During the war between the French and Spanish in the city of Naples, lived a man who was truly the glory of knighthood. The Spanish were camped on one side of the river Garillan, and we were camped on the other. It was close to dusk one evening and we had gathered around our campfires, singing tunes and drinking merrily, when a humpback Spaniard, only two cubits in height rode over the bridge and started a skirmish. We had been fighting for a few minutes when I saw him, a stout, French warrior, galloping toward the bridge with his lance in hand, knocking Spaniards into the water as easily as a boy flicks an ant from his food. There were two hundred mounted Spaniards approaching the bridge. I heard his strong voice shout, “I’ll hold the bridge if you can bring reinforcements!” He had not failed at holding the bridge when we returned with 100 French soldiers. With a war car like the sound of thunder, we pushed those Spaniards back across the bridge in a matter of moments. I had thought we had won the quarrel when my heart sank to see 800 more Spanish arriving.
And it sank even deeper when I saw our faithful Knight surrounded on all sides. His horse, exhausted from the fighting, fell to the ground, and the knight was taken prisoner. But that didn’t stop us from winning the battle. In a way it made us even stronger to know that he had been captured, because it made us fight more valiantly to get him back. We raised a cry, saying, “You cannot take from us the flower of knighthood!” We charged them as fast as our steeds could carry us. The Spanish had taken his axe, but they forgot to remove his sword. I rode by, picked him up, and he remounted on a fallen knight’s horse. Then we took back what was rightfully ours.
No one but this man could have held the bridge as long as he did, alone. The name of the bold, courageous and bright was our Lord de Bayard.
And the most heartwarming thing about him was that he loved the Lord most of all. He helped poor widows and he would trade a horse worth 200 Francs for a horse worth 10 out of the kindness of his heart, if he thought a man was in need. He never strayed from telling the truth. He never spoke profanity. He was as rich when he died as he was born, because he gave no thought to money. In attack he was as nimble as a cat, as in defense as fierce as a lion. To my mind there has been no fighter as great as Bayard.
