I would propose sending du Fay with fifteen or twenty horsemen to sound the
alarm on the side from which the enemy came, and Captain Pierre du Pont
with a hundred men-at-arms should be within a bow-shot to support him, and
we will also send him Captain Jacob with his Swiss. You, my lord," he said
to the Duke, "with my lord of Montboison, my companions and myself, we will
go straight to the siege, and I will go in front to give the alarm. If du
Fay is first in position and they attack him, we will go forward and
enclose them; but if our party is first, Captain Pierre du Pont and the
Swiss will do so on their side. That will astonish them so much that they
will not know what to do, for they will think we are three times as many
men as we are, and especially when all our trumpets sound forth at once."

No one had anything better to suggest, for indeed the Good Knight was so
great an authority in war that all were glad to follow where he led.

The attack was thus made on both sides, du Fay giving such a tremendous
alarm on the outer side of the camp that the enemies hastily began to put
on their armour, to mount their horses, and go straight towards where they
heard the trumpets. The foot-soldiers set about arranging themselves in
battle order, but fortunately this took so long that meantime the
assailants of du Fay were attacked and driven back by Pierre du Pont, while
the Swiss poured down upon the foot-soldiers, whose number would have
overwhelmed them had not the men-at-arms rode down upon the papal infantry
from the other side.

The Duke and the French company, with two thousand foot-soldiers, who had
arrived under the walls without being observed, now joined in the fray from
the other side, to the utter confusion of the enemy, who were completely
surrounded and cut to pieces. Some of the horsemen of the papal army made a
desperate attempt to rally, but Bayard and another captain called their