After that there were no more appeals. Gonsalvo’s usual cheerfulness was maintained, infusing spirit into his men in all the inconveniences of their situation. He had a well-planned object in view. The hardy Spaniards, long used to rough campaigning, bore their trying position with unyielding resolution. The French, on the contrary, largely new recruits, grew weary and mutinous, while sickness broke out in their ranks and increased with alarming rapidity. At length Gonsalvo’s day came. His opponent, not dreaming of an attack, had extended his men over a wide space. On the night of December 28, in darkness and storm, the Spanish army broke camp, marched to the river that divided the forces, silently threw a bridge across the stream, and were soon on its opposite side. Here they fell like a thunderbolt on the unsuspecting and unprepared French, who were soon in disordered retreat, hotly pursued by their foes, their knights vainly attempting to check the enemy. Bayard had three horses killed under him, and was barely rescued from death by a friend. So utterly were the French beaten that their discouraged garrisons gave up town after town without a blow, and that brilliant night’s work not only ended the control of France over the kingdom of Naples, but filled Louis XII. with apprehension of losing all his possessions in Italy. Such were the most brilliant exploits of the man who well earned the proud title of the Great Captain. He was as generous in victory as vigorous in battle, and as courteous and genial with all he met as if he had been a courtier instead of a soldier. In the end, his striking and unbroken success in war aroused the envy and jealousy of King Ferdinand, and after the return of Gonsalvo to Spain the unjust monarch kept him in retirement till his death, putting smaller men at the head of his armies rather than permit the greatest soldier of the century to throw his own exploits more deeply into the shade. A KING IN CAPTIVITY. Two great rivals were on the thrones of France and Spain,—Francis I., who came to power in France in 1515, and Charles I., who became king of Spain in 1516. In 1519 they were rivals for the imperial power in Germany. Charles gained the German throne, being afterwards known as the emperor Charles V., and during the remainder of their reigns these rival monarchs were frequently at war. A league was formed against the French king by Charles V., Henry VIII. of England, and Pope Leo X., as a result of which the French were driven from the territory of Milan, in Italy. In 1524 they were defeated at the battle of Sesia, the famous Chevalier Bayard here falling with a mortal wound; and in 1525 they met with a more disastrous defeat at the battle of Pavia, whose result is said to have caused Francis to write to his mother, "_Madame, tout est perdu fors l’honneur_" ("All is lost but honor").