The French had been encamped before Milan for some time, when one day Bayard learned from a spy that three hundred horse of the Milanese were at the little town of Binasco; and, always on the lookout for a skirmish with the enemy, he persuaded about fifty of his companions to join him in a descent upon that town. They set off early the next morning, but the Milanese learned of the intended surprise, and were ready for them.
With the cry, "France! France!" the chevalier and his companions flung themselves upon the whole three hundred; but the Milanese were no cowards, and for one hour they withstood even the firebrand impetuosity of Bayard himself. They were not many who could stand so long before Bayard. At length the knight, impatient at this stubborn resistance, cried out to his fellows—
"What, my comrades! shall we let these few keep us fighting all day? Courage! Let us multiply our strokes and give wings to their feet!"
At the sound of his deep voice the French rushed to the attack again, and with such enthusiasm that the enemy wavered—fell back—then fled, pell-mell, toward Milan. The victors followed in hot pursuit, with the peerless knight far in the lead.
The fugitives reached Milan scarcely ahead of their pursuers, and thundered in through the gate. One of the leaders of the French, seeing the danger into which he and his companions were rushing, cried out just in time,—
"Turn, men-at-arms, turn!"
The order was obeyed by all except Bayard, who had ears for nothing but his own battle-cry, and eyes only for the enemy. Right into the heart of the city, nay, up to the very steps of the duke's palace, he chased the flying Milanese; then he suddenly found himself surrounded by an angry populace, who, when they saw the white crosses of France upon him, cried,—
"Seize him! Seize him!"
He was soon disarmed and taken prisoner by the commander he had just pursued from Binasco. When Cazache—for such was the Milanese captain's name—got his enemy thus in his power, he did not, as might be supposed, wreak any petty vengeance on the head of the chevalier. He treated Bayard as a soldier and a gentleman, and by so doing evinced a chivalrous spirit close akin to the chevalier's own.
Ludovic, Duke of Milan, hearing the uproar before the palace, asked the cause thereof, and was soon told that the Milanese at Binasco had been defeated, and that a young chevalier had pursued Cazache and his company to the very palace door.