Ambition had ever been the ruling passion of his soul, and
now he was ambitious to suffer more, and to abuse himself more than any
other mortal had ever done.
Goaded by this impulse, he at last devised the scheme of solemnising his
own funeral. All the melancholy arrangements for his burial were made;
the coffin provided; the emperor reclined upon his bed as dead; he was
wrapped in his shroud, and placed in his coffin. The monks, and all the
inmates of the convent attended in mourning; the bells tolled; requiems
were chanted by the choir; the funeral service was read, and then the
emperor, as if dead, was placed in the tomb of the chapel, and the
congregation retired. The monarch, after remaining some time in his
coffin to impress himself with the sense of what it is to die, and be
buried, rose from his tomb, kneeled before the altar for some time in
worship, and then returned to his cell to pass the night in deep
meditation and prayer.
The shock and the chill of this solemn scene were too much for the old
monarch's feeble frame and weakened mind. He was seized with a fever,
and in a few days breathed his last, in the 59th year of his age. He had
spent a little over three years in the convent.
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