hand the
Marquis of Civita-San-Angelo, and dispersed the various corps he found in
his way. In the confidence of his joy he thought the victory decided,
and, turning to Marshal de Foix, who was with him, "M. de Lescun," said
he, "now am I fain to call myself Duke of Milan." But Bourbon and
Pescara were not the men to accept a defeat so soon; they united all
their forces, and resumed the offensive at all points; the French
batteries, masked by an ill-considered movement on the part of their own
troops, who threw themselves between them and the enemy, lost all
serviceability; and Pescara launched upon the French gendarmerie fifteen
hundred Basque arquebusiers, whom he had exercised and drilled to
penetrate into the midst of the horses, shoot both horses and riders, and
fall back rapidly after having discharged their pieces. Being attacked
by the German lanzknechts of Bourbon and Freundsberg, the Swiss in the
French service did not maintain their renown, and began to give way. "My
God, what is all this!" cried Francis I., seeing them waver, and he
dashed towards them to lead them back into action; but neither his
efforts, nor those of John of Diesbach and the Lord of Fleuranges, who
were their commanders, were attended with success. The king was only
the more eager for the fray; and, rallying around him all those of his
men-at-arms who would neither recoil nor surrender, he charged the
Imperialists furiously, throwing himself into the thickest of the melley,
and seeking in excess of peril some chance of victory; but Pescara,
though wounded in three places, was none the less stubbornly fighting on,
and Antony de Leyva, governor of Pavia, came with the greater part of the
garrison to his aid. At this very moment Francis I. heard that the
first prince of the blood, his brother-in-law the Duke of Alencon, who
commanded the rear-guard, had precipitately left the field of battle.
The oldest and most glorious warriors of France, La Tremoille, Marshal de
Chabannes, Marshal de Foix, the grand equerry San Severino, the Duke of
Suffolk, Francis of Lorraine, Chaumont, Bussy d'Amboise, and Francis de
Duras fell, here and there, mortally wounded. At this sight Admiral
Bonnivet in despair exclaimed, "I can never survive this fearful havoc;"
and raising the visor of his helmet, he rushed to meet the shots which
were aimed at him, and in his turn fell beside his comrades in arms.
Bourbon had expressly charged his men to search every