a duke to march at the head of it, but a body without a head? Let us have a prince, who may be our master, and whom we will obey.”
These doings were no secret to the vigilant princess. She knew from whence the wind blew, and what it foreboded. Therefore she called the states together, and presented herself before them with the dignity of a terrestrial goddess, and her words flowed like honey from her pure lips.
“There is a rumour in the country,” she said to the assembly, “that you want a duke to lead you to battle, and that you consider it disgraceful henceforth to obey me. It is you, however, who have selected me by your free and unrestricted choice—not from among the men, but from the daughters of the country, and have invested me with the purple, that I may govern you according to the laws and customs of the country. Whoever can reproach me with a fault in the administration of the government, let him appear now openly, and give witness against me. But if I have administered justice, and held the reins of government in the same manner as did my father Krokus,—if I have flattened the hills, levelled the plains, and replenished the abyss, so that you may travel all over the country,—if
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