Quotation from: A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 3

Written by: Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot


About the same time Sigismund, King of Hungary, threatened with an
invasion of his kingdom by the great Turkish Sultan Bajazet I., nicknamed
Lightning (El Derfr), because of his rapid conquests, invoked the aid of
the Christian kings of the West, and especially of the King of France.
Thereupon there was a fresh outbreak of those crusades so often renewed
since the end of the thirteenth century. All the knighthood of France
arose for the defence of a Christian king. John, Count of Nevers, eldest
son of the Duke of Burgundy, scarcely eighteen years of age, said to his
comrades, "If it pleased my two lords, my lord the king and my lord and
father, I would willingly head this army and this venture, for I have a
desire to make myself known." The Duke of Burgundy consented, and, in
person, conducted his son to St. Denis, but without intending to make him
a knight as yet. "He shall receive the accolade," said he, "as a knight
of Jesus Christ, at the first battle against the infidels." In April,
1396, an army of new crusaders left France and traversed Germany
uproariously, everywhere displaying its valiant ardor, presumptuous
recklessness, and chivalrous irregularity. Some months elapsed without
any news; but, at the beginning of December, there were seen arriving in
France some poor creatures, half naked, dying of hunger, cold, and
weariness, and giving deplorable accounts of the destruction of the
French army. The people would not believe them: "They ought to be thrown
into the water," they said, "these scoundrels who propagate such lies."
But, on the 23th of December, there arrived at Paris James de Helly, a
knight of Artois, who, booted and spurred, strode into the hostel of
St. Paul, threw himself on his knees before the king in the midst of the
princes, and reported that he had come straight from Turkey; that on the
28th of the preceding September the Christian army had been destroyed at
the battle of Nicopolis; that most of the lords had been either slain in
battle or afterwards massacred by the sultan's order; and that the Count
of Nevers had sent him to the king and to his father the duke, to get
negotiations entered into for his release. There was no exaggeration
about the knight's story. The battle had been terrible, the slaughter
awful. For the latter, the French, who were for a moment victorious, had
set a cruel example with their prisoners; and Bajazet had surpassed them
in cool ferocity. After the first explosion of the father's and the
people's grief, the ransom of the prisoners became the topic. It was a
large sum, and rather difficult to raise; and, whilst it was being sought
for, James de Helly returned to report as much to Bajazet, and to place
himself once more in his power. "Thou art welcome," said the sultan;
"thou hast loyally kept thy word; I give thee thy liberty; thou canst go
whither thou wiliest."

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