We have a striking record from Manuel’s own pen of his humiliation. Proper food was too dear for the purse of the heir of Constantine the Great. He was on the verge of starvation. In sharp contrast to his own wretchedness, he describes the barbaric splendour of the court of Bayezid, and the feasting in which he was too insignificant to have a share. The Osmanlis treated him with studied insolence and contempt.[473] While Bayezid was in Karamania, the old emperor repaired the walls of his capital. Churches were torn down in order to rebuild the towers on either side of the Golden Gate. They were given an ornate appearance to disguise the purpose of their having been repaired. Bayezid, informed through his couriers, sent word to John that the towers must be rased without delay, or Manuel would lose his eyes. The old emperor made haste to obey. Before the demolition was finished, he died in the arms of Eudoxia Comnena, whom he had taken for his mistress after having asked her hand for his son. Gout and debauchery rather than grief and humiliation ended his ignoble life; for he was only sixty-one, and, like his father and grandfather, had never opposed the Osmanlis with enough energy to undermine his constitution.[474] When Manuel, in the spring of 1391, returned to Brusa, he learned of his father’s death, and of the threat that had been made concerning himself. Escaping in the night, he fled to Constantinople. An ultimatum soon followed from Bayezid. Beyond the acknowledgement of vassalage and the payment of an increased tribute, Bayezid demanded the establishment of a kadi in Constantinople to judge the Moslem inhabitants. Upon the heels of his messenger came the Ottoman army. The Greeks of southern Thrace who had remained Christian were exterminated or carried off into slavery in Asia. Like locusts, the Osmanlis swarmed in all directions, and no village missed their notice up to the very walls of Constantinople.[475] The first Ottoman siege of Constantinople began. The close investment of the city ended after seven months. Bayezid, needing his army in Bulgaria to oppose Sigismund, consented to lift the siege on still harder conditions than had first been imposed. Manuel authorized the establishment of a Mohammedan tribunal in the Sirkedji quarter, and to give seven hundred houses within the city walls to Moslem settlers. Half of Galata, from the Genoese Tower to the Sweet Waters, was ceded to Bayezid, who placed there a garrison of six thousand. The tribute was once more increased, and the Ottoman treasury was allowed a tithe on the vineyards and vegetable gardens outside of the city.[476] From the minarets of two mosques, the call to prayer echoed over the imperial city, which, from this time, began to be called by the Osmanlis Istambul.[477] This was the city of promise.