After Count Struensee had, in this way, secured his position--for up to then this had not been fully the case--he writes about it in his reply to Count Brandt's warnings: "Après avoir gagné la confiance, la faveur du roi et de la reine et le crédit dans le public, et cela par mes propres forces, avec tout le risque et toutes les peines attachées à une telle entreprise que vous n'auriez certainement pas supporté: et laquelle, j'ose l'assurer, vous n'auriez pas fini, je vous appelle et je partage avec vous l'effet, et tout les agréments qui en pouvaient resulter." But what could have induced him, when Count Brandt, in his aforesaid warning, gave him to understand his annoyance in a rather harsh way, to urge the said Count Brandt to remain at his post, when he writes in the following terms: "Examinez votre position et les motifs qui vous y tiennent! Rangez d'un côté les agréments et de l'autre les désagréments et comparez cela avec vos situations passées et avec celles auxquelles vous pouvez attendre et faites alors la conclusion." When he was certain of a friend who would watch the king and pay attention to everything that happened or was said, who was to take care that none should reach the king who might repeat the general dissatisfaction at a report which wounded every honest heart, and other things which it would lead me too far to mention, he began very seriously to play the master and prove how it was his intention to become the first man, if not nominally and in respect, still in might and authority. He filched the greatest power in the most impudent way, as I shall presently prove, and he also acquired adherents, not substantial ones, but men who wished to make their fortune, and obtain something through this omnipotent _maître des requêtes_.