is to be regretted that the court of Rome and also
all other communions have too often ignored.

On the 1st of June the princess was sacredly affianced in the church
of St. Peter's to the prince of Moscow, the embassadors of Ivan III.
assuring the pope of the zeal of their monarch for the happy reunion
of the Greek and Latin churches. The pope conferred a very rich dowry
upon Sophia, and sent his legate to accompany her to Russia, attended
by a splendid suite of the most illustrious Romans. The affianced
princess had a special court of her own, with its functionaries of
every grade, and its established etiquette. A large number of Greeks
followed her to Moscow, hoping to find in that distant capital a
second country. Directions were given by the pope that, in every city
through which she should pass, the princess should receive the honors
due to her rank, and that, especially throughout Italy and Germany,
she should be furnished with entertainment, relays of horses and
guides, until she should arrive at the frontiers of Russia.

Sophia left Rome on the 24th of August, and after a rapid journey of
six days, arrived, on the 1st of September, at Lubec, on the extreme
southern shore of the Baltic. Here she remained ten days, and on the
10th of September embarked in a ship expressly and gorgeously equipped
for her accommodation. A sail of eight hundred miles along the Baltic
Sea, which occupied twenty days, conveyed the princess to Revel, near
the mouth of the Gulf of Finland. Arriving at this city on the 30th of
September, she remained there for rest, ten days, during which time
she was regaled with the utmost magnificence by the authorities of the
place. Couriers had been immediately dispatched, by the way of
Novgorod, to Moscow, to inform the prince of her arrival. Her journey
from Revel to lake Tchoude presented but a continued triumphal show.
On the 11th of October she reached the shores of the lake. A flotilla
of barges, decorated with garlands and pennants, here awaited her. A
pleasant sail of two days conveyed her across the lake. Immediately
upon landing at Pskov, she repaired, with all her retinue, to the
church of Notre Dame, to give thanks to Heaven for the prosperity
which had thus far attended her journey. From the church she was
conducted to the palace of the prince of that province, where she
received from the nobles many precious gifts.

After a five days' sojourn at Pskov, she left the city to continue he