The Royal Physician's Visit

by Per Olov Enquist

  Nothing about the little girl. And yet “lèse-majesté”and “to the highest degree.” The sentence was formulated in accordance with Danish law, the first paragraph of book six, chapter four.

  “That Count Johann Friedrich Struensee shall, deserving as he is of punishment and as an example and admonition to others like him, hereby forfeit his honor, life, and possessions and be stripped of the rank of Count and all other honors bestowed upon him; and the seal of his rank shall be broken by the executioner; the right hand of Johann Friedrich Struensee shall also be cut off while he lives, and thereafter his head; his body shall be dismembered and placed on the post and wheel, but his head and hand shall thereafter be placed on a pole.”

  Brandt’s sentence was the same. Hand, head, dismemberment, display of his body parts.

  The findings of the court were, however, significantly different; it was the strange incident of the index finger that was the reason for his death sentence and the form of execution.

  He had violated the King’s person.

  Twenty-four hours later, on the afternoon of April 27, the sentences were to be sanctioned by King Christian VII. His signature was necessary. There was great uneasiness about this; the risk of a reprieve was great. For this reason, Christian was kept extremely busy, as if they wanted to exhaust him, to benumb him with ceremonies, or ritually escort him into a theater world where nothing, in particular a death sentence, was real.

  On the night of April 23 a grand masked ball was given at which the King and Dowager Queen graciously received all the invited guests in person. On the 24th a concert was given at the Danish Theater, attended by the royal family. On the 25th the sentences were handed down against Struensee and Brandt, and that evening the King attended the opera Hadrian in Syria. On the 27th King Christian, now, according to witnesses, completely exhausted and extremely confused, was escorted along with members of his court to a dinner at Charlottenlund, from which he returned at seven that evening, signed the sentences, and was immediately led off to the Opera House where, largely dozing or sleeping, he listened to an Italian opera.

  There had been great fear that the King would grant a reprieve. Everyone suspected a counter-coup, and then many heads would roll. The anxiety that other powers might intervene was quelled, however, when a courier arrived from St. Petersburg on April 26 with a letter to the Danish King.

  It was carefully studied.

  Catherine the Great was worried but not threatening. She appealed to the King, saying that “the compassion that is natural to every honorable and sensitive heart” must allow him to “prefer the counsel of leniency rather than severity and harshness” toward those “unfortunates” who had now drawn his wrath, “however justified it may be.”

  Christian, of course, was not allowed to read the letter. The tone was mild. Russia would not intervene. Neither would the King of England. They could safely purge away the lecherous ones.

  The final problem was Christian.

  If only Christian, in his confusion, would not cause any problems now, but just sign! Without his signature there was no legal legitimacy.

  Yet it had all gone very smoothly. Christian sat at the Council table and muttered, rocking back and forth and confused; only for a moment did he seem to wake up and then he complained about the peculiar and complicated language of the exceedingly long document; suddenly he exclaimed that whoever wrote such peculiar language “deserved a hundred lashes with the whip.”

  Then he continued his helpless muttering, and without objection he signed.

  Afterward, on his way out to the carriage that would take him to the Opera House, he stopped Guldberg, drew him aside, and in a whisper “confided” something to him.

  He confided to Guldberg that he wasn’t certain that Struensee had wanted to kill him. But, he said, if it were true that he himself, Christian, was not a human being but one of God’s chosen, then his actual presence would not be required at the place of execution in order to pardon the condemned man! Wasn’t it sufficient if he asked God, as his mandator, to pardon him? Did he have to show his face personally? And, he further confided to Guldberg, since he had long been uncertain as to whether or not he was a human being, if he indeed was a flesh-and-blood person, perhaps a changeling whose real parents were peasants from Jutland, wouldn’t this execution supply proof for him? Proof! so that if! if!!! he, through his thoughts alone, and whether he was present or not at the execution, could command a pardon, it would then be proof, yes proof!!!, that he was not a human being. But! if this was not successful, then he would have also! also! proven that he was, in truth, a human being. In this way the execution would be the sign that he had so long wished for, a sign from God of what his origins were, and an answer to the question about whether he was human.

  Whispering and insistent, he told this to Guldberg and finally simply uttered:

  “A sign!!! At last a sign!!!”

  Guldberg listened to this confused outpouring without revealing even a hint of his emotions. He noted that the King did not mention a word about Caroline Mathilde being his mother.

  “An accurate and brilliant analysis,” was Guldberg’s only reply.

  Whereupon Christian was carried off to the Opera House.

  Guldberg gazed thoughtfully after him for a long time, and then began taking precautionary measures with regard to the execution, which he now realized were absolutely necessary.

  4.

  They constructed the execution site like a stage set.

  Immediately after the sentence was signed by the King, they began building the scaffold at Østre Fælled. It was a rectangular structure built of wood, about fifteen feet high; on its roof an extra section was built, a platform that would make both the executioner and the victim quite visible; elevated even higher was the block, on which the head and hand would be severed.

  They built it quickly, and a small orchestra was ordered to lend a ceremonial air to this theater of death. The news spread swiftly; on the morning of April 28 at nine o’clock the executions were to take place, and a few hours beforehand the great migration began. Nearly thirty thousand people left Copenhagen in those morning hours to walk, ride, or be driven to Østre Fælled, a field that lay just north of the city ramparts.

  All the military forces in Copenhagen were called out on the occasion of the executions. It was calculated that nearly five thousand men were posted around Østre Fælled, some of them guarding the execution site itself, some of them grouped around the field in order to intervene should there be any disturbances.

  The two pastors, Münter and Hee, arrived in the early-morning hours to be with the condemned men. The prisoners were to leave the Citadel at eight-thirty, accompanied by a procession of coaches guarded by two hundred foot soldiers, their bayonets fixed, and two hundred thirty-four dragoons on horseback.

  The prisoners rode in separate hired coaches.

  During the last hours of his life, Brandt played his flute.

  He seemed cheerful and unafraid. He had read the sentence and the findings of the court with a smile. He said he was well acquainted with the ceremony surrounding this comedy; he would of course be pardoned since the charges were so absurd and the punishment so out of proportion with the charges. When they took his flute away before departure, he said merely:

  “I will continue my sonatina tonight, when this comedy is over and I am pardoned and free.”

  When they told him that he would be executed before Struensee, he seemed perplexed for a moment, perhaps even alarmed; he thought it would be natural in the pardoning process for the more serious offender, meaning Struensee, to be executed first, whereupon the innocent man, meaning himself, could then be pardoned as a matter of course.

  But he now assumed that they would both be pardoned.

  He would have preferred, he said as he stepped into the coach, to see the pardon be granted on the way to the scaffold so that he wouldn‘t risk being subjected to the violence of the mob. He felt that his position as Maît
re de plaisir, responsible for the cultural entertainments of the court and the capital, in other words, the Cultural Minister, had aroused the animosity of many in the populace. Among commoners there was a strong hostility toward culture, and if he was to be pardoned on the scaffold, he might risk the reactions of the people: “I risk having the crowds flay me alive.”

  He was reassured, however, by the news that five thousand soldiers had been called out to protect him from the people. He was dressed in a green frock coat with gold braiding, and over this he wore a white fur coat.

  The coaches drove very slowly.

  Over by the scaffold, at the foot of the stairs, stood Brandt’s latest lover and mistress; Brandt greeted her with a cheerful and jaunty expression and asked the guards whether it was truly necessary for him to go up on the scaffold before the pardoning, but then agreed to do so.

  Dean Hee escorted him up the stairs.

  Upon reaching the top, Brandt was given absolution for his sins. The sentence was then read, and the executioner, Gottschalk Mühlhausen, stepped forward, displayed the coat of arms belonging to Brandt’s rank of Count, broke it in half, and uttered the customary and prescribed words: “This is not done without cause, but as is deserved.” Dean Hee then asked Brandt whether he regretted his lèse-majesté, and Brandt replied affirmatively; this was of course the prerequisite for the pardon, which would now follow. Before it came, he was ordered to remove his fur coat, hat, the green frock coat, and his waistcoat; this he also did, although with annoyance, since he considered it unnecessary. He was then forced to kneel and place his head on the block, with his right hand stretched out on another block nearby. He had now turned pale but was still jaunty, since this was the moment when the word “Pardon” would be proclaimed.

  At that very moment the executioner chopped off his right hand with his ax.

  Only then did Brandt understand that this was serious. As if in convulsions he turned his head and stared at his truncated arm from which blood was now gushing, and then he began screaming in terror; but they held him fast, pressed his head to the block, and with the next blow, his head was severed from his body. The head was then lifted up for all to see.

  There was complete silence among the spectators, which surprised many.

  The body was then stripped, the genitals cut off and tossed into the cart that stood under the fifteen-foot-high scaffold. The abdomen was sliced open, the intestines pulled out and discarded, and the body cut into four parts, which were then thrown into the cart.

  Brandt was mistaken. No pardon had been planned, or at least no pardon for him, and not by anyone who now held power.

  Perhaps there would have been a chance. But this chance was forestalled.

  The night before, King Christian VII had commanded that he be awakened early; at eight o’clock in the morning he had gone out alone and, without saying a word about what he intended to do, walked across the palace courtyard to the coach stables.

  There he ordered a coach and driver.

  He seemed nervous, his whole body was shaking as if he were frightened by what he was about to do, but in no respect was he contradicted or refused; a coach was, in fact, standing ready, the horses were saddled, and a troop of six soldiers under the command of an officer from the Life Guards closed ranks around the coach. The King showed no suspicion of any kind about this, but commanded the driver to take him to the execution site at Østre Fælled.

  No one contradicted him, and the coach with its escort set off.

  During the drive the King sat huddled in a corner with his gaze fixed on his feet as usual; he was pale and seemed confused, but he didn’t look up until almost half an hour later when the coach stopped. Then he peeked out and realized where he was. He was on the island of Amager. He threw himself at both doors, which he found to be locked; he opened a window and shouted to his escorts that he had been taken to the wrong place.

  They did not reply, but he understood. They had driven him out on the island of Amager. He had been betrayed. The coach now stood motionless a hundred yards from the shore, and the horses were being unharnessed. He asked what the meaning of this was; the officer in command rode up to the coach and informed the King that they were forced to change horses since these were exhausted, but that they would continue on their way as soon as fresh horses arrived.

  Then he quickly rode off.

  The doors of the coach were locked. The horses were unharnessed. The dragoons, on their horses, had positioned themselves a hundred yards away and were lined up, waiting.

  The King sat alone in his coach without horses. He stopped shouting and sank onto the seat of the coach in bewilderment. He looked out at the shore, which at this spot was not covered with trees, and across the water, which was very still. He realized that it was now time to pardon the condemned men. He would not be able to get out of the coach. His shouts would not reach anyone. The dragoons saw him in the open window making odd pointing gestures with his arms and hands toward something overhead; as if he were stretching his hands up toward the sky, toward a God who might have chosen him as His son, who might exist, who might have power, who might possess the power to pardon; but after a while his arms seemed to tire or he was struck by despondency; his arms dropped.

  He was still sitting in the corner of the coach. From the east came rain clouds rolling in over Amager. The dragoons waited in silence. No horses arrived. No God manifested Himself.

  Perhaps by now he understood. Perhaps he had been given his sign. He was only a human being, nothing more. The rain began to fall, harder and harder, and soon the horses might come and perhaps they would then head back, perhaps to the palace; perhaps a benevolent God did exist but why then have You never shown me Your face or given me any guidance or advice or given me any of Your time, Your time, given me time, and now the rain was ice cold and coming down hard.

  No one heard his shouts. No horses. No God. Only human beings.

  5.

  The Swedish King, Gustav III, was crowned in the year 1771, in the midst of the Struensee era which he had observed with such mixed feelings and with such great interest, and from this coronation there is a famous painting done by Carl Gustaf Pilo.

  It is called The Coronation of Gustav III. Pilo had been the young Christian’s drawing teacher, and he lived at the Danish court during the Struensee era, but in 1772 he was banished and returned to Stockholm. There he began his great painting of the coronation of Gustav III, though he never managed to complete it, and the painting was to be his last work.

  Perhaps he was trying to portray something that was much too painful.

  In the center of the painting is the Swedish King, still young; he emanates the appropriate dignity and breeding, but he is also, as we know, filled with the ideas of the Enlightenment. It is still many years before he will be changed, and before he is murdered at a masked ball. Around him are grouped the members of his equally illustrious court.

  It is the background that is perplexing.

  The King and his court do not appear to be portrayed in a throne room; they have been placed in the midst of a very dark woods, with mighty, dark trunks, as if this coronation scene were being played out in a centuries-old primeval forest in the wilderness of northern Europe.

  No, there are no pillars, no columns of a church. Darkness, inscrutable tree trunks, a primeval forest in ominous darkness, and in the middle the dazzling assembly.

  Is it the darkness that is light, or the luminous that is dark? A choice must be made. The same is true of history; people choose what to see, what is light and what is darkness.

  6.

  Struensee had slept peacefully that night, and when he awoke he was quite calm.

  He knew what was going to happen. He had lain with open eyes and stared for a long time up at the gray stone ceiling of his cell, concentrating on a single thought. It had to do with Caroline Mathilde. He focused on what had been so splendid and on the fact that he loved her and that he had received a message from her that sh
e forgave him for confessing; then he thought about how he had felt when she told him she was with child, and that it was his. He had actually realized even then that all was lost, but it didn’t matter. He had a child, and the child would live, and the child would give him eternal life, and the child would live and give birth to children and therein lay eternity and nothing else mattered.

  That was what he thought about.

  When Pastor Münter entered his cell, the clergyman’s voice quavered as he read a passage from the Bible, and he was not as logical as he usually was but surrendered to a storm of emotions, which was surprising and which seemed to indicate that he did not regard Struensee with animosity but, on the contrary, was quite fond of him. But Struensee told him very kindly that on this morning, his last, he wished to be surrounded with silence and to concentrate completely on the meaning of eternal life, and he was glad that the pastor could understand this.

  And the pastor nodded vigorously and understood. And so they spent those morning hours in silence and tranquility.

  Then the departure.

  Münter did not accompany Struensee in his coach but stepped inside only at the scaffold; the coach had stopped quite close to it, and from their position they could see Brandt climb the stairs, and from the open window they heard Dean Hee’s words and those of the executioner, and then Brandt’s screams when his hand was surprisingly chopped off, and next the heavy, dull thuds as the dismembering took place and the pieces were tossed into the cart at the foot of the scaffold.

  Münter was not of much help. He started to read his Bible, but began to tremble and sob uncontrollably; Struensee spoke to him soothingly, but it did no good. The pastor’s whole body was shaking as he wept; sobbing, he tried to stammer consoling words from his Bible, but Struensee offered him a handkerchief and after half an hour the dismemberment of Brandt was finished, the thudding of the body parts had ceased, and it was time.

  He stood on the scaffold and looked out at the sea of people. So many had come! The sea of people was endless: it was these people he had come to visit, and it was them he had supposedly helped. Why hadn’t they thanked him? But this was the first time he saw them.