dancing afterwards, and the ladies could not say enough in
praise of their gallant young host. We may imagine the penniless condition
in which all this extravagant generosity left him, but his extreme
liberality appears to have been one great feature of his character which
made him beloved through life by all who had to do with him.

He never could see one of his companions thrown without giving him another
horse; if he had a crown left, every one shared it. He never refused the
request of any man if he could possibly grant it, and in his gifts was
always gentle and courteous. His chronicler makes a special point of his
piety from early youth; the first thing when he rose in the morning was
always a prayer to God, as he had promised his mother.

[Illustration: LOUIS XII KING of FRANCE _from a medallion_.]

CHAPTER III

During two years Bayard remained with the garrison at Aire, and made great
progress in all warlike training. At the end of this time, in the year
1494, Charles VIII. undertook his first expedition to Italy, and as the
company of the Count de Ligny was commanded to join him, young Bayard
looked forward with great delight to his first taste of real warfare.

The young King of France, in his eager desire for military glory, forsook
the wise policy of his father, Louis XI., and resolved to claim the kingdom
of Naples, in assertion of the rights bequeathed to him by Rene of Anjou.
In order to prevent any opposition from Spain he yielded to King Ferdinand
the provinces of Roussillon and Cerdagne, and on the same principle gave up
to the Emperor Maximilian, Artois and Franche-Comte. Having made these real
sacrifices as the price of a doubtful neutrality, he set forth on his wild
dreams of conquest at a distance, which could be of no permanent advantage
to him.

Charles VIII. had soon collected a magnificent army and crossed the Alps
in August 1494; it was composed of lances, archers, cross-bow men, Swiss
mercenaries, and arquebusiers. These last used a kind of hand-gun which had
only been in common use for about twenty years, since the battle of Morat.
The arquebus had a contrivance, suggested by the trigger of the cross-bow,
to convey at once the burning match to the trigger. Before that the match
had been held in the hand in using the hand-gun as well as the hand-cannon.
Many of these arquebusiers were on horseback. Besides a number of small
pieces of artillery, the French army had 140 big cannons