Reverdil did not heed the warning, and a few evenings later at the palace theatre he saw "Milady" sitting in a prominent box and covered with jewels; below her were the maids of honour, and facing her was the Queen. Reverdil was standing near Holck, who was responsible for this arrangement, and he thus gave vent to his indignation. "Sir," said he, "though a hundred times you have turned into ridicule what I have said, I say again that a man can be neither a good subject, nor a good servant, who does not weep to see such a creature thus defy the Queen, and the King make himself, to the great peril of the state, the _greluchon_ of a foreign minister." Holck turned on his heel. The next morning Reverdil received a written order from the King commanding him to leave Copenhagen within twenty-four hours. The out-spoken Swiss lost no time in obeying the order, and left the country. When he returned to Copenhagen three years later the situation had changed. Reverdil was not the only one who entered a protest against the ascendency of "Catherine of the Gaiters". She had induced the King to buy her a palace, create her a baroness, and promise her a pension, but in the hour of her triumph she fell as suddenly as she had risen. The shameful scenes in the streets had so moved the honest people of Copenhagen to indignation that they threatened to rise in revolt unless the woman was dismissed. So threatening was their attitude and so loud were their murmurs that at last the ministers resolved to act. They sought the assistance of Schimmelmann and Saldern to convince the King that matters had reached danger-point. The latter then went with Bernstorff to the King, and by trading on his fears, persuaded him to sign an order commanding Catherine to quit the kingdom at once. The King signed without much difficulty; perhaps he was frightened, perhaps he was already weary of her. Catherine was arrested at her house and conducted across the frontier to Hamburg, where the obsequious municipality put her into prison.[91] [91] There she remained for some years. Eventually Struensee set her at liberty, but she never returned to Copenhagen.