I.

After free consideration and consultation he went in to the king his master, and then challenged, abused, attacked, beat, and bit his Majesty. This is certainly unheard of, and, I must say of this deed, "animus meminisse horret luctuque refugit." But it happened so, and Count Brandt's own confession and the statements of the witnesses confirm it.

Count Brandt confessed before the commission that he--after his royal Majesty one day at breakfast had said something which he, Count Brandt, considered insulting, and his Majesty had thrown a lemon at him--consulted with Count Struensee on the matter, who advised him to go to the king and demand satisfaction. In consequence of this, after laying a riding-whip previously in a pianoforte standing in the king's ante-chamber, in order to threaten the king with it, he went into the king's cabinet, challenged, assaulted, and maltreated him. (_V._ his confession, lit. F., pp. 309 and 322.)

This confession is confirmed by his Majesty's own declaration to valet Schleel, who, on the morning after the assault, came to his Majesty, and saw that the king's neck was scratched; by the statements of valet Brieghil, page of the bed-chamber Schack, valet Torp, and also by the evidence of the negro boy Moranti. From all this it is indisputably fully proved that Count Brandt laid hands on his Majesty in order to insult him--an awful deed, as King David says in the second book of Samuel, chap, i., vv. 14, 15, 16: "How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? * * * * Thy blood be on thine own head."

It is true that Count Brandt has tried to excuse this audacious deed,

## partly by the assurance that such things were frequently done to his

Majesty by Count Holck and Warnstedt, partly by asserting that his royal Majesty has forgiven him this crime. But even if, as regards the first apology, we were to assume for a moment that such audacious deeds were really done by Count Holck and Von Warnstedt, this cannot exculpate Count Brandt, who was not justified in acting thus because another before him had committed these crimes and escaped punishment. And as regards the second excuse, his royal Majesty never forgave him his crime, for the witnesses I have mentioned declare, that after this occurrence his Majesty could not endure Count Brandt, and was afraid of being attacked by him; that his Majesty locked his door on the following night, which was not usually the case, and thus revealed that his Majesty had not forgiven Count Brandt the offence, and also that his Majesty ordered page Schack[1] to denounce Count Brandt's treatment of him to this commission, which would not have happened had the offence been pardoned. Although such conduct toward a king can never meet with an apology, still, if the assault had been made at the moment when Count Brandt considered himself insulted, and if it might appear that he had undertaken it in an outburst of excitement, a good deal might still be said against it. But in this case, where he goes in to his king after reflection, and in cold blood, orders out the persons present, so that there may be no witnesses of the improper deed, locks the door, in order that no one may afford assistance, seizes the king round the neck, threatens him with death; and when he at length lets him loose, after the king has spoken soothingly, threatens him that another time he shall not get off so cheaply; and, in addition, abuses the king, as himself is obliged to confess--nothing can be brought forward as the slightest excuse for him; he is a child of death, and one of the greatest criminals that ever trod the earth. He has acted against his oath, which commands him to risk his life and blood for his king and the defence of his life; but exactly contrary to this oath he attacks his king, and in such a way that the latter suffers a loss of blood.

It is of no avail in his excuse that he alleges his royal Majesty assaulted him first, unless this occurred at a time when his Majesty was angry with him, and he merely defended himself, which is human; but still could not be permitted to any subject against his king. But that he goes in to the king at a time when he had no duties to perform, and only in order to say harsh things to the king; that he goes in to terrify the king; that he abuses him; that he defies the king,--all this leaves him no other mode of escape but his statement, that the king assaulted him first. But, in my opinion, every man who suffers such treatment in his own house has the right to regale a man with a cudgel who comes into his room for the purpose of prostituting him, and how much more so a king. If his Majesty had killed him, Count Brandt, on the spot, it would have been his well-merited reward, and could have been answered before God and man.

As concerns Count Brandt's general behaviour toward his royal Majesty; for instance, his going in to the king in his _peignoir_, remaining with his Majesty with his hat on, or entering the king's room while playing the flute, this is really such conduct as no master would put up with from his servant, much less a king from his subject.

Count Brandt, it is true, apologises for all this by saying that his Majesty would have it so, and that the same thing was done in the time of earlier servants in an even more indifferent way. But the former is only a proof of his Majesty's gentleness and kindness, which do not like to express what a man ought to say to himself, and the latter gives him no right; for must I be a churl because my predecessor was one? In this matter I could mention several instances of bad conduct on the part of Count Brandt in treating his royal Majesty contemptuously. But as the great crime swallows up all the rest, it is unnecessary to mention them here, and so make the trial longer. _Crimine ab uno discimus omnia._

I will, therefore, now proceed to Count Brandt's second capital offence.