When King Charles the Eighth undertook his expedition to Naples, the good knight accompanied him with the Seigneur de Ligny, and in the battle of Fornova, which the French gained over the Italians on their way back to France, he displayed great valour, and had two horses killed under him at the first charge. Whilst the French companies remained in Italy they were allowed to amuse themselves in tilting and jousts, provided no particular warfare was going on at the time; and Bayard had leisure to visit the Duchess of Savoy, at Carignan, and held a great tournament there in honour of the favourite playmate of his childhood, who was now married to Monsieur de Fluxas, an officer belonging to the household of Charles of Savoy. And here he saw many who recalled the happy days at Chambéry: it was a joyous meeting on both sides, and Bayard remembered all those who had been kind to him when he first left the old castle of Bayard, and to the master palfrenier,[21] who was very fond of him, he gave a horse worth fifty pieces of silver; and to the squire, who had been so loth to part with him in Lyons, and had now retired from the service of the Duke of Savoy, he sent a mule, because the old man was ill with the gout, and could not walk.
After the death of Charles VIII., the Italian war was continued by his successor, Louis XII., and Bayard was constantly engaged in supporting the honour of the French arms. In the year 1503 Louis declared war against Ferdinand, of Arragon, because he had behaved very badly to him by pretending to be his ally, whilst in reality he was planning to take from the French all the places they had conquered in Italy. Three great armies were prepared to invade the dominions of Ferdinand on every side. The good knight served in the first: it was composed of 18,000 infantry, and 2,000 men-at-arms, and was destined for the recovery of the kingdom of Naples, which had been wrenched out of the hands of the French by Gonsalvo, the Great Captain.
By the time the army arrived in the south of Italy, the season was far advanced, and the French and the Spaniards remained for a long time on the opposite shores of the river Garigliano, near Naples. Pedro de Paz, the leader of the Spanish troops, was a man of the most daring courage, although in person he was so small, that it is said when he was on horseback his head was all that could be seen of him above the saddle. One day he formed a plan which, had it been carried out, would have caused very great loss to the French. This was to cross the Garigliano with a hundred men-at-arms, at a place where he knew there was a ford, in the hope that the French would hasten thither to resist him, and leave his other troops to gain possession of a bridge of boats which had been thrown across the river. His plan was successful in the beginning; there was a sudden alarm in the French camp. The good knight who always liked to be where the danger was greatest, had a lodging close by the bridge; he happened to be there at the time with only one of his squires. Having heard the noise, they were just going to arm themselves, and hasten to join in the affray, when Bayard perceived 200 of the enemy's horse advancing towards the bridge. He told his companion to fly to the rest of the army and give the alarm, whilst he amused the Spaniards until succour could arrive. The good knight then went alone to the bridge with his lance in his hand, and found the Spaniards just ready to cross at the other end. But he did not let them advance, and kept the bridge single handed until his squire came back with 100 men-at-arms; the enemy thought at last his efforts could not be human! The men-at-arms, with Bayard at their head, soon forced all the Spaniards to quit their post, and chased them a good mile beyond it; they would have pursued them farther, but they saw several hundred men coming to the rescue, and they turned their horses in the direction of the camp. Bayard was always the last to retreat; on this occasion he was far behind the others, his horse being so tired that it could only go very slowly on its way; and soon a body of Spaniards bore down suddenly upon him, his horse was thrown into a ditch, and he was surrounded by twenty or thirty Spanish knights, who kept crying "Surrender, Señor, surrender!" The good knight defended himself to the utmost, but he thought he should not be able to hold out long against so many, and fortunately his comrades, who had missed him just as they had reached the bridge, were seen hastening to the spot where he was so hardly pressed.