In his portrait by Jacques de Mailles, his squire and biographer, Bayard appears as man with a sharp and pale face, with brown hair, a long nose and two attentive and bright eyes.

[1] Jacques writes that Bayard, small in stature as a child, grew considerably during adolescence; this is supported by modern studies of his skull which hypothesize that he had reached 1.8 meters (5 foot 11 inches), an above-average height for his time.

Absolute loyalty even towards enemies, charity and help were his rules of life, in fact he did his utmost for the recovery of prostitutes and personally assisted the sick of the plague.

While his fellow countrymen indulged in violence and raids, Bayard always remained respectful towards the weak and the vanquished, doing his utmost for their defense, and burned with furious anger in the face of all cruelty and injustice.

[2] Since he usually led the vanguard in the advances and passed to the rearguard in the retreats, he ordered his men to extinguish the fires that his colleagues had set in the villages, and placed sentinels in defense of the churches and monasteries to prevent the looting and rape of women who had taken refuge there.

[2] Such was the fame of the magnanimity of Bayard that the people of Italy, who fled into the woods and mountains when armed men arrived, instead came running to meet his troops, loudly acclaiming his name and offering him gifts.

At age thirteen he came to the attention of King Charles VIII of France when he put on a remarkable display of horsemanship for the Duke of Savoy that earned him the nickname "piquet" (spur).

[6] What first made Bayard truly famous in Italy, was an episode that took place in 1502, when a Gascon named Gaspar took prisoner Alonso de Sotomayor, a Spanish knight of gigantic stature and endowed with Herculean strength, while he was on his way to Rome.

While Gaspar was waiting for the ransom due, Bayard took over the prisoner to prevent him from suffering ill-treatment, welcomed him into his home and treated him with all the respect and honor that he granted to his friends.

At the fourth time that the tactic was repeated, Bayard took advantage of the opportunity, threw himself forward and with the tip of the sword skewered from below the uncovered throat of the Spaniard, then finished him by planting the dagger in one eye.

The Spaniards, taking advantage of the winter mists and the division of the French army, on 28 December, on the advice of Bartolomeo d'Alviano, threw another bridge of boats across the river and seized the unguarded and poorly defended camp.

The rout that followed was catastrophic for the army of Louis XII: the sentinels noticed the attack too late and the commanders, caught off guard, did not have time to organize an effective defense and so turned to flight, pressed hard by Italian and Spanish cavalry.

Around the knight rained arrows, spears, and spades, but he, dodging them, continued to repel all who climbed the bridge to face him, until his friend Bellabre rushed to pull him away from there to take him to safety.

Bayard's intervention made it possible to cover the retreat of the French army and gave them time to place the artillery to be ready to face the Spaniards and start the counterattack.

[2] This feat, cloaked in legend, contributed significantly to his fame as a knight "without spot and without fear", so much so that Pope Julius II himself tried in vain to secure his services.

In the battle that broke the back of the rebellion, Bayard played the role of champion and spearhead in the French assault, a breakneck cavalry charge up a mountain slope against a seemingly impregnable barricade defended by a pike-phalanx of Genoese militia.

Bayard was the champion of the first, and at the last became reacquainted with his former opponent at the Garigliano, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, El Gran Capitán ("The Great Captain") of Spain.

Bayard's company became a model of discipline, high morale, and battlefield effectiveness, and played a key role that year in rescuing the French vanguard at the Battle of Agnadello, on 14 May 1509 against the Venetian forces led by Bartolomeo d'Alviano.

Later that year, Bayard was among the French forces under Jacques de La Palice sent to join their German ally, the Emperor Maximilian I at the Siege of Padua.

Though the siege ultimately failed, what early success the allies enjoyed was largely due to Bayard's combination of cool-headed leadership and dashing bravado.

Bayard successfully carried out a series of raids and ambushes against Venetian forces in the vicinity, proving himself a master of "small war", and adept at the leading of what today would be called "special operations".

Unwilling to surrender, he rode suddenly up to an English officer who was resting unarmed, and summoned him to yield; the knight complying, Bayard in turn gave himself up to his prisoner.

[6] When war again broke out between Francis I and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Bayard, with 1000 men, held Mézières, which had been declared untenable, against an army of 35,000, and after six weeks compelled the imperial generals to raise the siege.

The parlement thanked Bayard as the saviour of his country; the king made him a knight of the Order of Saint Michael and commander in his own name of 100 gens d'armes, an honour until then reserved for princes of the blood.

[9] He died in the midst of the enemy, attended by Pescara, the Spanish commander, and by his old comrade, Charles, duc de Bourbon, who was now fighting on the opposite side.

Since Terrail is never referred to as a "bastard" but always as a "daughter" and since Bayard would refuse in the future the marriage proposed to him by Queen Anne, it is believed that he had married the girl's mother.