all on
its knees to the haughtiness of its offended lordling.

The folly of the nobles went even farther than this. The height of their
genealogy counted for as much as its length. They would refuse to accept
positions under persons whose ancestors were shown by the books to have
been subordinate to theirs in the same positions. If it appeared that
the John of five centuries before had been under the Peter of that
period, the modern Peter was too proud to accept a similar position
under the modern John. And so it went, until court life became a
constant scene of bickering and discontent, and of murmurs at the most
trifling slights and neglects. In short, it became necessary that an
office of genealogy should be established at court, in which exact
copies of the family trees and service registers of the noble families
were kept, and the officers here employed found enough to keep them busy
in settling the endless disputes of their lordly clients.

In the reign of Theodore, the third czar of the Romanof dynasty, this
ridiculous sentiment reached its climax, and it became almost impossible
to appoint a wise man to office over a fool, if the fool's ancestors had
happened to hold the same office over those of the man of wisdom. The
fancy seemed to be held that folly and wisdom are handed down from
father to son, a conceit which is often the very reverse of the truth.

Theodore was a feeble youth, who reigned little more than five years,
yet in that time he managed to bury this folly out of sight. Annoyed by
the constant bickerings of courtiers and officials, he consulted with
his able minister, Prince Vassili Galitzin, and hit on a means of
ridding himself of the difficulty.

Proclamation was made that all the noble families of the kingdom should
deliver their service rolls into court by a fixed date, that they might
be cleared of certain errors which had unavoidably crept into them. The
order was obeyed, and a multitude of these precious documents were
brought into the palace halls of the czar. The heads of the noble
families and the higher clergy were now sent for, composing a proud
assembly, before whom the patriarch, who had received his instructions,
made an eloquent address. He ended by speaking of the claims to
precedence in the following words:

"They are a bitter source of every kind of evil; they render abortive
the most useful enterprises, in like manner as the tares stifle the good
grain; they have introduce