458 



BAYARD-BAYLE. 



the Spaniards, and saved the French army by check - 

 iiiir tlit- advance (it' the victorious enemy. 1 or this 

 exploit, lie received as a coal of arms a porcupine. 

 with the motto, t'irrs agminis nuns hain't. lie dis- 

 tinguished himself equally against the Genoese and 

 (lit- Venetians. When Julius JI. declari'd himself 

 against France, B. went to the assistance of the duke 

 ot Ferrara. He did not succeed in his plan of Uiking 

 the pope prisoner ; hut he refused, with indignation, 

 an offer made to In-tray him. Being severely wound- 

 ed at the assault of Brescia, lie was carried into the 

 house of a nohleman, who had fled, and left his wife 

 and two daughters ex|H>sed to the insolence of the 

 soldiers. B. protected the family, refused the reward 

 of 2500 ducats, which they offered to him, and re- 

 Inrncd.as soon as he was cured, into the camp of 

 '.;;istnn <le Foix, Ix'fnre Ravenna. In an engagement, 

 which shortly after ensued, he took two standards 

 trom the Spaniards, and pursued the fugitives. Gas- 

 ton, the hope of France, perished through his neglect 

 of the advice of B. In the retreat from Pavia, B. 

 was again wounded. He was carried to Grenoble ; 

 his life was in danger. " I grieve not for death," 

 lie said, " but to die on my ben, like a worian." 



In the war commenced by Ferdinand the Catholic, 

 he displayed beyond the Pyrenees the same talents, 

 the sime heroism, which had distinguished him be- 

 yond the Alps. The fatal reverses which imbittcnd 

 the last years of Louis XII. only added a brighter 

 splendour to the personal glory of B. Henry VIII. 

 of England, in alliance with Ferdinand and Maximi- 

 lian, threatened Picardy in 1513, and besieged 

 Terouane. The French army disgracefully took to 

 flight. B., with his accustomed intrepidity, made an 

 ineffectual resistance to the enemy : overpowered by 

 superior numbers, his troop was on the point of lay- 

 ing down their arms, when B., perceiving an English 

 officer at some distance from him, immediately gal- 

 loped towards him, presented his sword to his breast, 

 and cried, " Yield, or die!" The Englishman sur- 

 rendered his sword: B. immediately gave him his 

 own, saying, " I am Bayard, and your captive, as you 

 are mine." The boldness and ingenuity of this action 

 pleased the emperor and the king of England, who 

 decided that B. needed no ransom, ana that both 

 captives were released from their parole. 



When Francis I. ascended the throne, he sent B. 

 into Dauphine, to open for his army a passage over 

 the Alps, and through Piedmont. Prosper Colonna 

 lay in wait for him on his march, expecting to sur- 

 prise him, but B. made him prisoner. This brilliant 

 exploit was the prelude to the battle of Marignano, 

 in which B., at the side of the king, performed 

 wonders of bravery, and decided the victory. After 

 this glorious day, Francis was knighted with the 

 sword of B. When Charles V. invaded Champagne, 

 with a large army, and threatened to penetrate into 

 the heart of France, B. defended the weakly-fortified 

 tcwn of Mezieres against every assault, until the 

 dissensions of the hostile leaders compelled them to 

 retreat B. was saluted in Paris as the saviour of his 

 country : the king bestowed on him the order of St 

 Michael, and a company of 100 men, which he was 

 to command in his own name an honour which, till 

 then, had only been conferred on princes of the blood. 

 Soon afterwards, Genoa revolted from France : B.'s 

 presence reduced it to obedience. But, after the 

 surrender ot Lodi, fortune changed, and the French 

 troops were expelled from their conquests. Bonnivet 

 was obliged to retreat through the valley of Aosta ; 

 his rear was beaten, and himself severely wounded, 

 when the safety of the army was committed to B. 

 It was necessary to pass the Sesia in the presence of 

 a superior enemy, and B., always the last in retreat, 

 vigorously attacked the Spaniards, when a stone, from 



a blunderbuss, struck his right side.nnd shattered hla 

 back-bone. The hero fell, exclaiming, ".Jesus, my 

 God, I am a dead man !" They hastened toward* 

 him. " Place me under yon tree," he said, " that I 

 may see the enemy." For want of a crucifix, he 

 kissed the cross of his sword, control ,1 to his squire, 

 consoled his servants and his friends, luule farewell 

 to his king and his country, and died, April .SO, 1524, 

 surrounded by friends and enemies, who all shed 

 tears of admiration and grief. His body, which re- 

 mained in the hands of his enemies, was embalmed 

 by them, given to the French, and interred in a 

 church of the Minorites, near Grenoble. His monu- 

 ment consists of a simple bust, with a Latin inscrip- 

 tion. See Hist, de P. Terr ail, dit le Chevalier liayar, 

 sans Peur et sans Rcproche, by Gayard de Berville, 

 new edition, Paris, 1824. 



BAYLE, Pierre, author of the Historical and Criti- 

 cal Dictionary, was born at Carlat, in the county of 

 Foix (Languedoc), in 1647, and received his first in- 

 struction trom his father, a Calvinistic preacher. lie. 

 gave early proofs of an astonishing memory, and of a 

 singular vivacity of mind. At the age of nineteen 

 years, he entered the college of Puy-Laurens, to 

 finish his studies. The ardour with which he devoted 

 himself to them weakened his constitution. All 

 books were eagerly devoured by him ; his taste for 

 logic led him particularly to study religious contro- 

 versies, but Amyot's Plutarch and Montaigne were, 

 his favourite works. The latter encouraged, without 

 doubt, his inclination to scepticism ; perhaps both 

 contributed to give to his style that vivacity, that 

 boldness of expression, and antique colouring, so ob- 

 servable in it. In Toulouse, he studied philosophy 

 with the Jesuits. The arguments of his professors, 

 and, still more, his friendly discussions with a Catho- 

 lic priest, who dwelt near him, confirmed his doubts 

 of the orthodoxy of Protestantism, so that he resolv- 

 ed to change his religion. His conversion was a 

 triumph to the Catholics. His family, however, 

 tried all means to regain him, and after seventeen 

 months he returned to his old faith. In order to 

 escape from the punishment of perpetual excommu- 

 nication, which the Catholic church then pronounced 

 against apostates, he went to Geneva, and thence 

 to Copet, where count Dohna intrusted him with the 

 education of his sons, and where he studied the phi- 

 losophy of Des Cartes. But, after some years, he 

 returned to France, and settled in Rouen, where he 

 was employed in teaching. From thence he went to 

 Paris, where the society of learned men indemnified 

 him for the fatigues of an occupation to which he was 

 obliged to submit for the third time. 



In 1675, he obtained the philosophical chair at 

 Sedan, where he taught with distinction until the 

 suppression of this academy in 1681. He was after- 

 wards invited to discharge the same duties at Rotter- 

 dam. The appearance of a comet, in 1C80, which 

 occasioned an almost universal alarm, induced him to 

 publish, in 1682, his Pensees diverges sur la Come.tf, 

 a work full of learning, in which he discussed various 

 subjects of metaphysics, morals, theology, history, and 

 politics. It was followed by his Critique generate df 

 /' Histoire du Calvinisme de Maimbourg. This work, 

 received with equal approbation by the Catholics and 

 Protestants, and esteemed by Maimbourg himselt, 

 excited the jealousy of his colleague, the theologian 

 Jurieu, whose Refutation du P. Maimbourg had not 

 succeeded, and involved B. in many disputes. He 

 afterwards undertook a periodical work, Kouvelles dela 

 Republique des Lettres, in 1684. A letter from Rome, 

 published in this work, excited the displeasure of the 

 queen Christina of Sweden, who caused two violent 

 letters to be sent to him. B. apologized, and his 

 excuses so perfectly satisfied the queen, that fro..i 



