The king was evidently very unhappy; and honest Reverdil was equally so. The latter usually passed an hour with Christian after the dinner; and as he had been his reader, the king, at times, put a book in his hand, not to listen to what he read, but that he might indulge in his own melancholy reveries, and talk to himself in a low voice. The first book Reverdil took up was a dictionary of celebrated men, marked at the history of Rizzio, the lover of Mary Stuart, assassinated by Darnley, her husband. If this was the trick of a valet, it failed in its effect, for the king never listened. Besides, the king had not the slightest tendency to jealousy, for he spoke twice to Reverdil about a thing which would have aroused that feeling in any other husband. Once he said that Struensee was the queen's Cicisbeo; on another occasion, he asked his visitor whether he believed that the King of Prussia slept with Queen Matilda. "Why, who is the King of Prussia?" Reverdil asked. "Oh! Struensee." This way of designating the favourite proved, at any rate, what power the latter possessed over the weak-minded monarch. The details which Reverdil gives us about the habits of the court are very curious. When they did not go hunting, they assembled to breakfast between eleven and twelve o'clock. The king, the queen, Counts Struensee and Brandt, with some of their male and female favourites, were always present; and when the state of the weather allowed it, breakfast was followed by a walk, in which Struensee gave his arm to the queen; the king, to the only maid-of-honour who was admitted to this familiarity; each of the other gentlemen to a lady; and chance did not decide the selection. From time to time, the same party dined at some summer-house, a distance away. Etiquette was banished from these parties; and the newly-appointed pages waited at table. They only entered when a bell was rung, and left the room when they had done what was wanted. On these excursions, the queen drove out in the same carriage with the king and Struensee. She placed herself between them at table; and if the king misbehaved himself, Reverdil led him out of the room. The queen even returned at night alone with the favourite. This princess, who, on her arrival from England, had been extremely affable and ingenious in finding occasions to say agreeable things to everybody, now only spoke with eagerness to the favourite; and if before and after dinner she addressed any one, whether male or female, Struensee was listening. With this exception, the indecent tone supposed by the public did not prevail in this company; they resembled the servants of a large house who had sat down to table in their master's absence. A new comer must have been struck by the familiar tone, and at seeing a court where there were no great noblemen, and hardly any gentlemen.