Vasili III. required no more; his palace in the Kremlin consisted, on the _bel étage_, of the vestibule, an anti-chamber, and two rooms. In a separate building, reached by a corridor or covered staircase, the bathroom and storerooms. Above the _bel étage_, either a large open loft, or a belvedere pierced with windows on all sides and communicating with the terrace. The apartments reserved for the children, and for relations of the sovereign, were in separate buildings offering similar accommodation. The roof was invariably ornamented with carved wood-work and with gay colours. The distinctive colour for the windows of the Terem was red. Further ornamentation consisted in shaping the roof conical, making it arched or in superposing cones on two arches; these were furnished with small grills and covered with shingles. Each house had its private chapel, so the agglomeration of connected buildings that constituted a palace in the Kremlin in old days contained many chapels, and they now number more than a dozen. Apart from these private chapels within the palace, the Princes used the churches for the safer keeping of their treasure. Ivan III. used the Church of St Lazarus now in the palace for his treasury; his wife, the Church of St John the Baptist, near the Borovitski Gate. To steal from the church was sacrilege, to take from the house of even the Tsar, simply robbery. The churches were used as treasuries also by the nobles, and doubtless much of the church-plate throughout Russia was originally deposited for safe keeping, whilst the owners went against Tartars or Livonians. All the churches were rich, and all, time after time, were spoiled by invaders; thus hiding-places were made in or near all the old churches. Near the residence of the ruler were the very similar dwellings of the minor princes. In the days of Vasili III., of Grand Dukes even, for, as Moscow conquered other principalities, their former rulers were brought to the Kremlin and lived under the surveillance of the "Grand Prince of all the Russias," rendering him such military service as he demanded. In time these nobles became an element of danger, intriguing for the succession and quarrelling among themselves for precedence. Vasili III. was the first ruler to treat them harshly and he spared none, not even his own near relatives if he thought they aspired to the succession. To render them less dangerous they were not employed as war-leaders, men of lower rank, the drujni of the Tsar and other princes being entrusted with command in the field and acting also as governors of provinces. Burned down time after time and usually put up again in wood, Moscow, with all its conflagrations, was nearly three centuries before it contained a dwelling-house of brick or stone, and more than two before enclosed with a wall. The reason being that stones of any kind were scarce in the neighbourhood of Moscow, whilst wood was plentiful.