The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-30
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tH Moskova river. rises the most mymyet renowned of the seven hills of tEE5fJ the Russian Rome On the Hill of fhe Pilgrim or Hill of Salutation tho pilgrims were wont to bow in awe and cross themselves while they salated Holy Mother Moscow" There too. the poor wretches condemned to a Siberian exile were privileged to pause and feast their sad eyes before taking up their chains for the long march to the grave of the living dead.
 vulgarly the height is called Sparrow Hill, and it's cafes now are the resort of the tea bibbers of the city. Close by where the samovars enthroned to- .day,, Napoleon stood on a sunny after noon in September. 1872, and looking across the wide fields of the convent in the river bed. gazed upon the ivory white walls and gaily painted roofs. upon the forest spires. towers, pnnacles and min arets, upon the countless domes of gold and green and blue that form the unique and dazzling panorama of Moscow. 'It is timel It is timer he sighed his eyes rested on the city of many and wonderful colors where the sunbeams turned to shimmering gold the lacy chains falling like veis over the eight pointed Russian crosses, which sprang from their cres- cents as if to symbolize the triumph of the Christian over the Moslem
 He had paid terrible price for that sight from Sparrow Hill, but then it was one that never before had been be- held by conqueror out of the west Did not the tears freeze the youthful cheeks of Charles XII of Sweden because he was denied the joy of looking upon those clustered towers of the Kremlin?
 A Mute City
 With Moscow at his feet. all the capi- sals of the European continent had knelt and kissed the sword of Napoleon. Since. \ as long haired, unknown boy, he had cowed wanton Paris with his whif of grapeshot IT years before, he had bound in garland of victories about his brow. Turin. Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome. Genoa, Parma, Berne, Lisbon, Warsaw, Munich, Stuttgart, Carlsruhe, Cassel, Hamburg. Amsterdam and Naples. Twice he had received the keys of Vienna. The Brandenhurg gate had opened wide for his triumphant entry into Berlin. Naughty Madrid had trembled and fallen beneath his glance from the heights of Chamar- tin. Moscow had cost him dear, but 1t was the rarest capital in his collection.
 Before possessing himself of his fair captive, of this oriental beauty that he had spent 100000 lives to win, he wished the world his dramatic sense and thrill; the world by making a nimposins spec - tace of her abject surrender and of his own masnanimity. For no conqueror's chains ever were lighter than his, as all the cities that had worn them could tes- tify.
 While he waited for his vanguard to ar range a fitting ceremonial of the delivery of the keys, the city of the Czars lay as if in a languorous afternoon slumher on the banks of the Moskova. No murmur rose from behind her walls. Not wreath of smoke floated above her chimneys.
 The report crept up the hill that Mos deserted and that even it's keys gone. But the startling rumor sank to a whisper as 1t reached the outer cir cle of the group about Napoleon. When, at last, some one dared repeat it to him. he refused to believe it and dispatched members of his staff into the mute city to search out the members of the nobility in their hiding places
 In their Spanish pride the people os Madrid had hid from him, but they had not fled their homes and forsake1 their capital city of 300,000 depopulated? The sacred city of the empire abandoned? All those great palaces deserted? Ths altals of those 300 churches intended? C'est inpossiblei
 -ts . the amazing situation slowly dawned upon him he passed into vous paroxysm. Trotting to and fro, pull ing on and pulling off his gloves or roll ing his handkerchief into ball, the only sound that escaped his tightly pressed lips was an occasional cough. His face was clouded, his features were convulsed and his whole body quivered. And hav- ing always warned his suite to beware when his right leg twitched his officers stood dumb and motionless in the back ground. When finally convinced of the truth, he still persisted in his desire for a ceremony, and declining to enter the city until the next day. he passed the night in the odorous squalor of an aban- doned house by one of the gates.
 The Flight of the People