officer was assassinated by Dominican monks; and as Hubert, one of our
comrades, was passing in the evening through a secluded street, three men
threw themselves on him and wounded him severely; and he would doubtless
have been killed if the grenadiers of the guard had not hastened to his
assistance, and delivered him from their hands. It was the monks again.
At length the Emperor, much incensed, gave orders that the convent of the
Dominicans should be searched; and in a well was found the corpse of the
aforesaid officer, in the midst of a considerable mass of bones, and the
convent was immediately suppressed by his Majesty's orders; he even
thought at one time of issuing the same rigorous orders against all the
convents of the city. He took time for reflection, however, and
contented himself by appointing an audience, at which all the monks of
Valladolid were to appear before him. On the appointed day they came;
not all, however, but deputations from each convent, who prostrated
themselves at the Emperor's feet, while he showered reproaches upon them,
called them assassins and brigands, and said they all deserved to be
hung. These poor men listened in silence and humility to the terrible
language of the irritated conqueror whom their patience alone could
appease; and finally, the Emperor's anger having exhausted itself, he
grew calmer, and at last, struck by the reflection that it was hardly
just to heap abuse on men thus prostrate on their knees and uttering not
a word in their own defense, he left the group of officers who surrounded
him, and advanced into the midst of the monks, making them a sign to rise
from their supplicating posture; and as these good men obeyed him, they
kissed the skirts of his coat, and pressed around him with an eagerness
most alarming to the persons of his Majesty's suite; for had there been
among these devotees any Dominican, nothing surely could have been easier
than an assassination.

During the Emperor's stay at Valladolid, I had with the grand marshal a