o! Marco!" making so much noise as to drown the sound of the
hand-guns. The Doge, Andrea Gritti, encouraged his followers by saying to
them in the Italian tongue: "Hold firm, my friends, the French will soon
be tired, and if we can defeat this Bayard, the others will never come on."

But in spite of all his encouragement his men began to give way, and seeing
this the Good Knight cried: "Push on, push on, comrades! It is ours; only
march forward and we have won." He himself was the first to enter and cross
the rampart with about a thousand men following after him, and so with much
fighting the first fort was taken with great loss of life to the defenders.

But in the very moment of victory the Good Knight was wounded, receiving
the blow of a pike in his thigh, which entered in so deeply that the iron
was broken and remained in the wound. He believed himself stricken to death
from the pain he suffered, and turning to his friend, the lord of Molart,
he said: "Companion, advance with your men, the city is gained; but I can
go no further for I am dying." He was losing so much blood that he felt he
must either die without confession, or else permit two of his archers to
carry him out of the melee and do their best to staunch the wound.

When the news spread that their hero and champion was mortally wounded the
whole army, captains and men alike, were all moved to avenge his death, and
fought with fierce courage. Nothing could resist them, and at length they
entered pell-mell into the city, where the citizens and the women threw
great stones and boiling water from the windows upon the invaders, doing
more harm than all the soldiers had done. But the men of Venice were
utterly defeated, and many thousands remained in their last sleep in the
great piazza and the narrow streets where they had been pursued by the
enemy. Of that proud army which had held Brescia with bold defiance, such
as were not slain were taken prisoners, and among these was the Doge of
Venice himself. Then followed an awful time of pillage and every form of
cruelty and disorder, as was ever the way in those days when a city was
taken by storm. The spoils taken were valued at three millions of crowns,
and this in the end proved the ruin of the French power in Italy, for so
many of the soldiers, demoralised by plunder, deserted with their
ill-gotten gains and went home.

Meantime the wounded Bayard was borne into the city by his two faithful
archers and taken t