“Too much, indeed, my lord Bayard, for the honour of Spain,” was the pitiful reply.  Then the Good Knight gave leave that honourable burial should be accorded to Don Alonzo, and his friends bore away the body of their champion with sad lamentation.  But we may imagine the joy and triumph with which the noble company present and the French men-at-arms accompanied their hero back to the castle of Monervine.

This duel and the passages-of-arms before with Don Alonzo spread the fame of Bayard throughout all Europe; indeed, his wonderful renown as the flower of all chivalry really dates from this time.  You may imagine how bitter the Spaniards were and how they sought for revenge.

After the battle of Cerignola, fought on April 28, 1503, Gonzalvo, the Great Captain, entered Naples in triumph.  When this disastrous news reached France, Louis XII. hastened to send a fresh army, commanded by la Tremouille, to reinforce the troops already in Apulia and Calabria.  The French general fell ill, and his authority passed into the hands of the Marquis of Mantua, who found himself opposed and beaten back at every point by the genius of Gonzalvo.

At length the two armies came to a stand on either side of the River Garigliano, one of the broadest rivers of Southern Italy, falling into the Gulf of Gaeta.  The French had possession of the right bank of the river, close to the rising ground, and had therefore a more favourable position than the marshy swamp on the lower side, in which the Spanish forces remained encamped for fifty days.  It was a fearful time, in the dead of winter, with excessive rains, and the soldiers in both camps were driven to the last verge of endurance, while numbers sickened and died.  Under these depressing circumstances the bright, cheerful spirit of Bayard, the Good Knight, was invaluable, and his mere presence kept his company in hope and courage.  He never missed an opportunity of engaging in any feat of arms, and his famous defence of the bridge is perhaps the best known of all his exploits.

There was a bridge across the Garigliano which was in the hands of the French, and one day a certain Don Pedro de Pas, a Spanish captain, small and dwarfish in body but great in soul, conceived a plan for obtaining possession of it.  With about a hundred horsemen he set off to cross the river by a ford which he knew of, and behind each horseman he had placed a foot-soldier, armed with an “arquebuse.”  Don Pedro did this in order to raise an alarm in the French camp, so that the whole army might rush to defend it, and leave unprotected the bridge, which would then be seized by the Spaniards.  Bayard, who always chose the post of danger, was encamped close to the bridge, and with him was a brave gentleman, named le Basco.  When they heard the noise they armed themselves at once, and mounted their horses in haste to rush to the fray.  But as the Good Knight happened to look across the river he caught sight of about two hundred Spanish horsemen riding straight towards the bridge, which they would certainly have taken without much resistance, and this would have meant the total destruction of the French army.