kly appeared and surveyed the situation. His first steps
seemed to indicate that he proposed to continue the siege, the troops
being formed into a besieging army of about forty thousand men, while
the Russian fleet was ordered up to the town. But the deliberation of a
siege never accorded with Suwarrow's ardent humor. His real purpose was
to take the place by storm. He had taken Otchakof in this way the
previous year with heavy loss, and with the slaughter of twenty thousand
Turks. He now, on the 21st of September, twice summoned the city to
surrender, threatening the people with the fate of Otchakof. They
refused to yield, and the assault began at four o'clock of the following
morning.

Battalion after battalion was hurled against the walls: the slaughter
from the Turkish fire was frightful, but the stern commander hurled ever
new hosts into the pit of death, and about eight o'clock the summit of
the walls was reached. But the work was yet only begun. The city was
defended street by street, house by house. It was noon before the
Russians, fighting their way through a desperate resistance, reached the
market-place, where were gathered a body of the Tartars of the Crimea.
For two hours these fought fiercely for their lives, and after they had
all fallen the Turks kept up the conflict with equal desperation in the
streets. At length the gates were thrown open and Suwarrow sent his
cavalry into the city, who charged through the streets, cutting down all
whom they met. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when the butchery
ended, after which the city was given up for three days to the mercy of
the troops. According to the official report, the Turks lost forty-three
thousand in killed and prisoners, the Russians forty-five hundred in
all; the one estimate probably as much too large as the other was too
small.

We may conclude with the story of Suwarrow's career in Italy and
Switzerland against the armies of the French republic. The plan which
the Russian conqueror had marked out on the slate for the Austrian
generals was literally fulfilled. In less than three months he had
cleared Lombardy and Piedmont of the troops of France. He forced the
passage of the Adda against Moreau and his army, compelling the French
to abandon Milan, which he entered in triumph. His next success was at
Turin, a depot of French supplies, towards which Moreau was hastily
advancing. The Russians took the city by surprise, driving the French
garris