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] While Jacques Helly was in France, Marshal Boucicaut was given permission to go to Constantinople to try to raise the ransom. He spent the Lenten season of 1397 there without success.[553] The Duke of Burgundy resorted to every expedient to raise the enormous sum demanded by Bayezid. For the ransom of his son ‘great taxes were laid upon all the kingdom, and a large amount of money was gathered and transported to Turkey, which was a great and irreparable loss’.[554] It was not forgotten for many years. A decade later it was used as one of the indictments against the Duc d’Orléans, who met his death through the man he had helped to ransom.[555]