At length Hugh was moved, and lent an ear to all that was reported concerning the character and intentions of his vassal. An opportunity soon offered of revealing his real intentions. While Anseric had enemies and enviers at the ducal court, he had also some friends; and they did not fail to inform him of the sinister impressions produced in the duke's mind respecting him, and which he took no trouble to conceal. He had been heard to say that he would soon go and try whether the fortress of La Roche-Pont was as strong as was asserted. Prudence was not the duke's forte, any more than reticence. He had sent a body of his men-at-arms to examine matters closely. Now, the duke's men-at-arms had acquired the habits of their master; they were great robbers and plunderers. Whether they acquitted themselves of their mission I cannot say; but certain it is that they plundered some hamlets and set fire to several granges belonging to the abbey of Saint Julien. The monks were greatly disquieted, and did not fail to complain to the lord of Roche-Pont. The fief of Roche-Pont lay under the obligation to send every year to the Duke of Burgundy, as its feudal dues, six war horses caparisoned. It was the custom of the lord of Roche-Pont on this occasion to present himself at the ducal court after Easter. The current year was 1185. Anseric did not appear at court, and did not send the six horses. Hugh demanded them; Anseric replied that the duke's men, plunderers and brigands as they were, had themselves taken off the horses that were destined for him; and that it was their place to give them up to their master; that as for himself and the abbot of Saint Julien, they claimed compensation for damages, and demanded that the plunderers should be hanged on the public gallows. Moreover, that he, Anseric, was aware that the Duke of Burgundy lent an ear to the malevolent insinuations of the enemies of Roche-Pont, and he would choose his own time for giving them the lie. At this haughty answer Hugh's anger was roused, and he swore that he would take no rest till the castle of Roche-Pont was razed to the ground, should it cost him a fourth of his dukedom. Baron Guy had observed the storm increasing not without a secret joy; but though he liked fighting, and cherished an unbounded ambition, he was a prudent man, and one who--like all who had long sojourned in the East--knew how to intrigue and to secure the favour of circumstances. Most of those old knights of Syria joined the character of the diplomatist to that of soldier, in consequence of their relations with the court of Constantinople and the Saracens.