Caroline Mathilde, who thought she understood the reason for Reverdil’s inexplicable expulsion, said nothing in reply.
“Struensee?” Caroline Mathilde merely asked.”Is he German?”
“I’m uneasy,” said the Dowager Queen. “He is described as intelligent, a charming ladies’ man, immoral, and he comes from Altona, which has always been a vipers’nest. Nothing good can ever come from Altona.”
“The dispatches also mention,” said the elder Dowager Queen, attempting to voice an objection,”that the King is calm and does not seek out whores.”
“Be happy,” Juliane Marie then told the Queen, “be happy that he stays away for a year. My husband, the late King, had to empty his seed sac every day to have peace in his soul. I told him: Empty it in whores, but not in me! I’m not a gutter! Nor a sink! Learn from this, my young friend. Morality and innocence are things you create yourself. Innocence can be recaptured through resistance.”
“If he’s a man of the Enlightenment,” the elder Dowager Queen then asked,”does that mean we’ve made a mistake?”
“We didn’t,” replied the Dowager Queen.”Someone else did.”
“Guldberg?”
“He doesn’t make mistakes.”
But the young Queen merely said, as if questioning a name that she later claimed to have heard for the first time at the tarot table:
“What a peculiar name. Struensee?”
2.
It was appalling.
Europe was appalling. People stared at Christian. He grew weary. He felt ashamed. He feared something but didn’t know what—a punishment? At the same time he longed to be punished so that he would be freed from the shame.
He had set out with an objective for his journey. Later he realized that the objective did not exist. He had then mustered his courage. To muster one’s courage was a means of making oneself hard, and invulnerable. He looked for other purposes for his travels. A European tour might well involve excesses or meetings with various people. But that was not the case; his excesses were not those of other people. Meetings frightened him.
All that remained was the torture.
* * *
He didn’t know what to say to those who stared. Reverdil had taught him many fine lines to show off his brilliance. There were little aphorisms that could almost always be used. Now he was starting to forget his lines. Reverdil was gone.
It was so appalling to be part of a performance and not know any of his lines.
The young Countess van Zuylan writes in a letter that she met King Christian VII of Denmark on his European tour during a stop at the Castle Termeer.
He was small and childish,”practically like a fifteen-year-old.” He was slight, thin, and his face had a sickly pallor, almost as if powdered white. He seemed paralyzed and was unable to carry on a conversation. He fired off a few remarks to the courtiers that sounded memorized, but after the applause faded he simply stared at the tips of his shoes.
To rescue him from this embarrassment, she had escorted him out to the park for a brief stroll.
It was raining lightly, which made her shoes wet, and this was his salvation.”During the entire time we were together in the park His Majesty stared down at my shoes, worried they might get soaked, and he talked of nothing else in the time we spent together, which was about half an hour.”
She then led him back to the waiting courtiers.
In the end he was practically certain that he was a prisoner who was being escorted, in a gigantic procession, to his punishment.
This no longer frightened him. But an infinite weariness encompassed him;he felt himself slowly sinking into sorrow, and all that could bring him out of it were the regular outbursts of rage when he would slam chairs against the floor until they shattered.
The reports and dispatches were telling.”There were few hotels along the travel route where a certain amount of destruction could not be found, and in London the furniture in the King’s suite was almost always smashed.”
That was the summary.
It was only with Struensee that he felt calm. He didn’t understand why. Once Christian mentions that since he was “an orphan” (his mother died when he was two years old and he had had little contact with his father) and thus didn’t know how parents should behave, Struensee, through his composure and his silence, gave him the impression of what a father (“a father in heaven” he writes, strangely enough!) should be.
By chance he happened to ask Struensee if he was “his bene-factor.”With a smile Struensee asked him what constituted such a person, and Christian then replied:
“A benefactor has time.”
“The Silent One” was what everyone in the traveling party now called Struensee.
Every evening he would read the King to sleep. During the first half of the journey he chose to read from Voltaire’s Histoire de Charles XII.
“The King,” Struensee later wrote,”is one of the most sensitive, gifted, and acute people I have ever met, but while we were traveling he seemed to sink slowly into silence and sorrow, and this was broken only by his inexplicable outbursts of rage—directed, however, only at himself and the innocent furniture, which was subjected to his inexplicable fury.”
When Struensee read from Histoire de Charles XII he had to sit on the King’s bed, his left hand clasped in the King’s hand, his right hand turning the pages. When the King fell asleep Struensee would cautiously withdraw his hand and leave him alone with his dreams.
Gradually Struensee began to understand.
3.
Christian VII’s host in London was England’s King George III, who in that year, 1768, had recovered from his first attack of insanity, although he was still melancholy. He would rule the British Empire for sixty years, up until 1820; during his reign he was frequently mad, from 1805 he was blind, and after 1811 he was deranged.
He was considered unintelligent, melancholy, pigheaded, and he was faithful to his wife, on whom he bestowed nine children.
He gave his sister’s consort a royal welcome. Christian’s stay in England ended up lasting two months.
Eventually things started to go amok.
Uneasiness began to spread through the entire royal entourage. Nothing seemed to make sense about His Majesty or about what was happening. The splendor, the hysteria, and the fear that Christian‘s illness would strike in earnest and destroy the great royal campaign—that fear began to grow.
Illness or normal behavior: no one knew from one day to the next which one would dominate.
It was during their time in London that Struensee started to understand that it wasn’t possible for anything to make sense. For long hours in the morning the King could sit as if paralyzed, merely staring straight ahead, muttering incomprehensible strings of words, and at times, as if in distress, clinging to Struensee’s legs. But then he would change completely, as he did on the evening at the Italian Opera House, where Christian gave a masked ball for three thousand guests. They were feted as though he intended to make himself so popular that he might become King of England.
What a festive mood there was! That incomprehensible, generous little Danish King! Who gave a confused speech in Danish (and it was astounding how he suddenly seemed to crawl out of his timid state) and then tossed gold coins from the balcony to the riffraff in the street.
The masked ball cost twenty thousand riksdaler, and if Struensee had known this he would have observed that his own generous annual salary as the King’s Royal Physician was five hundred riksdaler.
It was said that on the night following the Italian masked orgy, Struensee sat alone in the dark for a long time after the King had fallen asleep, thinking over the situation.
Something was fundamentally wrong. Christian was sick, and he was getting sicker. It was true that His Majesty had, in a strange way, been able to preserve his outward demeanor; but those who had witnessed his weak moments also had sharp tongues. There was a note of derision in their comments that frightened Struensee.
Horace Walpole had said that the King is “as diminutive as if he came out of a kernel in the Fairy Tales”; people spoke of him strutting around like a little marionette. They had noticed the memorized lines; what worried Struensee was that they hadn’t noticed the other part, what was underneath.
People took note of his spasms but not the sudden flashes of brilliance. But on the whole, everyone was perplexed. Samuel Johnson requested an audience with Christian, listened for half an hour, and then left.
At the door he merely shook his head.
Only on the streets was Christian VII a success. This might have been because every chorus of cheers that rose up from below the royal hotel’s royal balcony was answered with a handful of gold coins. It seemed that all economic bounds would soon be shattered.
The turning point occurred toward the end of October.
4.
One of the actors was named David Garrick, and he was also head of the Drury Lane Theatre. He was a magnificent interpreter of Shakespeare, and his productions had rejuvenated the Shakespearean tradition in England. He was considered unsurpassed in both comedic and tragic roles, but it was particularly his production of Hamlet, in which he played the lead, that had attracted tremendous attention.
Because Christian VII had expressed interest in the theater, a series of matinees and evening performances was staged for his benefit. The high point was to be a production of Hamlet with Garrick in the lead role.
Struensee was notified of the planned performance three days before, and he immediately paid a call on Garrick.
It was not an easy conversation.
Struensee indicated that he was quite familiar with the plot of the drama. Hamlet was a Danish Crown Prince whose father had been murdered. The old saga from Saxo Grammaticus was well known; it had been reshaped by Shakespeare in a manner that exhibited great brilliance but created a problem. The main question of the play was whether or not Hamlet was mad.
Struensee then asked Garrick whether they were in agreement about this fundamental interpretation of the drama. Garrick merely asked Struensee what point he was trying to make.
The problem was, Struensee told him, that there was a risk that the visiting Danish retinue, as well as the rest of the audience, might wonder whether the choice of plays was a commentary on the royal guest.
Or to put it quite bluntly: many people considered Denmark’s King Christian VII to be mad. Was it then appropriate to perform the play?
What would the reaction of the audience be? And what would King Christian VII’s reaction be?
“Does he know about his illness?” asked Garrick.
“He doesn’t know about his illness, but he knows how he is, and it confuses him,” Struensee said. “He has extremely intense sensibilities. He perceives reality as a dramatic play.”
“How interesting,” said Garrick.
“No doubt,” replied Struensee. “But it’s impossible to know how he will react. Perhaps he will see himself as Hamlet.”
A long silence ensued.
“Christian Amleth,” Garrick said at last, with a smile.
But he agreed at once to a different repertoire.
On October 20, 1768, they performed instead Richard III for the Danish king and his retinue.
Christian VII would never see a production of Hamlet. But Struensee would always remember Garrick’s reply: “Christian Amleth.”
On the night after the performance Christian refused to go to sleep.
He didn’t want to listen to Histoire de Charles XII read aloud. He wanted to talk about something that had evidently distressed him. He asked Struensee why the planned performance of Hamlet had been replaced with a different play.
He was familiar with the play Hamlet. And in tears, he begged Struensee to be honest. Did people think him mad? He swore that he didn’t consider himself to be mad, that was his firm conviction and hope, and he prayed to his Benefactor every night to make it true.
But was there gossip? Were people talking about him? Didn’t they understand?
He made no attempt to control himself. He wasn’t furious, nor did he behave regally; he lacked all regal dignity during this outburst. He often lacked dignity. But now, for the first time, he touched on the suspicion and inkling about his own illness, and that made a deep impression on Struensee.
“Your Majesty,” Struensee said,”Your Majesty is not always easy to understand.”
Then the King merely gave him a blank look and began talking about the play he had seen, Richard III. Such cruelty, he said. A King by the Grace of God, and what unprecedented cruelty he had displayed. It was unbearable.
“Yes,” Struensee said,”it’s unbearable.”
“But when I witnessed that cruelty,” Christian then told him, “I experienced something … ghastly. In my heart.”
Christian was lying curled up in bed, and he covered his face with the sheet, as if wanting to hide.
“Your Majesty,” said Struensee in an extremely calm and kindly voice,”what was so ghastly?”
Finally the King replied:
“Desire,” he said.”I felt desire. Am I sick, Doctor Struensee? Tell me that I’m not sick.”
What was he to say?
That night for the first time Doctor Struensee began to weep in the presence of the King. And then Christian comforted him.
“We’ll leave,” said Christian.”We’ll leave, my friend. Tomorrow I will order our departure for Paris. We must see the light of reason. Voltaire. We must get away from this English madhouse. Or we’ll all go mad.”
“Yes,” Struensee said.”We must leave. This is unbearable.”
5.
The abrupt end to their stay in England surprised everyone; they left quickly, as if in flight.
It is not known what Christian may have imagined about Paris. But the ceremonies overwhelmed him.
On the tenth day of their stay the King was said to be “indisposed due to a cold.” The truth was that he spent the day in his room in utter apathy, fully dressed, and categorically refused to speak to anyone. Struensee, who was now the person thought to have at least some small measure of influence over the King, was asked whether any medicine could be found to ease the King’s melancholy. When he answered in the negative, plans were set in motion for an immediate departure for home. The next day, when the King’s inexplicable black mood failed to recede, Struensee went in to see him.
An hour later he came out and reported that His Majesty had decided to receive on the following day the French philosophers who had created the great encyclopedia.
Otherwise, an immediate departure for home would be necessary.
Since this meeting had not been planned, it caused a great stir, and many people were filled with dark foreboding because the Frenchmen of the Enlightenment were not favorably regarded at the French court. With the exception of Diderot, that is, who formerly had come under the protection of Louis XV’s lover, Madame de Pompadour, whose affections he had shared with the monarch.
The meeting was arranged in all haste. The King’s indisposition abruptly ceased, he seemed in good humor, and none of the furniture had been touched.
The meeting took place on November 20, 1768, at the residence of the Danish ambassador to Paris, Baron Carl Heinrich Gleichen.
All the editors of the great encyclopedia—eighteen men—were in attendance. Foremost among them were Matran, d’Alembert, Marmontel, La Condamine, Diderot, Helvétius, and Condillac. But the guest most sought after by the King, Monsieur Voltaire, was not present; he never ventured away from Ferney.
It was a strange gathering.
The little, perhaps mad, Danish adolescent—he was nineteen—sat surrounded by the circle of philosophers of the Enlightenment who were to change the history of Europe for several centuries in the future.
At first he was terrified. Gradually, as if by a miracle, he grew calm, his terror evaporated, and a feeling of confident trust came over him. When Diderot bowed deeply to greet His Majesty, the King sai
d, almost in a whisper:
“I wish you to tell my friend, the great Voltaire, that he is the one who taught me to think.”
His voice shook with strong emotion. But it was not fear. Diderot stared at him in surprise and amazement.
Afterward Christian was happy.
He had been so clever. He had talked to all of the French philosophers, one by one, and had been able to discuss their work; he had spoken his excellent French, and he had felt warmth flow toward him.
It was perhaps the greatest moment of his life.
The brief speech that Diderot had made to him in conclusion also filled the King with joy.”I believe,” Diderot said,”that the fire of the Enlightenment can be ignited in the little land of Denmark. Denmark, under this enlightened monarch, will serve as a model. All the radical reforms—those that build on freedom of thought, tolerance, and humanism—will be instituted under the guidance of the Danish King. Christian VII of Denmark will thus, forever after, be able to assign his name to a chapter in the history of the Enlightenment.”
Christian was deeply moved by this and incapable of replying. Monsieur d’Alembert had then added softly:
“And we know that a spark can ignite a prairie fire.”
Struensee had escorted the guests out to their carriages as the King waved farewell to them from a window up above. Diderot then pulled Struensee aside for a brief conversation.
“And the King will be traveling back to Copenhagen soon?” he asked, although he didn’t seem particularly interested in the answer but was thinking of something else.
“No plans have been made,” said Struensee. “It depends to a certain degree on the King. On the King’s health.”
“And you are the King’s royal medicus? And from Altona?” Struensee, with a little smile, said:
“From Altona. You are well informed.”
“And you are, I’ve heard, well informed about the ideas of the French Enlightenment?”
“Indeed I am, but also about the ideas of Holberg, the great philosopher of the Danish Enlightenment,” Struensee replied with a smile that was impossible for the French guest to decipher.
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