of his companions, escaped execution and was eventually ransomed. In 1399, he founded the Emprise de l'Escu vert à la Dame Blanche, a chivalric order inspired by the ideal of courtly love: "one might have supposed him cured of all chivalrous delusions after the catastrophe of Nicopolis", remarked Huizinga. In the same year, he was sent with six ships carrying 1,200 men to assist Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus against the Ottomans, who were besieging Constantinople. In 1401, because of his military accomplishments and his knowledge of the east, he was appointed French governor of Genoa, which had fallen to Charles VI in 1396. He successfully repelled an attack from King Janus of Cyprus, who tried to take back the city of Famagusta on Cyprus, which had been captured by Genoa. Later on, Boucicaut wanted to attack Alexandria but he was prevented by adverse winds to land there, he later went to Tripoli, then after a costly attempt to capture it, he went south to Botron which was burned and pillaged, then to Beirut on 10 August 1403, which was also sacked and 500 bundles of spices worth 30,000 ducats were taken from the Venetian warehouses there, he later went to attack Sidon then Latakia, which both showed resistance due to strong garrison, he returned to Famagusta in late August, to eventually settle in Rhodes in September, where he dispatched 500 men with two large ships who tried in vain to take Alexandria. On his return, he was defeated by the Venetians at the Battle of Modon on 7 October 1403. After some struggles in the Mediterranean the Genoese freed themselves from French rule by 1409. Boucicaut returned to France and became involved in the rivalry between Burgundy and Orléans. In the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 he commanded the French vanguard, but was captured by the English and died six years later in Yorkshire. He was buried in the Collégiale Saint-Martin, at the location of what is now the Basilica of St. Martin, Tours, in his family's chapel, with the epitaph "Grand Constable of the Emperor and of the Empire of Constantinople." Notes References Anonymous, Le Livre des faits du bon messire Jehan le Maingre, dit Boucicaut. maréschal de France et gouverneur de Jennes Châtelet, Albert, L' âge d'or du manuscrit à peintures en France au temps de Charles VI et les heures du Maréchal Boucicaut, Dijon 2000. Lalande,