ng
and animated circumstances, was dispirited. Even the voice of the Church
addressed him in vain. He was utterly paralyzed; and cowardice had so
completely taken possession of his mind that when the early winter had
set in and frozen the river, so as to obliterate the obstacle that
separated him from the troops of the Khan, he was seized with
consternation, and fled in the wildest disorder from his position. He was
so alarmed that he could not even preserve any regularity on the retreat,
and all was confusion and panic.

So disgraceful an abandonment of his duty, which in other times must have
cost him his throne, if not his life, was not visited with that rigor by
the Russians which so glaring a defection deserved. The sovereign Prince
was removed to too great a distance from the people to be judged of with
precision or promptitude. The motives of his acts were not accessible
to the multitude, who, accustomed to despotism, had not yet learned to
question the wisdom of their rulers. The rapid advances that had been
made toward the concentration of the governing power in the autocratical
form, limited still more the means of popular observation and the vigor
of the popular check upon the supreme authority. The Grand Prince stood
so much aloof from his subjects, surrounded by special advisers and
court favorites, that even the language of remonstrance, which sometimes
reached his ears, was so softened in its progress that its harshness
was that of subservient admonition; and he was as little shaken by
the smothered discontent of the people as they were roused by an open
sacrifice of their interests. But not alone was this reverence for the
autocracy so great as to protect the autocrat from violent reprisals on
the part of his subjects; but the national veneration for the descendant
of St. Vladimir and the stock of Rurik was sufficient to absorb all the
indignation which the weakness or the wickedness of the Prince might have
aroused.

Ivan, however, independently of those acts of prejudice and ignorance
which preserved him from the wrath which he had so wantonly provoked,
was destined to find all the unfavorable circumstances of his position
changed into the most extraordinary and unexpected advantages. In the
crisis of his despair the fortunes of the day turned to his favor. While
he hung behind the Lugra, seeking a base and humiliating compromise at
the hands of the enemy, his lieutenant of Svenigorod, and his ally th