At Ratisbon, disappointment greeted him.  The emperor whom he had come so far to see in person failed to appear.  Unwilling to accede to the plan of co-operation, afraid to give an open refusal, Frederic simply avoided hearing the request.  Essentially lazy, he shrank from committing himself to a difficult enterprise, nor was his ambition tempted by possible glory.  It had cost no pang to refuse the crown of Bohemia and Hungary.  But even had he been personally ambitious he might still have been slow to lend his adherence to the duke’s project, in the not unnatural dread lest the flashing renown of the greatest duke of the Occident might throw a poor emperor as ally into the shade.  The very warmth of Philip’s reception in Germany had chilled Frederic.  From a retreat in Austria, he sent his secretary, AEneas Sylvius, to represent him at Ratisbon, a substitution far from pleasing to the visitor.

There were other defections, too, from the diet.  None of those present was in a position to aid Philip in furthering his schemes.  The matter was brought forward and laid on the table to be discussed at the next diet, appointed to meet in November at Frankfort.  But Philip would not wait for that.  Germany did not agree with him.  He was not well.  Rumours there were of various kinds about his reasons for returning home.  They do not seem to require much explanation, however.  He had not been met half way in Germany and was highly displeased at the failure.  Declining all further entertainment proffered by the cities, he travelled back to Besancon by way of Stuttgart and Basel.  In the early autumn he was at Dijon.

During this summer, negotiations about Charles’s marriage had continued.  The Duke of Bourbon was inclined to chaffer about the dowry demanded by Philip.  One of the estates asked for was Chinon, and it was urged that it, a male fief, was not capable of alienation.  Philip was not inclined to accept this reason as final and the negotiations hung fire, much to the distress of the Duchess of Bourbon, who feared a breach between her husband and brother.  Naive are the phrases in one of her letters as quoted by Chastellain[11]: 

    “MY VERY DEAR SEIGNEUR AND BROTHER,

“I have heard all Boudault’s message from you ...  To be brief, Monseigneur is content and ready to accede the points that you demand.  It seems to me that you ought to give him easy terms and that you ought to put aside any grudge you may cherish against him.  Monseigneur, since I consider the thing as done, I beg you to celebrate the nuptials as soon as possible although not without me as you have promised me."[12]

The king, too, was interested in the matter, and wrote as follows to Duke Philip: 

    “DEAR AND MUCH LOVED BROTHER: