Before entering upon any explanation, I ask
enlightenment regarding the detention of my lady of Sayn. Am I right in
surmising that she, like myself, was placed under arrest by the three
Archbishops?"
"Yes, your Highness."
"On what charge?"
"High treason."
"Against whom?"
There was a pause, during which the Archbishop did not reply.
"I need not have asked such a question," resumed the Prince, "for high
treason can relate only to the monarch. In what measure has her ladyship
encroached upon the prerogative of the Emperor?"
"Your Highness forgets that there is such a thing as treason against the
State."
"Are not members of the nobility privileged in this matter?"
"They cannot be, for the State is greater than any individual."
"I shall make a note of that, my Lord of Cologne. I believe you are in
the right, and I hope so. During my lonely incarceration," the Prince
laughed a little, "I have studied the condition of the State, arriving
at the conclusion that the greatest traitors in our land are the three
Archbishops, who, arrogating to themselves power that should belong to
the Crown, did not use that power for suppressing those other
treason-mongers, the Barons of the Rhine.
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