fearful, and the gates were crowded, day and night, by the women and children, the infirm and the timid seeking safety in flight. Ostei made the most vigorous preparations for defense, while the king, with untiring energy, was accumulating an army of relief. The merchants and laborers from the neighboring villages, and even the monks and priests crowded to Moscow, demanding arms for the defense of the metropolis. From the battlements of the city, the advance of the barbarians could be traced by the volumes of smoke which arose, as from a furnace, through the day, and by the flames which flashed along the horizon, from the burning cities and villages, through the night.
On the evening of the 23d of August, 1382, the Tartars appeared before the gates of the city. Some of the chiefs rode slowly around the ramparts, examining the ditch, the walls, the height of the towers, and selected the most favorable spot for commencing the assault. The Tartars did not appear in such overwhelming numbers as report had taught the Russians to expect, and they felt quite sanguine that they should be able to defend the city. But the ensuing morning dispelled all these hopes. It then appeared that these Tartars were but the advance guard of the great army. With the earliest dawn, as far as the eye could reach, the inundation of warriors came rolling on, and terror vanquished all hearts. This army was under the command of a Tartar chieftain called Toktamonish. The assault was instantly commenced, and continued without cessation four days and nights.
At length the city fell, vanquished, it is said, by stratagem rather than by force. The Tartars clambering, by means of ten thousand ladders, over the walls, and rushing through the gates, with no ear for mercy, commenced the slaughter of the inhabitants. The city was set on fire in all directions, and a scene of horror ensued indescribable and unimaginable. The barbarians, laden with booty, and satiated with blood and carnage, encamped on the plain outside of the walls, exulting
in the entireness of their vengeance. Moscow, the gorgeous capital, was no more. The dwellings of the city became but the funeral pyre for the bodies of the inhabitants. The Tartars, intoxicated with blood, dispersed over the whole principality; and all its populous cities, Vladimir, Zvenigorod, Yourief, Mojaisk and Dmitrof, experienced the same fate with that of Moscow. The khan then retired, crossing the Oka at Kolomna.
Dmitri arrived with his army at Moscow, only to behold the ruins. The enemy had already disappeared. In profoundest affliction, he gave orders for the interment of the charred and blackened bodies of the dead. Eighty thousand, by count, were interred, which number did not include the many who had been consumed entirely by the conflagration. The walls of the city and the towers of the Kremlin still remained. With great energy, the prince devoted himself to the rebuilding and the repeopling of the capital; many years, however, passed away ere it regained even the shadow of its former splendor.
Thus again Russia, brought under the sway of the Tartars, was compelled to pay tribute, and Dmitri was forced to send his own son to the horde, where he was long detained as a hostage. The grand duchy of Lithuania, bordering on Poland, was spread over a region of sixty thousand square miles. The grand duke, Jaghellon, a burly pagan, had married Hedwige, Queen of Poland, promising, as one of the conditions of this marriage which would unite Lithuania and Poland, to embrace Christianity.[3] He was married and baptized at Cracow, receiving the Christian name of Ladislaus. He then ordered the adoption of Christianity throughout Lithuania, and the universal baptism of his subjects. In order to facilitate the baptism of over a million at once, the inhabitants were collected at several central points. They were
arranged in vast groups, and were sprinkled with water which had been blessed by the priests. As the formula of baptism was pronounced, to one entire group the name of Peter was given, to another the name of Paul, to another that of John. These converts were received, not into the Greek church, which was dominant-in Russia, but to the Romish church, which prevailed in Poland. Jaghellon became immediately the inveterate foe of the Russians, whom he called heretics, for new proselytes are almost invariably inspired with fanatic zeal, and he forbade the marriage of any of his Catholic subjects with members of the Russian church. This event caused great grief to Dmitri, for he had relied upon the coöperation of the warlike Lithuanians to aid him to repel the Mogols.
Affairs were in this condition when Vassali, the son of Dmitri, escaped from the horde after a three years' captivity, and, traversing Poland and Lithuania, arrived safely at Moscow. Dmitri was now forty years of age. He was a man of colossal stature, and of vigorous health. His hair and beard were black as the raven's wing, and his ruddy cheek and piercing eye seemed to give promise of a long life. But suddenly he was seized with a fatal disease, and it was soon evident that death was near. The intellect of the dying prince was unclouded, and, with much fortitude, in a long interview, he bade adieu to his wife and his children. He designated his son Vassali, then but seventeen years of age, as his successor, and then, after offering a touching prayer, folded his hands across his breast, in the form of a cross, and died without a struggle. The grief of the Russians was profound and universal. For ages they had not known a prince so illustrious or so devoted to the welfare of his country.
The young Vassali had been but a few years on the throne when Tamerlane himself advanced with countless hordes from the far Orient, crushing down all opposition, and sweeping over prostrate nations like the pestilence which had preceded
him, and whose track he followed. Tamerlane was the son of a petty Mogol prince. He was born in a season of anarchy, and when the whole Tartar horde was distracted with civil dissensions. The impetuous young man had hardly begun to think, ere he had formed the resolve to attain the supremacy over all the Mogol tribes, to conquer the whole known world, and thus to render himself immortal in the annals of glory. Behind a curtain of mountains, and protected by vast deserts, his persuasive genius collected a large band of followers, who with enthusiasm adopted his views and hailed him their chief.