The signing of the truce of 1395 was a real assurance of peace in France, even in Brittany, where Clisson, banished to his fiefs, had armed his vassals at once and attacked John de Montfort. But the duke of Burgundy appeared in person at Ancenis, mediated between the two parties, and made them in January, 1395, sign a reciprocal promise to lay down their arms. Shortly after this John IV attended the meeting of Charles VI and Richard II at Guines (where the truce was arranged) and obtained from the English the restitution of Brest which had only been pledged to them. With peace thus restored France was now able to occupy herself more particularly with the great questions then agitating all Europe: that of the papal schism of which all Christendom was longing for the end, and that of the crusade--or rather the barrier which it was felt must be raised against the conquests of the Ottoman Turks in the European provinces of the Greek empire.[g] Forty years before the Ottoman Turks had crossed the Bosporus, taken Adrianople and a portion of the Danube valley. Now they were threatening Hungary. A crusade was therefore resolved upon, and put under the direction of a young man of twenty-four, John, count of Nevers, who later became the famous duke of Burgundy (John the Fearless). Young and old, equally short-sighted, gaily descended the Danube, taking the whole matter as a pleasure excursion. When they arrived at Nicopolis, King Sigismund of Hungary advised them to meet the advance troops of the enemy with his Hungarian foot-soldiers and light cavalry, and to reserve the knights for the real Ottoman army which would appear afterwards. But no one was willing to forego the honour of striking the first blow. So all opposed themselves to the advance-guard, threw themselves upon the first enemy who appeared, and arrived exhausted and in disorder at the top of a hill where they were received by the redoubtable janissaries which Amura had just organised, and who made short work of the breathless, disordered troops. It was said that Bajazet put ten thousand captives[31] to death in his own presence, saving only from the massacre the count of Nevers and twenty-four nobles whom he ransomed (1396).[b] Consternation was universal throughout France, especially in Burgundy. Duke Philip strangely abused the obligations of feudalism which compelled vassals to ransom a captive lord or his son and raised as much from his vassals as from the royal treasury, more than double the 200,000 ducats which Bajazet demanded for the freedom of his captives.[f] DOMESTIC TROUBLES AND SCANDALS [Sidenote: [1396-1407 A.D.]] The government of the aristocracy was not fortunate: its acts were discrediting it abroad; its quarrels were weakening it at home.