Condition of Alexis--The two tribunals--Their powers--The Czar calls for a decision--His addresses to the two councils--Deliberation of the clergy--Their answer--Their quotations from Scripture--Cautious language used by the bishops--They suggest clemency and mercy--Additional confessions made by Alexis--The priest--Tolstoi sent to Alexis--The Czar's three final questions--Alexis's three answers--His account of the manner in which he had been educated--His feelings toward his father--His attempts to maim himself--His treasonable designs--Alexis's confession sent to the council--Decision of the council--The promise of pardon--Forfeiture of it--Conclusion of the sentence--The signatures--The 6th of July--The Czar's mental struggles--Alexis brought out to hear his sentence--Overwhelmed with dismay--Visit of his father--Sorrowful scene--Alexis sends a second time for his father--His death--Czar's circular--The body laid in state--Rumors circulated--Funeral ceremonies--The opposition broken up--The mother of Alexis--Afrosinia--The Czar pardons her The examinations and investigations described in the last chapter were protracted through a period of several months. They were commenced in February, and were not concluded until June. During all this time Alexis had been kept in close confinement, except when he had been brought out before his judges for the various examinations and cross-examinations to which he had been subjected; and as the truth in respect to his designs became more and more fully developed, and the danger in respect to the result increased, he sank gradually into a state of distress and terror almost impossible to be conceived. The tribunals before whom he was tried were not the regular judicial tribunals of the country. They were, on the other hand, two grand convocations of all the great official dignitaries of the Church and of the state, that were summoned expressly for this purpose--not to _decide_ the case, for, according to the ancient customs of the Russian empire, that was the sole and exclusive province of the Czar, but to aid him in investigating it, and then, if called upon, to give him their counsel in respect to the decision of it. One of these assemblies consisted of the ecclesiastical authorities, the archbishops, the bishops, and other dignitaries of the Church. The other was composed of nobles, ministers of state, officers of the army and navy in high command, and other great civil and military functionaries. These two assemblies met and deliberated in separate halls, and pursued their investigations in respect to the several persons implicated in the affair, as they were successively brought before them, under the direction of the Czar, though the final disposal of each case rested, it was well understood, with him alone.