Bayard's first exploit as a knight was to challenge and meet in tournament the invincible Lord of Vaudray. The young chevalier was then only seventeen years of age, and was weak and delicate in appearance, while his opponent was reckoned one of the most powerful knights of the time.
When the combatants entered the lists, it was easy to be seen that the yellow-haired, black-eyed knight of seventeen was the one on whom every lady's glance was bent. Men watched him too, but not on account of his good looks; they had laughed at him scornfully when he presumed to strike in challenge the shield of the celebrated Vaudray, and they now looked to see him ignobly defeated.
To the astonishment of all, however, Bayard won the day. The men said that he was too bold for one so young; but "the ladies praised him enthusiastically," and the king exclaimed to Ligny,—
"By my faith, cousin, he hath given us to-day a foretaste of what he will be as a man!"
The next several years of the young knight's life were spent in training for the stern services of war. He failed in nothing that he conceived it his duty to perform, and he neglected nothing that he felt would tend to his own development, for he bore always in his heart the admonition of the king he so reverenced: "Piquet, my friend, may God develop in thee that fearless manhood which thy noble youth so graciously promises."
At this time Italy was not under one government, but was separated into six great divisions—the Duchy of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Piedmont, the Republics of Venice and Florence, and the Papal States. There were also several petty states which were always more or less dependent on some one of the greater powers. Unfortunately for themselves, there was little sympathy or unity among the Italian States; and the nations around were constantly stirring up strife between them, or invading the peninsula for the sake of conquest. So it was that for a long time Italy was the field on which the contests of Europe were waged.
It was during this period—when the French, the Spanish, the Germans, and the Italian States were variously pitted against one another, and variously allied—that Bayard made his name forever an emblem of chivalry. In those days "king" stood for "country" in the mind of the loyal knight; and in following his king on whatever fantastic campaign, Bayard believed that he was only performing his sacred duty to his beloved France.
He served successively under three sovereigns—Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I.,—and distinguished himself in Italy, Spain, and France, holding his own against Italian, Spaniard, German, and Briton alike.
"I hope one day to be worthy the name of soldier," was the chevalier's modest, yet truly exalted, ambition; and he proved unquestionably his right to the title in his very first campaign. Bayard's first service was with Charles VIII., when that king invaded Italy and conquered the Kingdom of Naples.
The young chevalier, though then only eighteen years of age, and slender and boyish in appearance, soon became the admiration of even old and experienced warriors. Wherever there was hottest fighting—wherever there was greatest danger—there was this black-eyed, fair-haired youth. And there was hardly an engagement with the enemy which was not signalized by some brilliant feat of the young knight's.