"The mandarin having retired with his booty, it was supposed she was rid of him, and that nothing more could be demanded from those who had been plundered of all their possessions. The two Jesuits had left to return to their own dwelling, imagining there could be nothing to fear for one who had been stripped of her property, and who, having committed no crime, seemed shielded from every other risk. In the evening it appeared that they were mistaken; for, about six o'clock, the same mandarin, accompanied by his satellites, came to demand her hidden treasures. 'I have nothing hidden,' she answered: 'if you doubt my word, you can look; you are the master here, and everything is open.' So temperate a reply appeared to irritate the ruffian. 'I will not seek,' said he, 'but, without stirring from the spot, I will compel you to bring me what I ask, or have you scourged to death.' So saying, the wretch gave the signal to the executioners, who came forward with cords to bind, and thick rattans to scourge her. These preparations at first bewildered the poor woman, thus abandoned to the fury of a ferocious brute. She uttered a loud cry, and throwing herself at his feet said, with a look that might have touched the hardest heart, 'Have pity on me!' But this barbarian answered with his accustomed fierceness, that he would have no mercy on her, ordering her to be taken and tied to the door of her room, and having her arms, hands and fingers cruelly beaten. At this sad spectacle, her grandmother, her relatives, her servants, and her son uttered cries which would have moved any one but this hardened wretch. The whole of the unhappy family cast themselves at his feet, and touching the ground with their foreheads, implored mercy, but in vain. He continued to torture her from seven to nine o'clock; and not having been able to gain anything, he carried her off, with all her family, except the grandmother, whose great age and severe illness made it impossible to remove her. "For some time no one knew what had become of Madame Constance, but at last her position was discovered. A Jesuit father was one day passing by the stables of her palace, when the lady's aunt, who shared her captivity, begged permission of the guards to address the holy man, and ask him for money, promising that they should share it. In this manner was made known the humiliating condition of this unhappy and illustrious lady, shut up in a stable, where, half dead from the sufferings she had endured, she lay stretched upon a piece of matting, her son at her side. The father daily sent her provisions, which were the only means of subsistence for herself and family, to whom she distributed food with so small a regard for her own wants, that a little rice and dried fish were all that she took for her own share, she having made a vow to abstain from meat for the rest of her life.