Struensee then took off his fur pelisse, removed his hat, and tried to undress himself, but his strength failed him in doing so, and he was obliged to ask the executioner's help. After this he produced a white handkerchief to bind his eyes with, but the executioner said that it was not necessary, and then assisted him in removing his shirt. Struensee then walked with hesitating steps the few yards leading to the block, which still reeked with the blood of his dearest friend; a stronger mind than Struensee ever possessed might have been unhinged by the dreadful scene before his eyes. He knelt down, but had great difficulty in placing himself in the proper position. As the executioner raised the axe to cut off his right hand, Münter began slowly pronouncing the words:-- "Remember Jesus Christ crucified, who died, but is risen again." The first blow fell, and with it, Struensee was attacked by violent convulsions, the result of which was, that the second blow intended to behead the poor wretch, failed. He sprang up convulsively, but the assistant seized him by the hair, and pulled him down on the block by force; even when the head was removed, a portion of the chin was left behind. The same horrors were committed on his poor corpse as on Brandt's, but I have no heart to dwell on them: let us rather agree with the poet in saying, "Excidat illa dies ævo: nec postera credant Sæcula: nos certé taceamus et obruta multa Nocte tegi nostræ patiamur crimina gentis." The mangled remains, after they had been thrown into the cart, were conveyed all through the city to the field at the other extremity, where they were to be left to moulder or be devoured by the fowls of the air. For each, four stout balks were, at equal distances, driven into the earth; a taller pole was fixed in the centre; the entrails, &c., were buried in a hole dug at the foot of the central pole; on the top the head was fixed, the pole being forced up inside the skull, through which a spike was driven to make it fast; the hand was nailed on a piece of board, placed transversely below the head; a cart wheel was fixed horizontally on the top of each of the four posts or pillars, on which a quarter of the body was exposed, made fast to the wheel by iron chains.