“Yes,” she said, “in your country it is eleven days older.”

“Would it not be worthy of your majesty to put Russia on an equality with the rest of the world in this respect, by adopting the Gregorian calendar?  All the Protestants have done so, and England, who adopted it fourteen years ago, has already gained several millions.  All Europe is astonished that the old style should be suffered to exist in a country where the sovereign is the head of the Church, and whose capital contains an academy of science.  It is thought that Peter the Great, who made the year begin in January, would have also abolished the old style if he had not been afraid of offending England, which then kept trade and commerce alive throughout your vast empire.”  “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——­ "