ld have
understanding of how much I esteemed the high prowess that was in you."
He ordered his people to rig up a tent over Bayard, and to forbid any
noise near him, so that he might die in peace. Bayard's own gentlemen
would not, at any price, leave him. "I do beseech you," he said to them,
"to get you gone; else you might fall into the enemy's hands, and that
would profit me nothing, for all is over with me. To God I commend ye,
my good friends; and I recommend to you my poor soul; and salute, I pray
you, the king our master, and tell him that I am distressed at being no
longer able to do him service, for I had good will thereto. And to my
lords the princes of France, and all my lords my comrades, and generally
to all gentlemen of the most honored realm of France when ye see them."

[Illustration: The Death of Bayard----76]

"He lived for two or three hours yet. There was brought to him a priest,
to whom he confessed, and then he yielded up his soul to God; whereat all
the enemy had mourning incredible. Five days after his death, on the 5th
of May, 1524, Beaurain wrote to Charles V., 'Sir, albeit Sir Bayard was
your enemy's servant, yet was it pity of his death, for 'twas a gentle
knight, well beloved of every one, and one that lived as good a life as
ever any man of his condition. And in truth he fully showed it by his
end, for it was the most beautiful that I ever heard tell of.' By the
chiefs of the Spanish army certain gentlemen were commissioned to bear
him to the church, where solemn service was done for him during two days.
Then, by his own servitors was he carried into Dauphiny, and, on passing
through the territory of the Duke of Savoy, where the body was rested, he
did it as many honors as if it had been his own brother's. When the news
of his death was known in Dauphiny, I trow that never for a thousand
years died there gentleman of the country mourned in such sort. He was
borne from church to church, at first near Grenoble, where all my lords
of the parliament court of Dauphiny, my lords of the Exchequer, pretty
well all the nobles of the country and the greater part of all the
burgesses, townsfolk, and villagers came half a league to meet the body:
then into the church of Notre-Dame, in the aforesaid Grenoble, where a
solemn service was done for him; then to a house of _Minimes,_ which had
been founded aforetime by his good uncle the bishop of Grenoble, Laurens
Alment; and there he was honorably