On December 21, Struensee issued a cabinet order to the College of the Generalty, by which the five companies of the battalion of Foot Guards were to be changed into so many grenadier companies, and attached to five of the regiments composing the garrison of Copenhagen. The cabinet order was forwarded to the college on the following day; and, though it was Sunday, the members at once assembled in council, but considered the affair of such consequence that they requested to be supplied with the king's written authority. Struensee then requested Falckenskjold to talk the matter over with General von Gähler; he told the latter that the minister would be offended if they refused to carry out the order, and urged the immediate despatch of the necessary commands to the commandant, General Gude, and to the colonel of the Guards, Count von Haxthausen. Gähler, however, refused to give way, but, instead, joined his colleagues in drawing up a most submissive answer, in which they requested an order signed by the king in person, without which they must decline to execute the cabinet decree, which they considered extremely dangerous. Instead of being induced to reflect over this indirect good advice from experienced men as to the danger of his meditated enterprise, and wisely giving way before this first instance of a refusal to obey a cabinet decree signed by himself alone, the favourite at once obtained the required authority from the king, and forwarded it to the War Department, who immediately yielded. On the next morning, December 24,--from which the ensuing quarrel was called the Christmas Eve fight,--the palace guard was relieved by the king's regiment, of which Falckenskjold was commander, and the whole battalion of Guards drawn up in line on the the Great King's Market: its effective strength only amounted to three hundred men. The king's order for their disbandment and incorporation with other regiments was read to them, and the officers were present who would take them over. But when the Guards saw that their colours were being taken from them, they rushed forward in a body, and seized them again by force, shouting: "Those are our colours: we swore obedience upon them! We will risk our lives for them!" They also said that the agreement with them must be kept, and that it was contrary to that agreement to make them serve in other regiments. Hence, they demanded their discharge, and formation into a fresh corps. The Guards had always regarded themselves as a corps quite distinct from the line: for they ranked with non-commissioned officers of the army, and such punishments as flogging and running the gauntlet could not be inflicted on them.