From that time the influence of Siam increased, and by the middle of the eighteenth century the subjugation of the whole of Laos was an accomplished fact. In 1767 Ayuthia was sacked by the Burmese, and Laos, which had endured the yoke of Siam with little gladness, took the opportunity to revolt. The insurrection failed, and all went on as before until early in the nineteenth century. About 1820 the King of Vien Chan, finding that he and his people were being mercilessly pillaged by the Siamese officer accredited to his Court, and having failed to obtain redress from Bangkok, caused the obnoxious official to be assassinated. A large Siamese army was at once sent against Vien Chan. Its ruler, King Anu, tried to raise the whole of Laos against the common enemy, but Luang Prabang prudently declined to take any hand in the matter. Vien Chan was taken and destroyed; its population was expelled; large numbers of people were burned alive in barns, and all manner of barbarities were practised by the invaders with the object of impressing the wrath of Siam upon the memory of the vanquished. Anu himself sought refuge in Annam, but his rendition having been obtained, he was brought to Bangkok and imprisoned in a cage, in which he presently died a mis- erable death. His son, having contrived to escape, and having thereafter been recaptured, committed suicide by precipitating himself from the summit of the pagoda in which he was incarcerated. Some of the survivors of this tragedy were used to populate the new town of Nong Kai; others were driven off in herds to more distant places; while others again were distributed as slaves
