e fine.

On one occasion the Czar, laying aside for the moment the system of
severity and terror which was his usual reliance for the accomplishment
of his ends, concluded to try the effect of ridicule upon the
attachment of the people to old and absurd fashions in dress. It
happened that one of the fools or jesters of the court was about to be
married. The young woman who was to be the jester's bride was very
pretty, and she was otherwise a favorite with those who knew her, and
the Czar determined to improve the occasion of the wedding for a grand
frolic. He accordingly made arrangements for celebrating the nuptials
at the palace, and he sent invitations to all the great nobles and
officers of state, with their wives, and to all the other great ladies
of the court, giving them all orders to appear dressed in the fashions
which prevailed in the Russian court one or two hundred years before.
With the exception of some modes of dress prevalent at the present day,
there is nothing that can be conceived more awkward, inconvenient, and
ridiculous than the fashions which were reproduced on this occasion.
Among other things, the ladies wore a sort of dress of which the
sleeves, so it is said, were ten or twelve yards long. These sleeves
were made very full, and were drawn up upon the arm in a sort of a
puff, it being the fashion to have as great a length to the sleeve as
could possibly be crowded on between the shoulder and the wrist. It is
said, too, that the customary salutation between ladies and gentlemen
meeting in society, when this dress was in fashion, was performed
through the intervention of these sleeves. On the approach of the
gentleman, the lady, by a sudden and dexterous motion other arm, would
throw off the end of her sleeve to him. The sleeve, being very long,
could be thrown in this way half across the room. The gentleman would
take the end of the sleeve, which represented, we are to suppose, the
hand of the lady, and, after kissing and saluting it in a most
respectful manner, he would resign it, and then the lady would draw it
back again upon her arm. This would be too ridiculous to be believed
if it were possible that any thing could be too ridiculous to be
believed in respect to the absurdities of fashion.

A great many of the customs and usages of social life which prevailed
in those days, as well as the fashions of dress, were inconvenient and
absurd. These the Czar did not hesitate to alter an