Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/224

 146 WORKMEN AND HEROES But the Bishop of Grenoble, his wife's brother, was a close friend of Charles the Warrior, the great Duke of Savoy. When Pierre was in his fourteenth year it was proposed that he should begin his knightly education among the pages of the duke. The bishop promised to present him. A little horse was bought ; a tailor was set to work to make a gorgeous suit of silk and velvet ; and Pierre was ready to set out During six months the palace of Charles became his home. The lovable and handsome boy soon won all hearts about him. The duke with delight saw him leap and wrestle, throw the bar, and ride a horse better than any page about the court. The duchess and her ladies loved to send him on their dainty missions. His temper was bright and joyous ; his only fault, if fault it can be called, was an over-generosity of nature. His purse was always empty ; and when he had no money, any trifling service of a lackey or a groom would be requited with a silver button, a dagger, or a clasp of gold. And such was to be his character through life. Time after time, in after years, his share of treasure, after some great victory, would have paid a prince's ransom ; yet often he could not lay his hand on five gold pieces. When Pierre had lived at the palace about half a year, the duke made a visit to Lyons, to pay his duty to the king. That king was Charles the Eighth, then a boy of twenty, who was making his days fly merrily with tilts and hawking parties, and his nights with dances and the whispers of fair dames. The duke desired to carry with him to his sovereign a present worthy of a king's accept- ance. A happy notion struck him. He resolved to present the king with Bay- ard and his horse. King Charles, delighted with his new page, placed him in the palace of Lord Ligny, a prince of the great house of Luxemburg, and there for three years he continued to reside. During that time his training was the usual training of a page. But the child was the father of the man. Thoughts of great deeds, of tilts and battle-fields, of champions going down before his lance, of crowns of myrtle, and the smiles of lovely ladies such already were the dreams which set his soul on fire. At seventeen Pierre received the rank of gentleman. Thenceforward he was free to follow his own fortune ; he was free to seek the glorious Dulcinea of his dreams a fame as bright and sparkling as his sword. And thereupon begins to pass before us, brilliant as the long-drawn scenes of a dissolving view, the strange and splendid series of his exploits. He had not ceased to be a page ten days before the court was ringing with his name. Sir Claude de Vauldre, Lord of Burgundy, was regarded as the stoutest knight in France. He was then at Lyons, and was about to hold a tilt, with lance and battle-axe, before the ladies and the king. His shield was hanging in the Ainay meadows, and beside it Mont joy, the king-at-arms, sat all day with his book open, taking down the names of those who struck the shield. Among these came Bayard. Montjoy laughed as he wrote down his name ; the king. Lord Ligny, and his own companions, heard with mingled trepidation and de-