Calm and collected in that supreme hour, the peerless knight put forth
his all for his beloved France. All that unexampled generalship and
courage and fidelity could accomplish in the face of overwhelming odds,
he performed that day.

Not content with merely repelling the attacks of the enemy, he charged
their advancing columns again and again, and with such fierce onslaughts
that each time they were compelled to give back. He had promised for the
honor and glory of his country to defend the flags and the artillery
that day; and while he lived not a flag was lowered nor a gun lost. But
alas for France that day!

Just as the fighting was hottest, and when it seemed that the
outnumbered French _must_ break, Bayard once more dashed forward against
the foe, as if by sheer force of courage, to wrest victory from
inexorable Fate. For one mad, glorious moment he and his company swept
irresistibly against the victors; the next, he was struck by a stone
from an arquebuse and mortally wounded.

With the cry "Jesus!" he reeled in his saddle. He would have fallen to
the ground had not some of his men rushed forward and helped him to
dismount. In their anxiety for him, his soldiers would fain have borne
him off the field; but Bayard, though dying, was Bayard still, and he
said to them--

"It is all over; but I do not wish in my last hour to turn my back to
the foe for the first time in my life. Place me beneath yonder tree with
my face toward the enemy."

Still did they beg that they might be allowed to bear him beyond danger
of capture--for the French had broken before the enemy when Bayard fell.
But the knight feebly answered them--

"Let me devote the short space that remains to me to thinking of my
sins. I pray you all to leave me for fear that you should be taken. My
Lord d'Alegre, commend me to the king, my master, and say to him that my
only regret in dying is my inability to render him further service."

As he ceased speaking, a body of Spaniards, under the Marquis of
Pescara, arrived where he lay. The gallant Pescara knelt beside his
wounded enemy, and with tears in his eyes exclaimed--

"Would to God, Lord Bayard, that I might have taken thee prisoner
unhurt! Thou shalt know how much I have always esteemed thy prowess and
thy virtues; for since I have held arms, I have never known thy equal!"

[Illustration: "As Bayard lay thus, there was hardly an officer among
the Spanish who did not come to speak kindly to