"You know," she replied, with a sly smile, "that Peter the Great was not
exactly a learned man."

"He was more than a man of learning, the immortal Peter was a genius of
the first order. Instinct supplied the place of science with him; his
judgment was always in the right. His vast genius, his firm resolve,
prevented him from making mistakes, and helped him to destroy all those
abuses which threatened to oppose his great designs."

Her majesty seemed to have heard me with great interest, and was about to
reply when she noticed two ladies whom she summoned to her presence. To
me she said,--

"I shall be delighted to reply to you at another time," and then turned
towards the ladies.

The time came in eight or ten days, when I was beginning to think she had
had enough of me, for she had seen me without summoning me to speak to
her.

She began by saying what I desired should be done was done already. "All
the letters sent to foreign countries and all the important State records
are marked with both dates."

"But I must point out to your majesty that by the end of the century the
difference will be of twelve days, not eleven."

"Not at all; we have seen to that. The last year of this century will not
be counted as a leap year. It is fortunate that the difference is one of
eleven days, for as that is the number which is added every year to the
epact our epacts are almost the same. As to the celebration of Easter,
that is a different question. Your equinox is on March the 21st, ours on
the 10th, and the astronomers say we are both wrong; sometimes it is we
who are wrong and sometimes you, as the equinox varies. You know you are
not even in agreement with the Jews, whose calculation is said to be
perfectly accurate; and, in fine, this difference in the time of
celebrating Easter does not disturb in any way public order or the
progress of the Government."

"Your majesty's words fill me with admiration, but the Festival of
Christmas---- "

"I suppose you are going to say that we do not celebrate Christmas in the
winter solstice as should properly be done. We know it, but it seems to
me a matter of no account. I would rather bear with this small mistake
than grievously afflict vast numbers of my subjects by depriving them of
their birthdays. If I did so, there would be no open complaints uttered,
as that is not the fashion in Russia; but they would say in secret that I
was an Atheist, and that I disputed the infallib