After this, the crown prince retired in order to reach his father by another route, but found that also barred against him. He was about to have the door opened by force, when his companion, Marshal von Bülow, contrived to appease him, and immediately after the door opened, and the hereditary prince appeared, leading the king by the hand, and trying, as it seemed against his wish, to conduct him to the queen. The crown prince leaped forward, seized the king's other hand, and most earnestly begged him to return to his apartment, and feel convinced that nothing should be done without his gracious sanction, and only that be effected which would prove to the advantage of the subjects and the country. As the weak king was more inclined to respond to his son's wishes than go with the hereditary prince, the latter so greatly lost his self-command as to seize hold of the crown prince's collar and try to tear him away from the king by force. But the son held his father so tightly with the left hand, and used his right so energetically against the hereditary prince, that the uncle was soon obliged to yield, especially when the crown prince laid his hand on his sword for the purpose of driving him back. The crown prince's page of the bed-chamber, Von Mösting, afterwards so well known as minister of finances, ran up, however, and ere the hereditary prince knew what was being done to him, he found himself at the other end of the corridor. The terrified king took advantage of this moment to fly to his apartment, and thus the victory of the palace revolution of April 14, 1784, was decided. For, if the hereditary prince had succeeded in carrying the king to his step-mother, the recently approved ordinance would certainly have been revoked, and the humiliating announcement which the queen had made to the crown prince just before he entered the privy council, that henceforth Guldberg would report to him the king's orders, would have become a truth.