"I am not brother to the King whom you judged unworthy to reign; I am a man of mean birth. Persecuted, undone, and driven from my country, I took refuge in this kingdom, after having seen my two children and my wife torn from me in the way. I devoutly submitted to the strokes which fate had laid on me, when, at the entrance of this city, I was seized by force, and constrained to labour at the building of the palace. Convinced in my mind that patience is the most necessary virtue to man, I exhorted one of my fellow-labourers to bear with resignation a dreadful evil he had met with in breaking his leg. Patience, said I to him, is so great a virtue, that it could raise a man to the throne, although he were cast into the bottom of a well.
"The King, my predecessor, heard me. This maxim shocked him, and that instant he caused me be let down into the well, from which you took me to set me on the throne.
"When a neighbouring monarch, driven by an usurper from his dominions, came to implore my assistance, I recognized in him my own Sovereign, who had unjustly stripped me of my possessions and sent me into banishment. I was not the only object of his capricious cruelties: I saw all his subjects groaning under them.
"The robbers, whom I punished, had carried off my children and reduced me to the last point of wretchedness.
"In fine, the gentleman whom I caused to be beheaded is he who violently took away my wife.
"In all these judgments, I have not had the revenge of my own particular offences in view. King of these dominions by your choice, the instrument of God upon earth, I did not think myself at liberty to yield to an arbitrary clemency, which would have weakened your power. It was my duty to execute the decrees of Providence upon such as were clearly convicted of guilt, and to cut off from society mortals too dangerous for it.
"A tyrannical King who respects not the laws, and is only directed by his passions and caprice, is the scourge of his people. If it is not lawful to make any attempt upon his life, it is still less so to grant him such assistance as would authorize him in the perpetual exercise of revenge, and in the indulgence of the injustice and atrocity of his disposition. It is even wise to deprive him of the means of it.
"Villains whose sole occupation is to attack caravans, plunder travellers, and who are accustomed to nothing but disorder, can never become useful and valuable citizens. They deserve still less to be admitted to the honour of defending their country. Banishment to them is only a return to their former life. By increasing their number, the evils of the world are rendered perpetual.
"The ravisher of a wife is a monster in society from which it ought to be freed. The man who indulges himself in this crime is capable of every other.
"Such are the motives of my conduct: severity costs me more than any one else. But I should have been unworthy of the confidence of my people, and wanting in the duties of the throne, had I not exercised it in this situation.