"In three days your friend the secretary will be directed to come
to your house, and read before you the articles of impeachment; and
then to signify the great lenity and favour of his majesty and
council, whereby you are only condemned to the loss of your eyes,
which his majesty does not question you will gratefully and humbly
submit to; and twenty of his majesty's surgeons will attend, in
order to see the operation well performed, by discharging very
sharp-pointed arrows into the balls of your eyes, as you lie on the
ground.

"I leave to your prudence what measures you will take; and to avoid
suspicion, I must immediately return in as private a manner as I
came."

His lordship did so; and I remained alone, under many doubts and
perplexities of mind.

It was a custom introduced by this prince and his ministry (very
different, as I have been assured, from the practice of former
times,) that after the court had decreed any cruel execution,
either to gratify the monarch's resentment, or the malice of a
favourite, the emperor always made a speech to his whole council,
expressing his great lenity and tenderness, as qualities known and
confessed by all the world. This speech was immediately published
throughout the kingdom; nor did any thing terrify the people so
much as those encomiums on his majesty's mercy; because it was
observed, that the more these praises were enlarged and insisted
on, the more inhuman was the punishment, and the sufferer more
innocent. Yet, as to myself, I must confess, having never been