AT THE COURT OF DENMARK.

1767-1768.

The relations between the King and Queen did not improve as time went on. Matilda was frightened by Christian’s wildness and dissipation, piqued by his indifference, and wounded by his sarcasms. Though she was very young she had a high spirit, and did not submit quietly to insult. Her position at the court, of which she was nominally the reigning Queen, was very unsatisfactory—the King was autocrat and she was nothing—even in trifling questions concerning the royal household she was not consulted, and if she ventured to express an opinion it was ignored. She had no relative to whom she could look for guidance. The Queen-Mother, Sophia Magdalena, had retired to Hirschholm; she was nearly seventy years old, and since the fall of Moltke had abjured politics and given herself up to good works. The Queen-Dowager, Juliana Maria, was secretly hostile, and Matilda did not trust her, though the three Queens at this time, as Reverdil says, lived outwardly “dans une grande intimitÉ et dans un ennui paisible”. The King’s sister, the Princess Louise, was too much absorbed in her husband and child to be of any use to her sister-in-law, and the King’s aunt, Charlotte Amelia, had never appeared at court since Matilda arrived in Denmark. So the young Queen had to seek the advice of her chief lady, Madame de Plessen, and she was guided by her in all things. It was the wish of this lady to bring back to the lax court of Christian VII. the stiff and wearisome etiquette that had prevailed in the reign of the King’s grandfather, Christian VI. In her eyes Matilda was not only a young married woman, but the Queen of the land, whom the King himself might only approach according to the rules of etiquette. Christian must be made to understand that Queen Matilda was his honoured consort, and not his mistress.

It is possible that, had the young couple been left to themselves, they would in time have understood one another better, and learned to make allowances for each other. They were little more than children when they married, and quarrelled like children; they would probably have been reconciled afterwards like children, and become better friends. But they were not left to themselves. Madame de Plessen chose to stand between husband and wife in their most intimate relations, and with disastrous results. She was especially to blame in embittering the Queen’s mind against the King by repeating every thoughtless utterance of his, and magnifying every foolish deed. In Madame de Plessen’s opinion the Queen could only acquire an influence over her husband by treating him with coldness, and resisting his advances. The ladies of the court were ready to throw themselves into the King’s arms at the least provocation—not that he ever gave them any—and Madame de Plessen thought that he would value most what it was not easy to obtain. In pursuance of this policy she advised the Queen to treat him with coyness and reserve. For instance, the King came unannounced one morning into the Queen’s room while she was dressing. A kerchief had just been placed around her neck; the King pushed it aside and pressed a kiss upon his wife’s shoulder. Whereupon Madame de Plessen held up her hands in disgust, and the Queen, taking her cue from the duenna, feigned anger, and reproached her husband for disarranging her kerchief. The King snatched it off her bosom, tore it in pieces, and threw it on the floor. He did not come back for several days.

Again, Madame de Plessen was annoyed because the King sent in the evening to know if the Queen had retired to bed; she considered it wanting in respect to the Queen, and advised Matilda to put a stop to it. The next time the King sent to make his inquiry, the answer was returned that her Majesty was playing chess and would not retire until her game was finished. The King waited until twelve o’clock, and then he came into the Queen’s apartments and found her still playing chess with Madame de Plessen. Very much annoyed he began to walk up and down the room without saying a word, and the game was not finished until the clock struck one. The Queen then said she wished to have her revenge, and he saw Madame de Plessen give a triumphant smile. Then he understood what was meant. He left the room in a fury, and banged the door after him, and did not come near the Queen again for a fortnight. There were many such scenes as these, and each one left the relations between the King and Queen more strained than before, until within a year of their marriage they were thoroughly alienated from one another.

The immediate result of Madame de Plessen’s interference was to drive the King still further into dissipation and folly. Prevented from enjoying his wife’s society as he would, he spent his evenings with his friends, who included the wildest spirits of the court. The King’s evening parties, which he held in his own rooms, had long ceased to bear even a superficial resemblance to the celebrated gatherings of Frederick the Great; they assumed by degrees a more and more noisy and riotous character. The young men indulged in sham fights and wrestling to develop the King’s “smartness”—this was the word he used to denote his physical strength. These fights, indulged in after plentiful libations of wine, often proved destructive of the furniture, and sometimes ended in high words and bad temper. But the fighting was comparatively harmless. The King’s evening gatherings unfortunately did not stop here, but degenerated into excesses which recalled the orgies described in the pages of Juvenal and Petronius. Even Sperling seems to have found these dissipations too much for him. At any rate he gradually lost the King’s favour, and was replaced by Brandt, a page of the chamber.

Enevold Brandt was a few years older than Christian VII. He came of an ancient Danish family: his father had been a privy councillor and private secretary to Queen Sophia Magdalena, but he died before his son’s birth. His mother married again Baron SÖhlenthal, and young Brandt was brought up in his stepfather’s house. At an early age he went to Copenhagen to study law, and passed his examinations with flying colours. In his vacations Brandt travelled widely: he was a polished man of the world and possessed brilliant social qualities. Christian VII., who was clever enough to appreciate cleverness in others, took a great fancy to him, for a time. Honours, both legal and courtly, were showered upon him. He was appointed an assessor of the Court of Chancery, a page of the chamber, and an assessor of the Supreme Court. Brandt was below the middle height, and though his face could not be described as handsome, he had an air of distinction. After Christian’s accession he was a good deal about the person of the King, and was of great use in arranging the masquerades. It was thought that he would succeed Sperling as the King’s first favourite, but Christian quickly tired of his friends, and as soon as the masquerades were over Brandt found himself eclipsed in the royal favour by Holck.

Conrad, Count Holck, despite his wildness and extravagancies, was the best of Christian VII.’s favourites (and bad was the best). Unlike Sperling and Brandt, he was neither an intriguer nor a self-seeker. He was a dare-devil youth, wealthy, handsome, and brimming over with boisterous good-humour and animal spirits. Christian VII. found Holck an excellent foil for the dark moods and the morbid humours that occasionally beset him, and the pair soon became fast friends.

Brandt and Holck were always at the King’s evening gatherings, and sought to outvie one another in their master’s favour by proposing fresh extravagancies. There were many others; among them a young Englishman named Osborne, who held a commission in the Danish service, Count Danneskjold-Laurvig, and some older men, including Saldern the Russian envoy. By way of variety the King resumed his nocturnal expeditions, which he had abandoned since his marriage. Accompanied by his wild companions he roamed the streets of Copenhagen in disguise, visiting taverns and houses of ill-repute, molesting peaceable citizens, fighting with the watchmen, and breaking lamps and windows. Of course these freaks got abroad and set a fashion, and bands of disorderly youths prowled about the city at night in imitation of the King and his companions, thereby causing great difficulty to the superintendent of the police, for they pretended often to be the King’s party, and for fear of mistake he hardly dared to make an arrest. Things came to such a pass at last that the watchmen lost patience, and determined not to let the rioters off easily, whether they belonged to the King’s party or not. On one occasion, pretending not to know, they caught the King and belaboured him so unmercifully that he had to retire to bed for some days, and pretend that he was ill of the fever.[81] On another night, however, he achieved a triumph, and brought home a club as a trophy, which he had wrested from one of the watchmen.

Details of these extravagancies came to the young Queen’s ears from time to time, through the medium of Sperling, who, now that he was superseded in the King’s favour, attached himself to the Queen’s entourage, and, with his uncle, Reventlow, who was the Queen’s chamberlain, was often to be seen in the apartments of Madame de Plessen. Prejudiced by Sperling the Queen took a violent dislike to Holck, whose evil influence over the King she believed to be the cause of all her troubles. Holck ascribed the Queen’s dislike of him to Madame de Plessen, whom he regarded as his enemy, and he retaliated after the manner of his kind. Not only did he treat the Queen with scant respect, but he declared that she was piqued because he did not make love to her. He also behaved to Madame de Plessen with great rudeness, and instigated the coarse and mischievous jokes whereby the King sought to make the chief lady’s position intolerable at court and so force her to resign. But these tactics proved unavailing, for the more rudely Madame de Plessen was treated by the King the more closely did she cling to her post. She determined to protect the Queen come what might, and Matilda, in return, identified herself with Madame de Plessen’s friends, and regarded her chief lady’s enemies as her own. On July 22, 1767, the Queen attained her sixteenth birthday, but to punish her the King would not celebrate it.

In August, 1767, Christian VII. determined to make a tour through Holstein. The Queen, who was fond of travel, eagerly desired to accompany the King, and the royal tour was made the subject of many entreaties and negotiations on her part and the part of her household. But to further mark his displeasure the King refused to take her, and a serious quarrel took place between them. The Queen was to be pitied, because the indifference she had shown towards her husband had in great part been assumed at the suggestion of Madame de Plessen. She was now likely to become a mother, and, by a natural instinct, she had grown into an inclination for the father of her child. But she attributed the King’s refusal not to Madame de Plessen but to Holck (who, it is very possible, had something to do with it), and insisted that if the King would not take her he should not take Holck either. After much difficulty she carried the point, but her victory only enraged the King, and gave her no satisfaction.

Reverdil, who was the Queen’s friend, did his best to patch up the quarrel. He accompanied the King on his tour through Holstein, and urged him to write affectionate letters to his wife. He pointed out that, considering the state of the Queen’s health, there was need to indulge her in her whims and fancies. Christian, who was still smarting from the interference of Madame de Plessen, consented with an ill grace, and only on condition that Reverdil composed the letters and he merely copied them. These letters pacified Matilda; she was ignorant of their real authorship, and replied with affection. The King did not distinguish himself during his tour or increase the loyalty of the duchy. He offended, by his frivolity and recklessness, the old Holstein nobility, who, if somewhat barbarous, were very strict in their ideas of what a King should be.