Two days after this wretched indictment, which was merely handed in to the commission as a matter of form, the defence was delivered by Advocate Bang to the same judges, and was to the following effect:-- BANG'S DEFENCE OF COUNT BRANDT. By the most gracious commands of his royal Majesty, of March 23, which are attached to this under lit. A, I shall lay before this high commission Count Brandt's defence--not the defence of the actions of which he is accused, but his defence in so far as the accusations are incorrect. It must reasonably insult Count Brandt to find that he whom his Majesty, through his own special favour, and as a reward for his faithful services to his king and master, raised to the rank of Count, selected for his daily intimate society, and honoured with many superfluous proofs of favour and confidence,--that he, I say, should see himself condemned to lose his dignity of count, his honour, life, and fortune, and have his body ill-treated by the executioner. But, according to his own declaration, made to me, his defender, neither his death, his disgrace, nor his torture, will be so painful to him as the sole idea that he has failed in the most submissive reverence, willingness, devotion, and fidelity, which his duty to his king and benefactor commanded, and by which he would have descended below humanity, and, so to speak, have borrowed a model of his actions from the evil spirits. If his conscience reproached him on these points, the bodily punishments would be no torture as compared with this grief; but he has, with a calm conscience, and unassailed by its gnawings, listened to the charges brought against him, and requested me to bring forward the following in his defence:-- _Ad Præliminaria._ The Fiscal General accuses Count Brandt (_a_) that by Count Struensee's regulation, and in _liaison_ with him, he was employed at court after his foreign tour, so that Count Struensee might have in him a man in whom he could trust, who would neither betray his designs, nor allow any one else to reveal them; (_b_) that Count Brandt kept people from the king who did not belong to the party; (_c_) that he shortened the attendance of the valets on the king's person, and, instead of it, arranged that Professor Berger, contrary to the king's wish, should wait on his Majesty in the mornings for the purpose of giving him powders, which were innocent, however; and (_d_) that he compelled the king to live with him, and treated him harshly.