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"Let e to you, E to the earth

"And I, too, will lie at your feet and declare myself your slave,

E with the others

But Elizabeth's anger was already past; only ablood into the high foaain was cale scene

of her four kneeling friends made only a comic impression upon her

She burst into a loud laugh; astonished and half angry, the kneeling men

looked up to her, and that only increased her hilarity

"Ah, this is infinitely ah; "there lie my vassals, and what vassals! Herr Lestocq, a

physician; Herr Grunstein, a bankrupt shopkeeper and now under-officer;

Herr Woronzow, chamberlain; and Alexis Razumovsky, my private secretary

And here I am, the empress of such vassals, and what sort of an empress?

An empress of four subjects, an empress without a throne and without a

croithout land and without a people--an empress who never was and

never will be an empress! And in this soleht hter"

The princess threw herself upon the divan and laughed until the tears

ran down her cheeks

"Princess," said Lestocq, rising, "these four h, will make you empress, and then it will be in your power to