In 1771 there was great distress in the country and discontent was growing. Scurrilous letters fell at the feet of Struensee and Matilda on their walks at Hirscholm, and placards of a threatening nature were affixed to the walls of the royal palaces. Struensee had flouted the army by attempting to disband the Guards. The mutterings of disaffection became more audible. His effrontery deserted him. He grew craven-hearted in face of grave dangers. His failure stamps him as a colossal adventurer at bottom; had he been of sterner stuff he might have become a hero.
A Coup d'Etat.—The hour for striking a blow was at hand, and Queen Juliane Marie and her son Frederik, with a band of conspirators, at a masked ball on the night of January 16, 1772, seized the person of the king, together with Matilda; the latter was hurried off to the fortress of Kronborg, and Struensee and Brandt, his coadjutor, were imprisoned in the citadel at Copenhagen.
VASE WITH COVER.
With wreaths of roses and other flowers in high relief, painted in natural colours. Cover with seated figure of cupid with garland Panel with painted portrait of the Crown Prince Frederik. Height 15 inches.
(At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen.)
The trial and divorce of Matilda and the beheading of Struensee and Brandt is a poignant story. The name of the unfortunate young queen was ordered to be officially omitted from the prayer-book at a time when she surely stood most in need of prayer. Juliane Marie pursued Matilda with vindictiveness, and her malevolence nearly precipitated Denmark in a war with England. It was intended that Matilda should be imprisoned in a remote fortress in Jutland. The British Minister, Sir Robert Murray Keith, informed the Danish Government that unless Queen Matilda was released he would present his letters of recall and war would be declared. The Danish Minister in London wrote in great haste to say that a fleet was fitting out. It was only then that Queen Juliane Marie released her hold of Matilda and allowed her to depart to Celle, in the State of Hanover, where she died in 1775 in her twenty-third year.
Here, then, was the state of affairs when Müller was experimenting with his clays, his glazes, and his colours. In 1771 a hundred and fifty weavers set out on foot from Copenhagen to Hirscholm, in days of panic, to complain that they were starving because the royal silk factory was closed. It was an ill-starred venture to attempt the establishment of a new porcelain factory, but in face of reverses of fortune and undeterred by lack of support, Müller by his immense energy fired into being the great porcelain factory of Copenhagen. To Müller the Dane belongs the honour of founding the little factory which strove to achieve results no less beautiful than Meissen, Berlin, or Sèvres. Begun in a spirit of worthy emulation, the Copenhagen factory shortly began to develop an original and national style, in spite of the fact that it worked in the early days on foreign suggestion and employed foreign artists.
The Inception of the Porcelain Factory.—Frantz Heinrich Müller was born on the 17th of November 1732. When an apprentice, from the age of fifteen, at the Kong Salomon's Pharmacy at Copenhagen, he devoted his leisure to the study of chemistry, botany, mineralogy, and metallurgy. He was appointed as Guardian of the Mint at the Bank of Copenhagen in his twenty-eighth year, and held the post from 1760 to 1767. As early as 1765 he had the object in view of establishing a porcelain factory; together with a painter named Richter we find him soliciting support. In common with his contemporaries he cast eager eyes on foreign porcelain. He wandered for three years on the Continent under an assumed name, and the unravelling of this period of his career would throw much light on his researches.