[Footnote 12: Struensee had no more power on this account than when he was merely master of requests and private secretary to the king. The great reforms were effected while he occupied those two posts. Besides, according to the royal law, "the king can appoint any minister under such title and with such power as he pleases." It was no contravention of the law to accept an office which the king could give and revoke at his pleasure; but, with such a law as that of Denmark, weight may be attached to any sort of accusation. Count de St. Germain was accused of infringing the royal law, because he proposed to raze the useless fortresses and dress the army in blue. The first Bernstorff was also accused of contravention of the _Lex Regia_ when he was dismissed. The persons who condemned Struensee to death for having encroached on the absolute power of the king, issued the following decree on February 13, 1772, or while the trial was going on:-- "All orders shall be drawn up by the council and through the council. No order given directly by the king shall be carried into effect, unless the bearer of it has made application to the department which it concerns, and this department has acknowledged the said order."—-_Falckenskjold_, p. 208.] [Footnote 13: It was, on the contrary, Struensee's principle to purge the army and civil service of foreigners, and only to leave natives; the reform had already been effected in this way in the regiment of Seeland Dragoons. Braëm, one of the commissioners to try Struensee, was well aware of this, as he was a member of the War Department.--_Falckenskjold_, p. 209.] [Footnote 14: The order concerning this reform is the only one which Struensee was accused of having issued without the king's privity. The War Department, of which I was a member, received on December 21 the Minutes of this order for the disbandment of the Foot Guards; it made no protest; it did not ask that the minute should be signed by the king, which was not necessary; the patent was immediately drawn up, and addressed, according to custom, to the king, that it might receive his signature and seal; the king signed this patent on December 23; such is the exact truth. How could it be stated in the sentence that the king had no cognizance on December 21 of a minute the patent of which he ratified on the 23rd by his signature? How could he be ignorant on December 24 of an order he had signed on the 23rd?--_Falckenskjold_, p. 209.] [Footnote 15: Struensee denied this: there were no proofs, and it is well known that this minister only gave orders in writing.] [Footnote 16: It is a curious fact that Brandt's having given Prince Frederick a separate box was made a capital crime; that Baron de Bülow, the king's equerry, was exiled for giving a separate stable to the horses of Prince Frederick; and that I was cruelly prosecuted for having allowed the band to play at a place which Prince Frederick was passing.--_Falckenskjold_, p. 222.] CHAPTER III.