The pope eagerly embraced these offers, pronounced Daniel to be King of Russia, and sent the papal legate to appoint Roman bishops over the Greek church.  At the same time he wished to crown Daniel with regal splendor.

“I have need,” exclaimed the prince, “of an army, not of a crown.  A crown is but a childish ornament when the yoke of the barbarian is galling our necks.”

Daniel at length consented, for the sake of its moral influence, to be crowned king, and the pope issued his letters calling upon the faithful to unite under the banners of the cross, to drive the barbarians from Europe.  This union, however, accomplished but little, as the pope was only anxious to bring the Greek church under the sway of Rome, and Daniel sought only military aid to expel the Tartars; each endeavoring to surrender as little and to gain as much as possible.

One of the Christian nobles endeavored to persuade Mangou, a Tartar chieftain, of the superiority of the Christian religion.  The pagan replied;

“We are not ignorant that there is a God; and we love him with all our heart.  There are more ways of salvation than there are fingers on your hands.  If God has given you the Bible, he has given us our wise men (Magi).  But you do not obey the precepts of your Bible, while we are perfectly obedient to the instructions of our Magi, and never think of disputing their authority.”

The pride of these Tartar conquerors may be inferred from the following letter, sent by the great khan to Louis, King of France: 

“In the name of God, the all powerful, I command you, King Louis, to be obedient to me.  When the will of Heaven shall be accomplished—­when the universe shall have recognized me as its sovereign, tranquillity will then be seen restored to earth.  But if you dare to despise the decrees of God, and to say that your country is remote, your mountains inaccessible, and your seas deep and wide, and that you fear not my displeasure, then the Almighty will speedily show you how terrible is my power.”

After the death of Yaroslaf, his uncle Alexander assumed the sovereignty of the grand principality.  He was a prince of much military renown.  Bati, who was still encamped upon the banks of the Volga, sent to him a message as follows: 

“Prince of Novgorod:  it is well known by you that God has subjected to our sway innumerable peoples.  If you wish to live in tranquillity, immediately come to me, in my tent, that you may witness the glory and the grandeur of the Mogols.”

Alexander obeyed with the promptness of a slave.  Bati received the prince with great condescension, but commanded him to continue his journey some hundreds of leagues further to the east, that he might pay homage to the grand khan in Tartary.  It was a terrible journey, beneath a blazing sun, over burning plains, whitened by the bones of those who had perished by the way.  Those dreary solitudes had for ages been traversed by caravans, and instead of cities and villages, and the hum of busy life, the eye met only the tombs in which the dead mouldered; and the silence of the grave oppressed the soul.