"My God! this will cost streams of blood!" Rantzau answered:
"Your Majesty may be of good cheer; with the help of the Almighty, I take everything upon myself, and will, as far as possible, prevent danger."
Pen and ink were produced, and the weak king was induced to sign two orders, whose contents his stepmother explained to him. By the first, Eickstedt was made a major-general and commandant of the city; by the second, Eickstedt and Köller received full powers to take all the measures necessary for the preservation of the king and the country.
After the king had signed these documents while still in bed, and the hereditary prince countersigned them, the former expressed a wish to get up. When he was dressed, the queen dowager, her son, and Guldberg led the king to the prince's apartments. Here he remained for some hours, and they were employed in inducing him to write a note to his consort, from Juliana Maria's dictation, which contained the following absurd words:—
"Comme vous n'avez pas voulu suivre les bons conseils, ce n'est pas ma faute, si je me trouve obligé de vous faire conduire à Kronenbourg."
After this, the king signed fifteen different orders, drawn up by Guldberg, which decided the fate of no less than seventeen persons. These were in turn: Count Struensee, Count Brandt, Professor Struensee, Lieutenant Struensee, Chamberlain Colonel von Falckenskjold, Lieutenant-General von Gähler, Frau von Gähler, Major-General Gude, Lieutenant-Colonel von Hesselberg, Equerry Baron von Bülow, Rear-Admiral Hansen, Etats-rath Willebrand, Lieutenant Abö, Cabinet Secretary von Zoëga, the Intendant Martini, and Panning, Count Struensee's private secretary. When this was completed, the king, animated by the sweet thought of doing injury, by the flattering idea of being delivered from Brandt for ever, and by the remote hope of shedding blood, spent the rest of the morning in drawing up the requisite orders. Those which concerned the queen, such as the order to Rantzau to arrest her, another to the commandant of Kronborg, where she was to be taken, and the order to the intendant of the court to provide the carriages, the king copied himself from Guldberg's minutes the others he merely signed.[39]
While all this was going on in the royal apartments, Eickstedt placed himself at the head of a troop of dragoons in order to inform all officers on duty of his new dignity, strengthened the palace guard with forty gunners, and then had all the gates of the fortress closed.[40]