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Everywhere and at all times human pride, with its blind arrogance, is the same. Bajazet saw no glimpse of that future when his empire would be decaying, and held together only by the interested protection of Christian powers.
He did not despair of counting among his allies the very enemy he was at war with when Charles VIII first put forward his pretensions, we mean Bajazet II. So he despatched to Bajazet one of his confidential ministers, Camillo Pandone, to give the Turkish emperor to understand that the expedition to Italy was to the King of France nothing but a blind for approaching the scene of Mahomedan conquests, and that if Charles VIII were once at the Adriatic it would only take him a day or two to get across and attack Macedonia; from there he could easily go by land to Constantinople.
Bajazet II. was more inclined to study than to war: his brother Djem, who tried to supplant him, passed as a prisoner into the hands of Pope Alexander VI. An annual tribute was paid by the Sultan for keeping him from coming back to Turkey; and when, at last, he was released, rumor declared that he had been poisoned. He defeated the Persians, and made the Tigris his eastern boundary.
The first of these two was set on foot when Bajazet was in the full tide of his victories; and he was able, not only to defeat it, but, by defeating, to damp the hopes, and by anticipation, to stifle the efforts, which might have been used against him with better effect in the day of his reverses.
Lastly, there was Maximilian, who had promised to make invasions on the frontiers, and Bajazet, who was to help with money, ships, and soldiers either the Venetians or the Spaniards, according as he might be appealed to by Barberigo or by Ferdinand the Catholic.
I have heard a curious story about his connection with Davidge, manager of the Surrey, the original, as I take it, of his Bajazet Gay. They say that he had used Douglas very ill, that Douglas invoked this curse upon him, "that he might live to keep his carriage, and yet not be able to ride in it," and that it was fulfilled, curiously, to the letter.
Tamerlane treated his prisoner with the most condescending kindness, seated him by his side upon the imperial couch, and endeavored to solace him by philosophical disquisitions upon the mutability of all human affairs. The annals of the day do not sustain the rumor that Bajazet was confined in an iron cage.
Bajazet was taken prisoner in the war that followed. Kept, probably only as a precaution, in an iron cage, Bajazet attended the marches of his conqueror, and died on March 9, 1403. Two years later, Timour also passed away on the road to China. Of his empire to-day nothing remains. Far different was the fate of the Ottoman monarchy.
The army that Bajazet had sent into Russia was overwhelmed with so dreadful a tempest of snow, that to shelter and preserve themselves from the cold, many killed and embowelled their horses, to creep into their bellies and enjoy the benefit of that vital heat.
Other cities of India were taken and the authority of Tamerlane was established over a large extent of the country. Baj-a-zet', sultan of Turkey, now determined to stop Tamerlane's eastward march. News of this reached the conqueror's ears. Leaving India, he marched to meet the sultan. Bajazet was a famous warrior. He was so rapid in his movements in war that he was called "the lightning."
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