3000 Swiss escaped out of some 25,000 who fought. On the French side probably 8000 were killed or died of wounds. The battle lasted twenty-eight hours. Its tactical lesson was the efficacy of combining two arms against one. The French gendarmerie, burning to avenge the insult of "hares in armour," made more than thirty charges by squadrons, and they were admirably supported by their light artillery. The landsknechts retrieved their first day's defeat by their conduct on the second day. Nevertheless Marignan was in the main the work of the gendarmerie, the last and greatest triumph of the armoured lancer; and as a fitting close to the battle the young king was knighted by Bayard on the field. MARIGNOLLI, GIOVANNI DE', a notable traveller to the Far East in the 14th century, born probably before 1290, and sprung from a noble family in Florence. The family is long extinct, but a street near the cathedral (Via de' Cerretani) formerly bore the name of the Marignolli. In 1338 there arrived at Avignon, where Benedict XII. held his court, an embassy from the great khan of Cathay (the Mongol-Chinese emperor), bearing letters to the pontiff from the khan himself, and from certain Christian nobles of the Alan race in his service. These latter represented that they had been eight years (since Monte Corvino's death) without a spiritual guide, and earnestly desired one. The pope replied to the letters, and appointed four ecclesiastics as his legates to the khan's court. The name of John of Florence, i.e. Marignolli, appears third on the letters of commission. A large party was associated with the four chief envoys; when in Peking the embassy still numbered thirty-two, out of an original fifty. The mission left Avignon in December 1338; picked up the Tatar envoys at Naples; stayed nearly two months in Constantinople (Pera, May 1-June 24, 1339); and sailed across the Black Sea to Kaffa, whence they travelled to the court of Mahommed Uzbeg, khan of the Golden Horde, at Sarai on the Volga. The khan entertained them hospitably during the winter of 1339-1340 and then sent them across the steppes to Armalec, Almalig or Almaligh (Kulja), the northern seat of the house of Chaghatai, in what is now the province of Ili. "There," says Marignolli, "we built a church, bought a piece of ground ... sung masses, and baptized several persons, notwithstanding that only the year before the bishop and six other minor friars had there undergone glorious martyrdom for Christ's salvation." Quitting Almaligh in 1341, they seem to have reached Peking (by way of Kamul or Hami) in May or June 1342. They were well received by the reigning khan, the last of the Mongol dynasty in China. An entry in the Chinese annals fixes the year of Marignolli's presentation by its mention of the arrival of the great horses from the kingdom of Fulang (_Farang_ or Europe), one of which was 11 ft. 6 in. in length, and 6 ft. 8 in. high, and black all over.