each other, and I rode back to the camp.” John here evidently conceals as far as possible the chagrin he felt at the awkward silence of the Emperor, and his distance towards Prince James, his prospective son-in-law. Another account says that he sternly reproved a Palatine, who advanced to kiss the Emperor’s foot, and that he said significantly as he turned away, “Brother, I am glad to have done you this small service.”[102] After the Grand General had shown him the Polish troops, the Emperor returned to Vienna; and two days later sent a jewelled sword to Prince James, and explained that his grateful emotions had deprived him of the power of speech. ♦Shameful treatment of the Poles.♦ But the Emperor’s ingratitude did not stop here. A day or two after the battle, the Poles (like the French after the battle of St. Gothard) found it difficult to obtain forage or provisions, and they were not allowed to bury even their most illustrious dead in the cemeteries of the city. The king notices bitterly that, since the arrival of the Emperor, everyone shunned them as if they had the plague.[103] The Poles were furious at this studied neglect, and besought John to lead them back at once to Poland. “Our subalterns regret that we have succoured the Emperor; they wish now that the proud race had perished beyond hope of resurrection.”[104] So seldom had the army served beyond the frontiers, that its discipline, never strictly enforced, was now scarcely regarded; and numbers left the ranks and took the nearest road to their homes. John sympathised with his soldiers, but he had the ardour of a crusading hero, and he felt himself bound by his oath to pursue the infidel, and “strike a second decisive blow.”[105] ♦John’s anxiety to follow up the victory.♦ His letter of the 13th of September to the Marquis of Grana, shows the high hopes with which his glorious victory had inspired him. He expresses his belief that the time had come for the collapse of the Sultan’s power, and urges that further successes in Hungary might produce revolts in the heart of his empire.[106] John has been most unjustly accused of finding a Capua in the Vizier’s tents.[107] The fact is, that during the whole of the campaign, the Poles were in the van. The king was disgusted at the backwardness of the imperial court, though his high and simple nature failed to discern its motive. “It is enough to make one die a thousand times a day,” he says, “to see so many opportunities slip away.”[108]