Carl Peter Struensee

“ 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. ”

“ After this they conversed quietly about various matters concerning Struensee's administration. The decision whether his government had been politically bad he left to posterity, and many times repeated his assurance that he was not conscious of any wrong intentions. When Dr. Münter left him, Struensee handed him the following letter for Frau von Berkentin at Pinneberg. This was the patroness who, as chief gouvernante to the prince royal, had recommended Struensee as physician in ordinary for the king's foreign tour:—
I make use of the first moments which permit me to write to you. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She received repeated visits from Christian during the early part of the year, though she lived some distance from court. The clever lady strove to employ the impression she produced on the king's mind in dragging him out of the inaction which degraded him, and helping him to cast off his inglorious bonds. Still Struensee did not agree with her on two points. The first was, that she and the Moltke party insisted on removing Holck from the king's person, which Struensee considered unnecessary, because an old favourite was less injurious than a new one. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He assumed that God set human nature first in action, but that when the machine ceased acting, i.e., when a man died, he had nothing more to hope or fear.
In the meanwhile Struensee continued to work faithfully in his profession. Some successful cures gained him a reputation, and as he was sincere and frank, never condemned others or judged too severely, he acquired numerous friends. His agreeable person and pleasant manners helped to make him a popular physician, and we can quite understand how the ladies selected the good-looking doctor to attend to their maladies, real or pretended. ”

“ The English envoy, Gunning, who was not ill-disposed toward him, expressly stated, in a despatch of April, 1770, that Struensee did not at all display in his conversation the liveliness and pleasantry by which other men pave the way to fortune. "His mode of behaving and expressing himself is dry and even unpleasant, so that it was a subject of general surprise how he contrived to acquire such unbounded influence over the king and queen." ”

“ But Struensee demanded resolution, even in court matters, and acted on the principle that, if a man wanted to reform an intriguing court, it could not be effected with paternal indulgence. Still he was frequently obliged to give way. At the small court balls, natural merriment at first prevailed, until a dancing-master, favoured by the Countess Holstein, introduced pomp and art. That she was able [Pg 343] to effect this, although the king and queen did not care fix formal dances, was ascribed to the power which she possessed over Brandt. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Justiz-rath Langebeck, keeper of the archives, a well-known historian, also accused Struensee in a pamphlet, "Liberal Thoughts on the Day of Requital," of the most scandalous things, and at the same time abused the fallen party in a truly Danish fashion, selecting his complimentary titles from the infernal regions and the entire animal kingdom, calling them sometimes murder-fiends and firebrands of hell; at others, goats, apes, brute beasts, wolves, tigers, &c. "But Juliana Maria's renown would last to the end of time, and far, far surpass that of Semiramis." ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was not a good education, for the masters were imperfectly educated themselves, but the boy was so extraordinarily precocious, and had such a thirst for knowledge, that he soon absorbed all that his [Pg 194] tutors could teach him, and began to educate himself. The wave of mysticism was then passing over northern Germany, and Struensee’s teachers were infected with it, and no doubt communicated their views to their pupil, for Struensee was all his life something of a mystic, or, to speak more correctly, a fatalist. ”

“ Probably encouraged by praise from such high quarters, the same author issued shortly after a second pamphlet, bearing the title, "To my Countrymen: Danes, Norwegians, and Holsteiners." In it he declared that it was only a reasonable feeling "if every body hated Struensee and desired vengeance upon [Pg 135] him; for all the nations of Europe would regard a people that allowed itself to be governed by a Struensee, as a vile and cowardly people, and not call the man a barbarian who removed such a monster." ”

“ When they reached the top, Münter spoke very concisely, and in a low voice, upon the words, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." After this the sentence of the Commission of Inquiry and the royal confirmation were read to Struensee, and the king's own signature was shown him. Then came the breaking of the coat of arms, [92] after which Struensee's chains were taken off. The clergyman once again went up to Struensee, and asked him various questions.
"Are you very truly sorry for all those actions by which you have offended God and man?" ”

“ Struensee’s defence to his critics was that he did not establish gambling, which already existed in Denmark; he merely sought to regulate it, and turn the craze to the benefit of the state. In this, as in many other things, he was imitating Catherine the Great, who raised money in the same way. ”