Carl Peter Friedrich von Struensee

“ During this visit, perhaps while the court sojourned at Travendahl, Struensee perfected his ambitious projects in company with Enevold von Brandt, a former royal page who had returned to the court, and with Shack Charles, count von Rantzau-Ascheberg, to whom Struensee owed his admission to the royal service and whose high official career had been arrested largely by Russian influence. Their intrigues resulted by the end of July in the dismissal of Hoick and others, among whom were his sister Madame von der Lühe, the mistress of the robes, and other ladies attached to the person of the queen. ”

“ He is described at this period as intellectual, upright and absolutely trustworthy, but obstinate and self-opinionated to the highest degree, arguing with antiquaries about coins, with equerries about horses, and with foreigners about their own countries, always certain that he was right and they wrong, whatever the discussion might be. He shared the disgrace of his uncle when Struensee came into power, but re-entered the Danish service after Struensee’s fall at the end of 1772, working at first in the financial and economical departments, and taking an especial interest in agriculture. ”

“ With what remarkable abilities the young man must have been endowed is proved by the fact that he was able to matriculate at the University of Halle in his fourteenth year, and had not completed his twentieth when he received his degree as Doctor. In 1757, the call of his father to be chief preacher in the town church of Altona had a material influence on Struensee's fate. ”

“ They made an informal covenant that if either attained power he should help the other. But at present nothing seemed more unlikely, and Rantzau gave Struensee [Pg 198] only promises and flattery, which, however, were enough, for the young doctor was very vain, and moreover exceedingly fond of the society of titled and highly placed personages.
Struensee also visited the house of the Baron Söhlenthal, who was the stepfather of Enevold Brandt, and thus became acquainted with Christian VII.’s one-time favourite. ”

“ On arriving in the capital, Struensee occupied himself for awhile with his duties as surgeon. He employed the confidence he had acquired with the king in drawing the young autocrat's attention to the state of his health, arousing in him a liking for employment, and making him lead a more regular course of life. He spoke with him openly and fearlessly about everything that he considered right, although he frequently discovered that he offended the king by doing so. ”

“ It had always been Struensee's ambition to play a great part in the world and realize his dream of reform. He had gathered from various Danish friends, most of them involuntary exiles of doubtful character, that the crazy, old-fashioned Dano-Norwegian state, misruled by an idiot, was the fittest subject in the world for the experiments of a man of superior ingenuity like himself ”

“ Münter, at that time provost of the German Peter's church in Copenhagen.
This worthy divine has left us an account of Struensee's conversion, which everybody used to read in [Pg 188] the last century, but is utterly forgotten now. It is invaluable, however, for a proper comprehension of Struensee's character. In every page we seem to have before us a weak, sensual man, incapable of resisting any persevering pressure; incredulous through levity, purified by misfortune, sincerely converted, feeling the same contempt for the judgment of posterity as for that of his contemporaries ”

“ It was almost impossible that a man could work at so high a pressure without injury; it could only be possible if he took the greatest heed of himself, carefully guarded his bodily health, and led a regular and abstemious life. Two of Struensee’s greatest contemporaries, who achieved most in the world, Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great, were careful to lead simple, abstemious lives; [8] but Struen [Pg 20] see was by nature a voluptuary, and he lived the life of the senses as well as the life of the intellect. ”

“ This clemency, so different from what had been shown to his brother, was due to the interposition of the King of Prussia, who had kept Struensee’s position as professor of medicine at Liegnitz open for him, and with whom he was a favourite. Justice Struensee eventually became a Minister of State in Prussia.
Falckenskjold, who was considered the worst of all the offenders after Struensee and Brandt, was stripped of all his employments and honours, and condemned to be imprisoned for life in the fortress of Munkholm. ”

“ Struensee merely contented himself with weakening the immense power Holck exercised over Christian, by encouraging his feeble master to feel a greater pride in himself. As, too, Struensee never took advantage of his position to obtain gratifications for himself or his friends, he rose the higher in the respect of all persons whose respect was worth having, with whom he came in contact in foreign countries; and that the frivolous young king not only took pleasure in Struensee's clever conversation, but also granted him a certain degree of respect, he proved on every possible opportunity. ”

“ RESTRICTIONS ON THE PRESS—THE PAMPHLETEERS—THE KING AT HOME—THE FIGHT WITH BRANDT—THE MASTER OF THE WARDROBE—COURT AMUSEMENTS—THE TOWN COMMANDANT—PUBLIC DISAFFECTION—THE FOOT GUARDS—THE MUTINY—VISIT TO FREDERIKSBERG—BEHAVIOUR OF THE CITIZENS—STRUENSEE GIVES WAY—COLONEL KEITH.
While Struensee thus continued to augment the number of his enemies, he, however, began to take some measures of security. ”

“ Animals have more care for their young, and Count Struensee will not attain the honour of being placed in the same class with them. As he asserts that he possesses intelligence, all this was done by him through sheer arrogance and malice against the king's son, whose life was endangered by his advice given as doctor; and as God has hitherto held His hand over him, it is no merit of Struensee that he is still alive. ”

“ Within two short years, Struensee had made really gigantic strides on the slippery path of court favour. By his elevation to the rank of a privy cabinet minister and of count, fourteen months after his appointment as reader to the king and cabinet secretary to the queen, he had attained the highest post in the kingdom. Possessing the unbounded confidence of the most absolute monarch in Europe, he stood immediately next to the throne, and the world gazed in amazement upon his fortune and his reforms. ”

“ This inconsistency has never been satisfactorily explained in any of the books written on Struensee and his administration. His admirers pass it over as lightly as possible. His enemies say that it reveals the man in his true colours as a sorry rogue; but this theory will not hold, for the courage and resource which Struensee showed all through his career until the last few months give it the lie. The key to the mystery is probably to be found in physical causes. ”

“ If Struensee's enemies had not been his accusers and judges, they would not have compared a small present made to the queen with what the king gave to simple private persons without fortune, whom he had summoned and admitted to his familiarity. They would not have pretended to be ignorant why Struensee wrote the accounts of May, 1771, and did not write the following accounts when he had ceased to be cabinet secretary.—Falckenskjold, p. ”

“ Struensee remained at Altona for a few weeks after the King had left for Copenhagen to sell his house, pay his debts and wind up his affairs. He visited his parents at Schleswig to receive their congratulations and take leave of them. His father shook his head doubtfully over his godless son’s rapid rise in the world, and his mother warned him against the perils and temptations of the wicked court. But Struensee, flushed with his success, was in no mood to listen to their croakings. He believed in himself, and he believed in his destiny. “Everything is possible,” he said. ”

“ In excuse for Struensee's offences against the national pride of the Danes, it may be alleged, however, that several of the ministers before him did not understand Danish. The same was the case with Schulin, the recently-dismissed Bernstorff, Berkentin, Ahlefeldt, and many high officials, both military and civil, but never in the Admiralty. [158]
Many men of position, who had either caused [Pg 361] Struensee's summons to court, or had been devoted to him, became gradually indisposed, and, at last, even hostile to him. At the head of the latter stood Count Rantzau-Ascheberg. ”

“ After three years' working in the dark, the cabinet secretary, who occupied Struensee's post, had thus acquired the governmental authority. The revolution was ostensibly undertaken with the object of bringing the sovereign power again into the hands of the king alone; but as the mental condition of Christian VII. did not permit this, Queen Juliana Maria assumed Struensee's part, though only indirectly, and through the medium of her other self, Guldberg, as her sex [281] did not permit her to preside in person over the council of state. ”

“ No prosecution for libels took place in Denmark or Norway during Struensee's ministry, and only in the duchies an exchequer process was instituted against Count [Pg 58] Waldemar von Schmettau for the "Pages for the Love of Truth," published by him. Struensee's own father, the superintendant-general of the duchies, denounced the author to the chief consistory of Gluckstädt as a blasphemer.
The new regulations at first kept the literary partisans in some check, and toned down the former coarse and unbridled attacks on the government. ”

“ Struensee, by making himself the inspirer, could not hope to remain long concealed; in fact, everybody saw his movements already. The king, who eagerly took up the idea of imitating his brother of Prussia, ere long had a stereotyped answer for everything: "Apply to Struensee." Hence, there was a Grand Vizier, and surely the nation did not gain much by suppressing four ministers assembled in council, and giving the power to one man. ”

“ For, though Struensee's enemies were so numerous, they as yet had no nucleus round which to gather. A fervent hatred of the minister filled all hearts, but fear kept the bitterness in check: they shouted and roared, but obeyed the authority, until the right leaders were found in the higher circles. These persons were Queen Juliana Maria, the hereditary Prince Frederick Guldberg, the prince's private secretary, Count Rantzau-Ascheberg, Colonels von Eickstedt and Von Köller, and the serviceable Beringskjold. ”

“ The intercourse between them proved in every way that they loved each other; they sought one another, were delighted to meet; in a word, love was revealed in that manner which can be perceived but not described. If at times they quarrelled, Struensee said that the queen was jealous of him, and accused him of not being so amiable as usual, and hence Struensee was always obliged to dance with the oldest ladies at balls. Brandt also declares that Struensee made him a "confidence" of this amourette, and said that he could make love to the queen best at the masquerade. ”

“ Struensee was a great reformer, and the intrepidity with which he carried out his theories compels admiration, but like many other reformers he neglected to temper his zeal with discretion. Perhaps he had an instinct that his day would not be long, for he was a reformer in a hurry. Within a few [Pg 294] months after the abolition of the Council of State he revolutionised the government of the kingdom. By a series of royal decrees, nominally issued by the King, he reformed every department of the state. ”

“ As a reward for curing the crown prince, Struensee was appointed reader to the king, and cabinet secretary to the queen, with an annual salary of 3,000 dollars, and, directly after, the title of Conferenzrath was bestowed upon him. Although people were accustomed at that day to see men who had powerful patrons overwhelmed with titles, still Struensee's sudden elevation attracted the greater notice, because he was of bourgeois origin, and had no noble protectors. ”

“ Struensee acted on the principle that, in order to make nations progress, nothing further was required than to realise by edicts the principles of the [99] French philosophers and German illuminati. After the fashion of many other world-betterers of the age, he did not know or reflect that it is far more difficult to lead the unjudging masses to what is good, than to what is bad; that the most absurd prejudices of the plebs must be humoured far more than the noblest human privileges ”

“ He must be a simple doctor who merely knows that there is a heart in the human body, but not where it is seated, and what parts are connected with it or have influence over it. Any man who did not wish merely to play the harlequin, but maintain his honour, ought to be acquainted with the duties of the regent and the people. Struensee could have seen in the Danish and Norwegian code, and in the Lex Regia of Frederick III. of blessed memory, signed on November 14, 1665, that sovereignty, but not despotism, is granted to the king. ”

“ While intrigues were being privately formed against Struensee, public attacks were also made upon him. Repeatedly when the king changed horses at Sorgenfrie, on his journey to Copenhagen, petitions and calumnies were thrown into his coach. The number of caricatures and placards posted up constantly increased; and in pamphlets their Majesties were attacked, and the man accused and ridiculed to whom the freedom of the press was owing. The sailors' feast also gave scope for the most unbridled attacks upon Struensee. ”