t those who had already beheld me should
return home, and not presume to come within fifty yards of my house
without license from court; whereby the secretaries of state got
considerable fees.

In the meantime, the emperor held frequent councils, to debate what
course should be taken with me; and I was afterwards assured by a
particular friend, a person of great quality, who was as much in the
secret as any, that the court was under many difficulties concerning me.
They apprehended my breaking loose; that my diet would be very
expensive, and might cause a famine. Sometimes they determined to starve
me, or at least to shoot me in the face and hands with poisoned arrows,
which would soon despatch me: but again they considered that the stench
of so large a carcase might produce a plague in the metropolis, and
probably spread through the whole kingdom.

In the midst of these consultations, several officers of the army went
to the door of the great council-chamber, and two of them being
admitted, gave an account of my behavior to the six criminals
above-mentioned, which made so favorable an impression in the breast of
his majesty, and the whole board, in my behalf, that an imperial
commission was issued out, obliging all the villages nine hundred yards
round the city to deliver in, every morning, six beeves, forty sheep,
and other victuals, for my sustenance; together with a proportionable
quantity of bread and wine, and other liquors; for the due payment of
which his majesty gave assignments upon his treasury. For this prince
lives chiefly upon his own demesnes, seldom, except upon great
occasions, raising any subsidies upon his subjects, who are bound to
attend him in his wars at their own expense. An establishment was also
made of six hundred persons, to be my domestics, who had board-wages
allowed for their maintenance, and tents built for them very
conveniently on each side of my door.

It was likewise ordered that three hundred tailors should make me a suit
of clothes, after the fashion of the country; that six of his majesty's
greatest scholars should be employed to instruct me in their language;
and lastly, that the emperor's horses, and those of the nobility and
troops of guards, should be frequently exercised in my sight, to
accustom themselves to me.

All these orders were duly put in execution, and in about three weeks I
made a great progress in learning their language; during which time the
emperor frequent