So ended the last crusade.
IX
Immediately after the battle, Bayezid sent part of his army across the Danube to hunt down the fugitives and to punish Mircea. This force was defeated by the Wallachians in the plain of Rovine, and withdrew into Bulgaria.[545]
Other columns mounted the Danube through the Iron Gates, retaking on the way the fortresses captured by the crusaders, and made a raid into Styria. Everywhere the akindjis carried fire and death. The country was laid waste. Peterwardein was burned, and sixteen thousand Styrians were carried off into slavery in Macedonia and Anatolia.[546]
This invasion of Hungary made a deep impression upon the Slavic and Teutonic races, who believed that it was the beginning of a Moslem conquest of central Europe. The flagellants and the dancing processions of the plague days of 1348 and 1359 were revived. For a moment, even the Venetian Senate feared that Bayezid had led in person his army into Hungary, and was engaged in an aggressive movement that might bring the Osmanlis to the head of the Adriatic.[547]
But Bayezid was not carried away by the ease of his victory. He let well enough alone. For the moment, he had absorbing interests in the ransom of his prisoners, the developments in the Greek peninsula, the question of Constantinople, and the temptation to licentious pleasures that had come to him with success.
X
Bayezid announced his victory from the battle-field to the Kadi of Brusa, and later, from Adrianople, to the Moslem princes of Asia.[548] To the Sultan of Egypt and other rulers he sent gifts of prisoners to corroborate his letters.[549]
The intercession of Jean de Nevers had saved the more illustrious of the surviving French chevaliers. They were taken to Brusa. While not treated royally, they were allowed to hunt, and were given opportunities to see the grandeur of Bayezid.[550] But they were not kept together long. For some months, the heir to the Duchy of Burgundy was separated from his companions, and could talk with them only by the special permission of Bayezid. Some of them were sent to Mikhalitch, where Philippe d’Artois, grand marshal of France, died.[551] Enguerran de Coucy, worn out with anxiety for his family and the disgrace that had come to him at the close of his brilliant career, soon followed the Comte d’Artois to the grave.
In the meantime, Jacques Helly was sent by Bayezid to Paris to communicate to the Duke of Burgundy and the other relatives of the captives the conditions for their ransom—two hundred thousand pieces of gold, delivered to Bayezid at Brusa. Froissart describes the feeling aroused at Paris by the first news of the disaster. The stories of the survivors were not believed, and the bearers of bad news narrowly escaped hanging or drowning. An order of the king’s council forbade any man to mention Nicopolis. The anxiety of the families of the chevaliers was not set at rest until Jacques Helly reached Paris on Christmas night, three months after the battle. Only then was it known who had been saved for ransom. What was joy to some was a crushing blow to others. Not since the battle of Poitiers had such a calamity come to the noble families of France. There was great lamentation throughout the kingdom. Chief among the mourners was the Duchess of Burgundy, who had lost her three brothers, and whose son was in the hands of Bayezid.[552]