Constantinople was in a perilous situation, but an attempt to take it failed (1398). Less fortunate, as has been seen, were the inhabitants of continental Greece, who saw Argos taken, and the country of the Peloponnesus ravaged by Bajesid. The troubles of the imperial city were not relieved by Bajesid’s failure to capture it, for by the instigation of the Turks, John, the nephew of Manuel, became a claimant for the crown, and at the head of 10,000 Ottoman troops marched on the city. The result was that Manuel agreed to take his nephew as associate in the Empire, a term which now had only a technical significance, for the imperial dignity meant little more than the rule over Constantinople itself. Bajesid refused to allow this arrangement unless further concessions were made, such as the establishment of a fourth mosque in the city, and the same local autonomy for the Turkish colony as that enjoyed by the Venetians and Genoese. Manuel refused and appealed to Western Christendom. France again showed its sympathy by sending a survivor of the Nicopolis campaign, a knight, Boucicout, who, with only 1200 men, forced the entrance of the Dardanelles, and afterwards won a minor success in Asia, though he failed in his attempt to take Nicodemia. Manuel tried, as his father had done, a personal visit to the West, and remained nearly two years in France. Bajesid, in the meantime, was encircling Constantinople with his fleet and armies, when the situation suddenly changed, owing to the expansion of a new power in the Orient.