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318
FREDENSBORG.
Chap. XXI.
end approach, sick in mind and in body, knowing not
where to turn for comfort and consolation—for her
trust was not in heaven—the sight of this pomp
and parade, in which she so much delighted, her
attendants, her guards, her sumptuous couch — all
became o’dious to her. She sighed for repose and
for the solace of one kindly spirit on whose affection
she could rely. Among the numerous attendants of
the queen was a certain Juliana Maria Jensen, her
namesake and goddaughter, who filled the office of
“ dame lectrice ” in the royal household. Brought up
from her earliest youth and educated by the bounty of
Juliana, she was much attached to her royal mistress,
by whom she had been ever treated with kindness and
affection.
To her the dying queen now turned. On her bed
of agony the regal apartment was insupportable. She
caused her bed to be removed, and herself, sick and
sinking, to be transported to the room of her favourite
attendant. The staircase was narrow and steep, the
chamber small: with difficulty the bearers mounted
the narrow steps leading to the chamber ; to enter the
doorway they must have literally shaken the dying
queen in her bed: but her will, while still alive, was
law, and no one dared to oppose her commands. Here
in this small chamber, alone with her humble attendant,
she passed the last hours of her existence. The
reputation of Juliana has always been that of a bad
woman, but she appears to have been made the
scapegoat of the sins of her century, and the accusations
against her are so atrocious I cannot help believing
many of them to have been unfounded. When I hear
that she administered poison to Frederic VI. in his
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