Furthermore, when the champions of the Cross met those of the Crescent on the fatal field of Nicopolis, and left upon it the flower of their chivalry, the Italians were the only people who had no reason to mourn the disaster. All useless prisoners were put to death; but the young Count de Nevers, and a score other princes and barons of France, were held by Bayezid to ransom. After a long and painful captivity the survivors obtained their liberty for 200,000 florins. But, while this immense sum and the costs of the negotiations and embassies, as well as the means for the prisoners’ return home in a manner befitting their high estate, were laboriously raised by extraordinary taxes levied by the Duke of Burgundy upon all towns under his obedience, and more especially upon those of Flanders--Ghent, Bruges, Mechlin, and Antwerp--the merchants of Genoa showed their enterprising genius, no less than their prosperity, by giving prompt security to the Sultan for five times the amount stipulated. Lastly, when the French lords, on their arrival at Venice, found themselves hardly able to defray the expenses of their sojourn in “one of the dearest towns in the world for strangers,” as Sir John sensibly observes, they met with scant courtesy at the hands of the Venetians. The King of Hungary, though the revenues of his realm were “ruined for this and the ensuing year,” volunteered to assist the princes by “offering for sale to the rulers of Venice the rents he received from that town, which amounted to 7000 ducats yearly”; but the Venetians, on hearing of the proposal, “coldly replied that they would consider the matter,” and after a fortnight’s consideration answered, “as I was told by one who heard it,” that “if the King of Hungary was disposed to sell his whole kingdom, the Venetians would willingly make the purchase, and pay the money down; but as for such a trifle as 7000 ducats of yearly revenue, which he possessed in the city of Venice, it was of so little value that they could not set a price on it either to buy or sell, and that they would not trouble themselves about so small an object.” The narrative brings into vivid, if somewhat unpleasant, prominence the contrast between the Italians and their neighbours over the Alps: their wealth, their pride, their eagerness to draw profit from other people’s enthusiasms, and their utter want of interest in the questions which agitated so deeply the rest of mediaeval Christendom. The sons of Italy were too much engrossed in the affairs of this world to make any sacrifices to the next. Already sensuous bliss was all the bliss they knew or cared for. Undistracted by celestial chimeras, they would gladly have exchanged all the dreams of eternity for one day’s enjoyment of earthly realities. But, if their worldly prosperity and their practical wisdom made the Italians selfish, they also made them tolerant. To them the prejudice of feudalism was as unprofitable as its idealism.