PIERRE TERRAIL
(c. 1473 – 30 April 1524)
Pierre Terrail, "seigneur de Bayard", was born in Château Bayard, near Pontcharra, France and died in Romagnano Sesia, Italy. He was generally known as the Chevalier de Bayard. Throughout the centuries since his death French soldier known as "le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche" (the knight without fear and without reproach).
Bayard accompanied King Charles VIII of France into Italy in 1494 and was knighted after the Battle of Fornovo (1495). In Louis XII's wars he was the hero of numerous combats. He was wounded at the assault on Canossa and was the hero of a celebrated combat of 11 French knights against an equal number of Spanish ones. In 1508 he distinguished himself again at the siege of Genoa and, later, at the siege of Padua. Severely wounded at Brescia, he nevertheless hurried to join the Battle of Ravenna (1512).
On the accession of Francis I in 1515, Bayard was made lieutenant general of Dauphiné. In 1521, when war broke out again between Francis I and the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, Bayard, with 1000 men, held Mézières against an army of 35,000, and after six weeks he compelled the imperial generals to raise the siege.
Bayard was one of the most skillful and professional commanders of the 16th century in Europe. He obtained complete information about the enemy's position and plans by reconnaissance and espionage, and in the midst of mercenary armies he remained absolutely disinterested in plunder. To his contemporaries he was the faultless knight—heroic, devout, generous, and kindly.
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