As it was he threw away all the popularity he might have gained from his beneficial measures by wantonly affronting the national sentiment. CHAPTER XVIII. THE ORDER OF MATILDA. 1770-1771. A curious commentary on the social reforms of the new regime was furnished by the proceedings of the court. Extraordinary rumours were circulated concerning the conduct of the Queen and her favourite, and though these rumours were grossly exaggerated, still it must be confessed that Matilda showed at this time a recklessness of public opinion which was, to say the least of it, unwise. Having regard to the difficult and delicate situation in which she found herself placed, a young and beautiful woman, tied to a semi-imbecile husband, and with a handsome and ambitious man as her adviser and intimate friend, it surely behoved the Queen to regulate her conduct with the nicest discretion, and to have in her household only those ladies whose character was beyond reproach. This was the more necessary as the sweeping, and on the whole beneficial, reforms which the Queen and her adviser were introducing were bound to raise up against her a host of enemies whose interests were more or less attacked--enemies who would be sure to note any false step she might make to arouse public opinion against her. Her duty to herself, her duty to her child, and her duty to her high position all combined to make it imperative that in her private life she should give not the slightest occasion for enemies to blaspheme. But acting under the spell of Struensee Matilda threw discretion to the winds, and even went out of her way in affronting the prejudices of the staider part of the community. The clergy, already enraged against the Queen and Struensee for their attacks upon the Church, were now able to point to the conduct of the Queen and her favourite as a proof that their strictures were just. [Illustration: THE PALACE OF HIRSCHHOLM, _Temp. 1770._]