Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard
Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard (c. 1476 – 30 April 1524) was a French knight and commander at the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, generally known as the Chevalier de Bayard. Throughout the centuries since his death, he has been known as "the knight without fear and beyond reproach" ("le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche"). He himself preferred the name given him by his contemporaries for his gaiety and kindness, "le bon chevalier", or "the good knight". Appearance and personality. In the portrait made of him by Jacques de Mailles, his faithful  squire and his biographer, Baiardo appears a man with a sharp and pale face, with brown hair, a long nose and two attentive and bright eyes. Jacques writes that Baiardo, small in stature as a child, grew considerably during adolescence, in support of this recent studies on his skull hypothesize that he had reached 1.80 m, a remarkable height for his time. Aymar du Rivail describes him as "courteous, cheerful; not proud, indeed modest". For the investiture as a knight that he received in battle, Baiardo always felt deeply linked to the chivalric code of honor. Absolute loyalty also towards  enemies, charity and help were his rules of life, in fact he did his utmost for the recovery of prostitutes and personally assisted the sick of the plague. While his fellow countrymen indulged in violence and raids, Baiardo always remained respectful towards the weak and the vanquished, doing his utmost for their defense, and burned with furious anger in the face of all cruelty and injustice. He even used to pay out of his own pocket for the goods he requisitioned for the need for provisions, while his fellow countrymen used to simply snatch them from the peasants with violence . Since he usually opened the vanguard in the advances and passed to the rearguard in the retreats, he ordered his men to extinguish the fires that his colleagues had set in the villages, and placed sentinels in defense of the churches and monasteries to prevent the looting and rape of women who had taken refuge there. Such was the fame of the magnanimity of Baiardo that the people of Italy, who fled into the woods and mountains when the armed men arrived, took the habit of running to meet his troops, loudly acclaiming his name and offering him merchandise as  a gift. This does not prevent him from becoming a fierce and feared fighter in battle, if he knew no mercy either towards his enemies or towards himself: he knew that he did not thus enter into contradiction with the most vivid religious faith that he had nourished since childhood, since God had wanted him to be a knight and he limited himself to fulfilling his will, in fact, he never failed to place himself in God's hands immediately before every clash and every battle. Early life. The descendant of a noble family, the head of which had fallen  in battle in nearly every generation for two centuries, Bayard was born at the Château Bayard, Dauphiné (near Pontcharra, Isère) in southern France. He served as a page to the young Duke Charles I of Savoy until March 1490, when the Duke died of an illness. At age thirteen he came to the attention of King Charles VIII of France when he put on a remarkable display of horsemanship for the Duke of Savoy that earned him the nickname ""piquet"" (spur). 1490 - Service of King Charles VIII of France. 1490 - Man at arms of Louis de Luxembourg. In 1490 Bayard  took service as a man-at-arms in the household of Louis de Luxembourg, the seigneur de Ligny (November 1490) and a favorite of King Charles VIII of France. As a youth, Bayard was distinguished by his looks, charming manner, and skill in the tiltyard. On 20 July 1494 a famous tourney was held in Lyons; attended by the king and court. Though not yet eighteen, Bayard won the highest honors, again coming to the attention of the king. 1494 - Battle of Naples. In 1494 Bayard accompanied Charles VIII's expedition into Italy to seize the Kingdom of Naples. This  campaign is now known as the Italian War of 1494–1498. 1495 - Battle of Fornovo. Bayard was knighted after the 1495 Battle of Fornovo, in which he captured a standard. Shortly afterward, entering Milan alone in pursuit of the enemy, he was taken prisoner, but was set free without a ransom by Ludovico Sforza. The duel with Soto-Majore. What first made Baiardo truly famous in Italy, was an episode that took place in 1502, when a Gascon named Gaspar took prisoner Alonso de Sotomayor, a Spanish knight of gigantic stature and endowed with Herculean strength, while he was on his  way to Rome. While Gaspar was waiting for the ransom due, Baiardo took over the prisoner to prevent him from suffering villainy, welcomed him into his home and treated him with all the respects and honors that he granted only to his friends. The Spaniard, however, returned free, told of having been treated villantally by Baiardo and of having suffered terrible pains. As soon as he learned of it, Baiardo, very indignant, challenged the accuser in a duel to the death. It must be added that Baiardo suffered at that time from serious attacks of malaria that weakened him physically  and, as a sick person, he had the right to be replaced by a friend. Bellabre immediately volunteered in his place, but Baiardo refused, saying he wanted to defend his honor. On the day of the clash he had just recovered from the last attack of fevers: after lying on the ground and having entrusted his soul to God, he went down to the race to wait for the adversary. Sotomayor made him wait a long time in armor under the sun with the intent to tire him and weaken him further. General La Palice, worried about the progress of  the situation, went to urge the Spaniard to present himself on the field. He then devised a new cunning: since he was challenged, it was up to him to choose weapons. He declared that he wanted to fight on foot, with a stagger and a dagger, in this way, thanks to his build, he would have been ahead of his opponent. The request was disconcerting, as the knights had always had the duty to clash on horseback with spear and sword. He hoped that Baiardo would be pushed to refuse the clash. Instead, he persisted: he got off his horse  and the duel began. Sotomayor initially groped in the blows, still trying to tire the opponent. Several times he repeated the same move: to raise the sword with two hands to lower it on the head of Baiardo, who always dodged him. At the fourth time that the tactic was repeated, Baiardo, taking advantage of the opportunity, threw himself forward and with the tip of the sword skewered from below the uncovered throat of the Spaniard, then finished him by planting the dagger in one eye. The French celebrated him exultantly with the sounds of drums and piffari, but Baiardo  ordered them to be silent, since he did not want death to be celebrated, so he went to a church where he began to pray on his knees for the soul of the dead. 1502 - Battle of Canossa. In 1502 Bayard was wounded at Canossa. 1503 - Battle of Garigliano. In the autumn of 1503 the army French moved towards Naples and in November reached the Garigliano river where the sentinels sighted the Spanish troops commanded by Consalvo de Cordoba, a general who months earlier had inflicted a heavy defeat on the French near Cerignola. Since the river was in flood , the French threw a bridge of boats covered by artillery fire that prevented the Spaniards from disturbing the operation. Having gained control of the bridge, the French made camp, preferring to postpone the advance towards Naples to the following spring. The army, too numerous to stay in the same camp, was divided and several battalions were dispersed in the surrounding villages. The Spaniards, taking advantage of the winter mists and the division of the French army, on December 28, on the advice of Bartolomeo d'Alviano, threw another bridge of boats, thus seizing the unguarded and poorly defended camp. The route  that followed was catastrophic for the army of Louis XII: the sentinels noticed the attack too late and the commanders, caught off guard, did not have time to organize an effective defense and so they turned to flight, pressed by the Italian and Spanish cavalrymen. Baiardo then, armed with sword and spear, placed himself in the middle of the bridge, challenging him alone about 300 or 400 Spanish men who, although numerous, could not even make him retreat. Around the knight rained arrows, spears and spades, but he, dodging them, continued to hurt and repel all those who climbed the  bridge to face him, until his friend Bellabre rushed frightened to pull him away from there to take him to safety. His intervention made it possible to cover the retreat of the army of French and gave them time to place the artillery to be ready to face the Spaniards and start the counterattack. This feat, cloaked in legend, contributed significantly to his fame as a knight "without spot and without fear", so much so that Pope Julius II himself tried in vain to secure his services. Despite the value of Baiardo, the French still had the worst on the  Garigliano: their army was completely annihilated; according to Bartolomeo d'Alviano, the main architect of the resounding Spanish victory, the army of Louis XII counted 1,500 spears, 3,400 cavalrymen and 8,000 infantry that after the battle had been reduced to 200 spears, 150 cavalrymen and 600 infantry. These troops barricaded themselves in Gaeta, where a few days later they negotiated the surrender, but demanded that all prisoners be released and that transit to the north be ensured. Consalvo agreed. 1508 - Service of King Louis XII of France. In 1508, Bayard accompanied King Louis XII against rebellious Genoa. In the battle that  broke the back of the rebellion, Bayard played the role of champion and spearhead in the French assault, a breakneck cavalry charge up a mountain slope against a seemingly impregnable barricade defended by a pike-phalanx of Genoese militia. The Genoese broke and fled before the furious charge of Bayard and the French gendarmes. Genoa subsequently fell, and Bayard entered the city in triumph behind his king. In June of that year, Louis XII played host to the Spanish king, Ferdinand. Weeks of festivities followed, including tourneys, banquets, and balls. Bayard was the champion of the first, and at the  last became reacquainted with his former opponent at the Garigliano, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, El Gran Capitán ("The Great Captain") of Spain. 1509 - Battle of Agnadello. In 1509, the League of Cambrai was formed between France, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and the Papacy in an effort to wrest from Venice its territorial empire in northeastern Italy. For this campaign, the king commissioned Bayard to raise a company of horse and foot. Until that time, French infantry had been a despised rabble. Bayard's company became a model of discipline, high morale, and battlefield effectiveness, and played a key role  that year in rescuing the French vanguard at the Battle of Agnadello, on 14 May 1509 against the Venetian forces led by Bartolomeo d'Alviano. 1509 - Siege of Padua. Later that year, Bayard was among the French forces under Jacques de La Palice sent to join their German ally, the Emperor Maximilian I at the Siege of Padua. Though the siege ultimately failed, what early success the allies enjoyed was largely due to Bayard's combination of cool-headed leadership and dashing bravado. Following the lifting of the siege by the Emperor, Bayard and a force of 300 men-at-arms  retired into garrison at Verona. Bayard successfully carried out a series of raids and ambushes against Venetian forces in the vicinity, proving himself a master of "small war", and adept at the leading of what today would be called "special operations". In 1510 the Duchy of Ferrara joined the alliance. Bayard was co-commander of the French contingent sent to garrison and aid the city and its Duke, Alphonso d'Este. During his eight-month stay, Bayard won the admiration of the duke and his wife, the lady Lucrezia Borgia. According to his biographer, "The Loyal Servant" (likely Bayard's archer  and lifelong secretary, Jacques de Mailles), Bayard fully reciprocated Lucrezia's admiration, considering her "a pearl" among women. He returned to Ferrara on other occasions to pay homage to the lady, once in the company of Gaston de Foix, duc de Nemours, just months before the Battle of Ravenna, where the Duke lost his life. 1511 - Holy League. By 1511 the League of Cambrai had collapsed due to papal fears of the growing power of France in Italy. To counter this, Pope Julius II declared the formation of the Holy League. This alliance put France at odds with not only  the papacy but its erstwhile ally, the Holy Roman Empire, as well as Spain and ultimately the Swiss Confederation. In various skirmishes with papal troops around Ferrara, Bayard continued to win renown. In one instance, he very nearly captured the Pope himself. About this time, the Duke Alphonso and Bayard found themselves under papal interdict. How long Bayard's period of excommunication lasted is unclear. 1512 - Siege of Brescia. At the Siege of Brescia in 1512, Bayard led a wedge of dismounted men-at-arms against the defenders, himself at its tip. Several times the French assault was thrown back . Each time Bayard rallied the French forces and led them in renewed attacks. His boldness at last resulted in a severe wound to the thigh, but not before the defenses were breached and the French entered the town. His soldiers carried Bayard into a neighbouring mansion, the residence of a nobleman, whose wife and daughters he protected from threatened insult. Bayard was charmed by the young daughters, who sang to him nightly. Before his wound was healed, he learned that battle was imminent at Ravenna, and he hurried to depart to rejoin his comrades. He endowed the two daughters with  a thousand gold ducats each, the money the lady of the house had paid him as ransom for her family. 1512 - Battle of Ravenna. Bayard joined his commander and friend, Gaston of Foix, Duke of Nemours, in time for the fateful Battle of Ravenna (1512). Bayard's gallantry and the French cavalry under de Foix carried the day, but the duke was killed in the final hour, rendering the battle a strategic loss for the French and a personal tragedy for Bayard. 1512 - Battle of Pamplona. Bayard was sent to Navarre with La Palice to support John III of Navarre  and his co-monarch Catherine, who wanted to recover the their kingdom, which had been conquered by the King of Spain Fernando II of Aragon. Bayard took part in the capture of the castle of Tiebas and the failed assault on Pamplona (27 November 1512.) 1513 - Battle of the Spurs. In 1513, when Henry VIII of England routed the French at the Battle of the Spurs (Guinegate, where Bayard's father had received a lifelong injury in a battle of 1479), Bayard, trying to rally his countrymen, found his escape cut off. Unwilling to surrender, he rode suddenly up to  an English officer who was resting unarmed, and summoned him to yield; the knight complying, Bayard in turn gave himself up to his prisoner. He was taken into the English camp, but his gallantry impressed Henry as it had Ludovico, and the king released him without ransom, merely exacting his word not to serve for six weeks. 1515 - Service of King Francis I of France. On the accession of Francis I in 1515, Bayard was made lieutenant-general of Dauphiné, but soon accompanied the King and army into the territory of Milan, control of which was challenged by the Swiss . At the Battle of Marignano the opposing armies engaged in a protracted and bloody struggle which the French won largely because of the valour of Bayard, King Francis, and the French gendarmes (armored lancers). After the battle, Bayard had the honour of conferring knighthood on his youthful sovereign. 1521 - Siege of Mézières. When war again broke out between Francis I and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Bayard, with 1000 men, held Mézières, which had been declared untenable, against an army of 35,000, and after six weeks compelled the imperial generals to raise the siege. This stubborn resistance saved central France  from invasion, as the king did not have sufficient forces to withstand the Holy Roman Empire. All France celebrated the achievement, and Francis gained time to collect the royal army, which drove out the invaders in 1521. The "parlement" thanked Bayard as the saviour of his country; the king made him a knight of the Order of Saint Michael and commander in his own name of 100 "gens d'armes", an honour until then reserved for princes of the blood. 1524 - Death in Italy. After allaying a revolt at Genoa, and striving with the greatest assiduity to check a pestilence in  Dauphiné, Bayard was sent into Italy with Admiral Bonnivet, who, being defeated at Robecco and wounded in a combat during his retreat, implored Bayard to assume command and save the army. He repulsed the foremost pursuers, but in guarding the rear at the passage of the river Sesia between the towns of Romagnano Sesia and Gattinara, was mortally wounded by an arquebus ball on 30 April 1524. He died in the midst of the enemy, attended by Pescara, the Spanish commander, and by his old comrade, Charles, duc de Bourbon, who was now fighting on the opposite side. Charles is  reported to have said "Ah! Monsieur de Bayard... I am very sad to see you in this state; you who were such a virtuous knight!" Bayard answered, His body was restored to his friends and interred at Saint-Martin-d'Hères. In 1822 his remains were buried in the collegiate church Saint-André of Grenoble. Lineage. Jacques de Maille reports that for many years (one can say throughout his life, if one excludes the first youthful platonic love) Baiardo was in love with a woman whose identity however he will never confess. In Cantù, in 1501, Baiardo's only daughter was  born: Jeanne Terrail, whom her father had raised in France by his sister Jeanne, a nun in the abbey des Ayes, since he could not take care of her, engaged in many battles. Since she is never called a "bastard" but always a "daughter" and since Baiardo will refuse in the future the wedding proposed to him by Queen Anne, it is led to believe that he had married her mother. Various hypotheses have been made about the same identity of the child's mother: numerous clues lead to think that it was even the same Duchess of Savoy Bianca  di Monferrato, widowed very young, even more so that Baiardo was present at that time in Piedmont and that he himself states that the child is noble and daughter of a lady of great house. The hypothesis is strongly supported by Paul Ballaguy, while Camille Monnet categorically rejects it. Bayard's DNA. A 2017 research paper by Gérard Lucotte verified that Bayard's mtDNA haplogroup was H10E and his YDNA haplogroup was R1b-M269. Legacy. As a soldier, Bayard was considered the epitome of chivalry and one of the most skillful commanders of the age. He was noted for the  exactitude and completeness of his information on the enemy's movements, which he obtained by careful reconnaissance and a well-arranged system of espionage. In the long history of mounted warfare, he rates as one of the greatest cavalry leaders of all time. In the midst of mercenary armies, Bayard remained absolutely disinterested, and to his contemporaries and his successors, he was, with his romantic heroism, piety, and magnanimity, the fearless and faultless knight ("le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche"). His gaiety and kindness even more frequently won him another name bestowed by his contemporaries, "le bon chevalier". Pierre