount, after the other knights had decided that he was entitled to no part; though it does not raise the gentleman or his class much in our estimation, when it is added, that "he got down on his knees " (says the "faithful servitor") to Bayard, "and, with tears in his eyes, exclaimed, 'My master, and my friend, what return can I make?'" And the joy of the chronicler is at its height when he adds, that "the good knight, with heart as pure as pearl," bestowed the remainder on his adherents.

From these private enterprises he was summoned by Louis to attend him in the relief of Genoa, and though still suffering from ague as well as a wound in the arm, Bayard deemed it his duty to attend, and greatly distinguished himself in the campaign that followed. Infantry being now the chief force, he commanded a thousand foot on the occasion, and they must have been ofa most interesting order; a contemporary bard describing them as 66 'gentle as cats, humane as leopards, honest as millers, with fingers adhesive as glue, and innocent as Judas Iscariot." Such a graphic and comprehensive description has been surpassed by no professor of Billingsgate in our times; and it was, perhaps, some other feeling than modesty which induced Bayard to supplicate the king would entrust him with only half the number. The virtues of "those good old times "are in fact overrated. No modern annals exhibit wretches capable of vying with those miscreants, whether French or English. In the time of Edward the Third, the English at Beauvois, in France, regularly cast their unransomed prisoners into a burning pit, which they named L'Enfer; and the Duke de Bourbon, with excusable resentment, threw the monsters into it when captured in turn. In Bayard's era they were but little improved, and great part of his reputation is due to the circumstance, that he, on all occasions, shewed a spirit superior to cruelty. He was next

employed in the siege of Padua—on this occasion, on foot, with but thirty gend'armes under him, yet each of these, says his chronicler, "worthy of being captain over a hundred ;" and great was the service they were said to have rendered, though such a force would appear to have been inconsiderable amongst the fourteen thousand infantry, six hundred gend'armes, seven hundred Albanians, and five hundred horsemen armed with crossbows, when the Venetians assembled to defend the city, and the thirty-two thousand foot which, with a thousand cavalry, the King of France and his allies collected to assail it. It was, however, more on the artillery than any other arm that belligerents in such operations began now to rely; although this, to us, would not seem to have been a formidable implement, when it is added, that the principal part of the "park" consisted of "six large brass bombards charged with stone bullets so large that they could be fired only four times a day at the very utmost." But there were six hundred pieces of ordnance on wheels, "the least whereof was a falcon ;" and the Emperor Maximilian, who conducted the operations, was a man of " wonderful diligence-invincible in mind, and of a body hardened by pain and travels-who got up betimes, and made his army march forthwith, nor would he pitch his tent till two or three hours past noon," a discipline exceedingly disagreable to "men at arms with their

armour on."

The means of defence, however, were commensurate. The city was strongly palisadoed, and, the pay of the republic being liberal, the peasants from all the neighbouring districts assembled for its protection. Behind their "rampiers, where they could not be stricken by the batteries of the enemy, these villains," says Guiciardini, "fought bravely; and before they could even be approached, four barricades were to be carried, the duty of forcing which was entrusted to the Chevalier de Bayard. The first, he carried after a smart attack; the second was defended still more vigorously; but on its loss, the defenders at once gave up the third, and retreated to make their grand stand on the last." The assault of this, by the old chronicler is described in terms exceedingly animated. A thousand or twelve hundred men defended it for about an hour with falcons, pikes, and arquebusses; but at last "the good knight, growing impatient, said to his companions, Sirs, these people detain us too long; let us alight and press forward to the barrier; and though this was reckoned a very undignified way for gentlemen to fight, "thirty or forty gend'armes immediately dismounted, and, raising their visors and couching their lances, pushed on to the barricado." A German prince, Von Anhalt, was amongst the number, and a worthy named Great John of Picardy," also contributed the weight of his arm; "but the defendants were continually reinforced by fresh men from the city; and Bayard, seeing this, exclaimed, They will keep us here six years at this rate; sound trumpet, and every one follow me,'" when, adds the chronicler, he rushed on so like a lion robbed of his whelps, that the Venetians retired a pike's length from the barricado. On, comrades!' he cried, they are ours;' and leaping the barricade, he was gallantly followed, and not less perilously received; but the sight of his danger excited the French, and he was speedily supported in such strength, that he remained master of the ground."

66

"Thus," adds the faithful servitor," were the barricades of Padua lost and won, whereby the French horse, as well as foot, acquired great

honour, above all, the good Knight, to whom the glory was universally ascribed." But the success was useless: "A ditch sixteen fathom broad and as many in depth" was behind the barrier; and the assailants finding this obstacle insuperable, raised the siege. A breach was, indeed, made "a quarter of a mile in width;" yet, as this could only be approached on foot, the German barons considered it undignified so to fight, and the emperor, after eyeing it wistfully three days, was consequently obliged to retire; the French nobles, by Bayard's advice, refusing to advance to the assault, unless accompanied by the others.

With a generosity uncommon in those days, Bayard, before quitting, stationed a party of gend'armes in the house to which he had forced an entrance, in the outposts, to protect the inmates from violence; and he refused to accept of any ransom, though they were his by the laws of war. In this respect Bayard utterly belied his own beau ideal of a knight who, he used to say, "ought to possess the attack of a bull-dog, the defence of a wild bear, and the pursuit of a wolf." So far from following up with the ferocity of a wolf, he was, indeed, remarkable for his clemency to the vanquished; unless they were arquebussiers, when he put them to death without mercy. But this was but in accordance with the custom of the time, the arquebuss being a weapon then held in such abhorrence, that, says De Tremoille, "Christians ought not to use it in their wars against each other, but only against infidels;" it being classed in the same category with "villainous saltpetre," which rendered the "prowess of knights of no avail, and required more courage for a soldier than in the days of Alexander."

Bayard, however, we learn from the same authority, patronized spies : "he never grudged his money if he could learn what the enemy was doing ;" and one time he had laid his schemes so well, in consequence of the information he received, as nearly to have captured the Pope himself; the Holy Father escaping only by leaping from his litter and pulling up the draw-bridge of St. Felice with his own sacred hands. For pontiffs, indeed, he seems to have entertained no high opinion, and the conduct of one of them, Julius, who by means of an envoy proposed secretly to enter into treaty with the Germans and cut off the French, certainly was not calculated to raise him in any one's estimation. But Bayard, though he crossed himself in horror at the Holy Father's wickedness, refused to acquiesce in a project for poisoning him, which the envoy, when his overture was rejected, proposed in turn. Our Knight, on the contrary, vowed that if the project were not immediately abandoned, he would himself, before night-fall, apprise the Pope; and this saved his Holiness from the attempt. In the siege of Brescia, which followed, he especially distinguished himself; having been the first of a hundred and fifty gentlemen who volunteered to expose themselves to what was then considered the terrible arquebussiers, though it was from one of the old pikes that he received a wound which he supposed to be mortal. He was, in consequence, removed from the field to be confessed and shriven, and to his absence, perhaps, is to be attributed the barbarous sacking of the city for seven days that ensued. An astrologer about this period foretold, that if Bayard escaped his present danger, he should, within twelve years, fall by artillery; and this possibly may account for the knight's conduct in his next action, when he proposed to the Spaniards that no guns should be discharged on either side

an overture which, in the present day, may not be considered to redound much to his honour.

But much is to be attributed to the superstition of the period; and his death occurred almost exactly as predicted; yet the prediction was very safe and exceedingly likely to be realized, inasmuch as he was constantly in action, and the armour then worn by knights protected them from every other weapon but that propelled by "villainous saltpetre." It was at the battle of Ravenna he received his death-wound. The French had been victors on that occasion, but the accumulation of fresh forces around them rendered retreat necessary, and it was while in the post of honour in such moments-the rear-that Bayard had his spine broken by a stone discharged from an arquebuss. He instantly knew the wound to be mortal, and exclaiming, "Jesus, I am slain !" requested to be disentangled from his horse and placed beneath a tree. As the enemy was fast coming up, a Swiss captain proposed to carry him off upon pikes; but Bayard replied that he would die, as he had always desired, in the field; and intreated them to save themselves by moving on, as assistance to him was unavailing. His sword, by his directions, was placed before him as a cross, and there being no priest at hand, he was in the act of confessing to his steward when the Spaniards arrived. So soon as his name and condition were known, he was treated with the greatest distinction; the Marquis of Pescara, in command of the enemy, causing a tent to be spread for him, and offering half his fortune to any one who could save the wounded knight. But such proffers were idle, and Bayard was soon beyond all human aid. In the midst of a splendid eulogium from his enemy, who declared that no king was half so celebrated, he expired as he had wished, on the field of battle.

The Spaniards paid every honour to his remains, and posterity have confirmed the estimation in which contemporaries held him. According to our present opinion, he may not have been what we deem a perfect soldier; to the character of a general he had no pretensions; and as a knight our own Sir Philip Sidney and the Black Prince perhaps surpass him. But a man is to be judged by the era in which he lives; and when the rapine, barbarity, and coarseness of the fifteenth century are remembered, there is no disputing that the punctiliousness, clemency, and lofty spirit of Bayard entitle him to be considered one of the most perfect characters of his age, and that he would have been distinguished in any. As a leader he cannot be classed with Turenne or Villars; and Lannes, Ney, and Murat throw him as a sabreur into shade with Marlborough, Wellington, and the great captains of recent times, he is not even to be named; but yet it is doubtful whether any of them have had such an important effect in softening the asperities of war, and promoting the civilization of their countrymen.