"They are ten
times as many as we," he said; "but you are ten times better than they;
God loves the French; He is with us, and will do battle for us. As far
as Naples I have had the victory over my enemies; I have brought you
hither without shame or blame; with God's help I will lead you back into
France, to our honor and that of our kingdom." The men-at-arms made the
sign of the cross; the foot-soldiers kissed the ground; and the king made
several knights, according to custom, before going into action. The
Marquis of Mantua's squadrons were approaching. "Sir," said the bastard
of Bourbon, "there is no longer time for the amusement of making knights;
the enemy is coming on in force; go we at him." The king gave orders to
charge, and the battle began at all points.

[Illustration: Battle of Fornovo----303]

It was very hotly contested, but did not last long, with alternations of
success and reverse on both sides. The two principal commanders in the
king's army, Louis de la Tremoille and John James Trivulzio, sustained
without recoiling the shock of troops far more numerous than their own.
"At the throat! at the throat!!" shouted La Tremoille, after the first
onset, and his three hundred men-at-arms burst upon the enemy and broke
their line. In the midst of the melley, the French baggage was attacked
by the Stradiots, a sort of light infantry composed of Greeks recruited
and paid by the Venetians. "Let them be," said Trivulzio to his men;
"their zeal for plunder will make them forget all, and we shall give the
better account of them." At one moment, the king had advanced before the
main body of his guard, without looking to see if they were close behind
him, and was not more than a hundred paces from the Marquis of Mantua,
who, seeing him scantily attended, bore down at the head of his cavalry.
"Not possible is it," says Commynes, "to do more doughtily than was done
on both sides." The king, being very hard pressed, defended himself
fiercely against those who would have taken him; the bastard Matthew of
Bourbon, his brother-in-arms and one of the bravest knights in the army,
had thrown himself twenty paces in front of him to cover him, and had
just been taken prisoner by the Marquis of Mantua in person, when a mass
of the royal troops came to their aid, and released them from all peril.
Here it was that Peter du Terrail, the Chevalier de Bayard, who was
barely twenty years of age, and destined to so glorious a r