_Louis_.--Who, sir, could have thought, when you were learning the trade
of a shipwright in the dockyards of England and Holland, that you would
ever acquire, as I had done, the surname of "Great."

_Peter_.--Which of us best deserved that title posterity will decide. But
my greatness appeared sufficiently in that very act which seemed to you a
debasement.

_Louis_.--The dignity of a king does not stoop to such mean employments.
For my own part, I was careful never to appear to the eyes of my subjects
or foreigners but in all the splendour and majesty of royal power.

_Peter_.--Had I remained on the throne of Russia, as my ancestors did,
environed with all the pomp of barbarous greatness, I should have been
idolised by my people--as much, at least, as you ever were by the French.
My despotism was more absolute, their servitude was more humble. But
then I could not have reformed their evil customs; have taught them arts,
civility, navigation, and war; have exalted them from brutes in human
shapes into men. In this was seen the extraordinary force of my genius
beyond any comparison with all other kings, that I thought it no
degradation or diminution of my greatness to descend from my throne, and
go and work in the dockyards of a foreign republic; to serve as a private
sailor in my own fleets, and as a common soldier in my own army, till I
had raised myself by my merit in all the several steps and degrees of
promotion up to the highest command, and had thus induced my nobility to
submit to a regular subordination in the sea and land service by a lesson
hard to their pride, and which they would not have learnt from any other
master or by any other method of instruction.

_Louis_.--I am forced to acknowledge that it was a great act. When I