ing of founding an imperial library With the accession of FaiaiTii to the position of royal scnbe, she found a powerful ally For many people die quality of Irulan's scholarship remained in dispute When she was a child ho1 father had given her access to certain rare volumes' in the royal archives, but during her lifetime no one was sufficiently interested in her work to investigate the value of tins background-even though she had certain important works copied for the new library After the accession of Leto U, she continued her own writing and also edited the works of others, producing biographies, collections of others' sayings, dictionaries, his tones, and the editions Among these were the Fremen Sulgar's private papers, and her editing of them vastly improved his style Over the years she became a skilled interviewer, the sympathy of her expression in- spired confidence and no doubt explains the frankness of the intimations she elicited from her subjects Thirty years after Leto's accession, she returned to Wdllach IX, where she died in comparative obscurity Irulan never had a sense of being 'drunk on too much time knowing only too well the crude jokes about the possible anagrams of her name, she sought refuge in quiet dignity and careful work From her research, she knew that Irene was an ancient Greek word meaning peace and, never using any of her royal titles as pen names, she signed many of her works with the simple logo "IR" During her last thirty years on Arrakis, rumors persisted of romances, first with Duncan Idaho 10235, and later with the son of Ghanima and Farad'n, but these were ill founded Irulan ever remained the Virgin Queen A hundred years following her death, her works were ' discovered, ' and some time after that a movement of veneration for St Irulan the Virgin developed among the populace That Irulan could counter tradition and remain virginal gave her special signifi cance m the years after her death Not mere ly her scholarship but also her independence of viewpoint and her transcendence of physical demands led to an idealization of her Only through her did women come to realize that the Impenum standards were almost totally male chauvinistic, even the Lady Jessica, austere as she could be at most times, once descended to a remark about Alia s lovers and spoke of "horns on Duncan Idaho That unfounded rumors about Irulan s possible Io\ers were circulated during her lifetime only served to emphasize the neces sity for alternative thinking, and for a union of women who refused to acquiesce to the subservience of the breeding body The cult of the Virgin which developed with Irulan's inspiration and IruLan as model, a hundred years after her death, was an idea whose time should have come sooner, as later enthu siasts agreed With the eventual decline of the Bene Gessent, with the development of women militia-the Fish Speakers-under Leto II, a cult of the Virgin received much support from young women as an alternative to