the fallen ramparts till the end of the day, then retreated to the Church of the Dime, which they surrounded by a palisade.  The last defenders of Kiev found themselves grouped around the tomb of Yaroslaff.  Next day they perished.  The Khan gave the boyar his life, but the “Mother of Russian cities” was sacked.  The pillage was most terrible.  Even the tombs were not respected.  All that remains of the Church of the Dime is a few fragments of mosaic in the Museum at Kiev.  St. Sophia and the Monastery of the Catacombs were delivered up to be plundered, 1240.

Volhynia and Galicia still remained, but their princes could not defend them, and Russia found herself, with the exception of Novgorod and the northwest country, under the Tartar yoke.  The princes had fled or were dead:  hundreds of thousands of Russians were dragged into captivity.  Men saw the wives of boyars, “who had never known work, who a short time ago had been clothed in rich garments, adorned with jewels and collars of gold, surrounded with slaves, now reduced to be themselves the slaves of barbarians and their wives, turning the wheel of the mill and preparing their coarse food.”

If we look for the causes which rendered the defeat of the brave Russian nation so complete, we may, with Karamsin, indicate the following:  1.  Though the Tartars were not more advanced, from a military point of view, than the Russians, who had made war in Greece and in the West against the most warlike and civilized people of Europe, yet they had an enormous superiority of numbers.  Batu probably had with him five hundred thousand warriors. 2.  This immense army moved like one man; it could successively annihilate the droujinas of the princes, or the militia of the towns, which only presented themselves successively to its blows.  The Tartars had found Russia divided against herself. 3.  Even though Russia had wished to form a confederation, the sudden irruptions of an army entirely composed of horsemen did not leave her time. 4.  In the tribes ruled by Batu, every man was a soldier; in Russia the nobles and citizens alone bore arms:  the peasants, who formed the bulk of the population, allowed themselves to be stabbed or bound without resistance. 5.  It was not by a weak nation that Russia was conquered.  The Tartar-Mongols, under Genghis Khan, had filled the East with the glory of their name, and subdued nearly all Asia.  They arrived, proud of their exploits, animated by the recollection of a hundred victories, and reinforced by numerous peoples whom they had vanquished, and hurried with them to the West.

When the princes of Galitch, of Volhynia, and of Kiev arrived as fugitives in Poland and Hungary, Europe was terror-stricken.  The Pope, whose support had been claimed by the Prince of Galitch, summoned Christendom to arms.  Louis IX prepared for a crusade.  Frederic II, as emperor, wrote to the sovereigns of the West:  “This is the moment to open the eyes of body and soul now that the brave princes on