ite
refreshing in the energetic spirit with which the populace transmitted
their sentence of repudiation to the discomfited prince, blockaded in
his palace. The citizens met in a vast gathering in the church of St.
Nicholas, and sent to him the following act of accusation:

"Why have you seized the mansion of one of our nobles? Why have you
robbed others of their money? Why have you driven from Novgorod
strangers who were living peaceably in the midst of us? Why do your
game-keepers exclude us from the chase, and drive us from our own
fields? It is time to put an end to such violence. Leave us. Go where
you please, but leave us, for we shall choose another prince."

Yaroslaf, terrified and humiliated, sent his son to the public
assembly with the assurance that he was ready to conform to all their
wishes, if they would return to their allegiance.

"It is too late," was the reply. "Leave us immediately, or we shall be
exposed to the inconvenience of driving you away."

Yaroslaf immediately left the city and sought safety in exile. The
Novgorodians then offered the soiled and battered crown to Dmitry, a
nephew of the deposed prince. But Dmitry, fearing the vengeance of the
Tartars, replied, "I am not willing to ascend a throne from which you
have expelled my uncle."

Yaroslaf immediately sent an embassador to the encampment of the
Tartars, where they were, ever eagerly waiting for any enterprise
which promised carnage and plunder. The embassador, imploring their
aid, said,

"The Novgorodians are your enemies. They have shamefully expelled
Yaroslaf, and thus treated your authority with insolence. They have
deposed Yaroslaf, merely because he was faithful in collecting tribute
for you."

By such a crisis, republicanism was necessarily introduced in
Novgorod. The people, destitute of a prince, and threatened by an
approaching army, made vigorous efforts for resistance. The two armies
soon met face to face, and they were on the eve of a terrible battle,
when the worthy metropolitan bishop, Cyrille, interposed and succeeded
in effecting a treaty which arrested the flow of torrents of blood.
The Novgorodians again accepted Yaroslaf, he making the most solemn
promises of amendment. The embassadors of the Tartar khan conducted
Yaroslaf again to the throne.

The Tartars now embraced, almost simultaneously and universally, the
Mohammedan religion, and were inspired with the most fanatic zeal for
its extension. Yaroslaf re