It certainly did. Bayezid, who had been directing the siege of Constantinople, knew no more about the khalif and the sultan and the ‘far-off countries of the miscreants’ than did Froissart. Neither he nor his ancestors had ever had dealings with the Moslem princes of Asia. Persians, ‘Saracens’ and Egyptians were lacking in his army. He gathered together his trained warriors, called upon his Christian vassals for their quotas, and set forth over the well-known route to the Danube. From several recent campaigns, he and his soldiers were thoroughly familiar with the country through which they passed, and in which the people were less afraid of him than they were of the Christians who had come to deliver them. When, after two weeks’ march, he pitched his camp near Nicopolis, he was simply returning to a place where twice before the Ottoman arms had been victorious. Sigismund was dismayed at the prompt appearance of Bayezid with an army which was reported to him in numbers varying from one hundred and twenty thousand to two hundred thousand. In spite of his brave words to the chevaliers, Sigismund knew the worth of the Osmanlis as fighting-men, and that they could not be brushed aside by a few impetuous cavalry charges. So he begged Jean de Nevers and his companions to consult with him, and to formulate a definite plan of action. He suggested, and won over to this opinion the Sieur de Coucy, who was the most experienced warrior among the chevaliers, that a reconnaissance be made first of all to determine Bayezid’s position and intentions. Then, if Bayezid was actually moving to the attack, or on the point of moving, it would be the part of wisdom for the westerners to allow the foot-soldiers of Hungary and the Wallachians to sustain the first attack. The valiant horsemen and western mercenaries should form a second line, whether it be in attack or defence. The chevaliers were furious at this suggestion. Philippe d’Artois, Comte d’Eu and Grand Constable of France, who knew Sigismund best from longer association with him, suspected him of an attempt to rob the chevaliers of the glory of defeating Bayezid. ‘Yes, yes,’ he cried, ‘the king of Hungary wants to have the flower of the day and the honour. We have the advance-guard, and already has he given it to us. So he wants to take it away from us and have the first battle. Whoever believes in this, I shall not.’ Then turning to the chevalier who carried his banner, he called out, ‘Forward banner, in the name of God and of Saint George, for they will see me to-day a good chevalier’.[531] This action was contagious. Without knowing where the enemy was, without thinking where or how far they were going, without waiting to agree upon a concerted action with the bulk of their army, the French, German, and English noblemen rushed forward to make the last charge of European chivalry against the followers of Mohammed.