In 1390 he accompanied the Duke of Touraine on the Barbary Crusade, an expedition organized by Genoese merchants to address North African piracy. The proposal by the doge was presented as a crusade. As such it would give prestige to its participants, a moratorium on their debts, immunity from lawsuits, and papal indulgence. The French force, consisting of 1,500 knights under the leadership of Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, lay siege to Mahdia in Tunis.