"Is it not true, Sire, that from the commencement of your marriage up to the moment when the party now in power seized on you and your ministers, you had not the slightest respect for the marriage tie, and that you ever testified to the queen that you dispensed with her fidelity? Did you not invite all your successive favourites to pay their court to her? Did you not say, and prove in a thousand ways, that her affection was troublesome to you, and that your greatest misfortune was in paying attention to her? Your commissioners had the effrontery to ask the queen and Struensee who their accomplices were; in prison and in chains the accused have had the generosity to be silent on your account; but what they have not done your conscience will do, and will tell you that you were the real seducer. "Remember, Sire, the moment when this princess, whom they wish to make you condemn to-day, was confided to your love and generosity. The English left her without any adviser, or a single companion, on your shores. Hardly emerged from childhood, she retained its graces, innocence, and _naïveté_; but her mind was more cultivated and mature than you expected; you were astonished at it; hearts flew to meet her; her affability and beneficence captivated all classes of the nation. When you had the misfortune to give yourself up to a frivolous and reckless favourite, and to vile companions, who led you into libertinism, she saw herself neglected. You displayed more than indifference toward her. She loved you; she was silent, and maintaining her serenity in public, contented herself with lamenting in private with the grand mistress, whom you had yourself given her as a confidante. Ere long, you envied her even her sole consolation; and this lady, whose sole crime consisted in displaying conduct and principles too austere to please you, was dismissed with the most signal mark of disgrace. Frau von der Lühe, who took her place, was the sister of your favourite. You, doubtless, supposed that this lady would have as much levity and as few principles as her brother; but she foiled your expectations. Without expressly disgracing her, you had her duties performed by women of the most equivocal reputation. What more could a consummate seducer have done? This man, with whom the queen is accused of being too intimate, yourself forced on her when she repulsed him. It was the hope of avoiding the annoyances which your favourites caused her that led her to connect herself with a man who offered his services in drawing you back to her; it was you who removed all the barriers that separated her from him, who diminished the distance, who desired what is now called your disgrace, who have excused and tolerated this liaison; and who, lastly, up to January 17, talked of it as a good joke.