Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard

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.[1]

In 1494 Bayard accompanied Charles VIII's expedition into Italy to seize the Kingdom of Naples.[1] This campaign is now known as the Italian War of 1494–1498.

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.[1]

In 1502 Bayard was wounded at Canossa.[1]

Bayard at the Battle of Garigliano (1503), by Philippoteaux

Bayard was the hero of a celebrated combat of 13 French knights against an equal number of Spaniards, and his restless energy and valour were conspicuous throughout the Italian wars of this period. At the Battle of Garigliano he singlehandedly defended the bridge of the Garigliano against 200 Spaniards, an exploit that brought him such renown that Pope Julius II tried unsuccessfully to entice him into his service.[1]

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.

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.

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.

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.

Statue of Pierre Terrail, Seigneur de Bayard, in Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, France. 1893 statue.

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.

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.

Bayard was sent to Navarre with La Palice in support of the Kings of Navarre, Juan III of Albret and Catalina I of Foix, who wanted to recuperate their kingdom conquered by the King of Spain Fernando II of Aragon. Bayard took part in the conquest of the castle of Tiebas and the felt assault on Pamplona (1512, November 27).

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.[1]

Bayard by Aristide Croisy (1893) Charleville-Mézières

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.[1]

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.[1]

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.[1]

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.[2]

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,

"Sir, there is no need to pity me. I die as a man of honour ought, doing my duty; but I pity you, because you are fighting against your king, your country, and your oath."

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.[3]

Statue at Grenoble, Nicolas-Bernard Raggi sculptor

• Equestrian statue at Pontcharra (Isère)
• Statue at Grenoble, place Saint-André
• Bayard Mausoleum, (1625), Saint-André Collegiate church at Grenoble
• Musée Bayard at the Château Bayard in Pontcharra
• Statue at Charleville-Mézières, inaugurated October 2005. An earlier statue was damaged during World War I and demolished by the Germans in World War II.
• Statue in the Collège Stanislas de Paris
• Statue in Saint-Denis
• Statue in Sainte-Anne-d'Auray
• Clément-Bayard, an automobile manufacturer of Mézières, was named in his honour and his image was incorporated in the logo.
• Adolphe Clément-Bayard, an entrepreneur who created the Clément-Bayard automobile company in honour of the knight in 1903, and then added Bayard to his family name in 1908

• Bayard is a recurring character in three novels by author Samuel Shellabarger:
  • Prince of Foxes
  • Captain from Castile
  • The King's Cavalier
• The name Chevalier Bayard is used in reference to a character in Dashiell Hammett's The Dain Curse.
• Patrick O'Brian's fighting captain Aubrey is compared by another character to Bayard in The Mauritius Command.
• Phineas Finn compares the Duke of Omnium to Sir Bayard in Anthony Trollope's novel The Prime Minister.
• In Ford Madox Ford's 1915 novel The Good Soldier, the character Edward Ashburnham is twice compared to Bayard.
• Nick Burden refers to Colum McInnes as "the Bayard of the film world" in L. P. Hartley's 1951 novel My Fellow Devils.
• The movie Sans peur et sans reproche directed in 1988 by Gérard Jugnot is based on him.
• Louis Auchincloss mentions Chevalier Bayard in The Rector of Justin. In P. G. Wodehouse's 1955 novel Bertie Wooster Sees it Through, Bertie speculates that the Chevalier Bayard would have done as he did in tripping a policeman during a nightclub raid.
• There's also a reference to Bayard in Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March