Thus it was settled that little Pierre should leave his home for ever, and part with his brothers, his merry playmates in the woods and fields around Bayard, and his gentle mother, who loved him perhaps above all her other sons; but his father felt that he was getting weaker every hour, and since he was not rich, he was very anxious to provide for the welfare of his children as far as he could before he died.
First of all, however, it was agreed that Pierre must be equipped as a page, and the Bishop sent for his own tailor, bidding him bring with him satin and velvet, and all that was necessary for a page's dress in those days. The tailor had to work hard all night, and the next morning, Pierre in his new habit went down into the courtyard and mounted a war-horse, which stood there ready saddled, while his father and all his guests looked on from the lower windows of the Castle. The horse feeling so light a burden upon him grew restive, and it seemed each moment as if Pierre must have been thrown, but to the delight and astonishment of all who beheld him, the boy, who had left school only a fortnight before, managed his horse, as an old French writer tells us, with as much skill as if he had been thirty years of age.
The Sire du Bayard now bid him not to dismount, and gave him his blessing, after which all the rest of the people took leave of him. Pierre's eyes filled with tears when his father looked so proudly and lovingly at him. "Monseigneur, my father," he said, "I pray to our Lord to give you a long and happy life, and to me grace, so that before you quit this world, you may hear good news of me."
In the meantime his mother was weeping alone in a turret chamber of the Castle; for although she was glad that he had chosen to follow a soldier's life for the honour of his name, she grieved bitterly at the thought of parting with him, and feared that she should never see him again. She came down into the courtyard by a back staircase, and there took leave of him with many tears, and gave him words of advice which he remembered so well all his life long that he gained both from his friends and from his foes the title of "The good knight, without fear and without reproach."