who threw themselves between them and the enemy, lost all serviceability; and Pescara launched upon the French gendarmerie fifteen hundred Basque arquebusiers, whom he had exercised and drilled to penetrate into the midst of the horses, shoot both horses and riders, and fall back rapidly after having discharged their pieces.  Being attacked by the German lanzknechts of Bourbon and Freundsberg, the Swiss in the French service did not maintain their renown, and began to give way.  “My God, what is all this!” cried Francis I., seeing them waver, and he dashed towards them to lead them back into action; but neither his efforts, nor those of John of Diesbach and the Lord of Fleuranges, who were their commanders, were attended with success.  The king was only the more eager for the fray; and, rallying around him all those of his men-at-arms who would neither recoil nor surrender, he charged the Imperialists furiously, throwing himself into the thickest of the melley, and seeking in excess of peril some chance of victory; but Pescara, though wounded in three places, was none the less stubbornly fighting on, and Antony de Leyva, governor of Pavia, came with the greater part of the garrison to his aid.  At this very moment Francis I. heard that the first prince of the blood, his brother-in-law the Duke of Alencon, who commanded the rear-guard, had precipitately left the field of battle.  The oldest and most glorious warriors of France, La Tremoille, Marshal de Chabannes, Marshal de Foix, the grand equerry San Severino, the Duke of Suffolk, Francis of Lorraine, Chaumont, Bussy d’Amboise, and Francis de Duras fell, here and there, mortally wounded.  At this sight Admiral Bonnivet in despair exclaimed, “I can never survive this fearful havoc;” and raising the visor of his helmet, he rushed to meet the shots which were aimed at him, and in his turn fell beside his comrades in arms.  Bourbon had expressly charged his men to search everywhere in the melley for the admiral, and bring him in a prisoner.  When, as he passed along that part of the battle-field, he recognized the corpse, “Ah! wretch,” he cried, as he moved away, “it is thou who hast caused the ruin of France and of me!” Amidst these dead and dying, Francis still fought on; wounded as he was in the face, the arms, and the legs, he struck right and left with his huge sword, and cut down the nearest of his assailants; but his horse, mortally wounded, dragged him down as it fell; he was up again in an instant, and, standing beside his horse, he laid low two more Spaniards who were pressing him closely; the ruck of the soldiers crowded about him; they did not know him, but his stature, his strength, his bravery, his coat of mail studded with golden lilies, and his helmet overshadowed by a thick plume of feathers pointed him out to all as the finest capture to make; his danger was increasing every minute, when one of Bourbon’s most intimate confidants, the Lord of Pomperant, who, in 1523, had accompanied the constable in his flight through France,