Three years before his death he made out the distribution of his
treasures, his money, his wardrobe, and all his furniture, in the
presence of his friends and his officers, in order that their voice
might insure, after his death, the execution of this partition, and he
set down his intentions in this respect in a written summary, in which
he massed all his riches in three grand lots. The first two were divided
into twenty-one portions, which were to be distributed among the
twenty-one metropolitan churches of his empire. After having put these
first two lots under seal, he willed to preserve to himself his usual
enjoyment of the third so long as he lived. But after his death, or
voluntary renunciation of the things of this world, this same lot was to
be subdivided into four portions. His intention was that the first
should be added to the twenty-one portions which were to go to the
metropolitan churches; the second set aside for his sons and daughters,
and for the sons and daughters of his sons, and redivided among them in
a just and proportionate manner; the third dedicated, according to the
usage of Christians, to the necessities of the poor; and, lastly, the
fourth distributed in the same way, under the name of alms, among the
servants, of both sexes, of the palace for their lifetime.
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