Here Lucifer interrupted the emperor and ordered all the historians, historiographers, authors of journals, of memoirs and chronicles, to advance, to listen to their sentence. “It is,” said he, “for the public interest, that mendacity should be punished in writers, as in those who speak falsely; but it is of equal interest that writers should be permitted to speak the truth, without flattery and without fear, to the end, that men by reading the history of their ancestors, may learn to become good, and detest the conduct of the unjust. Although it is crime that brings us subjects, _we wish_, nevertheless, that it should be punished in our empire; and it is that which constitutes the justice of the torments they feel. A prince flatters himself in vain with a fine and secret policy, if his subjects are rendered unhappy by the rules he has prescribed for their conduct; whatever colour he may take to cover his actions, and make them appear just, if they are not so in effect, which the event proves, he expects in vain the approbation, the esteem and love of his subjects. The writer who undertakes a history ought to divest himself of the sentiments of both love and hatred; he ought to have no partiality for country, relations or friends; he is the sole judge of the affairs of which he treats, and the master of princes when he describes their actions. Accordingly, _we ordain_, that Domitian and the other princes shall submit to the judgments of their historians; that the historians shall be punished for flatteries and lies; for the examination of which, we order them before the tribunals of conscience, to whom we delegate plenary authority for the decision of their cases; and as a judgment upon the geometricians, geographers, astronomers, and mathematicians, we condemn the one party to measure by minutes, seconds, and lines, the dimensions of all the provinces, kingdoms, and empires of the earth; and the others to be shut up in the planets upon which they have pretended to make observations, to the end that they may be instructed by their experience. Furthermore we decree, that afterwards, the aforesaid geometricians, geographers, astronomers, and mathematicians, to be there punished for their foolish and rash opinions.”