Hungary, Bohemia and Poland then consisted of barbaric peoples just emerging into national existence.  The King of Hungary had married Euphrosine, the youngest sister of Ysiaslaf.  He immediately sent to his brother-in-law ten thousand cavaliers.  The Kings of Bohemia and of Poland also entered into an alliance with the exiled prince, and in person led the armies which they contributed to his aid.  A war of desperation ensued.  It was as a conflict between the tiger and the lion.

The annals of those dark days contained but a weary recital of deeds of violence, blood and woe, which for ten years desolated the land.  All Russia was roused.  Every feudal lord was leading his vassals to the field.  There were combinations and counter-combinations innumerable.  Cities were taken and retaken; to-day, the banners of Ysiaslaf float upon the battlements of Kief; to-morrow, those banners are hewn down and the standards of Georges are unfurled to the breeze.  Now, we see Ysiaslaf a fugitive, hopeless, in despair.  Again, the rolling wheel of fortune raises him from his depression, and, with the strides of a conqueror, he pursues his foe, in his turn vanquished and woe-stricken.  But

     “The pomp of heraldry, the pride of power,
      And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
     Alike await the inevitable hour;
      The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”

Death, which Ysiaslaf had braved in a hundred battles, approached him by the slow but resistless march of disease.  For a few days the monarch tossed in fevered restlessness on his bed at Kief, and then, from his life of incessant storms on earth, his spirit ascended to the God who gave it.  Georges was, at that time, in the lowest state of humiliation.  His armies had all perished, and he was wandering in exile, seeking new forces with which to renew the strife.

Rostislaf, grand prince of Novgorod, succeeded to the throne.  But Georges, animated by the death of Ysiaslaf, soon found enthusiastic adventurers rallying around his banners.  He marched vigorously to Kief, drove Rostislaf from the capital and seized the scepter.  But there was no lull in the tempest of human ambition.  Georges had attained the throne by the energies of his sword, and, acting upon the principle that “to the victors belong the spoils,” he had driven from their castles all the lords who had been supporters of the past administration.  He had conferred their mansions and their territories upon his followers.  Human nature has not materially changed.  Those in office were fighting to retain their honors and emoluments.  Those out of office were struggling to attain the posts which brought wealth and renown.  The progress of civilization has, in our country, transferred this fierce battle from the field to the ballot-box.  It is, indeed, a glorious change.  The battle can be fought thus just as effectually, and infinitely more humanely.  It has required the misery of nearly six thousand years to teach, even a few millions of mankind, that the ballot-box is a better instrument for political conflicts than the cartridge-box.