THE FALL OF BERNSTORFF.
1770.
The King and Queen of Denmark travelled from Lüneburg direct to
Copenhagen. During the short stay of the court in the capital the Queen
showed herself much in public, and sought in all ways to impress her
personality upon the people. She drove every day about the streets in
a state coach, attended by an escort of guards; the King was always
by her side, and his presence was intended to give the lie to many
sinister rumours. Apparently the royal couple were living together in
the utmost harmony and the King had complete confidence in his Queen.
Together they attended the Copenhagen shooting festival, an honour
which had not been bestowed on the citizens for a hundred years, and
were most gracious in their demeanour, especially the Queen, who was
all bows and smiles. Matilda further gratified the assembly by firing
a shot herself, and inducing the King to follow her example. The
Queen hit the popinjay, but Christian missed it badly. Matilda gained
considerable popularity from the crowd by this exhibition of her skill,
but the more sober-minded citizens were scandalised because she
rode on to the ground sitting her horse like a man, and clad in her
masculine riding-habit. The King rode by her side, but it was jocularly
said that the Queen was "by far the better man of the two," which was
what exactly she wished to convey. Certainly the diminutive and feeble
Christian looked a poor creature beside his dashing and Amazonian wife.
From Copenhagen the King and Queen went to Hirschholm, the country
palace of the late Queen Sophia Magdalena, which, since her death, had
been prepared for their use, and henceforth eclipsed Frederiksborg
in the royal favour. Hirschholm was not so far from the capital
as Frederiksborg, and was situated amid beautiful surroundings.
The palace had been built by Sophia Magdalena on an island in the
middle of a lake. It was very ornate externally, and one of the
most striking features was a huge gate-tower, which terminated in a
pyramid supported by four lions, couchant and surmounted by a crown.
This gateway gave entrance to a quadrangular court, round three sides
of which the palace was built. The interior was gorgeous, and the
decorations were so florid as to be almost grotesque; a profusion of
silver, mother-of-pearl and rock crystal embellished the walls, and the
ceilings and doors were elaborately painted. The south aspect of the
palace looked over the lake to the beautiful gardens beyond, which were
freely adorned with marble fountains and statuary. In the gardens was a
summer-house, which was used as a temporary theatre for the amusement
of the Queen and her court. Beyond the park were shady avenues and
noble forests of beech and pine. In fine weather Hirschholm was a
paradise.[135]
[135] Hirschholm became the favourite palace of Queen Matilda, and
usurped even Frederiksborg in her favour. It was more associated than
any other palace in Denmark with her love for Struensee. Perhaps
because of this her son, Frederick VI., when he came to the throne,
razed the palace to the ground. Not a trace of it now remains, but the
beautiful woods and surroundings of Hirschholm still exist, and even
to-day is pointed out the "Lovers' walk," where the Queen and Struensee
used to pace side by side, and the summer-house where they sat, and
spoke of all their hopes and fears.
At Hirschholm the Queen made appointments in her household to fill
the places of Madame von der Lühe, Fräulein von Eyben and others
dismissed at Traventhal. The Queen's chief ladies were now Madame
Gahler, Baroness Bülow and Countess Holstein. They were three young,
beautiful and lively women, not too strict in their conduct, and the
husbands of all, needless to say, were friends of Struensee. Madame
Gahler was the wife of General Gahler, who held high place in the
councils of Traventhal. Baron Bülow was the Master of Horse, and Count
Holstein held a post about the King. The Queen had always fretted
under the stiff etiquette of the Danish court; now, at the suggestion
of Struensee, she dispensed with it altogether, except on public
occasions. The result was that the manners of the court at Hirschholm
became so lax and unceremonious that it hardly seemed to be a court
at all. Some show of deference was kept up towards the King, but the
Queen was treated with great familiarity, evidently at her own wish,
and in Struensee's case this familiarity sometimes degenerated into
positive rudeness. The ladies and gentlemen of the royal household
laughed and joked and flirted as they pleased, without any restraint,
in the presence of the Queen, scrambled for places at her table,
and quarrelled violently over cards. Even Rantzau was surprised at
the conduct at Hirschholm. "When I was a wild young man," he said,
"everybody at court was apparently respectable, except myself. Now that
I am old, and obliged to be more careful, every one about the court has
gone mad."
The court at Hirschholm was conducted on a scale of luxury, and on
occasion with ceremonial magnificence. The King and Queen dined
frequently in public in the grand saloon, and were served on bended
knee by pages; the marshal of the palace sat at one end of the table,
the Queen's chief lady at the other, their Majesties in the middle on
one side, and the guests honoured with the royal command opposite them.
The King was a poor and insignificant figure, and rarely uttered a
word; but the Queen, who dressed beautifully, made a grand appearance,
and delighted everybody with her lively conversation. Matilda had wit
and vivacity, though during her early years in Denmark she had perforce
to curb her social qualities; now she gave them full play, and the King
gazed at her in silent astonishment and admiration. A table of eighty
covers was also laid every day in the adjoining "Chamber of the Rose"
for the foreign envoys and great officers of state (if any happened to
be present) and the court officials. At this table Struensee, Brandt
and the other ladies and gentlemen of the household generally dined,
though the favourite was frequently commanded to the King's table, and
might have dined there every day if he had wished. But he generally
preferred to hold a little court of his own in the "Chamber of the
Rose," and most of those present paid him far more homage than they
paid the King. Struensee accepted it all as a matter of course; his
head was already turned by his success, and indeed it was enough to
turn any man's head. Only two years before he had been in an obscure
position, crippled with debt, and seriously thinking of quitting the
country to repair his fortunes; now he was the all-powerful favourite
of a Queen, and could make and unmake ministers as he would. Nothing
was done without his consent, and the removal of the court from the
capital to Hirschholm was dictated by him from reasons which the
English envoy shrewdly guessed at the time:--
"Among other reasons assigned for this retreat," writes Gunning,
"one is said to be the desire of eluding the scrutiny of the public
eye, which affects to penetrate somewhat further than is imagined to
be [desirable]. Another cause of this retirement is supposed to be
their Danish Majesties' resolution of continuing inaccessible (which
they have been for some time) to everybody except Mr. Rantzau and
the Favourite. And that, if certain dismissions are resolved upon,
they may be effected with greater secrecy. Mr. Bernstorff tells me
that Mr. Rantzau has frequent conferences with the French minister.
He [Bernstorff] is more alarmed than he has ever yet appeared to be,
but nevertheless seems willing to fortify himself with the favourable
conclusions afforded by the levity and dissipation which mark the
character of his adversaries, and builds upon the unanimity of the
Council, which I hope is firmly grounded. He thinks, however, that
while the influence prevails, irreparable mischief may be done, and
he is at length convinced of a truth I wished him long since to have
believed, namely--that which has been transacting is more than a
court intrigue, and that [the Favourite] was the cause of all its
movements."[136]
[136] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, September 8, 1770.
Bernstorff was not long left in suspense as to his future. Struensee
had now matured his plans and was ready to strike. Bernstorff was the
first to go. Soon after the court arrived at Hirschholm the King was
prevailed upon, without much difficulty, to write his Prime Minister
an autograph letter in which he informed him that, as he intended to
make changes in his system of government, he no longer required his
services. He therefore dismissed him with a pension of 6,000 dollars a
year, but gave him leave to retain his seat on the council. Bernstorff
was seated at his desk in the foreign office when this letter was
brought to him by a King's messenger from Hirschholm; he read its
contents in silence, and then turned to one of his secretaries and
said: "I am dismissed from office. May the Almighty guide this country
and its King."
Bernstorff fell with great dignity. He replied to the King saying "that
he accepted his pleasure with all submission, but begged leave to
join the resignation of his seat on the council to that of his other
employments".[137] He accepted the pension, but how beggarly a reward
it was for his long years of service was shown by comparison with that
assigned to Count St. Germains, a friend of Struensee and Rantzau, who
had been granted 14,000 dollars annually after only three years of
office. Count Bernstorff had grown grey in the service of the state,
and had sacrificed a large portion of his private fortune in the cause
of his adopted country. His great achievement as Prime Minister was the
treaty effecting the territorial exchange with Russia; for that alone
he deserved the gratitude of Denmark. He had his faults, but he was
a man of honourable and upright character, virtuous in private life,
and in public matters earnestly desirous of the welfare of the state.
Bernstorff's fall called forth loud expressions of regret, not only
from the most considerable people in Denmark, but from many foreign
courts. Especially was this the case with the court of St. James's.
[137] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, September 18, 1770.
On the return of the Princess-Dowager to England with the news of her
fruitless mission, and on receipt of Gunning's despatches, specifying
the changes likely to take place in the Danish Government, George
III. resolved to write a private letter to his sister, appealing to
her directly, and urging her, whatever she did, not to part with
Bernstorff, who had shown himself zealous of his country's welfare,
and who was, moreover, a friend of England and its royal house. But
this letter arrived too late; it reached Copenhagen a week after
Bernstorff's dismissal. It was enclosed in a private despatch from
Lord Rochford to the English envoy, with orders that he was to deliver
it into the Queen's own hand. Gunning thereupon set out at once for
Hirschholm "to force the entrenchments," to quote his own phrase; but
the Queen, who probably guessed his errand, would not see him. "On my
arrival there," writes Gunning, "I had the mortification to find that
her Majesty was so much indisposed by a fresh attack of cholick as to
render my admission to her impracticable. It not being, therefore, in
my power to present the King's letter myself, I took care to have it
safely conveyed to her Danish Majesty, who commanded her Grand Master
to tell me that I should be informed when she had any orders for
me."[138] But Matilda had no orders for the English envoy, and when she
wrote to her brother of England, it was to tell him that Bernstorff
had already been dismissed, and if he wished to write to her in future
about political matters in Denmark, she would be obliged if he would
send his communications to her through her ministers. How George III.
received this rebuff is not related.
[138] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, September 22, 1770.
Bernstorff's dismissal was followed by that of several other ministers.
Men who had grown old in the service of the state were suddenly
deprived of their portfolios, and sweeping changes took place in the
_personnel_ of the Government. Several important political appointments
were made while the court was at Hirschholm. General Gahler, who was
avowedly the friend of France, and had spent many years of his life
in the French service, was appointed head of the War Department. He
did not possess any great military knowledge, and owed his promotion
largely to his wife, who was a friend of the Queen. Gunning described
him as "a smooth, designing, self-interested man, submissive, cool,
deliberate and timid,"[139] and Keith wrote of him later as "dark,
intriguing and ungrateful".[140]
[139] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, April 4, 1771.
[140] Keith's despatch, Copenhagen, November 18, 1771.
Bernstorff had united the office of Prime Minister with that of Foreign
Secretary. The first of these posts, with amplified powers, Struensee
reserved for himself, but he did not at once formally assume it.
Rantzau was understood to desire the Foreign Office, and his ambition
placed Struensee and the Queen in a position of great difficulty.
Rantzau's violent hostility to Russia, and his rash and mercurial
temperament, made this appointment impossible. Denmark would probably
be embroiled in war in a week. On the other hand, he had rendered great
services to Struensee; he was powerful in Holstein, and dangerous
to offend. Struensee compromised the matter by giving Rantzau the
second place in the War Department. Rantzau took it under protest, and
never forgave the affront. From that time he was the secret enemy of
Struensee and the Queen, and only waited for an opportunity to wreck
them. It would have been a mistake to send him to the Foreign Office,
but it was a greater one to place him in a subordinate post, and showed
a strange lack of judgment on the part of the Queen and Struensee. It
did not satisfy him, and it gave him opportunity to betray the secrets
of the Government.
Struensee sought to conciliate Rantzau by paying the most flattering
attention to his opinions, and it was at Rantzau's suggestion that
Colonel Falckenskjold was recalled from the Russian service and
entrusted with the reform of the Danish army. Falckenskjold was a Dane
of noble family, and had fought with distinction in the French service
during the Seven Years' War; subsequently he entered the service of
Russia. He was a man of upright character, but poor and ambitious. It
was the prospect of power that induced him, in an evil hour, to accept
an appointment at Struensee's hands. "His views of aggrandisement are
said to be boundless," wrote Gunning.[141]
[141] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, April 4, 1771.
Brandt was given several lucrative court appointments, but he neither
asked nor received any post in the Government. Gunning thus summed
him up: "Mr. Brandt, the King of Denmark's favourite, seems to be
too light and insignificant to deserve mention in a political light;
he is considered by the others as a sort of dragon which they have
planted within the precincts of the court to stop the avenues to the
throne".[142] Keith declared him to be "naturally rash, turbulent and
waspish".[143]
[142] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, April 4, 1771.
[143] Keith's despatch, Copenhagen, November 18, 1771.
These were the principal men Struensee chose to help him in governing
the internal affairs of the kingdom, in place of the experienced
statesmen whom he had evicted to make room for them. They were none
of them first-class men, but they were the best available. Statesmen
of credit and renown held aloof from Struensee, and would not have
accepted office at his hands. Neither did he seek them, for the men
he wanted were not colleagues but creatures, who would carry out
his bidding. He had now complete control of the situation, and was
already in fact invested with autocratic power. Although nominally
only _lecteur du roi_, he read all letters that came to the King, and
answered them in the King's name as he thought best, the King doing
whatever the Queen advised him, and signing all the documents laid
before him by Struensee. In order to gather power still more into his
hands, Struensee caused Christian to issue a rescript to the heads
of departments of the state requesting them henceforth to send all
communications to the King in writing, and the King would answer them
in the same way. Audiences between the King and his ministers were
hereby abolished.
Struensee followed up this rescript by an attack upon the Council of
State, still nominally the governing body. Soon after Bernstorff's
dismissal a royal decree was issued, limiting the power of the council
and increasing the King's prerogative. The King wished--so the message
ran--to have the Council of State organised in the best manner. He
therefore requested that the councillors, at their meetings in future,
should duly weigh and consider all the business laid before them, but
leave the final decision to the King. Their object was not to govern,
but to afford the King assistance in governing. The King, therefore,
would have them remember that there must be no encroachment on the
sovereign power, which was vested wholly in the King.
These changes caused great excitement among the official classes and
the nobility. The government of the kingdom had hitherto been in the
hands of an oligarchy, which was recruited solely from the nobility
and their dependents. By this last decree the King intended to strip
the nobility of their privileges and power. But the King was known to
be a figurehead, and therefore the resentment aroused by these changes
was directed, not against him but against the Queen. Struensee was
still working behind the Queen, and therefore, though he was known
to have great influence, the malcontents made the Queen the first
object of their resentment. The hostility felt against Matilda for the
revolutionary policy now inaugurated was especially bitter amongst the
old nobility, many of whom, notably Count Reventlow, had formerly been
her friends. Reventlow communicated his anger to Gunning, who wrote in
haste to Lord Rochford. He saw in the present confusion an opportunity
for English influence to be re-established in Copenhagen, and, ignorant
of the rebuff the King had received from his sister a few weeks before,
he urged his old expedient that George III. should write a private
letter to Queen Matilda.
"Both Count Reventlow and everybody ascribe [these new measures]
without scruple to the Queen of Denmark," he writes, "_whose power is
affirmed to be unlimited, and on whose will all depends_. If these
assertions are not made without reason, your Lordship will judge
how much those persons who are honoured with her Danish Majesty's
confidence have misrepresented the state of affairs to her, in order
to make her consent to what is so evidently against the system this
court has some time adopted. Should the preservation of it be thought
worthy of the King's (George III.'s) attention, your Lordship will, I
am sure, think it necessary that the Queen of Denmark should be made
acquainted with his Majesty's sentiments on this important point as
soon as possible, and before the Prince Royal of Sweden comes here,
which under the present circumstances will be most effectually done (if
I may humbly presume to offer my opinion) by a private letter from his
Majesty to the Queen his sister. It is not to be doubted but that this
would have great weight; and should it either procure the reinstatement
of Count Bernstorff (whose indubitable attachment to the King's person
and family gives him a claim on his Majesty's protection), or till such
time as this could be more easily effected, prevent any extension of
the present influence, it would soon give his Majesty (George III.) as
great an ascendency here as the court of Petersburg has had, and which,
were it conducted in a more moderate and judicious manner, would not be
liable to the same reverse. It is not, however, impracticable for the
latter [the court of Petersburg] still to prevent the defection of this
court, but it must be by different and harsher methods than those (it
is hoped) his Majesty has occasion to take."[144]
[144] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, October 6, 1770.
It is unlikely that George III., who was still smarting under the
affront Queen Matilda offered to his last communication, acted on
his envoy's suggestion. Neither his brotherly remonstrances nor "the
different and harsher methods" of the court of St. Petersburg would
have had any effect on the Queen of Denmark. She was entirely under
Struensee's influence, and did whatever he wished, and in this case
their wishes were identical. Nothing would have induced her to recall
Bernstorff, against whom she had a grievance, and she had suffered so
much from the meddlesome interference of the Russian envoys that she
was determined to stop it at all hazards.
[Illustration: GEORGE III., BROTHER OF QUEEN MATILDA.
_From a Painting by Allan Ramsay (1767) in the National Portrait
Gallery._]