Queen an almost mesmeric power, and she became so completely under his influence that she obeyed his wishes like an automaton. But it did not need hypnotism to cause a woman so tempted, so beset on every side as Matilda was, to fall. She had inherited from her father an amorous, pleasure-loving nature; she was of a warm, affectionate disposition, which had been driven back on itself by her husband's cruelty and infidelities. Now, it was true, the King was anxious to make amends, but it was too late. Christian had greatly changed in appearance during the last year. Though little over twenty, he already looked like an old man, very thin, with sharp, drawn features and dead-looking eyes. Matilda, on the contrary, was in the full flood of womanhood; her blood flowed warmly in her veins, yet she was tied to a husband who, from his excesses, was ruined mentally and physically, and she was tempted by a lover in the full strength of his manhood, a lover who was both ardent and masterful, and whose strength of will broke down all her defences as though they had been built of cards. Moreover, her environment was bad--as bad as it could be. The atmosphere of the court was one of undisguised immorality; the marriage tie was openly mocked at and derided. The King had often told her to go her own way and let him go his, and now so far from showing any signs of jealousy, he seemed to take a delight in watching the growth of the intimacy between his wife and the confidential physician. He was always sending Struensee to the Queen's chamber on some pretext or another, and the more Matilda showed her liking for Struensee's society the more the King seemed to be pleased. That clever devil, opportunity, was all on Struensee's side. The Queen had no safeguards against temptation but those which arose from the promptings of her own conscience. That she did not yield without a struggle, that the inward conflict was sharp and bitter, there is evidence to prove. _O keep me innocent, make others great!_ was the pathetic prayer she wrote on the window of the chapel of Frederiksborg[121] at a time, when in the corridors and ante-chambers of the palace Struensee was plotting his tortuous intrigues, all of which started from the central point of his relations with the Queen. It was he who wished to be great, she who was to make him great, and to this end he demanded the sacrifice of her innocence. The poor young Queen knew her peril, but she was like a bird fascinated by a snake. She fluttered a little, helplessly, and then fell. [121] This window, with the Queen's writing cut with a diamond on a pane of glass, was destroyed by the great fire at Frederiksborg in 1859.