That the residence of the royal couple at Traventhal was not devoted to frivolous orgies, as the enemies of the queen and Struensee, and even her princely brother-in-law at Gottorp asserted, has been sufficiently proved. On the contrary, the time was employed in meditating the mode of carrying out great reforms, though what extent they would have depended on the future. The condition of the king was now of such a sad nature that he helplessly signed the orders laid before him for his assent. Struensee was the only man who was still able to make the king form a resolution by his quiet remarks, and the stay at Frederiksborg, away from the seat of government, was purposely selected, in order to carry through the reforms already arranged with the queen, without any external opposition, and to bring them to the knowledge of the public. Count Rantzau-Ascheberg had, in the meanwhile, preceded the returning court, and arrived at Copenhagen by August 14. Two days after his arrival in the capital, he was appointed third deputy of the War Department. It can hardly be believed that he had done so much to obtain so little: indeed, it had been at first arranged that he should be placed at the head of this department by the retirement of his two seniors, but one of them was Gähler, the husband of the pretty and docile woman who had become so necessary at court, and the other was an old friend of the queen. Rantzau also retained the command of the queen's regiment, and was likewise appointed on the 29th of the same month commandant of Glückstadt, though he remained in Copenhagen. Still, it was a great error on the part of Struensee to have placed so ambitious a man as Rantzau in such a subaltern position, and it proved that he possessed but little common sense or knowledge of the human heart. In politics it is wrong to be ungrateful, and more especially to be so by halves. After what had passed, Rantzau could no longer remain indifferent, and a man of that character does a great deal of evil or a great deal of good. Therefore, he ought to have been appointed minister, or else exiled.[121] At the same time, however, a man reappeared in the capital in whom the opposite party fancied they had a support against Rantzau. This was Major-General Chevalier Michael Filosofow, who had just been appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Russia. He had arrived three weeks previously in Hamburg, but had not hurried to reach Copenhagen, probably because he did not expect much from a speedy return to the capital. In the latter case he was perfectly right: for in the present state of affairs the most speedy return would have been too late for him and his designs.