firmness, and magnanimity, prospered awhile in high enterprises,
battles, and victories, as well at Montlhery, in Normandy, in Artois,
and in Liege, as elsewhere, until fortune, turning her back on him, thus
crushed him before Nancy."

To-day it might be written on his tomb, "His was a fitting end to a
violent, lawless, and blood-thirsty career."

_BAYARD, THE GOOD KNIGHT._

Good knights were abundant in the romance of the age of chivalry; they
seem to have been greatly lacking in its history. Of knights without
fear there were many; of knights "without fear and without reproach" we
are specially told of but one, Pierre du Terrail, Chevalier de Bayard,
"_Le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_." Many are the stories of the
courage, the justice, the honor, the mercy, the intrepidity in war, the
humanity and kindliness of spirit in peace, which make this admirable
character an anomaly in that age of courteous appearance and brutal
reality yclept the "age of chivalry." One such story we have to tell.

The town of Brescia had been taken by the French army under Gaston de
Foix, and given up to pillage by his troops, with all the horrors which
this meant in that day of license and inhumanity. Bayard took part in
the assault on the town, and was wounded therein, so severely that he
said to his fellow-captain, the lord of Molart,--

"Comrade, march your men forward; the town is ours. As for me, I cannot
pull on farther, for I am a dead man."

Not quite dead, as it proved. He had many years of noble deeds before
him still. When the town was taken, two of his archers bore him to a
house whose size and show of importance attracted them as a fair harbor
for their lord. It was the residence of a rich citizen, who had fled for
safety to a monastery, leaving his wife to God's care in the house, and
two fair daughters to such security as they could gain from the hay in a
granary, under which they were hidden.

At the loud summons of the archers the lady tremblingly opened the door,
and was surprised and relieved when she saw that it was a wounded knight
who craved admittance. Sadly hurt as Bayard was, his instinct of
kindness remained active. He bade the archers to close the door and
remain there on guard.

"Take heed, for your lives," he said, "that none enter here unless they
be some of my own people. I am sure that, when this is known to be my
quarters, none will try to force a way in. If, by your aiding me, you
mi