CHAPTER IV.
YEARS OF WAR AND WOE.
From 1092 to 1167.
Character of Vsevolod .-- Succession of Sviatopolk .-- His Discomfiture .-- Deplorable Condition of Russia .-- Death of Sviatopolk .-- His Character .-- Accession of Monomaque .-- Curious Festival at Kief .-- Energy of Monomaque .-- Alarm of the Emperor at Constantinople .-- Horrors of War .-- Death of Monomaque .-- His Remarkable Character .-- Pious Letter to his Children .-- Accession of Mstislaf .-- His Short but Stormy Reign .-- Struggles for the Throne .-- Final Victory of Ysiaslaf .-- Moscow in the Province of Souzdal .-- Death of Ysiaslaf .-- Wonderful Career of Rostislaf .-- Rising Power of Moscow .-- Georgievitch, Prince of Moscow.
Vsevolod has the reputation of having been a man of piety.

But he was quite destitute of that force of character which one required to hold the helm in such stormy times.

He was a man of great humanity and of unblemished morals.

The woes which desolated his realms, and which he was utterly unable to avert, crushed his spirit and hastened his death.

Perceiving that his dying hour was at hand, he sent for his two sons, Vlademer and Rostislaf, and the sorrowing old man breathed his last in their arms.
Vsevolod was the favorite son of Yaroslaf the Great, and his father, with his dying breath, had expressed the wish that Vsevolod, when death should come to him, might be placed in the tomb by his side.
These affectionate wishes of the dying father were gratified, and the remains of Vsevolod were deposited, with the most imposing ceremonies of those days, in the church of Saint Sophia, by the side of those of his father.