The starving inhabitants ate the bark of trees, leaves and the most disgusting reptiles.

The streets were covered with the bodies of the dead, abandoned to the dogs.

Crowds of skeleton men and women wandered through the fields, in vain seeking food, and ever dropping in the convulsions of death.

Christian faith is stunned in the contemplation of such woes, and yet it sees in them but the fruits of man's depravity.

The enigma of life can find no solution but in divine revelation--and even that revelation does but show in what direction the solution lies.
Mstislaf of Novgorod, encouraged by his military success, and regardless of the woes of the populace, entered into an alliance with Constantin, promising, with his aid, to drive Georges from the throne, and to place the scepter in the hands of Constantin.