Lavigne was a man of a rude and brutal frankness; he always said what was uppermost in his mind, quite regardless of the feelings of his hearer. The consequence was that Roostem himself shrank from meeting him, although other people were afraid of conversing with Roostem on account of the rudeness of his language. Lavigne would send his dragomans to demand an audience for himself; Roostem would make excuses, and tell him to communicate what he wanted through them, and spare himself the trouble, assuring him that it could be done just as well without his coming. But this used to be all in vain, for he would presently come and say such things as seldom failed to give offence to Roostem. To take an instance, he one day complained that they did not have as much regard for his master as they ought to have. ‘For what is your opinion?’ said he; ‘perhaps you think Buda, Gran, Stuhlweissenburg, and the other towns of Hungary were taken by your valour, but you are quite mistaken. It is through us you hold them. For had it not been for the quarrels and perpetual wars, which have existed between our Kings and those of Spain, you would have been so far from being able to get possession of those towns, that scarcely at Constantinople itself would you have been safe from Charles V.’ Roostem bore this no longer, but burst into a violent passion, and exclaimed, ‘Why do you talk to me of your Kings and those of Spain? Such is the power of my master that, if all your Christian princes were to unite their forces and make war on him at once, he would not care a straw for it, and would win an easy victory over them all.’ With these words he retreated to his chamber in a rage, after ordering the Ambassador to leave.
I cannot here omit what I learnt about a tribe[244] which still dwells in the Crimea, which I had often heard showed traces of a German origin in their language, customs, and lastly in their face and habit of body. Hence I had long been eager to see one of that tribe, and, if possible, to procure from them something written in that language; but in this I was unsuccessful. However, at last an accident in some measure satisfied my wishes, as two men had been sent to Constantinople from those parts, to lay before the Sultan some complaints or other in the name of that tribe. My dragomans fell in with them, and recollecting my orders on the subject, they brought them to me to dinner.