skirmishing which took place. It was a most perilous office, for the enemy
was well provided with artillery, and when the Good Knight made a gallant
charge with his company and drove back the men-at-arms, he would be
attacked by a shower of stones from the arquebusiers. He seemed to bear a
charmed life, though ever in the post of danger, for others were wounded or
killed while he escaped unhurt until a certain fatal day when the
retreating French army had reached the valley of the Sesia beyond Novara.
Here it was that Bonnivet saw his expected troop of Swiss allies on the
opposite bank of the river, and at once sent word to them to cross over and
join him. But what was his dismay when the Swiss captains replied that the
King of France had not paid them or kept his word, and they had come to
fetch away their comrades who were in the French army. Worse still, when
this became known, all the Swiss mercenaries in his camp rose in open
rebellion against Bonnivet, and lost no time in crossing the river,
overjoyed to leave a losing cause and go back to their homes with so good
an excuse.

The unfortunate French commander was in despair and hoping to hide the
catastrophe from the pursuing enemy, he ordered a brisk skirmish, in which
he took part with plenty of courage and was severely wounded in the arm.
The Good Knight Bayard did prodigies of valour, driving back a whole
company of arquebusiers, but in the moment of triumph he was struck by the
stone from an arquebus and received mortal injury. Raising the hilt of his
sword in the sign of the cross, he cried aloud: "Miserere mei, Deus
secundum magnam misericordiam tuam!" He refused to be taken away, saying
that he had never turned his back on his enemy, and his faithful steward
Jacques Jeffrey and his squire lifted him from his horse and placed him
with his back to a tree, still facing the foe with a brave countenance.

We have a most pathetic and touching account of this last scene, in which