312 DESTRUCTION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE More success might have heen anticipated from negotia- tions with Hungary. Here, however, the three years' agreement (made eighteen months before the siege) for an armistice stood in the way. The Hungarians had received a terrible lesson — at Varna — on the breaking of treaties, and they hesitated before violating the new arrangement. Ducas and Phrantzes agree in stating that the agents of Hunyadi had come to the city in the early days of the siege and had requested the sultan, on behalf of their principal, to give back the copy of the armistice signed by him in return for that signed by Mahomet. They gave as a pretext that Hunyadi was no longer viceroy of the king of Hungary. The design was too transparent to be accepted by the Turks. 1 The idea was to suggest to the sultan that the Hungarians were coming to the aid of the city ; that they had compunc- tions about breaking the treaty, but that, as it was not signed by the prince, they had a valid excuse for so doing. To this extent what was done indicated a spirit friendly to the besieged. The sultan and his council promised to consider the proposition, and put the agents of Hunyadi off with a civil and banal reply. 2 Ducas tells a story regarding the visits of the agents of Hunyadi which may be noticed, though he is careful to give it as hearsay. He says that the officers in their suite showed the gunners how they might use their great bombard more effectually to destroy the walls by directing their fire in succession against two points instead of one, so as to form a triangle, and that the device succeeded to such an extent that the tower near the Eomanus Gate and a part of the wall on each side of it was so broken down that the besiegers and besieged could see each other. 3 1 M. Mitjatovich's suggestion that the negotiations had probably emanated from the wily cardinal who had been the evil spirit of Ladislaus, or possibly from the crafty, but unpractical, mind of George Brancovich, appears plausible. 2 Phrantzes, 326 ; Ducas, xxxviii. 3 Ducas, xxxviii.
