The King now talked to Reverdil in German, which, in deference to Struensee, had become the court language, though, formerly, Christian had made it a rule that Danish only should be spoken, except to foreigners, whom he addressed in French. German was never heard at the Danish court during his reign until the advent of Struensee. Though the King said little, he had a shrewd idea of what was going on between the Queen and Struensee. Once Reverdil took up one of the King's books, and found it marked at the history of Rizzio, the favourite of Mary Stuart. But the King never showed the slightest symptoms of jealousy or resentment at the relations between Struensee and the Queen, and, when he alluded to them, it was to treat the affair as a matter of course. Sometimes he spoke of Struensee as the Queen's _cicisbeo_, and on another occasion he asked Reverdil whether he thought that the King of Prussia had an amour with the Queen of Denmark. "The King of Prussia!" exclaimed Reverdil. "I mean Struensee, of course," said the King, thereby showing the mastery which Struensee had acquired over him; for the King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, had always been Christian's ideal of a great ruler. Reverdil found that the rumours which had been spread abroad of the revels of Hirschholm were much exaggerated. The conversation and conduct of the court were quite decent, and, whatever might be going on beneath, little or no hint of it appeared on the surface. But despite the extravagance and luxury everywhere visible, the tone was _bourgeois_. Reverdil says that "the conversation of the company resembled nothing so much as that of the servants of a large house who sat down to table in the absence of their master".[177] The _corps diplomatique_ noticed this peculiarity also, and had a hundred good stories to tell their several courts of the ridiculous incidents which came under their notice. As Keith wrote to his father: "This court has not the most distant resemblance to any other under the sun".[178] [177] _Mémoires de Reverdil._ [178] _Memoirs of Sir Robert Murray Keith_, October 30, 1771.