The accounts of the duke de Nevers and his companions awakened, however, the emulation of the warriors, and their misfortunes in Asia inspired less compassion than a desire to avenge their defeat. A new expedition against the Turks was soon announced in France, and a crowd of young nobles and knights eagerly took up arms. The duke of Orleans, the brother of the king, was inconsolable at not being able to obtain permission to place himself at their head, and go with them to combat the infidels. It was the Marshal Boucicault, scarcely returned from captivity, who led these new Crusaders into the East. Their arrival on the shores of the Bosphorus delivered Byzantium, which was then besieged by Bajazet. Their exploits raised the courage of the Greeks, and redeemed the honour of the soldiers of the West among the Turks. When, after a year of labours and glorious combats, they returned to their own country, the Greek emperor Manuel believed he saw fresh evils ready to overwhelm him, and he resolved to follow Marshal Boucicault and solicit more assistance from Charles VI.; thus placing all the hopes of his empire in the French warriors. He was received with great honours on his passage through Italy; when he had crossed the Alps, brilliant festivities awaited him in all the great cities. At two leagues from Paris he found Charles VI., who, with all his nobles, had come out to meet him. He made his public entry into the capital, clothed in a robe of white silk, and mounted on a white horse, marks of supreme rank among the Franks. It was gratifying to see a successor of the Cæsars imploring the arms of chivalry; and the confidence which he placed in the bravery of the French, flattered the pride of the nation; but in the condition of France at that period, it was much more easy to offer Manuel the spectacle of tournaments, and the brilliant ceremonies of courts, than to furnish him with the treasures and armies of which he stood in need. Charles VI. began to feel the approach of that fatal malady which left the field open to factions, and threw the kingdom into the greatest misfortunes. England, whose assistance the emperor of Constantinople likewise solicited, was disturbed by the usurpation of Henry of Lancaster; and if the English monarch then took the cross, it was less with the intention of succouring the Greeks than to divert attention from his own injustice, and to have a pretext for levying imposts upon his people. At the same time, the deposition of Winceslaus set the whole German empire in motion; and the nascent heresy of John Huss already gave the signal for the disorders that were destined to trouble Bohemia during the fifteenth century. Amidst all these agitations in Christendom, the only power that could have reëstablished harmony was itself divided, and the Catholic Church, still a prey to the rival pretensions of two pontiffs, could neither give its attention to promote peace among the Christians, nor war against the Turks.