Never was battle more fiercely contested than on that Monday, 6th July, when the French succeeded in breaking through the host of their enemies.  The actual fighting lasted little more than an hour, amid a scene of the wildest confusion, which was increased by a storm of thunder and lightning, with rain falling in torrents.  We are told that Bayard, the Good Knight, who had accompanied the King through the whole campaign, distinguished himself in the first charge at the head of de Ligny’s company, and had two horses killed under him, then continued fighting on foot, and in the thick of the battle he took the standard of the horsemen opposing him, and covered himself with glory.  The King, hearing afterwards of his gallant deed, sent him a present of five hundred crowns.  Charles could appreciate a kindred spirit as he too fought with splendid courage on that eventful day.  The French camp, with all its rich treasures of armour, gorgeous clothing, rare tapestries and plate, was looted; but Charles VIII. and the greater part of his army, with all the artillery, made good their passage through an overwhelming host of foes and raised the siege of Novara, where Lodovico Sforza was besieging the Duke of Orleans.

The French King was soon to receive news of the defeat and destruction of the small army he had left to hold Naples, and the death of the gallant Viceroy, Gilbert de Montpensier.  Such was the sad ending of the first of those glorious and fatal expeditions to Italy, in which four kings wasted in vain so much treasure and so many precious lives.  Charles VIII. did not long survive this bitter disappointment.  He died at Amboise on 7th April 1498, at the age of twenty-eight.  As he left no children he was succeeded by his cousin, the Duke of Orleans, under the name of Louis XII.  Louis XII. was crowned on the 1st of July 1498.

If there was one trait of character which, more than any other, distinguished Bayard the Good Knight, it was his absolute loyalty towards the lord he served, and his undying gratitude for any kindness which he had received.  He never forgot those six happy months he had spent at the Court of Savoy when he first went there to take up the profession of arms as a young lad of thirteen.  It was not by his own choice that he left the service of his earliest master, who in a fit of generosity had presented his favourite page to the King, in the hope that by so doing he would best further the career of Bayard.

But Charles I., Duke of Savoy, did not live to see this, for he had died in 1490, and the Duchess, his widow, had left Chambery and retired to her dower house in the pleasant town of Carignano, in Piedmont, about seventeen miles to the south of Turin.  This lady, Blanche Paleologus, had been a most kind friend to young Bayard, and when she heard that he was stationed in the neighbourhood, she invited him to visit her, and received him with the utmost courtesy, treating him as if he were a member of her family.  She was greatly beloved and honoured in Carignano, where she was lady suzerain, and where there may still be seen, in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a splendid monument to her memory.