urbon that they fell back to await reinforcements. Near Romagnano, on
the banks of the Sesia, they were thrown into disorder while seeking to
pass the stream, and Bonnivet, their leader, was severely wounded. The
Count de St. Pol and Chevalier Bayard took command. Bayard, always first
in advance and last in retreat, charged the enemy at the head of a body
of men-at-arms. It proved for him a fatal charge. A shot from an
arquebuse gave him a mortal wound.

"Jesus, my God," he cried, "I am dead!"

He took his sword by the handle, kissed its cross-hilt as an act of
devotion, and repeated the _Miserere_,--"Have pity on me, O God,
according to Thy great mercy!"

In a moment more he grew deathly pale and grasped the pommel of the
saddle to keep him from falling, remaining thus until one of his
followers helped him to dismount, and placed him at the foot of a tree.

The French were repulsed, leaving the wounded knight within the lines of
the enemy. Word of Bayard's plight was quickly brought to Bourbon, who
came up with a face filled with sympathetic feeling.

"Bayard, my good friend, I am sore distressed at your mishap," he said.
"There is nothing for it but patience. Give not way to melancholy. I
will send in quest of the best surgeons in this country, and, by God's
help, you will soon be healed."

Bayard looked up at him with dying eyes, full of pity and reproach.

"My lord, I thank you," he said, "but pity is not for me, who die like a
true man, serving my king; pity is for you, who bear arms against your
prince, your country, and your oath."

Bourbon made no answer. He turned and withdrew, doubtless stung to the
soul by the reproachful words of the noblest and honestest man of that
age. His own conscience must have added a double sting to Bayard's
words. Such is the bitterest reward of treason; it dares not look
integrity in the face.

Bayard lived for two or three hours afterwards, surrounded by his
friends, who would not leave him, though he bade them do so to escape
falling into the enemy's hands. They had nothing to fear. Both armies
mourned the loss of the good knight, with equal grief. Five days after
his death, on May 5, 1524, Beaurain wrote to Charles V.,--

"Sir, albeit Sir Bayard was your enemy's servant, yet was it pity of his
death, for he was a gentle knight, well beloved of every one, and one
that lived as good a life as ever any man of his condition. And, in
truth, he fully showed it by his end, f