Danish majesty's cousin could go and return to
let him know that his good brother and ally
was leaving the palace (in which they both
were) to receive him at the queen's palace,
which you know is about a million of snails' paces
from St. James's. Notwithstanding these
difficulties and unavoidable delays, Woden, Thor,
Frigga, and all the gods that watch over the
kings of the north, did bring these two
invincible monarchs to each other's embraces, about
half an hour after four on the same evening."

Christian's life in London was bad enough;
but it was even worse in Paris, and the queen
was carefully informed of all that would most
pain and disquiet her, it being the policy of
that nest of intriguers, of which Juliana Maria
was the chief, to keep the young couple as far
sundered in both life and love as was possible.
It was not to be wondered at if she was cold and
disdainful and full of wrath and bitterness,
when her scampish husband came home after
his seven months' tour, and if she resented
Count Holck's familiarities and impertinences,
and even added the new physician, Struensee,
to her black list, as one of the tribe of her
enemies. She soon learnt a different lesson, poor
girl! Well for her if she had never done so.

But indeed Struensee's policy was at the
first quite puzzling enough to mislead her.
He wished to reconcile king and queen, he said,
and yet he enticed Frau von Gabel into a web
of circumstances, compromising in appearance
and fatal in the end. This Frau von Gabel
was a high-minded noble-hearted woman, almost
a republican in her political creed and therefore
unable to live at court, but, whether royalist
or republican, patriot before all. The king had
made certain advances to her in times gone by,
which it is scarcely necessary to say were
repulsed; but now Struensee took up the dropped
loops, and, assuring Frau von Gabel that the
king was in every way reformed, and that he did
really need her ennobling influence to keep him
in the right way, urged her to admit his visits
again—she, the Egeria to his Numa. Frau
von Gabel consented; but soon found that all
this talk of Christian's great improvement was
mere moonshine; he was as bad as ever, and
a little more mad; and the character of Egeria
was soon sought to be brought down to a lower
level and to baser purposes. When she found
this out, and deception was no longer possible,
the poor lady died of grief; and the strange
intrigue about which no satisfactory theory as
to why it was, and to what use, came to an
end. She died, hating Struensee: whom the
queen hated too, for his share in the plot.

At that time, then, there was no love between
the doctor and the queen; but soon after this,
the crown prince—her little baby—had the
smallpox, and old enmities were forgotten in the new
conditions of help and trust this set up between
them. Ever after this illness Caroline Matilda
admitted Struensee into her intimate friendship;
and so began the drama which ended in a cruel
and a bloody tragedy. She was imprudent to
an almost insane extent; she drove out alone
with the handsome young doctor, walked
with him alone, rode with him alone; at the
court balls she danced chiefly with him, and
suffered him to address her in a tone of temper
and command, to say the least of it, astounding.
These follies, and more to the back of
them, got the young queen much ill will, and
caused many a biting comparison to be
instituted between her and Mary Stuart, with
Struensee for Rizzio. Together with her
character, whether rightfully or wrongfully, the
queen began to lose something of her sweet
English modesty, and to play unwomanly pranks
in public quite as damaging as vices. She
hunted daily, bestriding her horse in man
fashion, and dressed as a man in "a dove
coloured beaver hat with a deep gold band and
tassels, a long scarlet coat faced with gold all
round, a buff gold laced waistcoat, frilled shirt,
man's neckerchief, and buckskin small-clothes
and spurs. She looked splendidly when mounted
and dashing through the woods, but when she
dismounted the charm was to a great degree
dispelled, for she appeared shorter than she
really was; the shape of her knees betrayed her
sex, and her belt seemed to cut her in two." At
other times, when dressed like a woman, she was
one of the most beautiful women of her time.

Struensee's political power was as great as
his personal influence. The whole power of
the state seemed to be vested in him: the
queen being his tool, the king his victim, and
the country his mere footstool whereby he
might mount to supreme honour. All Europe
began to talk. Then the talk got so loud that
the Princess of Wales, Caroline Matilda's
mother, made a long and toilsome journey
northward, which, whatever the political motives
assigned, seemed to have for its motive simply
to see her daughter, and to remonstrate with her
on her folly. Not that she herself came into
court with clean hands; for the position of
Lord Bute in her royal household had long been
a favourite subject for scandal and satire. The
meeting took place after some delay, and the
mother's resolute removal of certain obstacles
thrown in the way by Caroline Matilda; but
no good was done. The king and queen came
attended only by Struensee and Warnstedt, the
favourite page, who were seated in the carriage
with them; and when the Princess of Wales spoke
to her daughter in English, she pretended not to
understand her—she had forgotten the language!
In fact, she showed herself as wayward and
unmanageable as a naughty child who cannot be
reasoned with and who will not be controlled.
Letters and envoys from both mother and brother
(George III.) were received in the same manner;
and thus the last drags sought to be put upon the
downward course were knocked aside, and the
royal lady's repute went on towards destruction.

What was it which, at about this time, made
her write with a diamond on the window-pane
at Frederiksborg, " Oh keep me innocent, make
others great"? Conscience? Sorrow for past, or
fear of future, sins? Or was it simply dissimulation,
and the endeavour to deceive eyes whose