in state robes were his escort. Petitioners thronged the procession and their written requests were deposited in a special box carried behind the Tsar. The Tsarevich, with a long cortege, followed. The Tsaritsa was preceded by forty grooms with magnificent steeds, and her own coach drawn by ten white horses, and behind her the Tsarevna in a similar carriage drawn by eight horses. The waiting-women, to the number of twenty or more, rode astride white horses; they wore scarlet robes, white hats with yellow ribbons and long feathers; white veils hid part of their faces; top boots of bright yellow completed their costume. The guard consisted of 300 of the Streltsi with their showiest weapons, and behind them came pensioners, boyards and officers of the court."--_Zabielin._ The young Prince Peter had a small state coach to himself; it was drawn by small white ponies, and he had as a special retinue a number of dwarfs. In the golden age of the three Romanofs Moscow thrived as never before and became beautiful beyond other cities. Alexis busied himself in erecting new and better buildings where fire destroyed the old, and his example was followed by the boyards, who commenced of their own accord to build churches or to enrich those existing, and were even so western and modern as to present bells. It was under Theodore that Moscow attained its zenith and became known as the city of churches--"Forty-forties" their number, the Russian equivalent of "seventy times seven," derived from "sorokov," an ecclesiastical division, and also a "great gross"; the number actually in existence within the town limit is said to have been 1071. There were twenty-seven "Halls" within the Kremlin palaces; some twelve new courts of justice in the town; and eight royal residences in the suburbs. The boyard Dmitri Kaloshinim built a great church on the Devichi Pol-ye, and in addition to the academy in the Za-ikono-spasski Monastyr other schools were founded. The handicrafts of the west were generally practised, and many new trades learned and mastered, some 4300 foreigners being employed in Moscow in the manufacturing industries and the instruction of the citizens. It was at this period that most of the beautiful glass, faience and metal work that enriches the sacristies was produced, and then that the finest ecclesiastical buildings were erected. Some of the choicest antiquities of the Treasury (Orujen-ia Palata) date from this period. The boyards during the siege of the Poles and themselves in the Kremlin turned much of the old plate stored there into money; the specimens of earlier date had been hidden away, or were in the treasures of churches outside the Kremlin. Among the most interesting antiquities here are:--