“ But the landsknechts, animated by the king, endured it as well as the Swiss; and at the last, Francis leading a final advance of his exhausted troops, the Swiss gave way and fled. Only 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. ”

“ As the Swiss advanced in three huge columns, the French guns fired into them with terrible effect, but the assailants reached the intersected ground bordering the stream, and thus protected from the rush of the French gendarmerie, they debouched on the other side, and fell upon the landsknechts. The crowd of combatants, the gathering darkness, and the dust, prevented any general direction being given to the battle by the leaders of either side. Francis himself at the head of two hundred gendarmes charged and drove back two large bodies of Swiss which were pressing the landsknechts hard. ”

“ 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. ”