The two little men frequently contended for the mastery. Once, when they had fought with greater fury than usual, Frederick asked Karl how he dared raise his hand against his prince?
"A prince!" the other answered; "I am as much a prince as you."
"Yes; but I am a prince royal," Frederick rejoined, and fell upon his opponent again, after he had owned himself conquered. The queen, hearing of this, sent for the lads to her apartment, and insisted on Frederick begging his playmate's pardon. Frederick refused to submit; and the queen, provoked by his stubbornness, beat him severely. He was conquered, but not subdued. By such severity, there is reason to fear that Caroline Matilda lost her son's affection in his childhood; so much so, that if he were very unruly, his attendants, as much, perhaps, from malignity as ignorance, used to threaten to take him to the queen. There is no doubt that Struensee had advised this strict treatment of the crown prince, and that his royal mother fully agreed in his views, even though she had not read "Emile," probably, and was no admirer of the paradoxes of Jean Jacques.
Still, Struensee found objections raised to the exaggeration of his treatment of the crown prince by his colleague Berger; and, owing to the latter, the prince was allowed to wear shoes and stockings; received warmer clothing; and had his rice boiled in broth. In the cold season, his room was slightly warmed in the morning; and he had meat soup twice a week for dinner.
It seems that the servants, in their indolence, at times greatly neglected their duties to the young prince. In the autumn of 1770, while the court were enjoying the chase, the stag ran to the woods of Frederiksborg and Fredensborg, which were about fifteen miles to the north of Hirschholm. The hunting party returned home at a late hour; and when the young prince was looked after, he was found breathless, and half dead with cold. He was put to bed with a woman, who took him in her arms, and gradually brought him round. The crown prince's room at Hirschholm consisted of a ground-floor apartment, forty feet in length. On the garden side, it was closed in by an iron trellis-work, which gave Struensee's accusers an opportunity for alleging that he shut the heir to the throne up in a cage. After the favourite's downfall, a wooden bowl was shown as a relic, in which it was stated that the food was given to the crown prince while at Hirschholm.
The best proof of what little real value these charges had, is simply found in the fact that the future king, Frederick VI., was able to endure fatigue at a very advanced age which completely knocked up younger men; he indubitably owed this to the early hardening of his frame and the frugality of his mode of life when a child. While his grandfather and great-grandfather only lived to the age of forty odd, he attained the ordinary range of human life. It is evident, too, that the prince, long after he had grown his own master, must have considered his early moderation in eating and drinking as good for him, because he adhered to it through his youth; and even when he became king, his table was remarkable for its simplicity. But we shall have an opportunity of reverting to this subject when excellent Reverdil returns to court next year.
At the end of October, the court removed to the palace of Frederiksberg. Here it was arranged that, on every Monday afternoon, there should be a court at the Christiansborg Palace, in town, and on every Thursday evening a concert in the park of Frederiksberg. For a long time, no court had been held; and the king only appeared there for a few minutes, and addressed nobody. Hence the queen had to receive the respects of the company alone, and make her observations on the faces of the ladies and gentlemen.
The condition of Christian had by this time become hopeless, and arrangements had to be made to keep the people as much as possible from a sight of a king of this sort. Adam Oehlenschläger, in his "Life Recollections," has given us the following characteristic traits of the king's malady:—At times it was found difficult to induce him to perform the royal duty of signing; but when the word "deposition" was menacingly whispered in his ears, the poor simpleton became terrified, and signed anything and everything. Precautions were taken to prevent any violent outbreaks of his mania. Thus the pages were instructed to hold his chair at table, where he at times tried to rise and prevent others from eating. It was forbidden at court to speak to or answer him, in order to prevent any unpleasant expressions of that absolutism which still nominally existed. At times, though, remarkable claims were made upon him; thus an impudent page once drove the king into a corner, and said to him there, "Mad Rex, make me a groom of the chamber." Another time the king really created a chamberlain. He had been compelled to sign an appointment as chamberlain for a man he could not bear. A moment after one of the stove-heaters came into the room, dressed in his yellow jacket, and with a bundle of wood on his back.
"Listen, you fellow," said the king; "will you be a chamberlain?"
"H'm! that wouldn't be so bad; but how am I to manage to become one?"