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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77405 ***
+
+
+
+
+                     Romantic Castles and Palaces
+
+
+
+
+                       BOOKS BY MISS SINGLETON.
+
+
+                     _FAMOUS PICTURES, SCENES AND
+                        BUILDINGS DESCRIBED BY
+                            GREAT WRITERS._
+
+    TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES.
+    GREAT PICTURES.
+    WONDERS OF NATURE.
+    ROMANTIC CASTLES AND PALACES.
+    FAMOUS PAINTINGS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    PARIS.
+    LONDON.
+    A GUIDE TO THE OPERA.
+    LOVE IN LITERATURE AND ART.
+
+  [Illustration: CONWAY CASTLE, WALES.]
+
+
+
+
+                               Romantic
+                          Castles and Palaces
+
+                         As Seen and Described
+                           by Famous Writers
+
+                         EDITED AND TRANSLATED
+
+                          BY ESTHER SINGLETON
+
+    AUTHOR OF “TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES,” “GREAT PICTURES,”
+    “WONDERS OF NATURE,” “PARIS,” AND “A GUIDE TO THE OPERA,”
+    AND TRANSLATOR OF “THE MUSIC DRAMAS OF RICHARD WAGNER”
+
+                     _With Numerous Illustrations_
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                         DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+                                 1911
+
+
+
+
+                           _Copyright, 1901_
+                        BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+
+                First edition, published October, 1901.
+
+
+
+
+                                Preface
+
+
+In making a selection from the large number of castles and palaces that
+might be included, I have endeavoured to choose those that would appeal
+equally to the lovers of fine architecture and to the lovers of history
+and legend.
+
+There is probably no class of buildings that engages the interest of so
+many different minds as the castle. To the architect, such strongholds
+as Conway, Warwick, Arundel, Lambeth, Blois, Caernavon, Kronborg,
+Windsor, Urbino, Berkeley, Amboise, Loches, etc., etc., are valuable
+studies. For example, Conway, half castle, half palace, contains Early
+Decorated architecture in Queen Eleanor’s Oratory and fine lancet
+windows; the donjon of Arundel dates from the days of King Alfred;
+Warwick, one of the few mediæval fortresses that has lasted unchanged
+from the time of William the Conqueror to that of King Edward VII.,
+shows us what Kenilworth and the other baronial castles of England
+were like; the feudal stronghold of Berkeley has also preserved its
+ancient appearance through seven centuries; Windsor retains its Norman
+Keep and affords a splendid example of the dwelling-place of royalty;
+the mediæval fortress of Amboise with its Flamboyant Gothic chapel
+displays a wonderful contrast of styles; and at Blois four periods of
+architecture may be contemplated side by side. Turning to palaces, it
+is sufficient merely to name the Ducal Palace, the Alhambra, Hampton
+Court Palace, Fontainebleau, Chenonceaux, Futtehpore-Sikri, and the
+Palace of Shah Jehan to recall the wealth that exists in such vast
+volumes of art and architecture. The Mikado’s Palace, and the Summer
+Palace at Pekin transport us into another and mysterious world,
+appealing strongly to our imagination.
+
+The castle was built for defence as well as for a dwelling-place;
+the palace, generally speaking, is the abode of monarchs or nobles;
+and as both have been the scene of plots, imprisonments, murders,
+entertainments, love-making, marriages, births and deaths, their
+walls enclose innumerable memories of history and legend. As the most
+brilliant displays of human pleasure and the blackest manifestations of
+human conduct have occurred in their halls, towers and dungeons, the
+phantoms of the most striking characters in history hover amid their
+crumbling and ivy-clad stones.
+
+In every castle there are one or two characters, events, or legends
+that dominate all the others. For instance, in the Vaults of Kronborg
+Holger Danske (Ogier le Danois, beloved of Morgan le Fay) sleeps; but
+the better-remembered legend is that of the pale ghost that walks
+the platform at Elsinore in the nipping and eager air of midnight.
+Glamis is the supposed scene of Macbeth’s murder of Duncan; Warwick is
+associated with the legendary Guy, the Wars of the Roses and the great
+Earl, the “King-Maker;” Linlithgow is rich in Stuart memories,--it was
+the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots; Caernavon was the birthplace of
+the first Prince of Wales; Raby was the home of the famous Nevilles;
+Harry Hotspur dwelt at Alnwick; the shadow of Louis XI. darkens
+Plessis-les-Tours; Wyclif, Stephen Langton and the Lollards cling to
+Lambeth; Futtehpore-Sikri recalls the splendours of the great Akbar;
+Wolsey dominates Hampton Court Palace; Catherine de’Medici presides
+over Chaumont; Charles VII., Joan of Arc and Agnes Sorel may be evoked
+at Chinon; Berkeley was the scene of the murder of Edward II.; Agnes
+Sorel is again at Loches; François I., Henri IV. and Diane de Poictiers
+haunt Fontainebleau; the Riccardi is filled with Medici crimes; the
+sombre Vecchio holds memories of the brilliant and wicked Cosmo I.;
+and as the entire history of Florence may be read in the walls of the
+latter palace, so all the events and phases of Venetian story are
+centred in the Ducal Palace. Chenonceaux, “the fairy palace of Armida,”
+and Kensington are exceptional in containing no stains of blood. Leigh
+Hunt aptly remarks: “Windsor Castle is a place to receive monarchs in;
+Buckingham Palace, to see fashions in; Kensington Palace a place to
+drink tea in,” exhibiting “the domestic side of royalty.” Its gardens,
+however, call up all the fashion, beauty and wit of the Eighteenth
+Century.
+
+We may suggest to the lovers of beautiful scenery that the pleasure
+they experience is often largely due to the presence of the castle in
+the landscape; and we may remind him, what an important feature Turner
+made of the castle in his paintings. Sometimes, indeed, he went so far
+as to introduce one when his artistic feeling told him that a peak
+or crag was incomplete without its embattled towers. What would the
+rock of Edinburgh be without “Auld Reekie,” or the parks of Arundel,
+Berkeley, or Alnwick without their grey towers seen through vistas
+framed in foliage? The Wartburg in the Thuringer Forest, and Stirling
+and Conway, surrounded by the mountains of Scotland and Wales, are also
+notable examples of the aid of the castle in completing the picturesque
+effect of the landscape.
+
+The translations have been made especially for this book; and in order
+to give as much continuous history of each building as possible, I have
+sometimes been compelled to cut. Otherwise, the essays remain
+unchanged.
+
+My thanks are extended to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for their
+kind permission to reprint the selections from Hawthorne.
+
+                                                                 E. S.
+
+NEW YORK, _August, 1901_.
+
+
+
+
+                               Contents
+
+
+    CONWAY CASTLE                                    1
+            GRANT ALLEN.
+
+    THE DUCAL PALACE                                 8
+            THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
+
+    PALACE OF LINLITHGOW                            21
+            SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+    ARUNDEL CASTLE                                  32
+            ALICE MEYNELL.
+
+    PALAZZO VECCHIO                                 41
+            ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
+
+    KENSINGTON PALACE                               51
+            LEIGH HUNT.
+
+    THE MIKADO’S PALACE                             61
+            PIERRE LOTI.
+
+    WARWICK CASTLE                                  68
+            LADY WARWICK.
+
+    THE ALHAMBRA                                    78
+            EDMONDO DE AMICIS.
+
+    LAMBETH PALACE                                  89
+            JOHN RICHARD GREEN.
+
+    CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS                                99
+            JULES LOISELEUR.
+
+    FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI                               105
+            LOUIS ROUSSELET.
+
+    CAERNAVON CASTLE                               115
+            WILLIAM HOWITT.
+
+    A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE                    124
+            THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
+
+    FONTAINEBLEAU                                  133
+            GRANT ALLEN.
+
+    THE RICCARDI PALACE                            143
+            ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
+
+    RABY CASTLE                                    153
+            WILLIAM HOWITT.
+
+    CASTLE DEL MONTE                               162
+            I. EDWARD LEAR.
+           II. HENRY SWINBURNE.
+
+    THE GENERALIFE                                 169
+            THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
+
+    CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX                         174
+            JULES LOISELEUR.
+
+    DUBLIN CASTLE                                  179
+            LADY WILDE.
+
+    SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES          183
+            WILLIAM HOWITT.
+
+    WHITEHALL PALACE                               190
+            LEIGH HUNT.
+
+    THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG                         199
+            HORACE MARRYAT.
+
+    CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE                             210
+            JULES LOISELEUR.
+
+    WINDSOR CASTLE                                 217
+            THE MARQUIS OF LORNE.
+
+    THE PALACE OF URBINO                           226
+            JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
+
+    ALNWICK CASTLE                                 236
+            CUTHBERT BEDE.
+
+    THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD                      245
+            J. J. BOURRASSEE.
+
+    STIRLING CASTLE                                254
+            NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+    THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS                    259
+            THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
+
+    PLESSIS-LES-TOURS                              267
+            J. J. BOURRASSEE.
+
+    HAMPTON COURT PALACE                           275
+            ERNEST LAW.
+
+    THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN                       285
+            BHOLANAUTH CHUNDER.
+
+    EDINBURGH CASTLE                               295
+            I. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
+           II. JAMES NORRIS BREWER.
+
+    LAMBTON CASTLE                                 304
+            WILLIAM HOWITT.
+
+    ARANJUEZ                                       310
+            EDMONDO DE AMICIS.
+
+    GLAMIS CASTLE                                  314
+            LADY GLAMIS.
+
+    CHÂTEAU DE CHINON                              321
+            J. J. BOURRASSEE.
+
+    THE SUMMER PALACE                              329
+            MAURICE PALEOLOGUE.
+
+    BERKELEY CASTLE                                337
+            ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN.
+
+    THE CASTLE OF CHILLON                          346
+            NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+    ROCCA MALATESTIANA                             354
+            CHARLES YRIARTE.
+
+    THE WARTBURG                                   360
+            L. PUTTICH.
+
+    CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE                              367
+            JULES LOISELEUR.
+
+    BLARNEY CASTLE                                 375
+            MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL.
+
+    CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES                              380
+            J. J. BOURRASSEE.
+
+    THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM                         390
+            NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+
+
+                             Illustrations
+
+
+    CONWAY CASTLE                   _Wales_           _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                         FACING PAGE
+
+    THE DUCAL PALACE                _Italy_                        8
+    PALACE OF LINLITHGOW            _Scotland_                    21
+    ARUNDEL CASTLE                  _England_                     32
+    PALAZZO VECCHIO                 _Italy_                       41
+    KENSINGTON PALACE               _England_                     51
+    THE MIKADO’S PALACE             _Japan_                       61
+    WARWICK CASTLE                  _England_                     68
+    THE ALHAMBRA                    _Spain_                       78
+    LAMBETH PALACE                  _England_                     89
+    CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS                _France_                      99
+    FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI                _India_                      105
+    CAERNAVON CASTLE                _Wales_                      115
+    WINTER PALACE                   _Russia_                     124
+    FONTAINEBLEAU                   _France_                     133
+    THE RICCARDI PALACE             _Italy_                      143
+    RABY CASTLE                     _England_                    153
+    CASTEL DEL MONTE                _Sicily_                     162
+    THE GENERALIFE                  _Spain_                      169
+    CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX          _France_                     174
+    DUBLIN CASTLE                   _Ireland_                    179
+    SANS SOUCI                      _Germany_                    183
+    WHITEHALL PALACE                _England_                    190
+    THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG          _Denmark_                    199
+    CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE              _France_                     210
+    WINDSOR CASTLE                  _England_                    217
+    THE PALACE OF URBINO            _Italy_                      226
+    ALNWICK CASTLE                  _England_                    236
+    THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD       _France_                     245
+    STIRLING CASTLE                 _Scotland_                   254
+    THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS     _Turkey_                     259
+    PLESSIS-LES-TOURS               _France_                     267
+    HAMPTON COURT PALACE            _England_                    275
+    THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN        _India_                      285
+    EDINBURGH CASTLE                _Scotland_                   295
+    LAMBTON CASTLE                  _England_                    304
+    ARANJUEZ                        _Spain_                      310
+    GLAMIS CASTLE                   _Scotland_                   314
+    CHÂTEAU DE CHINON               _France_                     321
+    THE SUMMER PALACE               _China_                      329
+    BERKELEY CASTLE                 _England_                    337
+    THE CASTLE OF CHILLON           _Switzerland_                346
+    ROCCA MALATESTIANA              _Italy_                      354
+    THE WARTBURG                    _Germany_                    360
+    CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE               _France_                     367
+    BLARNEY CASTLE                  _Ireland_                    375
+    CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES               _France_                     380
+    THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM          _England_                    390
+
+
+
+
+                          Castles and Palaces
+
+
+
+
+                             CONWAY CASTLE
+
+                              GRANT ALLEN
+
+
+To call the town at the mouth of the Conway plain Conway is as absurd
+as if we were to call the town at the mouth of the Tyne plain Tyne
+instead of Tynemouth.
+
+By whatever name we call it, however, Conway town itself is equally
+interesting and equally beautiful. It still presents perhaps the best
+specimen yet remaining in Britain of a mediæval borough, begirt to this
+day with its Thirteenth Century walls, and overlooked by the towers of
+its strong castle-fortress. Even Telford’s graceful suspension-bridge,
+in admirable harmony of tone and plan with the surrounding buildings,
+hardly detracts at all from the old-world character of the familiar
+scene; nay, I am not sure that it does not even add somewhat to its
+picturesqueness. As much cannot be said for the huge iron boxes of
+Stephenson’s tubular bridge which carries the London and North-Western
+line across the river on its way to Holyhead. But taken as a whole,
+the mouth of the Conway, with its town and castle, has hardly an equal
+perhaps in Britain, save the mouth of the Dart in the equally Celtic
+Devonian uplands.
+
+Yet to the Welshman, the towers of Conway, beautiful as they are from
+every point of view, must long have seemed a badge of servitude. We
+forget too often in looking at these picturesque relics of the lawless
+days how stern and business-like they must once have appeared, how
+suggestive of none but purely military and aggressive associations.
+Time has softened the murderous effect of keep and bastion, and left us
+nothing but the graceful tinge of poetic mediævalism. But when Edward
+I. impressed into his service the unpaid labour of the conquered Welsh
+to raise his great castles around the disaffected mountain land, he
+did it with the distinct and deliberate purpose of holding in check
+for the future all wild aspirations of the native race after Cymric
+independence. The great triangle formed by the three strong castles of
+Harlech, Caernavon, and Conway (like the famous Austrian quadrilateral
+in North Italy) was a standing menace to the national movement and an
+effectual curb upon the national desire to rise in revolt. The three
+proud strongholds occupy the keys to the three chief routes into the
+heart of Snowdonia. Harlech blocks the way by the Vale of Festiniog or
+the Pass of Aberglaslyn: Caernavon guards the bare ravine of Llanberis:
+Conway frowns down upon the Bettws road and stops the coast path by
+Penmaenmawr and Bangor. Dominated and daunted by these three imposing
+fortresses, so vastly superior in design and construction to the
+little tower keeps of her native princelings, the mountain heart of
+Gwynedd lay still for centuries, only galvanized for a moment once
+into spasmodic life, during the troublous times of civil commotion in
+England, by the adventurous spirit of that Deeside chief whose name
+Englishmen travesty into Owen Glendower.
+
+Nowhere is the genius of Edward’s great architect, Henry of Elreton,
+more conspicuous than in this noble pile at Conway. Half castle,
+half palace--for Edward meant to be king as well as conqueror--it
+combined the military solidity of Anglo-Norman work with the domestic
+magnificence of later Tudor mansions. Its great hall, in particular,
+must have formed, when perfect, one of the most regal and splendid
+reception rooms then existing in any part of England. The remaining
+lancet windows of the royal private apartments, and the beautiful
+early-decorated workmanship of Queen Eleanor’s oratory, survive to show
+with what royal state Edward kept his court both here and at Caernavon.
+For it is quite a mistake to regard the greatest of Plantagenets
+as a mere savage conqueror--the “ruthless king” of Gray’s immortal
+calumny. If Edward repressed sternly, he meant to reign peacefully.
+The “massacre of the bards” and all the other poetical rubbish with
+which Welsh legend has clouded the history of the national defeat, must
+be relegated to the limbo of exploded fable. The plain truth is that,
+when once Llewelyn and Dafydd were dead, Edward’s whole policy in the
+Welsh question was a policy of conciliation. His object was to pacify
+and Anglicize the disaffected uplands, to make communications safe
+through what had once been the stronghold of Taffy, that typical robber
+outlaw, and to reorganize the broken Celtic community on the familiar
+model of the English kingdom. It was not in mere play, therefore,
+that he presented to the Welsh his own eldest son, born by deliberate
+arrangement an indigenous Welshman in Caernavon Castle, as the first
+Prince of Wales of a new and more powerful line, or that he built and
+decorated those great royal reception rooms in his Cambrian palaces,
+where the chieftains of Gwynedd and the rude lords of Anglesey might
+for the first time see and be duly impressed by the splendour and the
+glitter of Anglo-Norman chivalry.
+
+Viewed from this wider standpoint, the beautiful chain-bridge and the
+ugly boxes of Stephenson’s iron monstrosity are themselves in a certain
+sort the direct heirs and truest modern representatives of Edward’s
+wise and necessary policy. So seen, they cease to interfere with the
+unity of the view and merge into one with the great Plantagenet design
+of the palace-castle. For both these important works, with their still
+vaster and more wonderful sister-bridges over the Menai at Bangor,
+form to this day the outer and visible sign of that coalescence of the
+Celtic and Teutonic elements in Britain to which Edward devoted all
+his life and energy. The first great roads made by the first great
+road-makers in England were the roads that connected London, the centre
+of the empire, with the Irish packets at Holyhead; and both those
+roads, whether coastwise or internal, by Glan Ogwen or Penmaenmawr,
+led through the wildest parts of Wild Wales. The greatest life task
+of the greatest engineer before the railway period--Telford--was the
+Holyhead road: the greatest life task of the inventor of the locomotive
+and his still abler sons--George and Robert Stephenson--was the iron
+line from London to Holyhead. In these gigantic undertakings, Celt and
+Saxon were united for all, and the better day of fraternal friendship
+was inaugurated in full sight of Edward’s threatening castle towers.
+Dr. Arnold loved to look at the railway engine, snorting steam across
+the midland acres, and think that feudalism was dead forever. It is
+pleasant in like manner to look even at Stephenson’s hideous tubular
+bridge, and think, that ill as it contrasts in beauty with the
+Plantagenet turrets, it is nevertheless the symbol of that complete
+fellowship between Saxon and Celt in this land of Britain which forms
+the final goal and ideal of our national unity.
+
+The vale of Conway does not stop abruptly at Conway town; it prolongs
+itself seaward by gentle degrees far into the shallow waters of
+Beaumaris Bay. On either side lie the wide tidal sandbanks, formed of
+material which the river has washed down from the peaks of Snowdon,
+Glyder, and the Carnedds, the very source from which they are derived
+being often traceable in the mineralogical peculiarities of the
+individual grains. About these sands the weird and melancholy Celtic
+fancy has woven a variation on the common mournful Celtic legend of
+the submerged country--the legend which meets us again under a hundred
+disguises in the story of Sythenin Cardigan Bay, the floods of Sarn
+Badrig, the lost land of Lyonesse, and the sunken city of Is on the
+coasts of Brittany.
+
+Wherever the Cymric Celt remains, there these stories survive and
+accompany him. Perhaps they may inclose some true kernel of tradition
+about the terrific submergence which undoubtedly once took place round
+the coasts of the two Britains--the greater and the less--at the
+period when the forest-bed of post-glacial date was swallowed up by
+the devouring Atlantic. It seemed more probable, however, and it is
+certainly far more comforting to believe that the vast earth-movement
+took place so quietly, and was spread over so many peaceful centuries,
+that it was no more recognized by the men who lived during its gradual
+progress than the slow and gradual submergence of Scandinavia--an inch
+at a time--is noticed in our own day by the Norwegian peasant. Rather
+do these stories reflect and embody the gloomy fancy of a conquered
+people, whose traditions of glory all referred to a remote and unreal
+past, and who felt in their despair that the very elements themselves
+had wrested from them those fertile lands which their fathers had never
+really owned or cultivated.
+
+Be this as it may, local legend declares that the Lavan sands--the
+very name in Welsh means Banks of Lamentation--represent the relics
+of a rich lowland hundred, engulfed by the sea at one wild swoop in
+the early part of the Middle Ages. About a fathom deep, off Y Foel
+Llus, lies a submarine bank still known as Llys Helig, or Helig’s
+Palace. Here, according to tradition, stood the lofty castle of the
+Cymric lord who owned for miles around the fertile plain; and Welsh
+imagination still sees at low tide through the clear water of the bay
+the boundary stones of the ancient road that passed from the British
+stronghold at Rhuddlan to the fortress of Treganwy, now equally
+overwhelmed beneath the sands of Beaumaris. It is a little unfortunate
+for the truth of the tale that similar evidences of historical verity
+are always produced in favour of Caer Is and all the other Celtic
+buried cities--and that no Saxon eye has ever clearly beheld them.
+
+
+
+
+                           THE DUCAL PALACE
+
+                           THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
+
+
+The Ducal Palace as we see it to-day dates from Marino Faliero and is
+the successor of an older one begun in 809 under Angelo Participazio
+and carried on by the different Doges. It was Marino Faliero who caused
+the two façades on the Mole and the Piazzetta to be built in 1355 as
+they now are. This construction brought happiness neither to him who
+ordered nor to the architect: the former was decapitated and the latter
+hanged.
+
+Into this strange edifice,--at once a palace, senate, tribunal and
+prison under the government of the Republic,--we enter by a charming
+door in St. Mark’s corner, between the pillars of St. John of Acre and
+the great, thick column supporting the entire weight of the immense
+white and rose marble wall that gives such an original aspect to the
+ancient palace of the Doges.
+
+  [Illustration: THE DUCAL PALACE]
+
+This door, called Della Carta, is in charming architectural taste,
+adorned with little columns, trefoils and statues, without counting
+the inevitable, indispensable winged lion of St. Mark, and leads into
+the great interior court by a vaulted passage. This somewhat singular
+arrangement of an entrance so to speak placed without the edifice to
+which it leads has the advantage of not interfering in any way with
+the unity of its façades, which are not broken by any projection except
+that of their monumental windows.
+
+Before passing under the arcade, let us glance over the exterior of
+the palace to note a few of its interesting details. Above the thick
+and robust column of which we have just spoken, there is a bas-relief
+of savage aspect representing the _Judgment of Solomon_, with
+mediæval costume and a certain barbarity of execution that renders it
+hard to recognize the subject. This bas-relief opens into the long
+twisted little columns that cordon each angle of the building.
+
+On the façade of the Piazzetta, up on the second gallery, two columns
+of red marble mark the place whence the death sentences were read,--a
+custom that still exists to-day. All the capitals are in exquisite
+taste and inexhaustible variety. Not one is a repetition. They contain
+chimæræ, children, angels, fantastic animals, and sometimes Biblical or
+historical subjects, mingled with foliage, acanthus, fruits and flowers
+that forcibly show up the poverty of invention of our modern artists:
+several bear half effaced inscriptions in Gothic characters, which in
+order to be fluently read would require a skilful paleographer. There
+are twenty-seven arcades on the Mole and eighteen on the Piazzetta.
+
+The Porta della Carta leads you to the Giant’s Staircase, which is not
+itself gigantic, but takes its name from the two colossi of Neptune
+and Mars, a dozen feet in height, by Sansovino, standing on pedestals
+at the top of the flight. This staircase, leading from the courtyard
+to the second gallery that decks the interior as well as the exterior
+of the palace, was raised during the dogedom of Agostino Barbarigo
+by Antonio Rizzio. It is of white marble, decorated by Domenico and
+Bernardo of Mantua with arabesques and trophies in very slight relief,
+but of such perfection as to be the despair of all the ornamenters,
+carvers and engravers in the world. It is no longer architecture, but
+goldsmith’s work, such as Benvenuto Cellini and Vechte alone could
+produce. Every morsel of this open balustrade is a world of invention;
+the weapons and casques of every bas-relief, each one different, are of
+the rarest fancy and the purest style; even the slabs of the steps are
+ornamented with exquisite _niello_, and yet who knows anything of
+Domenico and Bernardo of Mantua? The memory of mankind, already wearied
+with a hundred illustrious names, refuses to retain any more, and
+consigns to oblivion names that are deserving of all glory.
+
+If we turn around on reaching the head of this staircase, we see the
+inner side of the doorway of Bartolomeo, flowered over with volutes and
+plated with little columns and statues, with remnants of blue painting
+starred with gold in the tympanums of the arch. Among the statues, one
+in particular is very remarkable: it is an Eve by Antonio Rizzio of
+Verona, carved in 1471. The other side, facing the Wells, was built
+in 1607 in the style of the Renaissance, with columns and niches full
+of antique statues from Greece, representing warriors, orators, and
+divinities. A clock and a statue of the Duke Urbino, carved by Gio
+Bandini of Florence in 1625, complete this severe and classic front.
+
+Letting your glance fall towards the middle of the court, you see
+what look like magnificent bronze altars. They are the mouths of the
+cisterns of Nicolo de’ Conti and Francesco Alberghetti. The first dates
+from 1556, the second from 1559. Both are masterpieces. Besides the
+obligatory accompaniment of griffins, sirens, and chimæræ, various
+aquatic subjects taken from the Scriptures are represented in them. One
+could not imagine such richness of invention, such exquisite taste,
+such perfection of carving, nor such finished work as is displayed by
+the kerbs of these wells enriched with the polish and verdigris of
+time. Even the inside of the mouth is plated with thin sheets of bronze
+branched with a damascene of arabesques. These two wells are said to
+contain the best water in Venice.
+
+Near the Giant’s Staircase is an inscription framed with ornaments
+and figures by Alessandro Vittoria recalling the passage of Henry
+III. through Venice; and farther on in the gallery at the approach to
+the golden staircase are two statues by Antonio Aspetti,--Hercules
+and Atlas bending beneath the starry firmament, the weight of which
+the mighty hero is about to transfer to his own bull-neck. This
+magnificent staircase, adorned with stuccos by Vittoria and paintings
+by Giambatista, is by Sansovino, and leads to the library which now
+occupies several rooms of the Palace of the Doges. To attempt to
+describe them one by one would be a work of patience and erudition that
+would require a whole volume.
+
+The old hall of the Grand Council is one of the largest you could find
+anywhere. The Court of Lions at the Alhambra would easily go inside it.
+On entering, you stand still, struck with astonishment. By an effect
+that is somewhat frequently found in architecture, this hall looks
+much larger than the building that contains it. A sombre and severe
+wainscoting, where bookcases have taken the place of the seats of the
+old senators, serves as a plinth for immense paintings that extend all
+around the walls, broken only by windows, below a line of portraits of
+the Doges and a colossal gilded ceiling of incredible exuberance of
+ornamentation, with great compartments, square, octagonal and oval,
+with foliage, volutes, and rock-work in a taste scarcely appropriate
+to the style of the palace, but so imposing and magnificent that you
+are quite dazzled by it. Unfortunately, the pictures by Paul Veronese,
+Tintoret, Palma the Younger, and other great masters, that filled these
+superb frames have now been removed on account of indispensable repairs.
+
+That side of the hall by which you enter is entirely occupied by
+a gigantic _Paradise_ by Tintoret, which contains a world of
+figures. It is a strong painting and it is a pity that time has so
+greatly darkened it. The smoky shadows that cover it belong to a Hell
+rather than to a Glory. Behind this canvas, a fact that we have not
+been in a position to verify, it is said that there is an ancient
+_Paradise_ painted in green camaïeu upon the wall by Guariento of
+Padua in 1365. It would be curious to be able to compare this green
+_Paradise_ with the black one. It is only Venice that has one
+depth of painting below another.
+
+This hall is a kind of Versailles museum of Venetian history, with
+the difference that if the exploits are not so great, the painting
+is far better. It is impossible to imagine a more wonderful effect
+than is produced by this immense hall entirely covered by these
+pompous paintings that excel in the Venetian genius. Above these great
+historical scenes, is a row of portraits of the Doges by Tintoret,
+Bassano, and other painters; as a rule, they have a smoky and bearded
+appearance, although, contrary to the impression we form, they have no
+beards. In one corner the eye is arrested at an empty and black frame
+that makes a hole as dark as a tomb in this chronological gallery. It
+is the space that should be occupied by the portrait of Marino Faliero,
+as told by this inscription: _Locus Marini Phaletri, decapitati pro
+criminibus_. All the effigies of Marino Faliero were also destroyed,
+so that his portrait may be said to be undiscoverable. However, it is
+pretended that there is one in the possession of an amateur at Verona.
+The republic wanted to destroy the memory of this haughty old man who
+brought it within an inch of ruin in revenge for a youth’s jest that
+was sufficiently punished by a few months’ imprisonment. To finish with
+Marino Faliero, let us note that he was not beheaded at the head of
+the Giant’s Staircase, as is represented in several prints, since that
+stairway was not built till a hundred and fifty years later, but in
+the opposite corner at the other end of the gallery, upon the top of a
+flight of steps since demolished.
+
+We will now name the most celebrated chambers of the palace without
+pretending to describe them in detail. In the chamber _dei
+Scarlatti_, the chimney-piece is covered with marble reliefs of
+the finest workmanship. On the impost also is seen a very curious
+bas-relief in marble representing the Doge Loredan on his knees before
+the Virgin and Child, accompanied by several saints,--an admirable
+piece of work by an unknown artist. The Hall of the Shield: here the
+arms of the living Doge were emblazoned. It is hung with geographical
+charts by the Abbé Grisellini that trace the discoveries of Marco
+Polo, so long treated as fabulous, and of other illustrious Venetian
+travellers, such as Zeni and Cabota. Here also is kept a globe, found
+on a Turkish galley, engraved upon wood and of strange configuration
+being in accordance with Oriental ideas and covered with Arabic
+characters cut with marvellous delicacy; also a great bird’s-eye view
+of Venice by Albrecht Dürer, who made a long stay in the city of the
+Doges. The aspect of the city is generally the same as to-day, since
+for three centuries one stone has not been laid upon another in the
+Italian cities.
+
+In the Hall of the Philosophers, a very beautiful chimney-piece by
+Pierre Lombard is to be noticed. The Hall of Stuccos, so called because
+of its ornamentation, contains paintings by Salviati, Pordenone, and
+Bassano: the _Virgin_, a _Descent from the Cross_, and the
+_Nativity of Jesus Christ_. The banquet-hall is where the Doge
+used to give certain feasts of etiquette,--diplomatic dinners, as we
+should say to-day. Here we see a portrait of Henry III. by Tintoret,
+very strong and very fine; and facing the door is the _Adoration
+of the Magi_, a warm painting by Bonifazio, that great master of
+whose work we possess scarcely anything in Paris. The Hall of the Four
+Doors has a square anteroom, the ceiling of which, painted by Tintoret,
+represents Justice giving the sword and scales to the Doge Priuli. The
+four doors are adorned with statues of grand form by Guilio del Moro,
+Francesco Caselli, Girolamo Campagna, and Alessandro Vittoria; the
+paintings that enrich the room are masterpieces.
+
+From this hall let us pass into the Anti-Collegio; it is the
+waiting-room of the ambassadors, the architecture being by Scamozzi.
+The envoys of the various powers who came to present their credentials
+to the Most Serene Republic could scarcely have been in a hurry to
+be introduced: the masterpieces crowded with such lavishness into
+this splendid anteroom would induce anyone to be patient. The four
+pictures near the door are by Tintoret, and among his best. These are
+the subjects: _Mercury and the Graces_; _Vulcan’s Forge_;
+_Pallas, accompanied by Joy and Abundance, chasing Mars_; and
+_Ariadne consoled by Bacchus_. Apart from a few rather forced
+foreshortenings and a few violent attitudes in which this master took
+pleasure on account of their difficulty, we can do nothing but praise
+the virile energy of touch, the warmth of colour, the truth of the
+flesh, the lifelike power and that forceful and charming grace that
+distinguishes mighty talents when they have to render sweet and gentle
+subjects.
+
+But the marvel of this sanctuary of art is the _Rape of Europa_,
+by Paul Veronese. What lovely white shoulders! what blonde curling
+tresses! what round and charming arms! what smiles of eternal youth
+in this wonderful canvas in which Paul Veronese seems to have spoken
+his final word! Sky, clouds, trees, flowers, meadows, seas, tints,
+draperies, all seem bathed in the glow of an unknown Elysium. If we
+had to choose one single example of all Paul Veronese’s work, this is
+the one we should prefer: it is the most beautiful pearl in this rich
+casket.
+
+On the ceiling the great artist has seated his dear Venice on a golden
+throne with that amplitude of drapery and that abundant grace of which
+he possesses the secret. For this _Assumption_, in which Venice
+takes the place of the Virgin, he always knows how to find fresh blues
+and new radiance.
+
+The magnificent chimney-piece by Aspetti, a stucco cornice by
+Vittoria and Bombarda, blue camaïeu by Sebastian Rizzi and columns
+of _verde antique_ and Cipolin marble framing the door complete
+this marvellous decoration in which shines the most beautiful of all
+luxuries,--that of genius.
+
+The reception-hall, or the Collegio, comes next. Here we find
+Tintoret and Paul Veronese, the former red and violent, the other
+azure and calm; the first, suited to great expanses of wall, the
+second, for immense ceilings. We will not speak of the camaïeu, the
+_grisailles_, the columns of _verde antique_, the little
+arches of flowered jasper and sculptures by G. Campagna: we should
+never finish; and those are the ordinary sumptuous details in the
+Palace of the Doges.
+
+There are many other admirable rooms in the Ducal Palace that we
+have not mentioned. The Hall of the Council of Ten, the Hall of the
+Supreme Council, the Hall of the State Inquisitors, and many others.
+Upon their walls and ceilings sit side by side the apotheosis of
+Venice and the Assumption of the Virgin; the Doges on their knees
+before some Madonna or other; and mythological heroes or fabulous
+gods; the Lion of St. Mark and Jupiter’s Eagle; the Emperor Frederick
+Barbarossa and a Neptune; Pope Alexander III. and a short-kilted
+Allegory. Mix up stories from the Bible and holy Virgins beneath
+baldaquins, captures of Zara embroidered with more numerous episodes
+than one of Ariosto’s songs, and surprises of Candia with jumbles of
+Turks; carve the door-cases; cover the cornices with mouldings and
+stucco; set up statues in every corner; lay gold upon everything that
+is not covered by the brush of a superior artist; say: “All those who
+have laboured here, even the obscure, had twenty times as much talent
+as our celebrities of the present day; and the greatest masters have
+employed their lives here;” and then you will have a feeble idea
+of all this magnificence that defies description. Painters, whose
+names are not uttered once a century, here hold their place in most
+terrible proximities. You would say that genius was in the air at that
+climacteric epoch of human progress and that nothing was easier than
+to produce masterpieces. The sculptors especially, of whom no one
+ever speaks, display an extraordinary talent and are not in the least
+inferior to the greatest painters.
+
+Close to the door of one of these rooms we still see, though robbed of
+all its prestige of terror, and reduced to the condition of an unused
+letter-box, the ancient Lion’s Mouth to which the informers came to
+cast in their denunciations. Nothing remains now but a hole in the
+wall: the jaw has been removed. A sombre corridor leads you to the Hall
+of the State Inquisitors, to the Leads, and to the Wells that have
+served as a text for an infinity of sentimental declamation. Certainly
+there are no beautiful prisons; but the truth is that the Leads were
+large chambers covered with lead, a material with which the roofs
+of most of the edifices of Venice are covered and which has nothing
+particularly cruel about it; and that the Wells were not below the
+level of the lagoon. We visited two or three of these cells. Covered
+with wood on the inside, they had a low door and a little opening
+facing the lamp fixed to the roof of the passage. A wooden camp-bed
+occupied one of the corners.
+
+It was black and stifling, but without any melodramatic accessories.
+Upon the walls are decipherable several of those inscriptions that
+prison weariness engraves with a nail upon the wall of the tomb:
+signatures, dates, short sentences from the Bible, philosophical
+reflections appropriate to the spot, a timid sigh for liberty,
+sometimes the cause of the imprisonment, such as the inscription in
+which a captive says that he has been incarcerated for sacrilege. At
+the entrance to a corridor they showed us a stone seat on which those
+who were secretly executed in the prison were made to sit. A slender
+cord cast around the neck and twisted like a garotte strangled them
+in the Turkish manner. These clandestine executions were only for
+state prisoners convicted of political crimes. The deed being done,
+the corpse was bundled into a gondola through a door opening on to the
+Canal della Paglia and it was taken away to be sunk with a cannon-ball
+or stone at the feet in the Orfanello Canal which is very deep and
+where fishermen are forbidden to cast their nets.
+
+Vulgar assassins are executed between the two columns at the entrance
+of the Piazzetta. The Bridge of Sighs, which seen from the Paille
+Bridge, looks like a cenotaph suspended over the water, has nothing
+remarkable inside: it is a double corridor divided by a wall which
+serves as a covered way from the Ducal Palace to the Prison, the severe
+and solid edifice built by Antonio da Ponte, and situated on the other
+side of the Canal facing the lateral façade of the Palace which is
+supposed to have been built from the plans of Antonio Riccio. The name
+of the Bridge of Sighs, given to that tomb that connects two prisons,
+probably comes from the lamentations of the unfortunates going from
+their cell to the tribunal and back again, broken by torture, or in
+despair after condemnation. In the evening this Canal, squeezed between
+the high walls of the two sombre edifices and illumined by some rare
+gleam, has a very sinister and mysterious aspect, and the gondolas that
+glide along there bearing some handsome pair of lovers going to get a
+little fresh air on the lagoon, look as if they have a burden for the
+Orfanello Canal.
+
+We have also visited the ancient apartments of the Doge; nothing
+remains of their primitive magnificence except a highly ornamental
+ceiling divided into gilded and painted hexagonal compartments. In
+these spaces, shielded by foliage and rosebushes, was an invisible hole
+through which the State Inquisitors and the members of the Council of
+Ten could spy upon what the Doge was doing at all hours of the day and
+of the night. The walls, not content with listening by an ear, like the
+prison of Denys the Tyrant, watched with an ever open eye, and the Doge
+who had conquered at Zara or at Candia heard, like Angelo, “steps in
+his walls” and felt a mysterious and jealous watch all about him.
+
+
+
+
+                         PALACE OF LINLITHGOW
+
+                           SIR WALTER SCOTT
+
+
+Linlithgow, distinguished by the combined strength and beauty of its
+situation, must have been early selected as a royal residence. David,
+who bought the title of Saint by his liberality to the church, refers
+several of his characters to his town of Linlithgow, and in that of
+Holy Rood expressly bestows on the new monastery all the skins of the
+rams, ewes, and lambs belonging to his Castle of Linlitcu which shall
+die during the year.
+
+The convenience afforded for the sport of falconry, which was so
+great a favourite during the feudal ages, was probably one cause of
+an attachment of the ancient Scottish monarchs to Linlithgow, and
+its fine lake. The sport of hunting was also followed with success
+in the neighbourhood, from which circumstance it probably arises
+that the ancient arms of the city represent a black greyhound-bitch
+tied to a tree. Tradition, however, ascribes other causes for this
+remarkable emblem, but is, as usual, rather inconsistent in accounting
+for it otherwise. One legend says simply, that such a hound was found
+so tied on the small island on the east side of the loch. Another
+tradition hints at a witch who used to assume this shape. A third more
+ungallantly adopts a metaphorical meaning, and affirms that a mistress
+of one of the kings was designated under this hieroglyphic. A Celt,
+according to Chalmers, might plausibly derive the name of Linlithgow
+from _Lin-liath-cu_, the Lake of the Greyhound. Chalmers himself, seems
+to prefer the Gothic derivation of _Lin-lyth-gow_, or the Lake of the
+Great Vale. _Non nostrum est._
+
+  [Illustration: PALACE OF LINLITHGOW, SCOTLAND.]
+
+The Castle of Linlithgow is only mentioned as being a peel (a pile,
+that is, an embattled tower surrounded by an outwork). In 1300 it was
+rebuilt or repaired by Edward I., and used as one of the citadels by
+which he hoped to maintain his usurped dominion in Scotland. It is
+described by Barbour as “meihle and stark and stuffed weel.” Piers
+Luband, a Gascoigne knight, was appointed the keeper, and appears to
+have remained there until the autumn of 1313, when the Scots recovered
+the Castle under the following interesting circumstances:--
+
+There was, says our authority, Barbour, dwelling in the neighbourhood
+of Linlithgow, a stout-hearted husbandman, named William Binnock,
+who, observing that the Scots were on every hand recovering from the
+English the castles and fortresses which the invaders possessed within
+Scotland, could not brook that the peel in his vicinity, which was
+large, strong, and well supplied with arms and garrisons, should remain
+unassailed. He formed a stratagem, equally remarkable for ingenuity and
+audacity. The garrison was usually supplied by Binnock with hay, and
+they had lately required from him a fresh supply. He assured them of
+the excellence of the forage, and undertook to send it in early in the
+morning. But the hay was so arranged on the wain as to conceal eight
+well-armed and determined men; the team was driven by a sturdy peasant,
+who bore a sharp axe under his gaberdion. Binnock himself walked beside
+the waggon, to superintend, as it seemed, the safe delivery of the
+forage. The porter, on approach of Binnock, with his well-known wain,
+lowered the drawbridge and raised the portcullis. Just at the very
+gateway, the driver, as he had been instructed, drew his axe suddenly
+and cut asunder the soam, or tackle, by which the oxen were attached
+to the waggon. Binnock at the same instant struck the warder dead, and
+shouted the signal word, which was “Call all, call all.” The assailants
+jumped from amongst the hay, and attacked the astonished garrison.
+The wain was so placed that neither could the gate be shut nor the
+portcullis lowered, nor the bridge raised, and a party of Scots, who
+were in ambush for the purpose, rushed in to second their forlorn hope,
+and were soon masters of the place.
+
+Bruce, faithful to his usual policy, caused the peel of Linlithgow to
+be dismantled, and worthily rewarded William Binnock, who had behaved
+with such gallantry on the occasion. From this bold yeoman the Binnies
+of West Lothian are proud to trace their descent; and most, if not all
+of them, bear in their arms something connected with the waggon, which
+was the instrument of his stratagem.
+
+When times of comparative peace returned, Linlithgow again became the
+occasional residence of the sovereign. In 1411 the town was burned
+by accident, and in 1414 was again subjected to the same calamity,
+together with the Church and Palace of the King, as is expressly
+mentioned by Bower.
+
+The present Church, which is a fine specimen of Gothic architecture,
+having a steeple surmounted by an imperial crown, was probably erected
+soon after that calamity.
+
+The Palace arose from its ashes with greater splendour than before; for
+the family of Stuart, unhappy in so many respects, were all of them
+fortunate in their taste for the fine arts, and particularly for that
+of architecture. The Lordship of Linlithgow was settled as a dowry upon
+Mary of Gueldres in 1449, and again upon Margaret of Denmark in 1468.
+
+James the Fourth, as splendid a gallant, seems to have founded the most
+magnificent part of Linlithgow Palace; together with the noble entrance
+betwixt two flanking towers bearing on rich entablatures the royal arms
+of Scotland, with the collar of the Order of the Thistle, Garter, and
+Saint Michael.
+
+James IV., also erected in the Church a throne for himself, and twelve
+stalls for Knights Companions of the Thistle. It was sitting here, in
+the time of public worship, and musing, perhaps, on his approaching
+invasion of England, that he received a singular advice from a singular
+personage, which we cannot express better than in the words of
+Pitscottie:--
+
+“At this time the King visited Linlithgow, where he was at the Council,
+very sad and dolorous, making his prayers to God to send him a good
+success in his voyage. And there came a man clad in a blue gown, belted
+about him with a roll of lining, and a pair of _brottikines_ on
+his feet, and all other things conform thereto. But he had nothing on
+his head but side hair to his shoulders, and bald before. He seemed
+to be a man of fifty years, and came fast forwards, crying among the
+lords, and specially for the King, saying, that he desired to speak
+with him; while at the last he came to the desk where the King was at
+prayers. But when he saw the King, he gave him no due reverence nor
+salutation, but leaned him down gruffly upon the desk, and said, ‘Sir
+King, my mother has sent me to thee, desiring thee not to go where
+thou art purposed, which if thou do, thou shalt not fare well in thy
+journey, nor none that is with thee. Farther, she forbade thee, not
+to mell nor use the counsel of women, which if thou do, thou wilt be
+confounded and brought to shame.’ By [_the time_] this man had
+spoken these words to the King, the even-song was near done, and the
+King paused on these words, studying to him an answer. But in the
+meantime, before the King’s eyes, and in presence of the whole lords
+that were about him for the time, this man evanished away, and could no
+more be seen. I heard Sir David Lindsay, Lyon-herald, and John Inglis,
+the Marishall, who were at that time young men and special servants to
+the King’s grace, thought to have taken this man, but they could not,
+that they might have speired [_asked_] further tidings at him, but
+they could not touch him.”
+
+Buchanan confirms this strange story on the word of a spectator,
+Sir David Lindsay, whose testimony he describes as unimpeachable.
+Thus supported, we have only to choose betwixt a deception and
+a supernatural appearance. The temper of James was one of those
+described by the poet as being “of imagination all compact.” He was
+amorous, devotional, and chivalrous. This renders it highly probable
+that the simulated vision was contrived by some of the numerous party
+who advised a continuance of peace with England, and who might be of
+opinion that counsels conveyed in this mysterious manner might have
+some effect on the romantic spirit of the King. It is usually supposed
+that the vision was intended to represent Saint Andrew; but the use
+of the words, “my mother,” seem rather to imply the Apostle John, who
+indicated by that term the Virgin Mary.
+
+The death of James IV. and rout of his army clouded for many a day the
+glory of Scotland, and marred the mirth of her palaces.
+
+James V. was much attached to Linlithgow, and added to the Palace
+both the Chapel and Parliament Hall, the last of which is peculiarly
+striking. So that when he brought his bride Mary of Guise there, amid
+the festivities which accompanied their wedding, she might have more
+reasons than mere complaisance for highly commending the edifice, and
+saying that she never saw a more princely palace. It was long her
+residence, and that of her royal husband, at Linlithgow. Mary was born
+there in an apartment still shown; and the ill-fated father dying
+within a few days of that event, left the ominous diadem which he wore
+to the still more unfortunate infant.
+
+It is remarkable that during this reign there was acted at Linlithgow,
+in presence of the King, Queen, and whole court, and, so far as
+appears, with great applause, a play, or theatrical presentation, by
+Sir David Lindsay, called the _Satire of the Three Estates_, in
+which much coarse and indelicate farce and buffoonery is intermixed
+with the most pointed censure upon the affairs both of church and
+state. The comic mummery was undoubtedly thrown in with the purpose
+of Rabelais, to mitigate the edge of the satire, by representing the
+whole as matter of idle and extravagant mirth. But when the serious
+and direct tenor of the piece is considered, no one can doubt that the
+Prince before whom it was acted, and by whom it seems to have been well
+received, meditated reforms both in church and state, however diverted
+from them by the arts of the churchmen.
+
+In the subsequent reign of Queen Mary, Linlithgow was the scene of
+several remarkable events; the most interesting of which was the
+assassination of the Regent Murray by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. This
+James VI. loved the royal residence of Linlithgow, and completed the
+original plan of the Palace, closing the great square by a stately
+range of apartments of great architectural beauty. He also made a
+magnificent fountain in the Palace-yard, now ruinous, as are all the
+buildings around. Another grotesque Gothic fountain adorns the street
+of the town, which, with the number of fine springs, leads to the
+popular rhyme:
+
+    _Linlithgow for wells,
+    Stirling for bells._
+
+Among the attendants of James the Sixth was a distinguished personage
+of a class which may be found in most places of public resort. This was
+the celebrated Rob Gibb, the king’s fool or jester. Fool as he was,
+Rob Gibb seems to have understood his own interest. Upon one occasion
+it pleased his sapient Majesty King Jamie to instal Rob in his own
+royal chair, the sport being to see how he would demean himself as
+sovereign. The courtiers entered into the king’s humour, overwhelming
+Rob Gibb with petitions for places, pensions, and benefices, not sorry
+perhaps to have an opportunity of hinting, in the presence of the real
+sovereign, secret hopes and wishes, which they might have no other
+opportunity of expressing. But Rob Gibb sternly repelled the whole
+supplicants together, as a set of unmercifully greedy sycophants, who
+followed their worthy king only to see what they could make of him.
+“Get ye hence, ye covetous selfish loons,” he exclaimed, “and bring to
+me my own dear and trusty servant, Rob Gibb, that I may honour the only
+one of my court who serves me for stark love and kindness.” It would
+not have been unlike King Jamie to have answered, “that he was but a
+fool, and knew no better.”
+
+Rob’s presence of mind did not go unrewarded; for either on this or
+some future occasion, he was in such “good foolery” as to get a grant
+of a small estate in the vicinity of the burgh.
+
+When the sceptre passed from Scotland, oblivion sat down in the
+halls of Linlithgow; but her absolute desolation was reserved for
+the memorable era of 1745–6 About the middle of January in that
+year, General Hawley marched at the head of a strong army to raise
+the siege of Stirling, then pressed by the Highland insurgents under
+the adventurous Charles Edward. The English general had expressed
+considerable contempt of his enemy, who, he affirmed, would not stand a
+charge of cavalry. On the night of the 17th he returned to Linlithgow,
+with all the marks of defeat, having burned his tents, and left his
+artillery and baggage. His disordered troops were quartered in the
+Palace, and began to make such great fires on the hearth as to endanger
+the safety of the edifice. A lady of the Livingston family who had
+apartments there, remonstrated with General Hawley, who treated her
+fears with contempt. “I can run away from fire as fast as you can,
+General,” answered the high-spirited dame, and with this sarcasm took
+horse for Edinburgh. Very soon after her departure her apprehensions
+were realized; the Palace of Linlithgow caught fire, and was burned to
+the ground. The ruins alone remain to show its former splendour.
+
+The situation of Linlithgow Palace is eminently beautiful. It stands on
+a promontory of some elevation, which advances almost into the midst
+of the lake. The form is that of a square court, composed of buildings
+of four stories high, with towers at the angles. The fronts within the
+square, and the windows, are highly ornamented, and the size of the
+rooms, as well as the width and character of the staircases, are upon
+a magnificent scale. One banquet-room is ninety-four feet long, thirty
+feet wide, and thirty-three feet high, with a gallery for music. The
+King’s wardrobe, or dressing-room, looking to the west, projects over
+the walls so as to have a delicious prospect on three sides, and is one
+of the most enviable boudoirs we have ever seen.
+
+There were two main entrances to Linlithgow Palace. That from the south
+ascends rather steeply from the town, and passes through a striking
+Gothic archway, flanked by two round towers. The portal has been richly
+adorned by sculpture, in which can be traced the arms of Scotland with
+the collars of the Thistle, the Garter, and Saint Michael. This was the
+work of James V., and is in a most beautiful character.
+
+The other entrance is from the eastward. The gateway is at some height
+from the foundation of the wall, and there are opposite to it the
+remains of a _perron_, or ramp of mason-work, which those who
+desired to enter must have ascended by steps. A drawbridge, which could
+be raised at pleasure, united, when it was lowered, the ramp with the
+threshold of the gateway, and when raised, left a gap between them,
+which answered the purpose of a moat. On the inside of the eastern
+gateway is a figure, much mutilated, said to have been that of Pope
+Julius II., the same Pontiff who sent to James IV. the beautiful sword
+which makes part of the Regalia.
+
+“To what base offices we may return!” In the course of the last war,
+those beautiful remains, so full of ancient remembrances, very narrowly
+escaped being defaced and dishonoured, by an attempt to convert them
+into barracks for French prisoners of war. The late President Blair,
+as zealous a patriot as he was an excellent lawyer, had the merit of
+averting this insult upon one of the most striking objects of antiquity
+which Scotland yet affords. I am happy to add, that of late years the
+Court of the Exchequer have, in this and similar cases, shown much zeal
+to preserve our national antiquities, and stop the dilapidations which
+were fast consuming them.
+
+In coming to Linlithgow by the Edinburgh road, the first view of the
+town, with its beautiful steeple, surmounted with a royal crown, and
+the ruinous towers of the Palace arising out of a canopy of trees,
+forms a most impressive object. All that is wanting is something of
+more elevated dignity to the margin of the lake. But it is not easy to
+satisfy the inconsistent wishes of amateurs.
+
+We may in taking leave of this subject, use once more the words of old
+Sir David of the Mount, in his Complaint of the Papingo:--
+
+    _Farewell Linlithgow, whose Palace of pleasaunce
+    Might be a pattern in Portugal or France._
+
+
+
+
+                            ARUNDEL CASTLE
+
+                             ALICE MEYNELL
+
+
+Even pastoral England, which has a character of its own so different
+from that of pastoral districts elsewhere--so much richer in its
+details is it, and so much blunter and rounder in its forms, than
+the pasture-lands and cornlands of Italy, or France, or Spain, or
+Greece--even this distinctive and separated country has variations
+within itself. The heart of England--the country of George Eliot and
+the tract which lies within near or distant sight of the Malvern
+Hills--has a drier, crisper beauty about its green fields and rich
+woods. The great peaceful plain is broken by undulations, which are
+lost from a distant view, and nowhere, not even by the brimming waters
+of the Severn, are there such perfectly flat fields, pasture, marsh,
+and cornfield lying together, even and low, as those into which the
+gently raised tablelands of England subside between the downs of the
+South Coast. Such lands lie about the feet of the Arundel hills, open
+to a boundless sky, invested in light night mists, full of cattle,
+watered by a little river and its streams which scarcely creep towards
+the sea where it lies level with the land, or in some places level with
+the hedgerows.
+
+  [Illustration: ARUNDEL CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
+
+The aspect of things here is Tennysonian. Looking along the fields
+towards Arundel where it curves into the arm of its hill, and from a
+distance sufficient to lend enchantment to the mean details which mar
+any English town upon a close sight, the place looks like the “dim rich
+city” in Elaine. There might be a warder looking out from the castle
+keep, a knight might be riding up to the walls in the twilight. Not
+many years ago owls did hoot about that tower, but they died and were
+stuffed. The peacefulness of the flat lowlands too, the richness of the
+level pastures, in which the dark brown cattle stand knee-deep, the
+softening haze of lowland mist, and the general prosperity of things,
+all have something of the flavour of the same poetry. It is otherwise
+when the hills are climbed, and the free breezy uplands of the park,
+with the moory, dry, gay country towards Petworth, opens out. There we
+have a beauty which suggests a less mild and meditative muse.
+
+Arundel dates back to the most respectable antiquity, for King Alfred
+bequeathed the Castle in his will, with the neighbouring lordships to
+his nephew Athelm. It afterwards passed into the hands of the great
+Earl Godwin and to his son, King Harold. And when William the Conqueror
+was minded to reward his Normans for their services in his wars, the
+Earldoms of Shrewsbury and of Arundel fell to the share of one Roger
+de Montgomery, who rebuilt and enlarged the fortalice of Arundel. The
+fair stronghold then went on changing hands, passing now to the kings
+of England, and now forming the marriage dower of a princess. Among
+its towers the Empress Maud found refuge from her enemy Stephen, and
+was besieged; but as she was the guest of Adeliza, widow of Henry I.,
+he courteously permitted her at last to depart in peace, for the love
+of hospitality. The place was now the permanent property of Adeliza’s
+second husband and of his heirs, and so, roughly speaking, it has
+remained, the fifth in succession from him being the first who bore the
+name of Fitzalan. The only interruptions of their tenure were temporary
+ones, and consisted of two short forfeitures to the Crown, besides a
+seizure by the capacious and rapacious hands of good Queen Bess, who
+kept it until her death, when her successor restored it to its rightful
+lord.
+
+One Earl of Arundel lost his head for high treason against Richard
+II. During the Civil Wars the Castle was besieged and besieged, being
+first seized by the Parliamentarians in the absence of the owner, then
+captured by the Royalists after three days’ fighting, and subsequently
+retaken by the Parliamentarians under Waller, who laid siege on the
+19th of December, 1643, and entered the Castle on the 6th of January,
+1644. Upon this an order in Council commanded that the walls of the
+town of Arundel and those of Chichester should be destroyed. Since more
+peaceful times have reigned, within England at least, restoration has
+been at work somewhat busily, and several Royal visits have wakened
+“our loyal passion for our temperate Kings,” in the steep high-street
+and in the public-houses of the borough. A borough, alas! it is no
+longer. Having enjoyed, in the good old times, the luxury of a couple
+of members, it was reduced to a pittance of one by the first Reform
+Bill, and entirely disfranchised by the second.
+
+The station lies in the valley at some little distance from the town;
+as you follow the road from the rail you have Arundel and the Castle
+before you, the principal object of the view being the great church
+of St. Philip Neri, built by the present Duke of Norfolk some years
+ago at a cost of £100,000. It is still new, inevitably new. That is a
+fault which time will cure; but in the meanwhile no little disharmony
+is created between the ancient ruddy colours of the old walls, of the
+Castle with its town and the somewhat harsh whiteness of the church.
+Its form, too, being upright, is not felicitous in its composition
+with the lower and longer lines of antique English masonry. It may
+not have been the Duke’s express purpose, when he built the “house
+of God,” to dwarf his own hereditary home and fortress, as we once
+heard a passenger in a railway-train passing the place declare; but if
+that symbolic and ascetic intention was ever entertained, it has been
+effectually fulfilled. The best consolation which we can offer to the
+lovers of the past for the intrusion of the modern Gothic church, is
+that the ruins which they admire were brand-new in the old times which
+they cherish--strong, sharp, neat, and finished, with no ivy anywhere,
+and no pleasing uncertainties of outline. As you draw near to the town
+you see the rich woods which clothe the hillside trending off to the
+right towards the Black Rabbit, where the winding lines of the lazy
+Arun pass inland. To the left stretch the fields towards a little place
+called Ford, and in front climbs the High-street. At the top of the
+High-street is the Castle, and then the road turns to the left towards
+this great dominating church of St. Philip.
+
+The donjon is manifestly the most ancient part of the Castle. It dates
+from Saxon times, and is traditionally believed to have been part of
+the stronghold as it was in the days of Alfred the Great. It stands
+on an artificial eminence, and from its ramparts the view is wide and
+fair; westwards over the rich country, over the delicate distant spire
+of Chichester, to the farther downs of the Isle of Wight; southwards
+to the mouth of the little river Arun, and the port of Littlehampton
+lying with sea-side pastures around it, level with the sea; eastwards
+to the South Downs; and northwards over the home garden and the thick
+woods of the lower park to Burpham, where British antiquities of no
+small importance were at once discovered, amongst them a canoe with its
+anchor--the relic of a probably half-civilized and Christian people,
+compared to whom the invading English were savages of furious wildness.
+At the top of the keep bide those stuffed owls which some years ago
+flew about its battlements. The rest of the Castle is merely an antique
+fortress dwelling-place, much restored in a jumble of styles, but with
+a general picturesqueness of effect. The alterations which it is now
+undergoing will doubtless much modify its details, if not its mass.
+
+A little higher, and at some distance from the fortalice of Arundel,
+is the parish church, a venerable fane, some parts of it dating five
+hundred years back. Old and new are confused together in the place,
+a Fourteenth Century font, some frescoes of approximately the same
+date, and other precious antiquities being side by side with brilliant
+windows of modern glass and in modern taste, and a number of energetic
+“restorations.” From the tower the Parliamentarians poured shot and
+bullet into the Royalist-guarded ramparts of the Castle. The “Fitzalan
+Chapel,” properly the chancel of this church, has been the subject of
+a sufficiently celebrated law-suit. Built in the Fourteenth Century
+by an Earl of Arundel, it was turned to secular uses--to uses indeed
+of the _most_ secular kind--at the time of the Reformation and
+thereafter, and is now, of course, a monument and no more. As, however,
+it contains the bones of their fathers, the Dukes of Norfolk have
+naturally maintained their proprietorship and their interest in the
+sometime sanctuary, and it was recently shut off from the body of
+the church by the bricking up of the connecting doorway. The Vicar
+thereupon committed the legal and formal trespass of removing a brick,
+in order that the proprietorship of the Fitzalan Chapel might come
+under the decision of the courts. That decision confirmed the Duke and
+his rights, therefore the division remains; but the church is complete
+and ample enough for all purposes as it now stands. The monuments in
+the Fitzalan Chapel are of great interest and beauty. The earliest of
+them are of the same period as the foundation; the most beautiful is
+the chantry of William Fitzalan, with its fine and elaborate tracery;
+and perhaps the most interesting is the tomb of John Fitzalan, which
+was for centuries believed to be a cenotaph. The hero to whose memory
+it was erected lost a leg at the battle of Gerberoy and died in France
+thirteen months later, in 1435. He was buried in the Church of the Grey
+Friars, at Beauvais, Normandy. Not very long ago a discovery was made,
+in the Prerogative Court at Canterbury, of the will of one Fooke Eiton,
+Esquire, which had been proved in 1454, and which stated that the
+testator had ransomed the body of the Earl “oute of the frenchemennys
+handes.” In 1857 search was made under the supposed cenotaph, and the
+bones of a human body which had lost one leg were discovered. How or
+when the pious and faithful “Fooke Eiton, Esquire,” had effected the
+reburial by means of which the brave Fitzalan slept with his fathers,
+there is no record to tell.
+
+Quite near the grey and mouldering parish church, with its cemetery
+and its yews, rises the great modern Roman Catholic church of which we
+have already spoken. Close by is the park, to which we hasten, as the
+glory of the country side. A narrow embowered road, entered by a little
+gate, leads to the fair space of sward and tree, with its deep valleys
+and sudden hills, one of the grandest parks in England; lacking, of
+course, the charm and pathos, the nobility and humility, which the most
+beautiful nature may gain from the signs of labour, agriculture, and
+the poor; and yet not oppressive with too heavy verdure or any blank,
+damp, over-green spaces of melancholy grass and sponge-like trees. The
+soil of Arundel Park is composed chiefly of that great flower-bearer
+chalk. It is so thin that it does not nourish gigantically heavy trees,
+but lighter and gayer beeches. The ground is high and abruptly broken,
+and the whole aspect of things needs only some sign of the peasant’s
+life to be eminently paintable. Hill beyond hill rises in distance
+behind distance. Under a fine sky the scene is so grand that, though
+fresh from contemplating that panorama of the junction of the great
+Rhine and the little Moselle among the hills at Coblentz--the landscape
+which the late Lord Lytton pronounced the most beautiful in Europe--we
+were constrained to think Arundel Park lovelier as we drove to Petworth
+over its open hills. The orthodox deer are here, in pretty and
+vivacious herds which number considerably over a thousand. A charming
+little solitary lake, haunt of that shrill bird, the dab-chick, lies in
+a hollow to the right; thence rises a thick beech wood, and the path
+that curves round the base of the beech-hill leads to one of the local
+lions, the dairy. The “tiled temple of cleanliness” is fascinating
+enough to the lover of cream and curds, but it is hard to forgive the
+demolition of a very ancient mill which stood on the same site. The
+air about the dairy is heavy with the luxurious scent of the magnolias
+which glow upon its walls.
+
+The road is leading us round again out of the park towards the town;
+and here is a relic of the past in the shape of a ruined Dominican
+priory, which was built in 1396, and which gave a home to twenty poor
+men living under the protection of a friar, until an end was put to the
+charity at the dissolution of monasteries; and at the time of Waller’s
+siege of the Castle, the priory was already in ruins. If instead of
+winding back into the lower town of Arundel, whence we started, we
+take the road away to the left, we shall reach the “Black Rabbit,”
+already mentioned, where the dark, rich woods crowd the hillside, the
+little Arun sauntering at its feet. The Castle looks well from this
+side, where trees and not houses surround it.
+
+
+
+
+                            PALAZZO VECCHIO
+
+                            ALEXANDRE DUMAS
+
+
+Grand as was the idea I had formed in advance of the Palazzo Vecchio,
+I must confess that the realization was still grander. When I saw that
+mass of stone so strongly rooted in the ground, surmounted by its tower
+that threatens the heavens like the arm of a Titan, the whole of old
+Florence, with her Guelphs, her Ghibelines, her balie, her priors, her
+lords, her guilds, her _condottieri_, her turbulent mobs and her
+haughty aristocracy appeared to me as though I were about to take part
+in the exiling of Cosmo the Elder, or in the execution of Salviati. In
+fact, four centuries of history and art are there on the right, on the
+left, in front and behind, surrounding you on all sides and speaking at
+once with their stone, marble and bronze of Nicholas d’Uzzano, Orcagna,
+Rinaldo d’Albizzi, Donatello, Pazzi, Raphael, Lorenzo de’ Medici,
+Flaminius Vacca, Savonarola, John of Bologna, Cosmo I. and Michelangelo.
+
+The whole world may be searched in vain for a spot that brings such
+names together, without counting those I have omitted! and some of the
+omissions include Baccio Bandinelli, Ammanato, and Benvenuto Cellini.
+
+I should much like to reduce this magnificent chaos to some sort of
+order and chronologically classify the great men, the great works and
+the great memories, but that is impossible. When you arrive at this
+wonderful square, you must go where the eye carries you, or where
+instinct guides you.
+
+What first engrosses the attention of the artist, the poet, or the
+archæologist, is the sombre Palazzo Vecchio, still blazoned with the
+ancient arms of the republic, amid which glitter on the azure, like
+stars in the sky, those innumerable fleurs-de-lys sown along the road
+to Naples by Charles of Anjou.
+
+Florence was hardly free before she wanted to have a town hall as
+an abode for a chief magistrate and a belfry for calling the people
+together. When a community is constituted in the North, or a republic
+established in the South, the desire for a town-hall and a belfry is
+always the first operation of its will, and the satisfaction of that
+desire the first proof of its existence.
+
+Thus in 1298, that is to say only sixteen years after the Florentines
+had conquered their constitution, Arnolfo di Lapo received from the
+rulers the order to build a palace for them.
+
+  [Illustration: PALAZZO VECCHIO, ITALY.]
+
+Arnolfo di Lapo had visited the site reserved for him and had prepared
+his plans accordingly. But at the moment of laying the foundations of
+his edifice, the people loudly forbade him to place a single stone upon
+the spot where the house of Farinata des Uberti had stood. Arnolfo di
+Lapo was forced to bow to this popular clamour; he pushed his edifice
+back into a corner and left the accursed spot unoccupied. Even to
+the present time neither stones nor trees have planted their roots
+there and nothing has intruded for more than six centuries where Guelph
+vengeance drove the plough and sowed with salt.
+
+This palace was the residence of a standard-bearer and eight priors,
+two for each quarter of the city; their charge lasted for sixty
+days and during that time they lived together, eating at the same
+table and not being able to leave their residence: that is to say,
+they were almost prisoners. Each had two domestics to serve him and
+there was always a notary at their orders ready to write down their
+deliberations: he ate with them and was a prisoner like themselves. As
+a recompense for the sacrifice of his time and liberty that each prior
+made for the republic, he received ten pounds a day, or nearly seven
+francs of our money. At that day, private parsimony ruled in public
+economy, and the government thus found itself in a position to execute
+great things in art and in war. Thence resulted its surname of the
+Magnificent Republic.
+
+You enter the Palazzo Vecchio by a door situated about a third
+of the way along the front and find yourself in a little square
+court, surrounded by a portico supported by nine columns of Lombard
+architecture embellished with applied ornaments. In the centre of this
+court is a fountain surmounted by a rococo Cupid holding a fish and
+reposing on a porphyry basin. At the time of Ferdinand’s marriage this
+portico was adorned with fresco paintings representing bird’s-eye views
+of the cities of Germany.
+
+On the first floor is the great Council Hall, executed by the orders
+of the Republic and at Savonarola’s suggestion. A thousand citizens
+could deliberate there at their ease. Cronaca was the architect, and he
+pushed the work so rapidly that Savonarola used to say that the angels
+served as his masons.
+
+Cronaca had need of haste, for three years later Savonarola was to die
+and thirty years afterwards the Republic was to fall.
+
+Therefore this immense hall has retained nothing of that period but
+its original form: all of its ornamentation belongs to the time of the
+principality; its frescoes and ceiling are by Vasari; its pictures by
+Cigoli, Ligozzi and Passegnano; and its statues by Michelangelo, Baccio
+Bandinelli and John of Bologna.
+
+All is to the great glory of Cosmo I.
+
+In fact, Cosmo I. is one of those gigantic statues that history raises
+like a pyramid to mark the limit where one era ends and another begins.
+Cosmo I. is at the same time the Augustus and the Tiberius of Tuscany,
+and this is so much the more true in that at the moment when Alexander
+fell beneath the poniard of Lorenzino, Florence found herself in the
+same situation as Rome was after Cæsar’s death: “There was no longer a
+tyrant, but there was no longer any liberty.”
+
+At fifteen years of age his character was already outlined and those
+who approached him could form an idea of what he would be later. His
+appearance was grave and even severe; he was slow to form familiar
+relations and would seldom allow any familiarities; but when he
+granted this double concession it was a proof of his friendship, and
+his friendship was sure; nevertheless, even with his friends he was
+discreet in all his actions and did not want any one to know what he
+intended to do until it was done. The result was that he always seemed
+to be seeking some end contrary to his real one, which always rendered
+his answers brief and sometimes obscure.
+
+This was Cosmo when he learnt the news of the assassination of
+Alexander and the flight of Lorenzino; this flight left him without a
+competitor for the princedom and therefore his measures were quickly
+taken. He gathered together a few friends on whom he could depend,
+mounted his horse, and set out for Florence.
+
+Cosmo was rewarded for his confidence by the welcome that he
+received: he entered the city amid the joyous acclamations of all the
+inhabitants. Two days after, he was named chief and governor of the
+republic on four conditions:
+
+To dispense justice indifferently to the rich and to the poor.
+
+Never to consent to restore the authority of Charles the Fifth.
+
+To avenge the death of Duke Alexander.
+
+To treat well Giulio and Giula, the natural children of the latter.
+
+Cosmo accepted this species of charter with humility and the people
+accepted Cosmo with enthusiasm.
+
+But there happened to the new grand duke what happens to all men of
+genius who are raised to power by revolution. On the lowest step of
+the throne they receive laws, from the top step they impose them.
+
+The position was difficult, particularly for a youth of eighteen. It
+was necessary to fight external and internal foes at the same time; to
+substitute a firm government, a single power and a durable will for all
+those flabby or tyrannical governments, for all those powers that were
+opposed and consequently destructive to one another, and for all those
+wills which sometimes starting from above and sometimes from below
+caused a perpetual ebb and flow of aristocracy and democracy upon which
+it was impossible to establish anything solid and durable. And yet with
+all that it was necessary so to manage the liberties of this people
+that neither nobles, citizens, nor artisans might feel the master. In
+fact it was necessary to manage this horse, that was still rebellious
+under tyranny, with an iron hand beneath a silken glove.
+
+Cosmo was in every respect the man needed to carry through such a work.
+As dissimulating as Louis the Eleventh, passionate as Henry the Eighth,
+brave as Francis the First, persevering as Charles the Fifth and
+magnificent as Leo the Tenth, he had all the vices that make private
+life sombre and all the virtues that make public life brilliant.
+Therefore his family was unhappy and his people happy.
+
+Cosmo was one of the most learned men of his time. Among other things
+he knew a great number of plants and the places where they grew, where
+they lived the longest, where they had the strongest scent, where they
+produced the most beautiful flowers, or bore the finest fruits, and
+what were their virtues for curing the diseases or wounds of men and
+animals; then, as he was an excellent chemist, with the plants he made
+waters, essences, oils, medicaments, and balms, and gave his remedies
+to all who asked for them whether they were rich or poor, Tuscan
+subjects or foreigners, inhabitants of Florence or any other part of
+Europe. Cosmo loved and protected letters. In 1541 he founded the
+Florentine Academy which he called his “very dear and happy Academy”:
+Plutarch and Dante were read and commented on there. The sessions were
+first held in the Via Larga Palace and afterwards, so that it might
+have more ease and freedom, he gave it the great council-room in the
+Palazzo Vecchio. After the fall of the republic this great hall had
+become useless.
+
+Cosmo was an artist and it was not his fault if he arrived at the
+moment when great men were departing. Of all that brilliant galaxy
+that had illuminated the reigns of Julius the Second and Leo the
+Tenth, Michelangelo alone remained. He did everything he could to get
+the latter: he sent a cardinal and an embassy offering him any sum of
+money he might name, the title of senator and any office he wished; but
+Paul the Third kept him and would not give him up. Then, in default
+of the Florentine giant, he gathered together the best he could find.
+Ammanato, his engineer, built for him the fine bridge of the Trinity
+after the plans of Michelangelo, and carved for him the marble Neptune
+in the Palazzo Vecchio Square. He made Baccio Bandinelli produce the
+statues of Pope Clement the Seventh, Duke Alexander, Giovanni de’
+Medici, his father, and his own statue; the Loggia of the Mercato
+Nuovo and the choir of the Cathedral. Benvenuto Cellini was recalled
+from France to cast his _Perseus_ in bronze, to carve agate cups
+and to engrave gold medals for him. Then as there had been found in
+the environs of Arezzo a lot of little bronze figures, some of which
+lacked the head, others the hands, and others the feet, Cosmo cleaned
+them himself and carefully removed the rust so that they might not be
+damaged.
+
+By means of his chemical researches, Cosmo, with Francesco Ferruci of
+Fiesole, recovered the art of cutting porphyry, which had been lost
+since Roman times.
+
+Lastly, he brought together in the Via Larga and Pitti Palaces all the
+pictures, statues and medals, whether ancient or modern, that had been
+painted, carved, engraved or discovered in excavations by Cosmo the
+Elder, Lorenzino, and Duke Alexander, and that had twice been pillaged
+and dispersed:--first, when Charles VIII. passed through, and again at
+the assassination of Duke Alexander by Lorenzino.
+
+Therefore the praise of his contemporaries outweighed the blame of
+posterity: the dark side of his life was lost in the brilliant side,
+and people forget that this protector of art, science and literature
+slew one son, poisoned one daughter and violated another.
+
+We see then that there was something of both Augustus and Tiberius in
+Cosmo I.
+
+Now let us return to the hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. The picture, not
+the most remarkable from an artistic point of view, but certainly the
+most extraordinary as a recorded fact, is one by Ligozzi representing
+the reception given by Boniface VIII. to twelve ambassadors of twelve
+powers, who were all found to be Florentines; so incontestable
+throughout the world was the political genius of the Magnificent
+Republic during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.
+
+These twelve ambassadors were:
+
+Muciato Franzizi for the King of France.
+
+Ugolino di Vicchio for the King of England.
+
+Raniere Langru for the King of Bohemia.
+
+Vermiglio Alfani for the King of the Germans.
+
+Simone Rossi for Rasca.
+
+Bernardo Ervai for the Lord of Verona.
+
+Guicardo Bastai for the Khan of Tartary.
+
+Manno Fronte for the King of Naples.
+
+Guido Tabanca for the King of Sicily.
+
+Lapo Farinata des Uberti for Pisa.
+
+Gino di Dietaselvi for the lord of Camerino.
+
+Bencivenni Folchi for the Grand Master of the Hospital of Jerusalem.
+
+It was this strange gathering that made Boniface VIII. say that a fifth
+element had come into the world, and that the Florentines constituted
+this element.
+
+The enormous frescoes that cover the walls, as well as all the pictures
+on the ceiling, are by Vasari. The frescoes represent the wars of
+the Florentines against Siena and Pisa. It was for the latter that
+Michelangelo prepared those beautiful cartoons that disappeared without
+any one knowing what had become of them.
+
+In the other chambers of the palace, which are the living-rooms, there
+are also a considerable number of paintings of almost the same period.
+One exception is a charming little chapel by Rodolfo Guirlandaio, the
+restrained and religious execution of which forms a strange contrast to
+the facile and pagan painting of the beginning of the Decadence.
+
+Entirely upset as it was by the arrangements of Cosmo I., the Palazzo
+Vecchio yet materially preserves one memory of the Republic: this
+is the Barberia Tower in which Cosmo the Elder was confined, and
+at the door of which, later during the Pazzi conspiracy, the brave
+standard-bearer, Cesare Petrucci, mounted guard with a spit. In this
+tower, Cosmo the Elder spent what were certainly the four worst days of
+his long life, the fear of being poisoned by his enemies preventing him
+from taking any nourishment.
+
+
+
+
+                           KENSINGTON PALACE
+
+                              LEIGH HUNT
+
+
+It is not improbable that Kensington Palace and Gardens originated in
+the royal nursery established in this district, for the benefit of
+his children, by King Henry the Eighth. If so, here Queen Elizabeth
+grew up awhile, as well as Queen Victoria, and here health was in vain
+attempted to be given to the sicklier temperaments of Edward the Sixth,
+who died young, and his sister, Queen Mary, who lived only to be an
+unhappy bigot.
+
+As the circumstance, however, does not appear ascertainable,
+antiquaries must put up with the later and less illustrious origin
+which has been found for these distinguished premises, in the house and
+grounds belonging to the family of the Finches, Earls of Nottingham,
+whether the tenement which they occupied had once been royal or not,
+it seems to have been but a small mansion in their time; probably
+consisting of nothing more than the now least-visible portion of it
+north-west; and indeed, though it was subsequently enlarged under
+almost every one of the sovereigns by whom it was occupied, it was
+never, in one respect, anything but what it is still, namely, one of
+the plainest and least pretending of princely abodes.
+
+In vain we are told, that Wren is supposed to have built the south
+front, and Kent (a man famous in his time) the east front. We can no
+more get up any enthusiasm about it as a building, than if it were a
+box, or a piece of cheese. But it possesses a Dutch solidity; it can
+be imagined full of English comfort; it is quiet; it is a good air;
+and though it is a palace, no tragical history is connected with it;
+all which considerations give it a sort of homely, fireside character,
+which seems to represent the domestic side of royalty itself, and
+thus renders an interesting service to what is not always so well
+recommended by cost and splendour. Windsor Castle is a place to
+receive monarchs in; Buckingham Palace to see fashion in; Kensington
+Palace seems a place to drink tea in; and this is by no means a state
+of things, in which the idea of royalty comes least home to the good
+wishes of the subjects. The reigns that flourished here, appositely
+enough to this notion of the building, were all tea-drinking reigns--at
+least, on the part of the ladies; and if the present queen does not
+reign there, she was born and bred there, growing up quietly under the
+care of a domestic mother; during which time, the pedestrian, as he now
+goes quietly along the gardens, fancies no harsher sound to have been
+heard from the Palace windows, than the “tuning of the tea-things,” or
+the sound of a piano-forte.
+
+  [Illustration: KENSINGTON PALACE, ENGLAND.]
+
+We may thus, in imagination, see the house and the gardens growing
+larger with each successive proprietor. First, there is Heneage Finch,
+the Speaker of the House of Commons, at the accession of Charles the
+First; for he is the earliest occupant we can discover.
+
+This gentleman possessed but fifteen acres of ground; which his son,
+Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, increased by a grant
+that was made him out of Hyde Park. To the Earl’s son and heir, Daniel,
+succeeded King William the Third, who bought the house and grounds of
+Daniel, and enlarged them both, the latter to the extent of twenty-six
+acres. Anne added thirty acres; Queen Caroline, wife of George the
+Second, added three hundred; and the house, which had been growing all
+this time, was finally brought to its present size or appearance by the
+late Duke of Sussex, who added or rebuilt the rooms, with their still
+fresh-looking brick-work, that form the angle on the south-west.
+
+The house nominally possesses gardens that are miles in circumference;
+but these having become public every day in the week, which in the
+early times of the Georges was not the case, it has, in reality, to
+any sequestered purpose of enjoyment, no gardens at all, except at one
+corner.
+
+The gardens in the time of the Finches consisted of little but
+the ground squaring with the north side of the Palace, laid out
+in the first formal and sombre style of our native gardening, and
+originating the still existing circle of yew trees, a disposition of
+things congenial with the owners. Heneage Finch, the Speaker, and his
+sons, the first and second Earls of Nottingham, were all lawyers and
+statesmen; and though a clever, and upon the whole, a worthy, appear
+to have been a melancholy race. The first Earl suffered under a long
+depression of spirits before he died; the second was a man of so
+atrabilarious a complexion that he was nicknamed Dismal; and Dismal’s
+son, from a like swarthy appearance, and the way in which he neglected
+his dress, was called the chimney-sweep. Hanbury Williams, the reigning
+lampooner of the days of George the Second, designated the whole race
+as the “black funereal Finches.”
+
+These unusual “Finches of the Grove,” made way for a kind of Jupiter’s
+bird in the eagle-nosed, hawk-eyed, gaunt little William the Third;
+a personage as formal and melancholy as themselves, though not so
+noisy (for Dismal, notwithstanding his formality, was a great talker);
+and under William, the Gardens though they grew larger, did but
+exchange English formality for Dutch. The walks became longer and
+straighter, like canals; the yews were restrained and clipped; there
+was, perhaps, a less number of flowers, comparatively; for the English
+had always been fond of flowers, and the Dutch had not yet grown mad
+(commercially) for tulips; in short, William the Third with a natural
+love for his Dutch home, made the palace and gardens look as much like
+it as he could.
+
+And his Court, for the most part, was as gloomy as the gardens; for
+William was not fond of his new subjects; did not choose to converse
+with them; and was seldom visible but to his Dutch friends. Yet here
+were occasionally to be seen some of the liveliest wits and courtiers
+that have left a name in history, forsakers, indeed, of reserved and
+despotic King James, rather than enthusiasts for the equally reserved
+and hardly less power-loving King William, who had become, however, by
+the force of circumstances, the instrument for securing freedom. Here
+came the Earl of Dorset, Prior’s friend, who had been one of the wits
+of the Court of Charles the Second; Prior, himself, who had stirred
+William’s Dutch phlegm so agreeably as to be made one of the gentlemen
+of his bedchamber; Congreve, whose plays Queen Mary admired; Halifax,
+a minor wit, but no mean statesman; Sir William Temple, who combined
+public with private life to so high a degree of wisdom and elegance;
+Swift (probably) then a young man, whom Sir William made use of in
+his communications with the king; Burnet, the gossiping historian,
+sometimes wrong-headed, but generally right-hearted, whose officious
+zeal for the Revolution had made him a bishop; the Earl of Devonshire,
+whose nobler zeal had made him a duke, one of a family remarkable
+for their constant and happy combination of popular politics with
+all the graces of their rank; Lord Monmouth, afterwards the famous,
+restless Earl of Peterborough, friend of Swift and Pope, conqueror of
+Spain, and lover, at the age of seventy, of Lady Suffolk; Sheffield,
+afterwards Duke of Buckinghamshire, a minor wit and poet, in love with
+(the rank of) the Princess Anne; and last, not least in anything, but
+good-breeding, and a decent command over his passions, Peter the Great,
+semi-barbarian, the premature freer of Russian pseudo-civilization, who
+came to England in order to import the art of ship-building into his
+dominions, in his own proper mechanical person, and out of the five
+months which he spent here, passed a good many days out of one of them
+in interchanging visits with King William at Kensington. The only
+distinct personal anecdote recorded of William the Third in connection
+with Kensington will remind the reader of similar paternal stories of
+Agesilaus and others.
+
+A tap was heard one day, at his closet door, while his secretary was in
+attendance.
+
+“Who is there?” said the king.
+
+“Lord Buck,” answered the little voice of a child of four years of age.
+It was Lord Buckhurst, the son of his Majesty’s lord high chamberlain,
+the Earl of Dorset.
+
+“And what does Lord Buck want?” returned William, opening the door.
+
+“You to be a horse to my coach,” rejoined the little magnate. “I’ve
+wanted you a long time.”
+
+William smiled upon his little friend, with an amiableness which
+the secretary had never before thought his countenance capable of
+expressing, and taking the string of the toy in his hand, dragged it up
+and down the long gallery till his playfellow was satisfied.
+
+The Court and Gardens of Kensington were not livelier in Queen Anne’s
+time than in that of King William. Anne, as we have seen at Campden
+House, was a dull woman with a dull husband. They had little to say
+for themselves; their greatest pleasures were in eating and drinking;
+the Queen was absurdly found of etiquette; and as there was nothing to
+startle decorum in the court morals, the mistress in King William’s
+time had given something of a livelier stir to the gossip. Swift
+describes Anne in a circle of twenty visitors as sitting with her fan
+in her mouth, saying about three words once a minute to some that were
+near her, and then upon hearing that dinner was ready, going out. In
+the evening she played at cards; which, long before, and afterwards,
+was the usual court pastime at that hour.
+
+She does not appear to have been fond of music, or pictures, or
+books, or anything but what administered to the commonest animal
+satisfactions, or which delivered her mind at all other times from its
+tendency to irresolution and tedium.
+
+Addison and Steele might have been occasionally seen at her Kensington
+levees among the Whigs; and Swift, Prior, and Bolingbroke among the
+Tories. Marlborough would be there also; ever courtly and smiling,
+whether he was victorious as general and as the favourite Duchess’s
+husband, or only bowing the more obsequiously alas! for fear of losing
+his place and his perquisites.
+
+Anne enlarged the Gardens, but she did not improve the style of
+gardening. Addison in a paper of the _Spectator_, written during
+the last year but one of her reign, catching the last glimpse of
+a variation, speaks with rapture of the conversation of a disused
+gravel-pit, which had been left remaining, into a cultivated dell;
+but it would seem as if this exploit on the part of the gardeners was
+rather in the hope of making the best of what they considered a bad
+thing, than intended as an advance towards something better; for they
+laid out the Queen’s additional acres in the same formal style as King
+William’s.
+
+Long, straight gravel-walks, and clipped hedges, prevailed throughout,
+undiversified with the present mixture of freer growing wood. An
+alcove or two, still existing, were added; and Anne exerted herself
+to build a long kind of out-house, which still remains; and which
+she intended, it is said, for the balls and suppers which certainly
+took place in it; though we suspect, from the narrowness of its
+construction, it never was designed for anything but what it is, a
+green-house.
+
+These most probably constituted all those “elegancies of art,” with
+which a writer of the time gives her credit for improving the Gardens.
+Such, at any rate, was the case in the more public portions of them;
+and if the private ones enjoyed any others, we may guess what they
+were, from Pope’s banter of the horticultural fashions of the day, in a
+paper which he contributed to the _Guardian_, the year after the
+appearance of that of Addison’s in the _Spectator_. The following
+is a taste of them. The poet is giving a catalogue of plants that were
+to be disposed of by auction:
+
+“Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the Tree
+of Knowledge in the great storm; Eve and the Serpent very flourishing.
+
+“St. George in box; his arm scarce long enough, but will be in a
+condition to stick the Dragon by next April.
+
+“An old Maid of Honour in wormwood.
+
+“A topping Ben Jonson in laurel.
+
+“A quick-set hog, shot up into a porcupine, by its being forgot a week
+in rainy weather.”
+
+The Kensington Gardens were popular throughout the whole of the three
+Georges’ reign, but flourished most, as far as names and fashions
+are concerned, in those of the first and second. The space of time
+includes half a century; and Walpole, Lady Suffolk, Beau Nash,
+and Colley Cibber, lived through it all; the two last from a much
+earlier period, and Walpole into a much later one, down to the French
+Revolution. At the beginning of it, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, with
+the wits of the Kit-Cat club about her, may be considered as having
+been the reigning belle of the promenaders; to her, succeeded the
+Bellendens and Lepells, with the same wits grown older; then came Lady
+Townshend, with the new wits, Horace Walpole, Selwyn, Hanbury Williams,
+and others; and then crowds were alternately drawn by the “Chudleigh”
+and the Miss Gunnings.
+
+With the decease of George the Second, glory departed from Kensington
+as far as Courts were concerned. No reigning sovereign has resided
+there since George the Third, who inheriting, perhaps, a dislike of
+the place from his father, the Prince of Wales, appears to have taken
+no notice of it, except in appointing the clever, but impudent quack,
+Sir John Hill, its gardener, at the recommendation of Sir John’s then
+omnipotent brother botanist, the Earl of Bute.
+
+George the Fourth probably regarded the place as a homely concern,
+quite out of his line. It might suit well enough the book-collecting
+inclinations of his brother, the Duke of Sussex, with which he had
+no sympathy; was not amiss as a means of affording a lodging to his
+brother, the Duke of Kent, with whose habits of regularity, and
+pardonable amount of debt, his sympathies were as little; and lastly
+he was well content to think, that the staid-looking house and formal
+gardens rendered the spot a good out-of-the-way sort of place enough,
+for obscuring the growth and breeding of his niece, and probable
+heiress, the Princess Victoria, whose life, under the guidance of a
+wise mother, promised to furnish so estimable a contrast to his own. As
+to his brother, King William the Fourth, though he too was a brother,
+in most respects, very different from himself, we never heard his name
+mentioned in any way whatever in connection with Kensington.
+
+Adieu then, for the present, and for we know not how long a time
+hereafter, to Court-holdings in the Palace; to Court splendours,
+and Court scandals. Adieu Kings listening in closets, and Queens
+calumniated by ungrateful biographers. Adieu even Maids of Honour. They
+departed their life with George the Second, and went to live a terribly
+dull one with his grandson’s Queen, Charlotte, who nearly tired Miss
+Burney into a consumption.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE MIKADO’S PALACE
+
+                              PIERRE LOTI
+
+
+An enclosure of large walls. My _djin_ stop in front of a first
+gateway in the ancient severe and religious style: massive columns with
+bases of bronze; a narrow frieze sculptured with strange ornaments; and
+a heavy and enormous roof.
+
+Then I walk into the vast deserted courtyards, planted with venerable
+trees, to the branches of which they have given props like crutches
+for old men. The immense buildings of the palace first appear to me in
+a kind of disorder wherein I can discern no plan of unity. Everywhere
+appear these high, monumental and heavy roofs, whose corners turn up in
+Chinese curves and bristle with black ornaments.
+
+Not seeing anyone, I walk on at random.
+
+Here is arrested absolutely the smile, inseparable from modern Japan. I
+have the impression of entering into the silence of an incomprehensible
+Past, into the dead splendour of a civilization, whose architecture,
+design, and æsthetic taste are to me strange and unknown.
+
+A bonze guard who sees me, advances, and, making a bow, asks me for my
+name and passport.
+
+It is satisfactory: he will take me himself to see the entire palace
+on condition that I will take off my shoes and remove my hat. He
+brings me even velvet sandals which are offered to visitors. Thanks,
+I prefer to walk with bare feet like himself and we begin our silent
+walk through an interminable series of halls all lacquered in gold and
+decorated with a rare and exquisite strangeness.
+
+On the floor there is always and everywhere that eternal spread of
+white matting, that one finds just as simple, as well kept, and as neat
+in the homes of the emperors, in the temples, and among the middle
+classes and the poor. No furniture anywhere, for this is something
+unknown in Japan, or slightly known at most; the palace is entirely
+empty. All the surprising magnificence is upon the walls and ceilings.
+The precious golden lacquer is displayed uniformly on all sides, and
+upon this background, Byzantine in effect, all the celebrated artists
+of the great Japanese century have painted inimitable objects. Each
+hall has been decorated by a different and illustrious painter, whose
+name the bonze cited to me with respect. In one there are all the
+known flowers; in another, all the birds of the air, and all the
+beasts of the earth; or perhaps hunting-scenes and combats, where you
+see warriors dressed in armour and terrifying helmets, on horseback
+pursuing monsters and chimæras. The most peculiar one, assuredly,
+is decorated entirely with fans,--fans of all forms and of all
+colours, open, shut, and half open, thrown with extreme grace upon
+the fine golden lacquer. The ceilings, also of golden lacquer are in
+compartments, painted with the same care and the same art. What is,
+perhaps, the most marvellous of all, is that series of high pierced
+friezes that extends around all the ceilings; you think of generations
+of patient workmen who have worn themselves out in chiselling such
+delicate, almost transparent, things, in such thicknesses of wood:
+sometimes there are rosebushes, sometimes entanglements of wistaria,
+or sheaves of rice; elsewhere flights of storks that seem to cleave
+the air with great velocity, forming with their thousands of claws,
+extended necks, and feathers, a crowd so beautifully combined that
+it is alive and scurrying away, nothing lags behind, nor falls into
+confusion.
+
+  [Illustration: THE MIKADO’S PALACE, KIOTO.]
+
+In this palace, which is windowless, it is dusky,--a half-darkness
+favourable to enchantments. The greater number of these halls receive a
+shimmering light from the outside verandas composed only of lacquered
+columns, to which they are entirely open on one side; it is the subdued
+light of deep sheds, or of markets. The more mysterious interior
+apartments open on the first by other similar columns, and receive from
+it a still more attenuated light; they can be shut at will by bamboo
+curtains of an extreme delicacy, whose tissue in its transparency
+imitates that of a wave, and which are raised to the ceiling by
+enormous tassels of red silk. Communication is had by species of
+doorways the forms of which are unusual and unexpected: sometimes
+they are perfect circles and sometimes they are more complicated
+figures, such as hexagons or stars. And all these secondary openings
+have frame-works of black lacquer which stand out with an elegant
+distinction upon the general background of the gold, and which bear
+upon the corners ornaments of bronze marvellously chiselled by the
+metal-workers of the past.
+
+The centuries have embellished this palace, veiling a little the
+glitter of the objects by blending all these harmonies of gold in a
+kind of very gentle shadow; in its silence and solitude one might call
+it the enchanted dwelling of some _Sleeping Beauty_, of a princess
+of an unknown world, or of a planet that could not be our own.
+
+We pass before some little interior gardens, which are, according
+to the Japanese custom, miniature reductions of very wild
+places,--unlooked-for contrasts in the centre of this golden palace.
+Here also time has passed, throwing its emerald upon the little
+rocks, the tiny lakes, and the small abysses; sterilizing the little
+mountains, and giving an appearance of reality to all that is minute
+and artificial. The trees, dwarfed by I know not what Japanese process,
+have not grown larger; but they have taken on an air of extreme old
+age. The _cycas_ have acquired many branches, because of their
+hundreds of years; one would call the little palms of multiple trunks,
+antidiluvian plants; or rather massive black candelabra, whose every
+arm carries at its extremity a fresh bouquet of green plumes.
+
+What also surprises us is the special apartment chosen by this
+Taïko-Sama, who was both a great conqueror and a great emperor. It is
+very small and very simple, and looks upon the tiniest and the most
+artificial of the little gardens.
+
+The Reception Hall, which they showed me last of all, is the largest
+and the most magnificent. It is about fifty metres long, and,
+naturally, all in golden lacquer, with a high and marvellous frieze.
+Always no furniture; nothing but the stages of lacquer upon which the
+handsome lords on arriving placed their arms. At the back, behind a
+colonnade, is the platform, where Taïko-Sama held his audiences, at the
+period of our Henri IV. Then it is that one dreams of these receptions,
+of these entrances of brilliant noblemen, whose helmets are surmounted
+by horns, snouts and grotesque figures; and all the unheard-of
+ceremonial of this court. One may dream of all this, but he will not
+clearly see it revive. Not only is the period too remote, but it is too
+far away in grade among the races of the earth; it is too far outside
+of our conceptions and the notions that we have inherited regarding
+these things. It is the same in the old temples of this country; we
+look at them without understanding, the symbols escape us. Between
+Japan and ourselves the difference of origin has made a deep abyss.
+
+“We shall cross another hall,” the bonze said to me, “and then a series
+of passages that will lead us to the temple of the palace.”
+
+In this last hall there are some people, which is a surprise, as all
+the former ones were empty; but silence dwells there just the same.
+The men squatting all around the walls seem very busy writing; they
+are priests copying prayers with tiny pencils on rice-paper to sell
+to the people. Here, upon the golden background of the walls, all the
+paintings represent royal tigers, a little larger than their natural
+size, in all attitudes of fury; of watching, of the hunt, of prowling,
+or of sleep. Above these motionless bonzes they lift their great
+heads, so expressive and wicked, showing their sharp teeth.
+
+My guide bows on entering. As I am among the most polite people in the
+world, I feel obliged to bow also. Then the reverence that is accorded
+to me passes all along the hall, and we go through.
+
+Passages obstructed with manuscripts and bales of prayers are passed,
+and we are in the temple. It is, as I expected, of great magnificence.
+Walls, ceilings, columns, all is in golden lacquer, the high frieze
+representing leaves and bunches of enormous peonies very full-blown and
+sculptured with so much skill that they seem ready to drop their leaves
+at the least breath to fall in a golden shower upon the floor. Behind
+a colonnade, in the darkest place, are the idols and emblems, in the
+midst of all the rich collection of sacred vases, incense-burners, and
+torch-bearers.
+
+Just now it is the hour of Buddhist service. In one of the courts,
+a gong, with the deep tones of a double-bass, begins to strike with
+extreme deliberation. Some bonzes in robes of black gauze with green
+surplices make a ritualistic entrance, the passes of which are very
+complicated, and then they go and kneel in the centre of the sanctuary.
+There are very few of the faithful; scarcely two or three groups, which
+seem lost in this great temple. There are some women lying on the
+matting, having brought their little smoking-boxes and their little
+pipes; they are talking in very low voices and smothering the desire to
+laugh.
+
+However, the gong begins to sound more rapidly and the priests to make
+low bows to their gods. It sounds still faster, and the bows of the
+bonzes quicken, while the priests prostrate themselves upon their faces
+upon the earth.
+
+Then, in the mystic regions something happens that reminds me very much
+of the elevation of the host in the Roman cult. Outside, the gong,
+as if exasperated, sounds with rapid strokes, uninterruptedly and
+frantically.
+
+I believe that I have seen everything now in this palace; but I still
+do not understand the disposition of the halls, the plan of the whole.
+If alone, I should soon become lost in it, as if in a labyrinth.
+
+Happily, my guide comes to take me out, after having put my shoes on me
+himself. Across new halls of silence, passing by an old and gigantic
+tree, which has miraculous properties, it seems, having for several
+centuries protected this palace from fire, he conducts me through the
+same gate by which I entered and where my _djin_ are waiting for
+me.
+
+
+
+
+                            WARWICK CASTLE
+
+                             LADY WARWICK
+
+
+The character of ancient buildings, the various styles of architecture
+which they present to us, their beauties as well as their blemishes,
+enable any one whose darkness may be lightened by the diviner radiance
+of a happy power of imagination to recall the persons and the events
+with which these buildings have been associated. The gloomy feudal
+fortress carries the mind back to the Middle Ages; the abbey, with
+its cloisters and windows and all the surroundings of a dim religious
+light, reminds us of days when the Head of the Church was indeed
+Christ’s Vicar here upon earth; while the palace suggests, side by side
+with its stories of games played at that great game in which men are
+but as pawns, pictures of gallant gentlemen and fair ladies who, though
+being dead, yet live before us. England is not so rich in these varied
+combinations of palace, abbey, and tower as is France, for instance,
+and particularly Touraine. Many of our most famous mediæval castles
+have been suffered to fall into decay, or, worse still, have been
+improved into modern shape by the rash hand of idle innovators.
+
+  [Illustration: WARWICK CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
+
+There is one among our castles, however, which neither Time’s defacing
+fingers nor man’s innovating hand has despoiled--Warwick Castle.
+
+Possibly there is no place of this sort so well known to the whole
+English world over, situated as it is within that Shakespeare country
+from which proceeded those melodious sounds that yet fill the world. It
+has always been the Mecca of the best and noblest of literary pilgrims
+from America. Nearly half a century ago Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote for
+an American magazine a series of sketches, in one of which, entitled
+“About Warwick,” he tells us how “through the vista of willows that
+droop on either side into the water we behold the grey magnificence
+of Warwick Castle uplifting itself among stately trees and rearing
+its turrets above their loftiest branches. We can scarcely think the
+scene real, so completely do the machicolated towers, the long line of
+battlements, the massive buttresses, the high-windowed walls, shape out
+our indistinct ideas of the antique time.”
+
+After all a castle, even so famous a one as Warwick, is not so
+interesting in itself as the scenes it has witnessed and the people
+who have lived in it or have visited it. The history of Warwick
+Castle, for the last three hundred and fifty years at least, has been
+no small part of the history of England. Personal and local history
+in England does not so much begin with the Reformation as it does
+in other countries; but this one thing is certain, that between the
+pre-Reformation world and ourselves there is a great gulf fixed which
+the historian has tried in vain to bridge. Not that the place before
+that could have been devoid of interest: no castle in the stormy times
+of the Wars of the Roses could have enjoyed the happiness of having
+no history; and, surely, if any did, Warwick was not one of them.
+Its very position, situated in the heart of England, must, from the
+time when the Great Alfred’s daughter built the keep (“the monument
+of the wisdom and energy of the mighty Ethelfleda”), have been such
+that, in all the numerous brawls and butcheries dignified by the name
+of civil war, the possession of it must have been a matter of supreme
+importance. And so it was nearly four centuries before the outbreak of
+the Wars of the Roses that William the Conqueror had made Warwick the
+base of his operations for his campaign in the North. The fortress he
+built there has gone--not one stone left upon another, and so utterly
+perished that the very site of it is pure guess-work. The legendary Guy
+and all his feats may be dismissed from any account which makes any
+pretence to be historical. There is a curious account of the garrison
+of Warwick Castle in the time of Henry II., when all his legitimate
+sons were in arms against him, and the two illegitimate sons of Fair
+Rosamond alone remained faithful. It was occupied for the King; and the
+sheriff’s account rendered for the victualling of the place was this:
+“xi. _li._ xiii. _d._ for 20 quarters of Bread Corn; xx.
+_s._ for 20 quarters of Malt; c. _s._ for 50 Biefs salted up;
+xxx. _s._ for 90 cheeses; and xx. _s._ for salt then laid in
+for the victualling thereof.”
+
+Of the importance of Warwick Castle in the Middle Ages we can well form
+an idea from Dugdale’s statement:--
+
+“Of what regard it was in those times may be discerned by the King’s
+precept to the Archbishop of York, for requiring good security of
+Margery, sister and heir to Thomas, then Earl of Warwick, that she
+should not take to husband any person whatsoever in whom the said King
+could not repose trust as in his own self: the chief reason being given
+in these words, ‘Because she has a Castle of immense strength, and
+situated towards the Marshes.’”
+
+No mention of Warwick Castle would be complete if it left out the
+famous Earl--“the King-Maker,” and the “Last of the Barons.” Never
+was the “Bear and Ragged Staff” held in such high esteem as between
+1455 and 1470. And when, a few years after the King-Maker’s death, the
+avaricious Henry VII. annexed his various manors to the Crown, he got
+possession of over a hundred of them, to say nothing of the whole of
+the Channel Islands. A contemporary tells us that “at the Earl’s house
+in London six oxen were usually eaten at breakfast, and every tavern
+was full of his meat, for he that had any acquaintance in his family
+should have as much sodden--_i. e._, boiled--as he could carry on
+a long dagger.”
+
+The Castle had remained for a very considerable period in the
+possession of the successive earls. It next passed to the ill-starred
+George, Duke of Clarence, and upon his death, “being seized into the
+King’s hands, it continued in the Crown a great while.”
+
+When the famous John Dudley became Earl of Warwick, the Castle was
+granted to him, as well as divers lands which had belonged to former
+earls. Of his fate in connection with the unhappy Lady Jane Grey
+there is no need to speak here. The Castle and all his estates, upon
+his attainder, escheated to the Crown. Thanks to the favour with which
+Robert Dudley, better known as the Earl of Leicester, was regarded by
+Queen Elizabeth, his brother Ambrose received from that queen a grant
+of Warwick Castle, together with the dignities of Earl of Warwick and
+Baron de l’Isle, in 1561. Three years later his brother Robert became
+Earl of Leicester.
+
+There were other subjects beside Lord Burghley who groaned inwardly
+under “the extraordinary chardg in Enterteynment of the Queen.”
+Elizabeth had more than the ordinary passion of the time for “rich
+shews, pleasant devices and all manner of sports that could be
+devised.” Notwithstanding the extent of her various progresses east and
+west and north and south, there seemed to be always something freshly
+arranged for her entertainment. In 1572 on her way to Kenilworth,
+she stayed at Warwick, and visited the Earl of Warwick at the Castle
+she had granted him eleven years before. She came to Warwick “on the
+12th day of August, after dinner, about three of the clock, with the
+Countess in the same coach.”
+
+Evelyn, as the author of _Silva_ well might do, did not think much
+of the gardens in 1654. To bring them to perfection was reserved for
+that luckless of the heads of the Grevilles, George, the second Baron,
+who “planned the park by his taste and planted the trees with his
+hand.” The second son, Robert, who became the fourth Lord Brooke, was
+one of the six lords sent by the House of Peers, together with twelve
+of the members of the House of Commons, to present to Charles II. at
+the Hague, “the humble invitation and supplication of the Parliament:
+That His Majesty would be pleased to return and take the government of
+the Kingdom into his own hands.” He was made Recorder of Warwick, and
+being a great traveller added much to the embellishment of the Castle.
+It was to him that the fitting up of the state apartments is due, and
+he worthily continued to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors
+in the title. His successors from one generation to another took pride
+above everything else in the adornment and beautification of their
+castle. In 1746 the eighth Baron was created Earl Brooke, and in the
+last year of the reign of George II. the Earldom of Warwick, which
+had been conferred in 1618 on the family of Rich, becoming extinct,
+devolved upon Lord Brooke. The son of this first Earl of Warwick was
+one of the most reckless of all connoisseurs, and Warwick Castle is
+indebted to him for many valuable gems which his uncle, Sir William
+Hamilton, collected. Many of the finest specimens of artistic work
+at Warwick bear testimony to his taste, but the enlargement and
+improvement of the grounds about the Castle are his special work, and
+he expended over £100,000 in beautifying the interior of his home.
+
+The entrance to the Castle consists of a plain embattled gateway,
+leading to a picturesque winding roadway, cut, for upwards of a hundred
+yards, through the solid rock, and overhung with shrubs, creepers, and
+trees. This roadway conducts to the outer court, where a grand view of
+the outer walls suddenly bursts upon the visitor, the main features
+of which are Guy’s Tower on the right, the Gateway in the middle, and
+Cæsar’s Tower on the left.
+
+Guy’s Tower, so named in honour of the legendary warrior, was built
+by the second Thomas de Beauchamp in the reign of Richard II., being
+completed in 1394. It is twelve-sided, thirty feet in diameter at the
+base, with walls ten feet thick, and rises to a height of a hundred and
+twenty-eight feet. This tower contains five floors, each floor having a
+groined roof and being subdivided into one large and two small rooms,
+the sides of which are pierced with numerous loopholes, commanding
+in various directions the curtains which the tower was intended to
+protect. A staircase of a hundred and thirty-three steps leads to the
+summit, which is crowned by a machicolated parapet. The vault beneath
+has been constructed of great strength, apparently for the purpose of
+supporting on the roof some ponderous and powerful engine, calculated
+to annihilate anything which could be brought against it. The details
+of the Castle can be best observed from this tower, and it commands a
+fine view of the surrounding country, extending for many miles. The
+second-floor chamber, now used as a muniment room, was the place of
+confinement of the Earl of Lindsey, who, with his father, was taken
+prisoner at the battle of Edge Hill.
+
+Cæsar’s Tower was erected between 1350 and 1370 by the first Thomas
+de Beauchamp, and it is a marvel of constructive skill. It is an
+irregular polygon, a hundred and forty-seven feet in height, containing
+four stories, each with a groined roof, and is crowned by a boldly
+projecting machicolation. The part facing outward forms three segments
+of a circle, the general construction being such as to constitute
+it a fortress of the most formidable character. It is built on the
+solid rock, and was therefore impervious to the miner. The loopholes
+throughout are most scientifically contrived, not being cut in the
+centre of the merlons in each instance, but being pierced in positions
+commanding the most advantageous situations, and being made available
+for the long or crossbow. The lower edges of the loopholes are also
+sloped at the exact angle requisite to clear the gallery below. The
+archers were securely protected by wooden screens, termed mantlets, and
+by leather curtains, as well as by the roofs above them. The sloping
+base of the tower constituted another formidable medium for launching
+missiles against the enemy, being so constructed that a stone or metal
+projectile, launched from the machicolation above, would rebound with a
+point blank aim into the breasts of the attacking force beneath.
+
+The Gateway was constructed in the Fourteenth Century, and was in
+ancient times approached by a drawbridge, which formerly spanned the
+moat, but is now replaced by a stone arch. On the inner side of this
+is the Barbican, projecting some fifty feet from the wall, and rising
+two stories in height above the archway. It is flanked by two octagonal
+turrets, loopholed for the purpose of defending the bridge and its
+approaches. Within the drawbridge is a portcullis, and behind the
+portcullis are four holes overhead, through which blazing pitch, hot
+lead, or other scarifying compounds could be poured on the heads of
+the assailants....
+
+The spacious Inner Court is nearly two acres in extent. In front
+stands the Mound or Keep, studded with trees and shrubs, and crossed
+by the fortifications, in which the Northern Tower forms a prominent
+object. On the right, connected by walls of enormous strength, are two
+incomplete towers, termed the Bear and Clarence Towers, the former
+begun by Richard III., and the latter probably by his brother, George,
+Duke of Clarence. On the left, extending to the Hill Tower at the base
+of the Mound, is the inhabited part of the Castle, altered and enlarged
+at various times since it was first built, but with so much skill as to
+be in perfect keeping with the general aspect of the whole.
+
+A fortress is said to have existed here in Roman times; and Ethelfleda,
+daughter of Alfred the Great, is stated to have erected a keep or
+dungeon on the Mound in the year 915, and this again is stated to have
+been enlarged in the time of the Conqueror.
+
+Warwick Castle still stands by itself amongst English castles. It not
+only brings before us the people whom it had witnessed itself, from
+William the Conqueror down to Queen Victoria, but it enables us to
+represent what the baronial castles--Kenilworth and a host of others,
+which have fallen into decay--once were: by it we can reconstruct their
+halls and their bowers, their chapels and their dungeons, and can
+reproduce them to ourselves as they were when great kings and dukes and
+lords, who have long since crumbled into dust, filled them with their
+sound and fury, which now signifies nothing: we can see the Beauchamps
+and the Nevills and the Plantagenets, and those that went before them
+and those that came after them, pass through its galleries in knightly
+procession: we can be present there with Queen Elizabeth and Lord
+Leicester when all was revelry and mirth; or with the stout old Sir
+Edmund Peto, in that dark hour when he hung out a cross with a flag
+upon it in defiance of the Papists. As we walk from gallery to gallery,
+and from apartment to apartment, we can see, as in some splendid
+and stately museum, everything which has beautified and adorned the
+lives of seven centuries of English nobles. Over and above all this,
+we can see in Warwick Castle the continuity of English life, ever
+changing but yet ever the same; and as we view objects which illustrate
+the arts and fashions and tastes and fancies of a bygone world, we
+can feel conscious of the debt we owe to those who, mindful of the
+responsibility bequeathed to them, have not been backward in amassing
+treasures to be an “everlasting possession, not a sight to be seen and
+then forgotten.”
+
+
+
+
+                             THE ALHAMBRA
+
+                           EDMONDO DE AMICIS
+
+
+We arrived before a great gateway that shut in the street; Gongora said
+to me, “Here we are!” I entered.
+
+I found myself in a great grove of trees of immeasurable height
+inclining towards each other on both sides of a wide avenue that
+ascends the hill and is lost in the shade; they are so close together
+that a man can pass between them with difficulty and wherever you look,
+you can see nothing but trunks so thickly set that they seem to shut
+in the road like a continuous wall. The trees interlace their branches
+above the avenue; not a ray of sunlight can penetrate the wood; the
+shade is dense, and from every side the rivulets murmur and the
+nightingales sing. You breathe here the freshness of spring.
+
+“We are already in the Alhambra,” Gongora said to me, “turn around and
+you will see the towers and the embattled walls of the enclosure.”
+
+“But where is the palace?” I asked.
+
+“That is a secret,” he answered, “let us walk on at random.”
+
+We advanced by an avenue parallel to the great central road, and one
+that wound towards the summit of the hill. The trees above our heads
+formed a roof of verdure that hid the sky; and the grass, the
+brushwood and the flowers made on both sides two charming espaliers of
+brightness.
+
+“Here is the gateway!” cried Gongora.
+
+I turned around as if I had been pushed, and I saw a few steps before
+me a large square tower, of a sombre red, crowned with embattlements,
+and its door surmounted by a horseshoe arch upon which you saw
+sculptured a key and a hand.
+
+  [Illustration: THE ALHAMBRA, SPAIN.]
+
+My guide told me that it was the principal entrance to the Alhambra,
+and that it was called the Gate of Justice, because the Arab Kings
+were accustomed to pronounce their sentences beneath that arch. The
+key means that this door is the key to the fortress, and the hand is
+the symbol of the five principal precepts of Islam: Prayer, Fasting,
+Benevolence, Holy War, and Pilgrimage to Mecca.
+
+We passed under the gate, and continued to ascend by an embanked road:
+finally we came to the top of the hill, in the middle of an esplanade
+surrounded by a parapet and set with bushes and flowers. I was standing
+before a great palace in the style of the Renaissance, half in ruins
+and flanked by some small and miserable-looking houses.
+
+We entered through a little doorway, crossed a corridor, and found
+ourselves in a court.
+
+We were in the _patio de los Arraynes_ (Court of the Myrtles),
+which is the largest in the building, and which presents at once the
+appearance of a court, a hall, and a garden. A large rectangular
+basin, full of water, surrounded by a hedge of myrtle, extends from
+one side to the other of the _patio_, and mirrors the arches,
+the arabesques, and inscriptions of the walls. To the right of the
+entrance are two rows of Moorish arches, placed one upon the other, and
+upheld by light columns; and on the opposite side of the court rises
+a tower with a door, through which may be seen the half-dark interior
+halls and the tiny twin-windows, and beyond the windows the blue sky
+and the peaks of the distant mountains. The walls are ornamented up to
+a certain height with splendid mosaics, and from the mosaics upward to
+the ceiling with arabesques of the most delicate design, which seem
+to scintillate and change at every step; and here and there between
+the arabesques and along the arches, Arabic inscriptions comprising
+salutations, sentences, and proverbs wind about and interlace like
+garlands.
+
+Near the entrance one reads in Kufic characters: “Salvation
+eternal!--Benediction!--Prosperity!--Felicity!--Praise be to God for
+the welfare of Islam!”
+
+In another place you see written: “I seek my refuge in the God of the
+Dawn.” Elsewhere: “O God, to Thee we owe eternal thanks and undying
+praise!”
+
+In other places there are verses from the Koran, and entire poems in
+praise of the caliphs.
+
+We entered the tower called the Tower of Comares, or vulgarly, of the
+Ambassadors.
+
+The interior of the tower forms two halls; the first is called the
+Hall of the Boat: some persons say because it is shaped like a boat;
+others, because it was called by the Arabs Hall of the Baraka, or
+benediction, a word which the ignorant have corrupted into that of
+boat (_barca_). This hall does not seem of human workmanship; it
+is nothing but a stupendous interlacing of embroideries in the form of
+garlands, rose-work, branches, and leaves that cover the ceiling, the
+arches, the walls, on all sides, and in every way, crowded together,
+twisted, in net-work, one upon another, and combined in such a manner
+that they are all seen in a single glance and present an astonishing
+magnificence and an enchanting grace. I went up to one of the walls, I
+fastened my gaze at the beginning of an arabesque and tried to follow
+its twistings and windings: impossible! the eye loses itself, the mind
+becomes confused, and all the arabesques from the pavement to the
+ceiling seem to move and commingle to make you lose the thread of their
+inextricable net-work. You may make an effort not to look around you,
+concentrate your attention upon one little place of the wall, put your
+very nose in it, and trace the design with your finger: it is useless;
+in one minute the patterns become involved, a veil spreads between the
+wall and yourself, and your arm falls. The wall seems to you to be
+woven like a textile, crinkled like brocade, of open-work like lace,
+and veined like a leaf; you cannot look at it closely, you cannot fix
+the design in your mind,--that would be like counting the ants in an
+ant-hill.
+
+After having looked around me a little, Gongora pushed me into the
+great Hall of the Ambassadors, which occupies the entire interior of
+the tower, for the Hall of the Barca in reality belongs to a little
+building, which although joined to the tower, is not a part of it.
+The Hall is square, very spacious, and lighted by nine large arched
+windows, in the form of doors, which present almost the aspect of
+alcoves, so thick are the walls; and each one of them is divided in two
+by a little column of marble that supports two elegant little arches,
+surmounted in their turn by two little arched windows. The walls are
+covered with mosaics and arabesques of an indescribable delicacy and
+variety of form, and innumerable inscriptions that are spread out like
+broad, embroidered ribbons over the arches of the windows, in the
+corners, upon the friezes, and around the niches where they placed
+vases filled with flowers and perfumed waters. The ceiling, which is
+very high, is composed of pieces of cedar wood, white, gilt, and blue,
+united in the form of circles, stars, and crowns; it forms a number of
+little domes, cells, and tiny arched windows from which a soft light
+falls; and from the cornice that joins the ceiling to the walls hang
+bits of stucco cut in facets and worked like stalactites and bunches of
+flowers. The throne stood in the centre before the window and opposite
+the door of entrance. From the windows on this side, you enjoy a
+magnificent view of the valley of the Darro; so deep and silent that it
+seems as if it must be fascinated by the majestic Alhambra; from the
+windows of the two other sides you see the walls of the enclosure and
+the towers of the fortress; and from the side of the entrance, in the
+distance, the light arches of the Court of Myrtles, and the waters of
+the basin reflecting the azure of the sky.
+
+We left the tower with rapid steps, crossed the Court of Myrtles,
+and came in front of a little door opposite the entrance. We went
+about fifteen steps and stopped. We were in the Court of the Lions.
+If at this moment I had been forced to leave just as I had entered,
+I do not know if I could have described what I had seen. A forest
+of columns, a labyrinth of arches and embroideries, an indefinable
+elegance, an unimaginable delicacy, a prodigious richness, and I don’t
+know what that was aërial, transparent, and undulating, it was like a
+great pavilion of lace; the appearance of a building that would fall
+by a breath, a variety of lights, perspectives, mysterious shadows,
+confusion, a capricious disorder of little things, the majesty
+of a little palace, the gaiety of a kiosk, an amorous grace, an
+extravagance, a delight, a phantasy of a young and passionate maiden,
+an angel’s dream, a madness, a thing without a name; such is the first
+effect of the Court of Lions.
+
+This is a court larger than a great ball-room, rectangular in form,
+with walls as high as one of the little Andalusian houses of one story.
+A light portico runs around it supported by graceful little columns
+of white marble, grouped in symmetrical disorder, by twos and threes
+almost without a base so that they seem to be starting from the earth
+like the trunks of trees, and adorned with varied capitals, tall and
+delicate, in the form of little pillars upon which curve tiny arches
+of the most graceful form. These arches seem not leaning upon, but
+suspended over the columns: one might call them curtains arranged upon
+the columns like ribbons or floating garlands. From the centre of the
+shortest sides, there advance two groups of columns that form two
+kinds of little square temples, each of nine arches, surmounted by a
+little cupola of many colours. The walls of these little temples and
+the outside wall of the portico are a veritable lace-work in stucco;
+they are ornamented, embroidered, bordered, cut and perforated from
+one side to the other, transparent as a web, and changing in design at
+your approach; here, flowers are nestling in the arabesques; there,
+stars; and farther away, bucklers, squares, and polygonal figures
+covered with ornaments of an infinite delicacy. All this ends in
+jagged points, in festoons, in ribbons fluttering around the arches,
+in species of stalactites, fringes, pear-shaped drops and acorns, that
+seem to undulate with the least breath of air. Long Arabic inscriptions
+run the entire length of the four walls, above the arches, upon the
+capitals, and upon the walls of the little temples. In the centre of
+the court there rises a great marble basin, upheld by twelve lions,
+and surrounded by a paved canal, from which gush four other small
+canals, that, describing a cross between the four sides of the court,
+cross the portico, dart into the neighbouring halls and unite with
+the other conduits cutting through the entire edifice. Behind the two
+little temples, and in the middle of the two other sides, there open
+suites of halls with immense open doorways, that allow you to see the
+dark background upon which the little white columns gleam as if they
+stood before the mouth of a grotto. At every step one takes into the
+court, this forest of columns seems to move and disarrange itself to
+arrange itself in a new way; behind a column that seems to stand
+alone, two, three, or sometimes a file of them, will show themselves;
+others will disappear, others will approach each other, and others
+will separate; in looking into the depths of one of these halls, you
+see everything change: the arches on the opposite side seem to be far
+away; the columns seem out of place, the little temples assume another
+form; you see through the very walls, you discover new arches and new
+columns, here in the bright sunlight, there in the shadow, elsewhere
+half illuminated by the soft light that passes through the perforations
+of the carving, and farther away they are lost in the darkness. Here is
+a continual changing of perspectives, distances, deceptions, mysteries,
+and optical illusions made by the architecture and the sunlight and
+your own over-excited and burning imagination.
+
+“What must this _patio_ have been,” said Gongora, “when the
+interior walls of the portico were glistening with mosaics, the
+capitals of the columns gleaming with gold, the ceilings and vaults
+painted in a thousand colours, the doorways closed by hangings of silk,
+and the niches filled with flowers; and when beneath the temples and
+in the halls perfumed waters flowed, and when from the nostrils of the
+lions dashed forth twelve jets of water that fell back into the basin,
+and when the air was impregnated with the most delicious perfumes of
+Arabia! You should come here at sunrise; you should also come here at
+sunset and at moonlight to see the marvels of colour, light and shade!
+It would turn your head!”
+
+We went to see the halls. On the eastern side there is one called the
+Hall of Justice, which you reach by passing under three large arches,
+each one taking the place of a door opening into the court. It is a
+long and narrow hall, of rich and bold architecture, the walls of
+which are covered with very intricate arabesques and precious mosaics,
+with points, bunches, and protuberances of stucco hanging from the
+arches, which crowd together, drop, spring from, press upon, and are
+superimposed upon each other, as if they disputed the very space, and
+showing even now traces of ancient colours which must have given to
+this ceiling the semblance of suspended fruits and flowers.
+
+On the northern side of the court there is another hall called _de
+las Hermanas_ (the Two Sisters) from two large slabs of marble
+that are found in the pavement. It is the most gracious hall of the
+Alhambra. It is small, square, and domed with one of those vaults in
+the form of a cupola which the Spaniards call half-oranges, sustained
+by little columns and arches arranged in a circle, all cut to resemble
+a grotto of stalactites with an infinity of points and holes, coloured
+and gilded and so light that they seem to the eye as if hanging in
+the air: you would think that they would tremble like a curtain, at a
+touch, or evaporate like a cloud, or vanish like a lot of soap-bubbles.
+The walls of stucco, like those of the other halls, and covered with
+arabesques, of an incredible delicacy, are among the most astonishing
+productions of human fancy and patience.
+
+We returned to the Court of the Myrtles, and visited the halls on the
+other side of the Tower of Comares, most of them half ruined, others
+transformed, some of them half bare, without either pavement or roof,
+but all worthy of being seen because of the memories they awaken, and
+also in order to understand the construction of the building. The old
+mosque was converted into a chapel by Charles V. and a large Arabian
+hall into an oratory; here and there you noticed the _débris_ of
+arabesques and ceilings of carved cedar; the galleries, the courts, and
+the vestibules seemed the remains of a palace devoured by fire.
+
+At this point I truly thought that there was nothing more to be seen,
+and I committed the fresh imprudence of saying so to Gongora. At this
+blow he could no longer contain himself, and, leading me into the
+vestibule of the Court of Myrtles, before a plan of the building that
+hung upon the wall, he said:
+
+“Look around you, and you will see that all the halls, all the courts,
+and all the towers that we have visited up to now, only occupy the
+twentieth part of the space enclosed by the walls of the Alhambra; you
+see that we have not yet visited the remains of three other mosques,
+the ruins of the Hall of the Cadi, the Water-Tower, the Tower of the
+Infantas, the Tower of the Prisoner, the Tower of Candil, the Tower
+of the Pico, the Tower of the Poignards, the Tower of the _Siete
+Melos_, the Tower of the Captain, the Tower of the Sorcerer,
+the Tower of the Heads, the Tower of the Weapons, the Tower of the
+Hidalgos, the Tower of the Chickens, the Tower of the Dice, the Tower
+of Homage, the Tower of the Vela, the Tower of the Powder, the ruins
+of the house of Mondejar, the military quarters, the Iron Gate, the
+interior walls, the cisterns, and the promenades; for you must know
+that the Alhambra is not solely a palace, but a town, and that it would
+take a lifetime to search for arabesques, to read inscriptions and to
+discover each day some new view of the hills and mountains, falling
+into an ecstasy once at least during the twenty-four hours!”
+
+And I thought I had seen the Alhambra.
+
+
+
+
+                            LAMBETH PALACE
+
+                          JOHN RICHARD GREEN
+
+
+A little higher up the river, but almost opposite to the huge mass of
+the Houses of Parliament, lies a broken, irregular pile of buildings,
+at whose angle, looking out over the Thames, is one grey weather-beaten
+tower. The broken pile is the archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth; the
+grey, weather-beaten building is its Lollards’ Tower. From this tower
+the mansion itself stretches in a varied line; chapel and guard-room,
+and gallery, and the stately buildings of the new house looking out
+on the terrace and garden; while the Great Hall, in which the library
+has now found a home, is the low picturesque building which reaches
+southward along the river to the gate.
+
+The story of each of these spots will interweave itself with the
+thread of our narrative as we proceed; but I would warn my readers at
+the outset that I do not propose to trace the history of Lambeth in
+itself, or to attempt any architectural or picturesque description of
+the place. What I attempt is simply to mark, in incident after incident
+which has occurred within its walls, the relation of the house to the
+primates whom it has sheltered for seven hundred years, and through
+them to the literary, ecclesiastical, the political history of the
+realm.
+
+Nothing illustrates the last of these relations better than the
+site of the house itself. It is doubtful whether we can date the
+residence of the archbishops of Canterbury at Lambeth, which was then a
+manor-house of the see of Rochester, earlier than the reign of Eadward
+the Confessor. But there was a significance in the choice of the spot,
+as there was a significance in the date at which the choice was made.
+So long as the political head of the English people ruled, like Ælfred,
+or Æthelstan, or Eadgar, from Winchester, the spiritual head of the
+English people was content to rule from Canterbury. It was when the
+piety of the Confessor and the political prescience of his successors
+brought the kings finally to Westminster that the archbishops were
+permanently drawn to their suffragan’s manor-house at Lambeth. The
+Norman rule gave a fresh meaning to their position. In the new course
+of national history which opened with the Conquest, the Church
+was called to play a part greater than she had ever known before.
+Hitherto the archbishop had been simply the head of the ecclesiastical
+order--a representative of the moral and spiritual forces on which
+the government was based. The Conquest, the cessation of the great
+Witenagemotes in which the nation, however imperfectly, had till then
+found a voice, turned him into a tribune of the people.
+
+  [Illustration: LAMBETH PALACE, ENGLAND.]
+
+Foreigner though he might be, it was the primate’s part to speak for
+the conquered race the words it could no longer utter. He was, in fact,
+the permanent leader (to borrow a modern phrase) of a constitutional
+opposition; and, in addition to the older religious forces which he
+wielded, he wielded a popular and democratic force which held the
+new king and the new baronage in check. It was he who received from
+the sovereign whom he crowned the solemn oath that he would rule not
+by his own will, but according to the customs, or, as we should say
+now, the traditional constitution, of the realm. It was his to call
+on the people to declare whether they chose him for their king; to
+receive the thundered “Ay, ay,” of the crowd; to place the priestly
+unction on shoulder and breast, the royal crown on brow. To watch over
+the observance and order into religious duties; to uphold the custom
+and law of the realm against personal tyranny; to guard, amidst the
+darkness and brutality of the age, those interests of religion, of
+morality, of intellectual life, which as yet lay peacefully together
+beneath the wing of the Church--this was the political office of the
+primate in the new order which the Conquest created; and it was this
+office which expressed itself in the site of the house that fronted the
+king’s house over Thames.
+
+From the days of Archbishop Anselm, therefore, to the days of Stephen
+Langton, Lambeth only fronted Westminster as the archbishop fronted the
+king. Synod met over against council; the clerical court of the one
+ruler rivaled in splendour, in actual influence, the baronial court
+of the other. For more than a century of our history the great powers
+which together were to make up the England of the future lay marshalled
+over against each other on either side the water.
+
+With the union of the English people, and the sudden arising of English
+freedom, which followed the Great Charter, this peculiar attitude
+of the archbishops passed necessarily away. When the people itself
+spoke again, its voice was heard, not in the hall of Lambeth, but in
+the Chapter-house which gave a home to the House of Commons in its
+earlier sessions at Westminster. From the day of Stephen Langton the
+nation has towered higher and higher above its mere ecclesiastical
+organization, till the one stands dwarfed beside the other as Lambeth
+now stands dwarfed before the mass of the Houses of Parliament. Nor
+was the religious change less than the political. In the Church as
+in the State, the archbishops suddenly fell into the rear. From the
+days of the first English Parliament to the days of the Reformation,
+they not only ceased to be representatives of the moral and religious
+forces of the nation, but stand actually opposed to them. Nowhere is
+this better brought out than in their house beside the Thames. The
+political history of Lambeth lies spread over the whole of its site,
+from the gateway of Morton to the garden where we shall see Cranmer
+musing on the fate of Anne Boleyn. Its ecclesiastical interest, on
+the other hand, is concentrated in a single spot. We must ask our
+readers, therefore, to follow us beneath the groining of the Gate-house
+into the quiet little court that lies on the river-side of the hall.
+Passing over its trim grass-plot to a doorway at the angle of Lollards’
+Tower, and mounting a few steps, they will find themselves in a
+square antechamber, paved roughly with tiles, and with a single small
+window looking out towards the Thames. The chamber is at the base of
+Lollards’ Tower; in the centre stands a huge oaken pillar, to which the
+room owes its name of the “Post-room,” and to which somewhat mythical
+tradition asserts Lollards to have been tied when they were “examined”
+by the whip. On its western side a doorway of the purest early English
+work leads us directly into the palace chapel.
+
+It is strange to stand at a single step in the very heart of the
+ecclesiastical life of so many ages, within walls beneath which the
+men in whose hands the fortunes of English religion have been placed
+from the age of the Great Charter till to-day have come and gone; to
+see the light falling through the tall windows with their marble shafts
+on the spot where Wyclif fronted Sudbury, on the lowly tomb of Parker,
+on the stately screen-work of Laud, on the altar where the last sad
+communion of Sancroft originated the Non-jurors. It is strange to note
+the very characteristics of the building itself, marred as it is by
+modern restoration, and to feel how simply its stern, unadorned beauty,
+the beauty of Salisbury and of Lincoln, expressed the very tone of the
+Church that finds its centre there.
+
+And hardly less strange it is to recall the odd, roistering figure
+of the primate, to whom, if tradition be true, it owes this beauty.
+Boniface of Savoy was the youngest of three brothers out of whom their
+niece, Eleanor, the queen of Henry the Third, was striving to build up
+a foreign party in the realm. Her uncle Amadeus was richly enfeossed
+with English lands; the Savoy Palace in the Strand still recalls the
+sentiment and the magnificence of her uncle Peter. For this third
+and younger uncle she grasped at the highest post in the state save
+the crown itself. “The handsome archbishop,” as his knights loved to
+call him, was not merely a foreigner as Lanfranc and Anselm had been
+foreigners--strange in manner or in speech to the flock whom they
+ruled--he was foreign in the worst sense: strange to their freedom,
+their sense of law, their reverence for piety. His first visit set
+everything on fire. He retreated to Lyons to hold a commission in the
+Pope’s bodyguard, but even Innocent was soon weary of his tyranny. When
+the threat of sequestration recalled him after four years of absence
+to his see, his hatred of England, his purpose soon to withdraw again
+to his own sunny South, were seen in his refusal to furnish Lambeth.
+Certainly he went the wrong way to stay here. The young primate brought
+with him Savoyard fashions, strange enough to English folk. His armed
+retainers, foreigners to a man, plundered the City markets. His own
+archiepiscopal fist felled to the ground a prior who opposed his
+visitation. It was the prior of St. Bartholomew’s by Smithfield; and
+London, on the king’s refusal to grant redress, took the matter into
+her own hands. The City bells swung out, and a noisy crowd of citizens
+were soon swarming beneath the walls of the palace, shouting threats of
+vengeance.
+
+For shouts Boniface cared little. In the midst of the tumult he caused
+the sentences of excommunication which he had fulminated to be legally
+executed in the chapel of his house. But, bravado-like, this soon died
+before the universal resentment, and “the handsome archbishop” fled
+again to Lyons. How helpless the successor of Augustine really was, was
+shown by a daring outrage perpetrated in his absence. Master Eustace,
+his official, had thrown into prison the prior of St. Thomas’s Hospital
+for some contempt of court; and the prior’s diocesan, the Bishop of
+Winchester, a prelate as foreign and lawless as Boniface himself,
+took up the injury as his own. A party of his knights appeared before
+the house at Lambeth, tore the gates from their hinges, set Master
+Eustace on horseback, and carried him off to the episcopal prison at
+Farnham. At last Boniface bowed to submission, surrendered the points
+at issue, recalled his excommunication, and was suffered to return. He
+had learned his lesson well enough to remain from that time a quiet,
+inactive man, with a dash of Continental frugality and wit about him.
+Whether he built the chapel or not, he would probably have said of it
+as he said of the Great Hall at Canterbury, “My predecessors built, and
+I discharge the debt for their building. It seems to me that the true
+builder is the man that pays the bill.”
+
+From the moment when Wyclif stood in Lambeth Chapel the Church sunk,
+ecclesiastically as well as politically, into non-existence. It
+survived merely as a vast land-owner; while its primates, after a short
+effort to resume their older position as real heads of their order,
+dwindled into ministers and tools of the crown. The gate-tower of the
+house, the grand mass of brick-work, whose dark-red tones are (or,
+alas! were, till a year or two since) so exquisitely brought out by the
+grey stone of its angles and the mullions of its broad arch-window,
+recalls an age--that of its builder, Archbishop Morton--when Lambeth,
+though the residence of the first minister of the crown, had really
+lost all hold on the nobler elements of political life. It was raised
+from this degradation by the efforts of a primate to whose merits
+justice has hardly as yet been done. First in date among the genuine
+portraits of the Archbishops of Canterbury which hang round the walls
+of the Guard-room at Lambeth is the portrait of Archbishop Warham. The
+plain, homely old man’s face still looks down on us, line for line,
+as the “seeing eye” of Holbein gazed on it three centuries ago. “I
+instance this picture,” says Mr. Wornum, in his life of the painter,
+“as an illustration that Holbein had the power of seeing what he
+looked on, and of perfectly transferring to his picture what he saw.”
+Memorable in the annals of art as the first of that historic series
+which brings home to us, as no age has ever been brought home to eyes
+of after-time, the age of the English Reformation, it is even more
+memorable as marking the close of the great intellectual movement which
+the Reformation swept away.
+
+With the Reformation, in its nobler and purer aspects, Lambeth, as we
+have said, had little to do. Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Alasco gathered
+there for a moment round Cranmer; but it was simply as a resting-place,
+on their way to Cambridge, to Oxford, and to Austin Friars. Only one
+of the symbols of the new Protestantism has any connection with it;
+the Prayer-book was drawn up in the peaceful seclusion of Oxford. The
+party conferences, the rival martyrdoms of the jarring creeds, took
+place elsewhere. The memories of Cranmer which linger round Lambeth
+are simply memories of degradation; and that the deepest degradation
+of all, the degradation of those solemn influences which the primacy
+embodies to the sanction of political infamy. It is fair, indeed, to
+remember the bitterness of Cranmer’s suffering. Impassive as he seemed,
+with a face that never changed, and sleep seldom known to be broken,
+men saw little of the inner anguish with which the tool of Henry’s
+injustice bent before that overmastering will.
+
+None of the great theological impulses of this age or the last, it
+is sometimes urged, came out of Lambeth. Little of the theological
+bitterness, of the controversial narrowness of this age or the last, it
+may fairly be answered, has ever entered its gates. Of Lambeth we may
+say what Matthew Arnold says of Oxford, that many as are its faults,
+it has never surrendered itself to ecclesiastical Philistines. In the
+calm, genial silence of its courts, its library, its galleries, in
+the presence of its venerable past, the virulence, the petty strife,
+the tumult of religious fanaticism finds itself hushed. Among the
+storms of the Wesleyan revival, of the Evangelical revival, of the
+Puseyite revival, the voice of Lambeth has ever pleaded for a truth,
+simpler, larger, more human than theirs. Amidst the deafening clamour
+of Tractarian and Anti-Tractarian disputants, both sides united
+in condemning the silence of Lambeth. Yet the one word that came
+from Lambeth will still speak to men’s hearts when all their noisy
+disputations are forgotten. “How,” a prelate, whose nearest relative
+had joined the Church of Rome, asked Archbishop Howley, “how shall I
+treat my brother?” “As a brother,” was the archbishop’s reply.
+
+
+
+
+                           CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS
+
+                            JULES LOISELEUR
+
+
+The castle of Blois would be without a rival in France if Fontainebleau
+did not exist. The first time we enter that interior court, the
+four sides of which each tell the history of a great period of
+architecture, we are dazzled by the throng of memories and ideas that
+start from these four great pages. The obedient stone, in accordance
+with the epoch, has recorded the suspicious precautions, the paternal
+confidence, the chivalric enthusiasm and the majestic isolation of the
+masters of this royal dwelling. Pure feudalism is written in the mighty
+walls of the fortress of the Counts of Blois. The transitional style,
+one of the most important examples of which is offered by this castle
+of Louis XII., marks the change from the feudal system to the unitary
+monarchy prepared by Louis XI. This youthful monarchy, already absolute
+though tempered by the great aristocratic individualities, already
+glitters and triumphs in this brilliant façade built by the young
+victor of Marignan. By the side of this splendid façade, like a severe
+master beside a turbulent pupil, the severe profile of the castle,
+built by Mansart, suggests the absolute and uncounterpoised monarchy of
+Louis XVI.;--unity without diversity, force without grace.
+
+Thus the unknown architect who cut the walls of the mighty fortress
+out of the rock for Thibault le Tricheur; and the artists, native in
+all probability and therefore unknown, who drew the arabesques of
+Francis the First’s stairway; and Joconde, the architect of Louis XII.;
+and Mansart, the architect of Gaston of Orleans; and all those bold
+stone-workers, unknown to themselves, doubtless, in those four façades
+have shown the four chief phases of royal authority. “Monuments are the
+true writings of the nations.”
+
+Above the city of Blois, upon a triangular plateau, whence the view
+embraces the vast panorama of the left bank of the Loire, formerly
+stood a fortress, the origin of which is lost in the obscurity of ages.
+It was one of those redoubtable holds in which the great feudal barons
+watched for their prey and kept what they captured. It was one of the
+most formidable of all, and it is stated that it was never reduced, nor
+even besieged. Three narrow ascents, shadowed on either side by high
+walls, gave access to it. A double ring of fortifications was in front
+of the donjon, which, in case of siege, was the last resort of the
+master of this formidable abode. The first enclosure, called the lower
+court, or fore-court, to-day forms a courtyard of considerable size, at
+the end of which rises the front built by Louis XII. Ruined towers with
+thick walls still testify of the precautions taken to defend this first
+circuit.
+
+  [Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS, FRANCE.]
+
+Immense offices, a church the foundation of which dates back from the
+Eleventh Century, and which must not be confounded with the chapel that
+is to be seen in the present castle-yard, and lodgings for the canons
+and servants of this church formed a vast circle of buildings around
+this first courtyard where also were to be seen the habitations of the
+count’s principal officers. There, in succession, afterwards arose the
+house from the window of which Georges d’Amboise, counsellor to Louis
+XII., conversed with his master; the house of the Duc d’Epernon, who
+favoured the flight of Marie de’Medicis; and that other mansion where,
+on June 13th, 1626, Louis XIII. caused the arrest of the Prince de
+Vendôme, accused of being concerned in the Chalais conspiracy.
+
+The castle built by Louis XII. now stands on the spot where the second
+enclosure began. Access to the latter was gained by a drawbridge thrown
+across a moat between two strong towers. Close to this bridge was a
+narrow passage communicating with the covered way called the Vault of
+the Castle, which has lately disappeared and which led to the _Place
+des Jésuites_. It would be rash to pretend exactly to reconstruct
+the physiognomy which this second enclosure presented in the Twelfth
+or Thirteenth Century. The buildings of the background, vast edifices
+raised by the Counts of Blois, of the house of Châtillon, have
+completely disappeared and are only visible to-day in the drawings of
+de Cerceau. It is on the site of these buildings that Gaston d’Orléans
+raised, about 1635, the cold and regular building that bears his name.
+
+It was between the thick walls of this hall and the no less thick
+walls of the _Tour des Moulins_ that Francis the First wedged
+his _château_ in. If we leave the Hall of the Estates, deferring
+till a little later a visit to the elegant edifice of that prince,
+and go immediately to the tower that terminates it and connects the
+_château_ of Francis the First with that of Gaston of Orleans,
+we shall have traversed all that now remains standing of the ancient
+strong castle of the Counts of Blois.
+
+The _château_ built by Francis the First, by the abundance and
+variety of its ornamentation, crushes the simple abode of Louis XII.
+Beside this strong and severe building it produces the effect of a
+young bride covered with laces beside the rich but serious and durable
+robe of her grandmother.
+
+It was Louis XII., however, who laid the foundations of Francis the
+First’s wing. But these foundations had scarcely risen above the
+ground when he died. The plan adopted at that time only required one
+façade,--that of the courtyard. Francis the First had another building
+joined to the original one. When the addition was made, the strong
+partition-wall that terminated the first building and to-day separates
+the two sides of the edifice was already far advanced, so that it was
+necessary to pierce it with doorways that now allow us to appreciate
+its thickness. We are told that three years sufficed for the young
+victor of Marignan to carry this enterprise to the point at which we
+see it to-day. The king’s plan was to add two other wings to the castle
+that would thus have formed a perfect square. But Francis the First
+lacked the money necessary for the execution of this colossal plan, as
+Louis XIV. did afterwards for Versailles. The Field of the Cloth of
+Gold and the Italian war had exhausted his resources. During the years
+that followed, the many catastrophes that overwhelmed France--the loss
+of Milan, the death of Bayard, the battle of Pavia, and finally the
+captivity in Madrid,--destroyed Francis’s passion for building,--that
+love of the square and trowel that was common to him and all the great
+sovereigns of our country. When he returned from captivity, in 1526,
+with his head full of fairy-like Arab and Moorish constructions, he
+was already dreaming of Chambord, and neglected Blois, in which,
+however, had been gathered the money for his ransom. The grand project,
+conceived in 1516, was therefore abandoned, and the unfinished castle
+of Blois remained as we see it to-day,--a curious and incoherent
+assemblage of monuments of divers styles and periods.
+
+We have heard nothing about the _château_ built by Gaston
+of Orleans, not that that edifice is without merit, but its cold
+regularity disagreeably contrasts with the Renaissance architecture,
+so sparkling and prodigal of caprice. It was for the purpose of
+completing that correct and wearisome monument that Gaston wanted to
+destroy what remains of Francis the First’s wing. He would gladly
+have said, like Louis XIV.: “Remove those grotesque piles.” For it
+is a singular fact that at that time good taste joined in the same
+condemnation the Middle Ages, whose wonders were considered barbarous,
+and the Renaissance which had led the arts back to the purer forms of
+antiquity. With bare stones and straight lines throughout, yet there
+was something of the majestic gravity of Louis XIV. in the work of
+his uncle Gaston. In order that the straight line may produce great
+effects it must be developed over the immense surface of a Louvre or
+a Versailles. At Blois it is only insignificant. This château would
+serve for anything,--a museum, a library, or a tribunal, just as well
+as the abode of a prince. In 1823, it had a narrow escape of becoming a
+prefecture. They were going to pull down what they called the shanties
+of Louis XII. and substitute a fine iron grille for them. Francis the
+First’s wing found grace in the eyes of the destroyers on condition of
+sheltering the household: the kitchens had to be placed somewhere! It
+is true that this happened in 1823, only a few years after the Empire.
+
+The work of a period of transition, when tranquillity was succeeding
+agitation, this palace of the chief of the Fronde does not possess the
+serene power and self-confidence that came afterwards, but we already
+feel something in it of the imposing unity and the majestic ennui of
+the great reign.
+
+
+
+
+                           FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI
+
+                            LOUIS ROUSSELET
+
+
+The ruins of Futtehpore, the Versailles of the great Akbar, cover the
+summit of a hill twelve miles from Bhurtpore. On leaving that town, we
+travelled across a succession of monotonous plains alternately composed
+of marshes and rocky deserts. The horizon was unbounded, except on the
+east, where lay the hill of Futtehpore, the fantastic outline of which
+caught the rays of the rising sun. Even from afar, the eye is struck by
+the number and size of the buildings, which a royal caprice has erected
+in the midst of this desert: one would take it for a large and populous
+city. Those long lines of palaces with their gilded domes and pinnacles
+could never have been built to be so soon abandoned to solitude. The
+scene becomes grander the nearer you approach. On arriving at the foot
+of the hill, the road passes under a majestic gateway, beyond which are
+the long, silent streets; the palaces still standing perfect and entire
+amidst the ruined dwellings of the people; with the fountains and the
+magnificent gardens, wherein the pomegranates and the jessamine have
+grown for centuries. The whole scene is of imposing grandeur; and the
+hand of time has fallen so lightly upon it that one might take it for a
+town very recently deserted by its inhabitants, or one of the enchanted
+cities of Sinbad the Sailor.
+
+The _bigarri_,[1] whom we had taken with us from the village of
+Sikri, conducted us to a bungalow which is maintained by the English
+Government for the accommodation of travellers. This bungalow, which
+was once the ancient _kutchery_[2] of Akbar, is built of red
+sandstone, and surrounded by a beautiful verandah supported by columns.
+It is situated on the northern extremity of the plateau, and overlooks
+the town on one side and the front of the zenanah on the other. An
+old Sepoy is placed in charge of the edifice, which contains two
+comfortably furnished apartments.
+
+The foundations of Futtehpore, “the Town of Victory,” were laid by
+Akbar in 1571, and the ramparts, city, and palace were all completed
+with extraordinary rapidity. Akbar was attracted to this desert by the
+sanctity of a Mussulman Anchorite, Selim Shisti, who inhabited one of
+the caverns on the hill. Attracted by the situation, he built himself
+a palace, and finally, being unwilling to give up the society of the
+holy man, he resolved to establish there the capital of his empire. In
+a few years this desert spot was transformed into a large and populous
+city; but the death of Selim soon put an end to this prosperity. Akbar
+then saw the folly of trying to place his capital in the midst of
+these sterile plains, unapproached by any of the great rivers, more
+especially as he possessed the unusually favourable situation of Agra.
+His resolution was promptly taken. In 1584, he abandoned Futtehpore
+with all its grandeur, and carried off the whole population to
+people his new capital of Agra. The evacuation was complete; none of
+the successors of Akbar cared to carry out his foolish project, and
+very soon the only inhabitants of Futtehpore were wild animals and
+a few anchorites. One is almost tempted to think that Akbar built
+Futtehpore for the sole purpose of giving posterity some idea of his
+greatness in leaving this monument of his capricious fancy.
+
+  [Illustration: FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI, INDIA.]
+
+The fame of Selim still attracts thousands of pilgrims to his tomb,
+where they assemble at certain seasons of the year; and, to supply
+the wants of these devotees, two villages have sprung up on the site
+of the deserted town, one called Futtehpore, and the other Sikri; and
+it is by this double appellation of Futtehpore-Sikri that the ruins
+are generally known. Apart from their beauty, which all must admire,
+they are of special interest to the archæologist as being the work of
+a single individual, and therefore a perfect specimen of the style of
+architecture of his epoch. From their marvellous state of preservation,
+you can trace, step by step, the mode of life of the great Akbar, and
+can form a just idea of Indian manners and customs in the Sixteenth
+Century. Everything still breathes of the magnificence of that
+Eastern Court the fame of which was carried to Europe by contemporary
+travellers, whose tales were looked upon as fables, and the wealth
+and splendour of which excited later the avarice and cupidity of the
+Western nations.
+
+The tomb of Selim, the imperial palace, and some of the dwellings of
+the Mogul grandees are almost entire. They form a compact group, one
+mile in length, which occupies the summit of a hill 180 feet high. This
+hill furnished the whole of the material of which they are built, which
+is a fine sandstone, varying from purple to rose colour. The stone has
+been left unornamented throughout; but the architects have avoided the
+monotony of the colour by artistically arranging its various tints. The
+mass is now softened by time; and one of its chief beauties is this
+mellow colouring, which blends ground and building in one, making the
+latter appear as though carved out of the peaks of the mountain.
+
+The imperial palace lies to the east of the tomb. It is a vast
+collection of separate buildings connected by galleries and courtyards,
+and covering an area at least equal to that occupied by the Louvre and
+the Tuileries.
+
+The first building you come to on leaving the tomb used to contain
+the private apartments of the emperor. It now goes by the name of
+_tapili_, or guard-house, from the fact of its being inhabited by
+the handful of soldiers who are employed to keep off marauders from
+the ruins. The palace is built with great simplicity, its exterior
+being nothing but a blank wall, with a small court in its centre, into
+which the galleries on the different stories open. On one side is a
+colonnade, profusely ornamented in the Hindoo style; this was the
+verandah of the apartment of Akbar’s favourite wife, and the mother of
+Jehanghir: and at the end of an open space which extends in front of
+the palace is the _kutchery_, now converted into a bungalow for
+travellers.
+
+A ruined gallery leads from the _tapili_ to the Imperial zenanah,
+which is surrounded by a high wall. Each princess was allotted a
+separate palace in this enclosure, with its own gardens, etc.,
+constructed according to her own taste and wishes. The first of these
+was the palace of the Queen Mary, a Portuguese lady whom Akbar had
+espoused; in the apartments of which are numerous frescoes, amongst
+others one representing the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. It is
+a matter of surprise to find a Mussulman prince, in the Sixteenth
+Century, with such tolerant views as to allow in his palace a thing so
+opposed to the principles of his religion; but it does not astonish
+one in such an enlightened man as the great Akbar. Wishing to put
+an end forever to the subjects of discord which divided the nations
+of his empire, he devised the plan of creating a new religion which
+should unite the sympathies of all. For this purpose he assembled a
+general council which was attended by the priests of all the religious
+denominations of India, and even by some of the Christian missionaries
+from Goa; and to them he submitted his project: but nothing resulted
+from the discussion. In spite of this the emperor compiled a voluminous
+work on the different religions of the world, viz., Christianity,
+Judaism, Islamism, and the various Hindoo sects, in which he displayed
+very liberal and enlightened views.
+
+From the palace of Queen Mary you enter a court, surrounded by
+apartments, and almost entirely occupied by a basin of vast dimensions,
+in the centre of which is an island built on a terrace, and reached
+by four stone foot-bridges. At the extremity of this court, there is
+a pavilion, the walls and pillars of which are enriched with fine
+sculptures; its rooms overlooking on one side the ornamental tank, and
+on the other a garden still ornamented with shrubberies and fine trees.
+This was the abode of one of Akbar’s wives, the Roumi Sultani, daughter
+of one of the Sultans of Constantinople.
+
+On a high terrace, to the right of this palace, is the emperor’s
+sleeping-apartment; the ground-floor containing a spacious hall with
+sculptured columns, which is half filled up with rubbish.
+
+On the west of the zenanah, rises a fanciful construction, called
+_Pânch Mahal_--“the Five Palaces,”--which consists of four
+terraces, supported by galleries rising one above another, and
+gradually diminishing in size towards the top, where they terminate in
+a dome sustained by four columns. It resembles the half of a pyramid,
+and has a very curious effect. The thirty-five pillars which support
+the second terrace are all different, comprising almost every style
+and some very remarkable specimens of original architecture. It is a
+valuable architectural collection. There has been much discussion as to
+the design of the building, since the open galleries could not possibly
+have been intended for habitation. Its position against the walls of
+the zenanah, the interior of which it overlooks and communicates with,
+leads to the supposition that it was assigned to the eunuchs; but in
+any case it was a fanciful idea of the architect. In the little court
+which surrounds the _Pânch Mahal_ are some very curious detached
+buildings for the accommodation of the servants of the harem. The
+architect evidently wished to give them an appearance most befitting
+their use; and, as there was no wood at his disposal, he minutely
+copied in stone those light constructions which serve in the palaces
+of India as a shelter for the lower servants. The roof, formed of
+slabs of stone, is carved to imitate thatch, and is supported by the
+same net-work of beams which would be used for a lighter material than
+sandstone. In a word, they are sheds built of sculptured stone.
+
+After passing through the galleries of the _Pânch Mahal_, you come
+out upon the principal court of the palace, called the Court of the
+Pucheesee; on one side of which are the walls of the zenanah, and on
+the other the apartments of the ministers and the audience-chambers.
+
+Pucheesee is a game of great antiquity, which the Indians have always
+been passionately fond of; and it is played with pawns on chess-boards
+greatly resembling those used in Europe. There are four players, with
+four pawns apiece; and the moves are regulated by throwing the dice,
+the object being to get your four pawns into the centre of the board.
+The game of pucheesee was played by Akbar in a truly regal manner; the
+court itself, divided into red and white squares, being the board, and
+an enormous stone, raised on four feet, representing the central point.
+It was here that Akbar and his courtiers played this game; sixteen
+young slaves from the harem, wearing the players’ colours, themselves
+represented the pieces, and moved to the squares according to the
+throw of the dice. It is said that the emperor took such a fancy to
+playing the game on this grand scale that he had a court for pucheesee
+constructed in all his palaces; and traces of such are still visible
+at Agra[3] and Allahabad.
+
+To the north of this court and on the same side as the _Pânch
+Mahal_ is a palace, built with great simplicity, and in such a
+good state of preservation that you might mistake it for a modern
+building. One wing is a perfect labyrinth of corridors and passages, in
+which the ladies of the Court amused themselves with their favourite
+games of “aukh-matchorli,” or blind-man’s-buff, and hide-and-seek;
+and before it rises a kiosk of Hindoo architecture, called the
+_Gooroo-ka-Mundil_, “Temple of the Mendicant.” The emperor, in
+order to show his regard for the religion of the majority of his
+subjects, entertained at his Court a Gooroo, or religious mendicant
+of the Saïva sect, and even had this temple built for him and his
+co-religionists.
+
+A little farther on and facing the zenanah is one of the most
+beautiful buildings of Futtehpore, consisting of a graceful
+pavilion of one story, surmounted by four light cupolas. This is the
+_Dewani-Khas_, or Palace of the Council of State. The simplicity
+of its outline, its square windows and handsome balcony, remind one
+of our modern buildings. It is, however, quite in accordance with
+the character of Akbar, who, as well in architecture as in religion
+and government, never copied his predecessors. The interior of the
+_Dewani-Khas_ is a large hall the whole height of the edifice,
+in the centre of which is an enormous column of red sandstone, which
+terminates at some distance from the ceiling in a large capital
+magnificently sculptured. This capital forms a platform, encircled by
+a light balustrade, from which diverge four stone bridges, leading to
+four niches in the corners of the building; and a staircase hidden in
+the wall leads to a secret corridor, which communicates with the niche.
+It is one of the strangest fancies of the architect of Futtehpore.
+
+On the occasion of a council being assembled, the emperor took his
+place on the platform, his ministers occupying the niches; while the
+ambassadors and other personages who were called into their presence
+remained in the hall at the foot of the column, and were unable to
+judge of the impression which their communication produced on the
+council.
+
+A long gallery, partly in ruins, leads from the _Dewani-Khas_ to
+the _Dewani-Am_, or Palace of the Public Audiences. It is a small
+building, one side of which overlooks the Court of the Pucheesee, and
+the other a large court surrounded by colonnades.
+
+The chronicler Aboul Fazel says that at certain hours the people were
+admitted into this court. After the council the emperor repaired to the
+_Dewani-Am_, where, after having put on his robes of state, he
+seated himself on a tribune overlooking the court. Here he remained for
+some time, inquiring into and redressing the grievances of the people,
+and receiving the strangers who flocked to his court. According to
+tradition, it was here that he received the Jesuits of Goa, who brought
+him the leaves and seeds of tobacco; and it was at Futtehpore that
+Hakim Aboul Futteh Ghilani, one of Akbar’s physicians, is supposed to
+have invented the hookah, the pipe of India.
+
+It would take too long to describe every part of this vast palace in
+detail, for, besides what I have already noticed, there are the baths,
+the mint, the barracks, and numerous other buildings, all in ruins.
+
+
+
+
+                           CAERNAVON CASTLE
+
+                            WILLIAM HOWITT
+
+
+The castles of Caernavon, Beaumaris, and Conway, all on this north-west
+coast of Wales, are monuments of the subjection of the Principality by
+Edward I. Other castles on this coast he took and strengthened, for
+instance those of Flint and Rhuddlan, as yokes on the necks of the
+North Welsh; these three he built expressly for that purpose, and,
+though all now more or less in ruin, they remain splendid evidences
+of his power, and of the architectural taste of the age. We have no
+finer specimens of castellated buildings than in the fortresses of
+Caernavon and Conway, and what remains of the extensive castle of
+Beaumaris shows what it once was. Even the Welsh, who do not forget
+the object of their erection, yet regard them with pride. Edward I.,
+a warrior and statesman of the first rank, cherished, as the great
+purpose of his life, the reduction of the whole of the magnificent
+island of Great Britain into one compact and noble kingdom. This could
+not be done without invading the country and constitutions of Wales and
+Scotland, which had as much right to maintain their own independence,
+their own laws and customs as England had. But warriors by nature and
+possession think little of such rights, and readily persuade themselves
+that the project which aggrandizes their own country sanctifies the
+most flagrant usurpations, and renders innocent all the bloodshed and
+the crimes which irresistibly attend such enterprises. At the present
+day, the general sense of both England and Scotland, if not of Wales,
+would refuse to pronounce on Edward I. any other verdict than that of
+a great benefactor to his nation for what he did, and even for what he
+attempted yet failed in, towards the consolidation of Great Britain
+under one crown.
+
+Whilst, however, he endeavored to mollify the spirit of the Welsh by
+the extension to them of civil, social, and commercial advantages, he
+did not trust by any means to these, but planned the erection of a
+chain of strong fortresses which should command the north as completely
+as the south was commanded by the same means. And thus arose, with
+others, the three princely strongholds of Conway, Beaumaris, and
+Caernavon.
+
+The Castle of Conway seems to have been commenced a couple of years
+later than Caernavon Castle,--Caernavon being begun immediately on the
+defeat and death of Llewellyn, that is, in 1282, or in the spring of
+1283. Conway was not commenced till the following year, 1284, when,
+finding that these two castles were not sufficient to keep the Welsh
+in check, Edward erected the Castle of Beaumaris in 1295. There is
+a great resemblance in the style of the two castles of Conway and
+Beaumaris--they have round towers; whilst Caernavon has octagonal,
+hexagonal, and pentagonal ones.
+
+  [Illustration: CAERNAVON CASTLE, WALES.]
+
+The Castle of Caernavon, which is the one now engaging our
+attention, differs greatly from these other two; and if not more
+striking in appearance than that of Conway,--than which Pennant says
+“one more beautiful never arose,”--it is equal in grandeur, and has,
+in truth, a royal and more stately air. Its situation is very fine;
+for, though it stands in the not very splendid town of Caernavon, it
+is placed on the shore of the Menai Straits; and, looked down upon
+from a rocky eminence called Fort Hill, a good view is obtained of it
+and the town, of Menai Straits, the opposite shore of Anglesea, with
+the distant summits of the Holyhead and Parys hills, the blue peaks
+of the Eiflridge, in the promontory of Lleyn, the group of mountains
+surrounding Snowdon, and on a clear day the far off heights of Wicklow
+in Ireland. The architect employed by Edward I., in its erection, was
+Henry Ellerton, or de Elreton; and, according to tradition, many of the
+materials were brought from Segontium, or the old Caernavon, and much
+of the limestone of which it is built came from Twr-Celyn, in Anglesea;
+and of the gritstone from Vaenol, in the county of Caernavon; the Menai
+facilitating the carriage from both places.
+
+The foundations of this castle are surrounded on three sides by water.
+It is bounded on one side by the Menai Straits, on another by the
+estuary of the Seoint, the river which runs hither from the Lake of
+Llanberis. As you approach the castle, its walls and towers have an
+air of lightness, which deceives you completely as to its strength,
+for these walls are immensely thick and strong. The doorways in the
+gateway towers and the windows are more lofty and graceful than
+the doors and windows generally in castles of that age. The walls
+enclose an area of about three acres, and are themselves from seven
+to nine feet thick. They have within them each a gallery, with slips
+for the discharge of arrows, and are flanked by thirteen towers, all
+angular, but differing in the number of their angles. The very massive
+pentagonal tower, called the Eagle Tower, guards the south of the
+Seoint, and is so called from a now shapeless figure of that bird, said
+to have been brought from the ruins of the neighbouring Roman station
+of Segontium, but probably placed there simply as being one of Edward
+I.’s crests. This majestic tower has three turrets, and its battlements
+display a mutilated series of armour heads of the time of Edward II.
+This tower is the only one of which the staircase remains perfect,
+and by 158 stone steps you may ascend to the summit, and obtain a
+splendid view thence over the straits, the town, and the surrounding
+country. In the lower part of this tower is shown a small, dark room,
+measuring twelve feet by eight feet, in which Edward II. was born.
+That unfortunate prince was most probably born in the castle; but it
+has been endeavoured to be shown that it could not possibly be in
+this tower, as it would appear not to have been built for some years
+afterwards, and, indeed, only to have been finished by Edward II. after
+he became king of England. The Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, of Cogenhoe,
+in Northamptonshire, asserted at the annual meeting of the Cambrian
+Archæological Society, held in Caernavon in September, 1848, that this
+castle, instead of being built, as Pennant and others represent,
+in about two years, was not completed in less than thirty-eight
+years--that it was begun in 1284, and only completed in 1322.
+
+As Edward first entered the town of Caernavon on the 1st of April,
+1284, and his son was born on the 25th of the same month, twenty-four
+days only are left for the building of the Eagle Tower, which would
+be work, not for English or Welsh builders, but for the Afrits of
+the _Arabian Nights_, and would seem to put an end to the whole
+tradition of Edward of Caernavon having been born in the room assigned
+him by popular affection. And yet tradition so often maintains itself
+against statistics, and against theories started long afterwards, that
+we should not be surprised if, after all, the first Prince of Wales
+was actually born in that little, dismal room. In the then disturbed
+condition of North Wales; amid the intense indignation of the Welsh
+at the murder of their beloved prince, and the barbarous execution
+of his brother David; under the well-known spirit of revolt and
+revenge which was fiercely fermenting in the minds of the natives,
+it is not likely that Edward would risk the safety of his wife and
+his infant in the open town. No doubt he had ordered the erection of
+a stronghold here immediately on the fall of Llewellyn. This was in
+the autumn of 1282, and Edward was born, it is said, in the Castle of
+Caernavon, on the 25th of April, 1284. Here was a good part of two
+years in which a strong building might have been raised sufficient
+for a stout defence: and this is probably what is meant when it is
+said by the historians that Edward commenced this castle in A.
+D. 1282–3, and completed it in two or three years. It is most
+probable that he did commence and complete such a castle as answered
+his immediate purpose, and that in this Castle his son Edward was born;
+that Edward I., however, contemplated and erected a much larger and
+more imposing castle on the spot--the present structure; and that he
+caused the part in which his son’s birth took place to be incased in
+the larger building, and that it forms an internal part of the present
+Eagle Tower, just as the poet Thomson’s cottage at Richmond now forms
+a portion of the larger villa of the Earl of Shaftesbury. It may be
+remarked that there is no appearance of any different masonry on the
+exterior of this part of the Eagle Tower. Of course not. The architect
+would new-front that part in uniformity with the rest; but that need
+not in the least disturb the existence of this room.
+
+That is our opinion of the real fact; and it is the one which at once
+reconciles the tradition and the proofs that the present splendid
+fabric was not completed in two years, but in two reigns. All Mr.
+Hartshorne’s statistical facts may be fully admitted, and the tradition
+of the place remain untouched. We ourselves have just as much, or
+rather more, faith in tradition, than in statistics; for, in scores
+of cases, tradition has asserted itself successfully against apparent
+facts, and, in scores of cases, statistics have proved very delusive.
+That Edward I. would be very sure to preserve the _locale_ of his
+son’s birth, and that the Welsh would vividly retain a knowledge of
+it, may be inferred from the part which Edward meant to play with his
+son, and the delusive hope which his plan excited in the minds of the
+Welsh. He presented this infant son to them, and told them that they
+should have a native Welshman for their prince. As Alphonso, Edward’s
+eldest son, was still living, the Welsh, in their ardent patriotism,
+fondly jumped to the idea that they would have their own principality
+under a prince of their own. Alphonso died, Edward of Caernavon became
+King of England, and that hope was at once sternly quenched. Under
+such circumstances, the Welsh were not likely to forget the spot where
+the prince on whom such hopes were hinged first saw the light. We may,
+therefore, without much chance of mistake, accept at once the facts
+that Edward II. was born in this very tower, and yet that the Eagle
+Tower was not completed till the tenth year of the second Edward’s
+reign.
+
+The main gateway of the Castle is flanked by lofty towers of vast
+strength. Over the grand entrance arch stands, in a niche, a mutilated
+statue of Edward I., with his hand upon a half-drawn sword, as if to
+intimate that he was equally prepared to pluck it forth on any menace
+of resistance, or to sheathe it at the desire for peace. In the archway
+beneath are grooves for four portcullises. The entrance on the east
+side is called the Queen’s Gate, because Eleanor is said by tradition
+to have entered the Castle by it. On passing into the interior you
+observe the traces, on the two opposite buildings, of a partition wall
+having formerly divided it into two courts. Much of the interior is
+cleared away, leaving exposed one of the fine corridors, which led
+from one part of the castle to another. On the south-east side is some
+modern building, which has been raised within the old walls. Several
+of the dungeons are yet visible; and in one of these was confined, in
+the reign of Charles I., the celebrated William Prynne.
+
+No more zealous, fiery, and yet honest spirit, certainly was ever
+confined here than Prynne. He was at once a lawyer of Lincoln’s Inn,
+and a determined Puritan. His famous _Histriomastix, or a Scourge
+for Stage Players_, being supposed to reflect on Henrietta, the
+Queen of Charles I., who had herself acted in a pastoral at Somerset
+House, Prynne was prosecuted in the Star Chamber; and his sentence and
+its rigid execution are a striking proof of the savage spirit of the
+age, though it was already in the middle of the Seventeenth Century,
+namely, in 1634. He was fined £3,000, expelled from the University of
+Oxford, and the Society of Lincoln’s Inn, degraded from the bar, set
+in the pillory, both his ears cut off, his book burnt publicly by the
+hangman, and himself condemned to perpetual imprisonment. But no amount
+of cruelty could tame that daring soul. Whilst still imprisoned in the
+Tower, and after three years’ durance, he launched forth another book,
+reflecting severely on the hierarchy generally, and particularly on the
+popish follies and political despotism of Archbishop Laud. For this he
+was further sentenced by the infamous Star Chamber to be fined £5,000,
+to be again set in the pillory, to be branded on both cheeks with the
+letters S and L, for Seditious Libeller, to have the very roots of his
+ears dug out by the hangman, and to be imprisoned in this Castle of
+Caernavon.
+
+But the event showed that there was a spirit afloat which these
+fierce barbarities of regal tyranny were only rousing into a degree
+of fury which would sweep both church and throne from the land. The
+Puritan friends of Prynne flocked to Caernavon Castle in such numbers,
+that the poor mutilated prisoner sate more like a monarch holding a
+perpetual levee than a convict who had endured the vilest insults and
+the savagest brutalities of the law. Only ten weeks had elapsed since
+Prynne was brought to this royal stronghold when he was illegally
+removed by a warrant from the Lords of the Council, and removed to the
+Castle of Mount Orgueil, in the island of Jersey.
+
+There is no reminiscence more lively than that of the short
+incarceration of Prynne in this castle. One of its earliest historical
+events was the surprise of it by Madoc, a natural son of Llewellyn,
+in 1295, and his retention of it till Edward I. expelled him from it.
+In 1402, Owen Glendower made a successful attempt to seize several of
+the Welsh castles, but was repulsed from the gates of this stronghold.
+In the Wars of the Roses it repeatedly changed masters, and, in 1644,
+Cromwell’s forces obtained possession of it, made 400 of the garrison
+prisoners, and enriched themselves with much spoil. Lord Byron soon
+after retook it for the king; but in 1646 the Parliament regained it.
+In 1660, the first year of Charles II., an order was issued for the
+demolition of the Castle; but, fortunately, it was not completely
+carried out. The property still continues in the possession of the
+Crown; and the Marquis of Anglesea holds the office of constable of it,
+as well as that of Mayor of the town and ranger of Snowdon Forest.
+
+
+
+
+                      A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE
+
+                           THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
+
+
+I am going to tell you about a _fête_ at which I was present
+without being there, from which my body was absent but to which my eye
+was invited--a court ball! Invisible, I saw everything, and, moreover,
+I did not have upon my finger the Ring of Gyges, nor upon my head the
+green felt cap of a Kobold, nor any other talisman.
+
+Upon the Alexander Square, covered with its carpet of snow, numerous
+carriages were stationed although the cold would freeze Parisian
+coachmen and horses, but which did not seem sufficiently rigorous
+for the Russians to have the braziers lighted under the iron kiosks
+with Chinese roofs in the vicinity of the Winter Palace. The trees
+of the Admiralty, diamonded with hoar-frost, looked like great white
+plumes planted in the earth, and the Triumphal Column had candied its
+rose granite with a layer of ice resembling sugar; the moon, that
+rose pure and bright, poured its dead light upon all this nocturnal
+whiteness, turned the shadows to blue, and gave a fantastic appearance
+to the motionless silhouettes of the equipages whose frosted lanterns
+punctuated the immense expanse with yellowish points like polar stars.
+In the background, the colossal Winter Palace flamed at all its
+windows, like a mountain pierced with holes and lighted by an internal
+fire.
+
+  [Illustration: THE WINTER PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG.]
+
+Absolute silence reigned over the square; the rigour of the temperature
+kept away the curious, who in Paris would not have neglected flocking
+together for the spectacle of such a _fête_, although watched from
+a distance and from the outside; and if there had been a crowd, the
+approaches to the palace are so vast that it would have been scattered
+and lost in that enormous space which only an army could fill.
+
+A sleigh crossed diagonally the great white cloth upon which was
+extended the shadow of the Alexandrine Column and lost itself in the
+dark street that separates the Winter Palace from the Hermitage, and
+that gains from its aërial bridge some resemblance to the Canal della
+Paglia at Venice.
+
+A few minutes later, an eye, which you may consider as separated from
+the body, sped along a cornice supported by the portico of a gallery
+of the palace; rows of wax-candles planted in the mouldings of the
+entablature hid it behind a hedge of fire and allowed no one from below
+to perceive its feeble gleam. The light hid it better than shadow could
+have done; it was lost in the dazzling brilliancy.
+
+The gallery seen from there extended long and deep with its polished
+columns, its mirror-like inlaid floor full of gliding reflections
+of gold candlelight, its pictures filling the spaces between the
+columns, the foreshortening of which prevented the subjects from being
+discerned. Already brilliant uniforms were promenading and ample court
+robes were trailing their waves of material there. Little by little,
+the crowd increased and, like a river, variegated and shining, filled
+the bed of the gallery which, notwithstanding its great width, had
+already become too narrow.
+
+Every eye of this crowd was turned towards the door through which the
+emperor must enter. The folding doors opened: the emperor, the empress,
+and the grand-dukes traversed the gallery between two suddenly-formed
+hedges of the invited guests, addressing a few words with gracious and
+noble familiarity to personages of distinction stationed along their
+way. Then the imperial group disappeared through the door directly
+opposite, followed at a respectful distance by the grand dignitaries of
+State, the diplomatic body, the generals, and the courtiers.
+
+The procession had scarcely entered the ball-room before the eye was
+installed there, equipped this time with a good opera-glass. It was
+like a furnace of light and heat, a blaze so intense as to seem almost
+like a conflagration. Cordons of fire ran along the cornices; in the
+spaces between the windows high stands, with a thousand arms each,
+blazed like burning bushes; hundreds of chandeliers hung from the
+ceilings, like fiery constellations in the midst of a phosphorescent
+fog. And all these lights, interlacing their rays, made a most dazzling
+illumination.
+
+The first impression, especially at this height on leaning over this
+gulf of light, is a sort of vertigo; at first, across the waves of
+light from the mirrors, the glitter of the gold, the sparkle of the
+diamonds, the flash of the jewels, and the sheen of rich material,
+nothing can be distinguished. A swarmlike scintillation prevents
+you from seizing any forms; then soon the pupil grows accustomed to
+the dazzle and chases the black butterflies that flutter before it
+as after looking at the sun; from one end to the other, it embraces
+this gigantic hall all in marble and white stucco, the polished walls
+of which shine like the jaspers and porphyries in the Babylonian
+architecture of Martin’s engravings, vaguely reflecting lights and
+objects.
+
+The kaleidoscope, with its falling apart of coloured particles that
+ceaselessly re-form in new figures; or the chromatrope, with its
+expansions and contractions, where a painting becomes a flower, then
+changes its petals for the points of a crown, and ends by whirling into
+a sun, passing from a ruby to an emerald, from a topaz to an amethyst
+around a diamond centre, can alone, thousands of times enlarged, give
+an idea of this moving parterre of gold, precious stones, and flowers,
+changing its glittering arabesques by means of its perpetual agitation.
+
+At the entrance of the imperial family, this moving effulgence came to
+rest, and you could distinguish faces and persons across the subdued
+scintillation.
+
+In Russia, the court balls open with what is called a polonaise:
+this is not a dance, but a sort of a parade, a procession, a
+_torch-march_. Those who take part in it divide in such a way as
+to leave in the centre of the ball-room a sort of avenue of which they
+form the hedges. When everybody is in place, the orchestra plays an air
+in a majestic and slow rhythm, and the promenade begins; it is led by
+the Emperor, who gives his hand to a princess, or a lady whom he wishes
+to honour.
+
+Behind the imperial family, come the high officers of the army and
+palace, the grand dignitaries each giving a hand to a lady.
+
+The procession continues to march and is recruited on the way: a
+gentleman leaves the hedge and offers his hand to a lady placed
+opposite to him, and this new couple joins the others and takes its
+place in the line, with rhythmic steps slowing up or accelerating
+according to the movement of the head. It cannot be an easy thing
+to march thus, holding merely by the finger-tips under the fire of
+a thousand readily ironical glances: the least _gaucherie_ of
+countenance, the slightest awkwardness with the feet, an almost
+imperceptible fault in the time would be noticed. Military habits help
+many of the men, but how difficult for the women! The majority of them
+acquit themselves admirably, and of more than one of them you could
+say: _Et vera incessu patuit dea!_ They pass along lightly beneath
+their plumes, their flowers, and their diamonds, modestly lowering
+their eyes or letting them wander with an air of perfect innocence,
+manœuvring their waves of silk and lace with a movement of the body or
+a little stroke of the heel, refreshing themselves with a flutter of
+the fan, as much at ease as if they were walking in the solitary avenue
+of a park.
+
+More than one great actress has never learnt how to move in so noble,
+graceful and simple a manner while the world is gazing at her.
+
+When the polonaise has traversed the salon and the gallery, the ball
+begins. The dances have nothing characteristic in them; they are
+quadrilles, waltzes, and redowas as in Paris, London, Madrid, Vienna,
+and everywhere else in the fashionable world; except, however, the
+mazourka which is danced at St. Petersburg with a perfection and
+elegance unknown elsewhere. Local customs are everywhere disappearing
+and first of all they desert the upper ranks of society. To find them
+anew, one must withdraw from the centres of civilization and descend to
+the depths of the people!
+
+The general effect, however, was charming: the dance formed amid the
+splendid crowd which arranged itself symmetrically to make room for it;
+the whirl of the waltz distended the robes like the skirts of whirling
+dervishes, and the rapid motion lengthened out the strings of diamonds
+and the swords of gold and silver in serpentine gleams like flashes of
+lightning; and the little gloved hands resting on the epaulettes of the
+waltzers looked like white camellias in vases of massive gold.
+
+After an hour or two of bird’s eye observation, the eye transported
+itself beneath the arches of another hall through mysterious and
+labyrinth-like passages, where the distant sounds of the orchestra
+and the _fête_ died away in indistinct murmurings. A comparative
+darkness reigned in this enormous hall: it was here that the supper
+was to take place. Many cathedrals are less vast. In the background,
+through the shadows, the white lines of the tables were outlined;
+in the corners vaguely glimmered gigantic blocks of indistinct
+_orfévrerie_ sharply spangled flashing back a ray coming I know
+not whence: these were the sideboards. A velvet platform revealed
+steps leading to a table formed like a horseshoe. In silent activity
+came and went lackeys in full livery, major-domos, and gastronomic
+officials, putting the last touch to the viands. A few stray lights
+spotted this dark background, like sparks upon burning paper.
+
+However, innumerable candles filled the chandeliers and followed the
+cordons of the friezes and the outlines of the arcades. They sprang
+up white from their bunched candelabra like pistils in the calixes
+of flowers, but not the slightest luminous star trembled at their
+tips. One might have called them frozen stalactites; and already was
+heard, like the rush of overflowing waters, the heavy sound of the
+approaching throng.--The Emperor appeared at the threshold: it was like
+a _fiat lux_. A subtle flame ran from one candle to another, as
+quick as lightning: everything became illuminated at a single stroke
+and a flood of light suddenly filled the immense hall, aglow as if
+by magic. This sudden transition from penumbra to the most brilliant
+light was truly fairy-like. In our prosaic century every wonder must be
+explained: threads of gun-cotton connected all the wicks soaked with
+an inflammable essence, and a light applied in seven or eight places,
+propagated itself instantly. With gas-lights lowered and raised one
+could produce an analogous effect; but gas, as we know, is not used at
+the Winter Palace. They burn nothing but candles of the purest wax. It
+is in Russia only that the bees now contribute to illumination. The
+Empress took her place with several personages of high distinction upon
+the platform where stood the horseshoe table. Behind her gilt arm-chair
+unfolded, like a gigantic floral firework, an immense sheaf of white
+and pink camellias piled against the marble wall. Twelve negroes of
+large size chosen from among the best specimens of the African race,
+dressed _à la mameluk_,--a white turban twisted and rolled, a
+green round jacket with golden coins, full trousers of red held by a
+belt of cashmire, the whole braided and embroidered on all the seams,
+descended and mounted the steps of the platform, handing the plates to
+the lackeys or taking them from their hands with movements full of the
+grace and dignity peculiar to Eastern races, although their employment
+was servile. These Orientals having forgotten Desdemona, did their
+duties with a majestic air and gave to this European _fête_ an
+Asiatic _cachet_ in the best taste.
+
+Without being shown to their places, the invited guests placed
+themselves at the tables intended for them. Rich _épergnes_,
+silvered and gilt, representing groups of figures, or flowers, or
+mythological or fantastical ornaments, garnished the centres; and
+candelabra alternated with pyramids of fruits and set pieces. Regarded
+from a height, the brilliant symmetry of the crystals and porcelains,
+the silver and the flowers, was understood better than from below. A
+double row of women’s necks glittering with diamonds, and framed in
+lace, ranged the whole length of the tablecloths, disclosing their
+beauties to the invisible eye, whose glance could also wander among the
+flowers, the leaves, the feathers, and the jewels.
+
+The Emperor visited the tables, addressing a few words to those he
+wished to distinguish, sitting down sometimes and moistening his lips
+with a glass of champagne, then withdrawing to do the same elsewhere.
+These stops of a few moments are considered a great mark of favour.
+
+After supper, the dances were resumed; but the night was drawing on.
+It was time to leave; the _fête_ could only repeat itself, and
+for a purely ocular enjoyment it no longer offered the same interest.
+The sleigh that had crossed the square to stop at a little door in the
+alley separating the Winter Palace from the Hermitage, reappeared,
+making its way to the side of St. Isaac’s Church, and bringing a
+_pelisse_ and a fur cap which completely covered the face. As if
+the sky wished to rival the splendours of the earth, an aurora borealis
+threw into the night its polar fireworks with rockets of silver,
+gold, purple, and mother-of-pearl, extinguishing the stars with its
+phosphorescent irradiations.
+
+
+
+
+                             FONTAINEBLEAU
+
+                              GRANT ALLEN
+
+
+What Versailles is to the Augustan age of Louis Quatorze, that and more
+is Fontainebleau to the French Renaissance. As the Palace in the Marsh
+reflects and preserves for us the glories of the Grand Monarch, so the
+Palace in the Forest reflects and preserves for us the glories of the
+gay and splendour-loving kings from François Premier to Henri Quatre.
+It embodies in itself at a single glance what may fairly be called the
+age of the Médici in France, and shows us at one _coup d’œil_ the
+entire history and development of Renaissance architecture among the
+French people. Its great halls and long galleries are replete to this
+day with memories of the giddy butterfly throng which crowded the court
+of “the kings who amused themselves.”
+
+From a very early period, a Château of the French kings occupied the
+site of the existing palace. But of this building not a single relic
+now shows externally in any part of the façade, with the solitary
+exception of one mediæval turret, assigned to Saint Louis, and still
+adjoining the Cour Ovale of the modern palace. The origin of the first
+Château was simple and natural enough. It existed as a hunting tower in
+the midst of a royal forest. In our own day, that wild woodland region
+with its strange sandstone rocks and deep parallel valleys envisages
+itself to most of us as a mere appanage of the great mansion which
+skirts its fringe. But, in reality, it is the forest, of course, which
+created the palace, and not the palace which created the forest. Some
+thirty and five miles south-east of Paris, the Seine bends round and
+partly traverses a remarkable district of long sandy ridges, tilted
+up at an angle as the last subsiding ripple of that great secular
+earth-wave which produced through slow ages the elevation of the
+central European axis in the Alpine region. From time immemorial, this
+light and somewhat sterile soil has been covered by a thick growth of
+native oaks and beeches. The maritime pines and Riga spruces, indeed,
+which add so greatly to the picturesque effect of the woodland at the
+present day, are but recent introductions from the Mediterranean and
+Baltic shore; and the whole forest as we now know it, has been trimmed
+and dressed by the obtrusive art of the modern planter, out of all
+similitude to its antique self. But the deciduous trees are for the
+most part indigenous; and the few stags and wild boars still carefully
+preserved by the game-keepers of the Republic represent the descendants
+of a far wilder fauna which Merwing and Carling may well have hunted a
+dozen centuries since under the spreading boughs of those ancient oaks
+that bear to-day the quaint names of Pharamond and of Charlemagne.
+
+  [Illustration: FONTAINEBLEAU, FRANCE.]
+
+The original Château, of which St. Louis’s bedchamber forms the chief
+remaining portion, was probably founded under Louis VII. in the Twelfth
+Century. The Chapel of Saint Saturnin, the first predecessor of the
+existing church, has for Englishmen indeed a special interest from
+the fact that it was consecrated by Thomas à Becket during his period
+of exile from the anger of Henry at the French Court. The Château was a
+favourite residence of the saintly Louis IX. whose name still clings to
+the arcade of the Cour Ovale, though scarcely a trace of his buildings
+has survived the complete reconstruction of the exterior front under
+François Premier. The Fontainebleau of those days, in fact, was a
+feudal castle of the frowning type with which we are all so familiar
+along the banks of the Loire or among the dales of Normandy. Nothing
+could be more different than its gloomy turrets, its narrow windows,
+its airless halls, and its mediæval tortuousness, from the light, the
+space, the air, the brightness of its Renaissance successor.
+
+At last, however, François I. came. By his time, the character of the
+French monarchy--the character of the French nation--had undergone
+a complete and lasting change. Louis Onze had done his cruel work
+both wisely and well. The feudal spirit was half broken; the task of
+Richelieu was more than half begun. Unification and absolutism were the
+order of the day all over Europe. Artillery had destroyed the power
+of the great nobles in their massive castles. The introduction of
+gunpowder, it has been well said, ruined feudalism. Fortresses which
+had been impregnable against the attacks of the Middle Ages, crumbled
+to pieces before one volley of the royal cannon. Throughout Europe, the
+crown became everywhere irresistible. As a natural result of this great
+social revolution, a Renaissance in architecture became inevitable
+in the west, the kings and rulers of France and England exchanged the
+gloomy darkness of the mediæval stronghold for the light and air and
+spaciousness of the Italian mansion. The merchant republics of Italy
+were already familiar with great princely palaces like the Pitti, and
+the Strozzi, or the magnificent mansions which line the long curve of
+the Grand Canal. Peace under the strong hand of the royal despot, were
+he Valois or Tudor, made the imitation of these great houses possible
+in the north and west. Threatening walls and serried battlements gave
+way as if by magic to the pomp and grace of the Italianate mansion.
+Knowle and Longleat, Burleigh and Hatfield, Hardwick and Audley End,
+are familiar instances in England of the newer style. The high roofed
+gables, the long lines of wide windows, the jutting oriels that look
+down on the terraced Italian gardens, the vases and fountains, the
+formal walks and parterres, all mark the arrival of a new epoch. The
+mediæval castle was in essence a fortress adapted mainly for defence;
+the Italian mansion is in essence a residence, adapted mainly for the
+display of magnificence and wealth.
+
+In France, this great revolution goes directly back to the influence
+of the Medici. François Premier began the Louvre and began
+Fontainebleau. With Louis XIII., the son of a Medici mother, both were
+practically complete. The long succession of high Mansard roofs and
+connecting galleries marks the very spirit and ideal of the French
+Renaissance--its splendour, its grandeur, its vastness of aim, its want
+of picturesque feeling, its love of the magnificent, its contempt of
+the simple, the natural, the merely beautiful. Imposing Fontainebleau
+extorts one’s admiration, it never attracts one’s love.
+
+The nucleus of the existing building thus dates back practically to the
+gay days of François Premier. It was he who rebuilt the chapel of Saint
+Saturnin, and erected that magnificent pile of the Porte Dorée, whose
+lavish display of glass in its broad-bayed windows looks like a modern
+protest against the loopholes and embrasures of the Middle Ages. It was
+he, too, who began the great Galerie des Fêtes, afterwards completed by
+Henri II., whose name it now bears, as well as the Galerie d’Ulysse,
+pulled down at a later date by Louis XV., to make room for the too
+numerous ladies of his Sybaritic court. It is to François equally that
+we owe the Cour Ovale, and the splendid Porte Dauphine or Baptistery,
+which serves as its gateway. The initial _F_, so familiar to all
+of us on the exquisite façade of the oldest portion of the Louvre,
+reappears in many places on the gallery of the Cour de la Fontaine.
+The only part of the gardens, recalling the Boboli or the villas of
+Florence, which can with certainty be ascribed to this earliest date,
+is that known as the Orangerie and the Parterre du Tibre. But the
+grotto of what is now the Jardin Anglais was built by François as a
+Salle de Bain for his favourite, the Duchesse d’Étampes. Nothing now
+remains of that voluptuous retreat except the satyrs of the doorway and
+some torsos of rough sandstone worn out of all semblance of human limbs
+and muscles, and relegated to a place in the existing stables.
+
+As yet, however, the artistic impulse came entirely from Italy. Serlio,
+the architect, superintended the design; painters and sculptors from
+beyond the Alps contributed the decorations. French art in those days
+was still feeble and nascent. Florence sent Leonardo da Vinci and
+Andrea del Sarto to the new palace at Fontainebleau; the rising school
+of Primaticcio and Niccolo dell’ Abbate, whose artistic existence
+almost sums itself up in the work they performed here. Indeed, it is
+not too much to say that the pupils of Giulio Romano produced the
+profoundest effects upon the French Renaissance, and influenced every
+work of art of the entire period from the gallery of François Premier
+to the Rubens’s in the Louvre.
+
+The F. and the Salamander of the founder of the palace are to be found
+abundantly on many portions of his magnificent erection. But the finest
+hall of all, the Salle des Fêtes, bears now the name of Galerie de
+Henri II., though built by François, because Henri decorated it in the
+garish taste of the time to meet the wishes of his mistress, Diane de
+Poitiers. This hall still remains the glory of Fontainebleau. Ninety
+feet long by thirty broad, and profusely decorated, it speaks in every
+part the taste of that gay and fantastic epoch. Ten colossal round
+arches form the bays of the windows; five give upon the parterre, and
+five on the Cour Ovale. The ornate ceiling is divided into octagonal
+panels, richly wrought in architrave, frieze, and cornice, and bearing
+in relief the intertwined initials of Henri himself and of the frail
+Diane. Primaticcio and Niccolo supplied the frescoes; nameless Italian
+artists moulded the stucco fretwork. The parquetry of the floor vies
+with the roof in magnificence. This gorgeous apartment may well recall
+the rooms of the gods in the Pitti Palace, and is only surpassed in
+elaborate over-ornamentation and profuseness of handicraft by the gaudy
+Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre.
+
+When Henri II. died, mortally wounded in a tournament in the Palace
+Courts, many things fell with him--tournaments themselves amongst
+others, and mediævalism in France, and Diane de Poitiers. Catherine
+de’ Medici sent the favourite packing to her Château d’Anet, and bore
+rule herself in her stead in the half completed palace. The new king,
+François II., was a true son of Fontainebleau. Here he was born in
+1543, and here, a boy of seventeen, he married Mary Stuart, whom he
+left a girl-widow so shortly after, to exchange the luxurious joys of
+Fontainebleau for the cramped closets of Holyrood and the austerities
+of John Knox and his brother Calvinists. Under Charles IX., the work
+still went forward as before, and Primaticcio in his old age painted
+the frescoes of the Galerie d’Ulysse, afterwards ruthlessly destroyed
+under Louis XV.
+
+Beyond being born in the palace, Henri III. contributed as little to
+the history of Fontainebleau as to that of his dominions generally.
+But Henri IV. left no small mark of his masterful hand on the great
+growing pile whose overgrown area he well-nigh doubled. The Cour des
+Offices, the Cour des Princes, the Galerie de Diane, the balustrades in
+the Fountain Court, the decorations in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity,
+the park with its grand canal and its ornamental waters, all date from
+the days of the greatest of the Bourbons. But the French Renaissance
+was not at its zenith. Married though he was to an Italian princess,
+Henri entrusted his work for the most part to native workmen. Paul Bril
+and Ambroise Dubois painted and decorated the greater part of the new
+halls; the heads of Mercury, in the courtyard which still bears the
+name of Henri Quatre are from the chisel of a later French sculptor,
+Gilles Guérin; while the simple but noble doorway which opens upon the
+Place d’Armes is the work of a local architect, François Jamin of Avon.
+
+It was at Fontainebleau that Marie de’ Medici gave birth to Louis
+XIII., who was baptized with his sisters under the quaint and ornate
+cupola of the Porte Dauphine, known ever since from that cause by the
+name of the Baptistery. To this one of its sons the palace owes its
+latest main additions. He it was who built the handsome horseshoe
+staircase in the Cour des Adieux, the masterpiece of Lemercier. With
+that addition, the history of Fontainebleau practically ends. Events of
+importance in the annals of France took place there later; but they are
+not events in the annals of Fontainebleau. The great pile as we know it
+was then really complete; it remains to us a vast museum of Renaissance
+art and Renaissance feeling. Subsequent ages have destroyed, or
+restored, or renovated, or tampered with it, but they have not added to
+it, and the reason is clear. Louis Quatorze created Versailles; and the
+rise of Versailles was the downfall of Fontainebleau.
+
+Some few landmarks of its subsequent vicissitudes, however, are well
+known to most of us. Louis Quatorze gilded it up, of course--what did
+not Louis gild? Le Notre laid out the gardens--where did not Le Notre
+spread his devastating gravel? Henrietta Maria of England took refuge
+here among her own people when Charles had lost his head; Christina
+of Sweden had made use of its hospitality as a capital opportunity to
+murder Monaldeschi. Few buildings, indeed, have seen so many historic
+events; for here Louis Quatorze signed the Revocation of the Edict of
+Nantes which deprived France at one blow of a million of citizens;
+here Condé died; here James II. consoled himself with the consolations
+of a heavenly crown for the loss of an earthly one; and here Peter
+of Muscovy got royally drunk after his wont with all his suite, and
+indulged in Russian horse-play in the ponds and gardens. Under Louis
+Quinze, of funest memory, the decadence began; but still, as of old,
+princes feasted and drank, married and were given in marriage, under
+the high roofs of the palace. The king himself was united here to
+Maria Leczinska. But the earthquake was at hand, for Voltaire came to
+stay, and Jean Jacques Rousseau heard the court applaud his _Devin
+du Village_. Louis Seize, good honest man, came often to hunt, but
+the Revolution came too and gutted the Palace. During Napoleon’s wars,
+it served as a barrack for prisoners. When Monarchy revived, Napoleon
+spent ten millions of francs in restoring and refurnishing it. Later on
+he used it as a prison for his spiritual father, Pius the Seventh; here
+he divorced Josephine, and here he lived with Marie Louise of Austria.
+Here too he signed his famous abdication, and reviewed a year later,
+in the self-same court, the grenadiers of the Hundred Days who bore him
+back to the Tuileries. There its memories end. What need to speak of
+lesser things that have happened since, and obscure the recollection of
+those great days in its history?
+
+
+
+
+                          THE RICCARDI PALACE
+
+                            ALEXANDRE DUMAS
+
+
+The Riccardi Palace was built by Cosmo the Elder, whom his country
+turned out twice as a beginning and ended by calling him its father.
+
+Cosmo arrived at one of those happy epochs at which everything in
+a nation tends to expand at once, and a man of genius has every
+facility for being great. In fact, the brilliant era of the republic
+had arrived with him: the arts were making their appearance on every
+side. Brunelleschi was building his churches, Donatello was carving
+his statues and Orcagna his porticos, Masaccio was covering the walls
+with his frescoes, and finally public prosperity, keeping pace with
+the progress of the arts, rendered Tuscany, situated between Lombardy,
+the States of the Church and the Venetian Republic, not only the most
+powerful but also the happiest in Italy.
+
+Cosmo was born to immense wealth which he had almost doubled, and
+without being anything more than a citizen he had acquired a strange
+influence. Being outside the government, he made no attacks upon it,
+but neither did he flatter it. If the government followed the right
+path it was sure of his praise; if it departed from the right way it
+did not escape his blame; and the praise or blame of Cosmo the Elder
+was of supreme importance, for his weight, his wealth and his clients
+gave to Cosmo the rank of a public man. He was not yet the head of the
+government, but he was already more than that;--he was its censor.
+
+Thus we can understand what a tempest must be secretly brewing for
+such a man. Cosmo heard it muttering and saw it coming; but, entirely
+occupied with the vast works that concealed his great projects, he
+did not even turn his head towards the rising storm, but finished the
+chapel of St. Lorenzo, built the church of the Dominican convent of
+St. Mark, erected the monastery of S. Frediano, and, finally, laid the
+foundations of the beautiful Palace of the Via Larga, now called the
+Riccardi Palace. Only, when his enemies threatened him too openly,
+since the time for struggle had not yet arrived for him, he left
+Florence and went to Bugallo, the cradle of his race, to build the
+convents of Bosco and St. Francis; returned under the pretext of having
+a look at his novitiate chapel of the Fathers of the Holy Cross and
+of the Camandule Convent of the Angels; then again departed to press
+forward the work on his villas of Careggi, Caffaggio, Fiesole and
+Tribbio; and founded a hospital for poor pilgrims at Jerusalem. This
+being done, he returned to see in what condition the affairs of the
+republic were, and to look after his palace of the Via Larga.
+
+And all these immense buildings arose from the ground at once,
+occupying a whole world of labourers, workmen and architects; and five
+million crowns were spent upon them without the luxurious citizen’s
+appearing in the slightest degree impoverished by this constant and
+royal expenditure.
+
+  [Illustration: THE RICCARDI PALACE, ITALY.]
+
+This was because Cosmo was, in fact, wealthier than many of the kings
+of the day, his father Giovanni had possessed nearly four millions in
+cash and eight or ten in paper, and by banking operations he had more
+than quintupled that sum. In various parts of Europe, he had sixteen
+active banking-houses either in his own name or in those of his agents.
+In Florence, everybody was in his debt, for his purse was open to all,
+and this generosity was in some people’s eyes so clearly the result of
+calculation that it was asserted that it was his custom to advise war
+so as to force the ruined citizens to have recourse to him.
+
+But it was a protracted struggle: Cosmo, driven from Florence, left as
+a prescribed man and returned a triumpher. Thenceforward Cosmo adopted
+that policy that his grandson Lorenzo followed afterwards: he devoted
+himself to his commerce, his exchanges and his monuments, leaving his
+vengeance to the care of his partisans who were then in power. The
+proscriptions were so long and the executions so numerous that one of
+his most intimate and faithful friends thought he ought to go and tell
+him that he was depopulating the city. Cosmo raised his eyes from an
+exchange calculation on which he was engaged, laid his hand on the
+shoulder of the messenger of mercy, gazed at him fixedly and said with
+an imperceptible smile: “I would rather depopulate than lose it.” And
+then the inflexible arithmetician returned to his work.
+
+Thus he grew old; rich and honoured, but struck by the hand of God
+within his own family. By his wife he had had several children, only
+one of whom survived him. Therefore, broken down and impotent, when
+he had himself carried through the vast halls of his immense palace
+to inspect the sculptures, gilding, and frescoes, he sadly shook his
+head and said: “Alas! alas! this is a very large house for such a small
+family!”
+
+In fact, he left, as sole heir to his name, his possessions, and his
+power, Pietro de’Medici, who, coming between Cosmo the Father of his
+Country and Lorenzo the Magnificent, obtained as his only surname that
+of Pietro the Gouty.
+
+The refuge of the Greek savants driven from Constantinople, the
+cradle of the renaissance of the arts during the Fourteenth and the
+Fifteenth Century, and now the seat of the meetings of the Della Crusca
+Academy, the Riccardi Palace was successively occupied by Pietro the
+Gouty and by Lorenzo the Magnificent who retired thither after the
+Pazzi conspiracy as his grandfather had done after his exile. Lorenzo
+bequeathed the palace with his immense collection of precious stones,
+antique cameos, splendid armour and original manuscripts to his son
+Pietro who deserved the title not of Pietro the Gouty, but Pietro the
+Mad.
+
+It was the latter who opened the gates of Florence to Charles VIII. and
+delivered to him the keys of Sarzane, Pietra-Santa, Pisa, Libra-Fatta,
+and Livorno, and who undertook to make the Republic pay him as a
+subsidy the sum of two hundred thousand florins.
+
+Besides this, in his palace of Via Larga he offered a hospitality that
+the King of France was quite disposed to take even if it had not been
+offered. In fact, as everybody knows, Charles VIII. entered Florence
+as a conqueror and not as an ally, mounted on his battle-horse, with
+lance in rest and visor lowered: thus he traversed the whole city from
+the San Friano gate to Pietro’s palace, the latter and his followers
+having been driven from the city by the Florentine lords the day before.
+
+The Riccardi Palace was the scene of the discussion of the treaty
+concluded by Charles VIII. and Pietro in the name of the republic,--a
+treaty that the republic was unwilling to recognize. Matters went to
+extremes and the parties were on the verge of taking up arms, for the
+deputies having been introduced into this great hall in the presence of
+Charles VIII. who received them seated and without removing his hat,
+the royal secretary, standing beside the throne, began to read the
+conditions of this treaty article by article, and as each new article
+created fresh discussion, Charles VIII. impatiently exclaimed: “It
+shall be so, however, or I will have my trumpets sounded!” “Very well,”
+replied Pietro Capponi, the Secretary of the Republic, snatching the
+parchment from the hands of the reader and tearing it to pieces, “very
+well, Sire, have your trumpets sounded and we will have our bells rung!”
+
+That rejoinder saved Florence. The King of France believed that the
+Republic was as powerful as she was proud. Pietro Capponi had already
+dashed out of the room: Charles had him called back and then presented
+other conditions that were accepted.
+
+Eleven days later, the King left Florence for Naples, letting his
+soldiers devastate treasures, galleries, collections and libraries.
+
+The Riccardi Palace remained empty for eighteen years, while the exile
+of the Medicis lasted; at length, at the end of that period, they
+returned, brought back by the Spaniards, and notwithstanding this
+powerful aid, they reentered, said the capitulation, not as princes,
+but as simple citizens.
+
+But at length the gigantic trunk had put forth such mighty branches
+that its sap began to dry up and the tree gradually to wither. In fact,
+when Lorenzo II. was dead and laid in his tomb that was sculptured by
+Michelangelo, only three bastards remained of all the race of Cosmo the
+Elder: Hippolyte, bastard of Julian II., a cardinal; Julio, bastard of
+Julio the Elder who had been assassinated by the Pazzi, who became Pope
+under the name of Clement VII.; and finally Alexander, Duke of Tuscany,
+bastard of Julian II., or Clement VII., it is not clear which. As they
+stayed all once for an instant in Florence, lodging on the same square,
+it received the mocking name of the Square of the Three Mules.
+
+To the same degree that the Medicis of the elder branch had at first
+been held in honour, so it had become execrated and fallen into
+contempt at this period. Therefore the Florentines only awaited an
+opportunity to drive Alexander and Hippolyte out of Florence; but their
+uncle Clement VII. on the pontifical throne afforded them too potent
+a support for the last remnants of the republican party to dare to
+undertake anything against them.
+
+The sack of Rome by the soldiers of the Constable of Bourbon, and the
+imprisonment of the Pope in the Castle of St. Angelo afforded the
+Florentines the opportunity they awaited. They immediately seized
+it, and the Medicis went into exile for the third time. Clement VII.
+who was a man of much resource, extricated himself from the affair
+by selling seven cardinals’ hats, with the proceeds of which he paid
+part of his ransom, and by pledging five more as guarantee for the
+remainder. Then, as on account of this guarantee he was allowed a
+little more liberty, he took advantage of it to escape from Rome
+disguised as a valet, and gained Orvieto. The Florentines were
+therefore quite tranquil as to the future on seeing Charles the Fifth a
+conqueror and the Pope a fugitive.
+
+Unfortunately, Charles the Fifth had been elected Emperor in 1519, and
+he needed to be crowned. Interest thus brought together those whom it
+had separated. Clement VII. undertook to crown Charles the Fifth; and
+the latter promised to capture Florence and to make it the dowry of his
+natural daughter, Margaret of Austria, who was affianced to Alexander.
+
+The two promises were religiously kept. Charles the Fifth was crowned
+at Bologna, for in his new tenderness for the Pope he did not want
+to see the ravage done by his troops in the holy city; and after a
+terrible siege in which Florence was defended by Michelangelo and
+capitulated by Malatesta, July 30, 1531, Alexander made his solemn
+entry into the future capital of his duchy.
+
+Alexander had almost all the vices of his epoch and very few of the
+virtues of his race. The son of a Moorish woman, he had inherited
+ardent passions. Constant in hatred and inconstant in love, he tried
+to have Pietro Strozzi assassinated and caused his cousin, Cardinal
+Hippolyte to be poisoned.
+
+Therefore, there were numerous conspiracies against him during his
+reign of six years.
+
+Pietro Strozzi placed an immense sum in the hands of a Dominican friar
+of Naples, who was said to have great influence with Charles the Fifth,
+to induce him to get Charles the Fifth to restore liberty to Florence.
+Jean Baptiste Cibo, Archbishop of Marseilles, tried to profit from
+Alexander’s amour with his brother’s wife, who was separated from
+her husband and lived in the Pazzi palace, by having him slain one
+day when he should come to see her in that palace; and since he knew
+that Alexander usually wore beneath his clothes a coat of mail so
+marvellously made that it was proof against sword and dagger, he had a
+chest, upon which the duke was accustomed to sit when he came to visit
+the marquise, filled with powder, and this was to be exploded. But this
+conspiracy was discovered, as well as all others that followed with one
+exception. In the latter case, success was due to the fact that there
+was only one conspirator who accomplished everything for himself. That
+conspirator was Lorenzo de’Medici, the eldest scion of that younger
+branch that sprang from the paternal trunk with Lorenzo, the next
+brother of Cosmo the Father of his country.
+
+Lorenzo was born in Florence, March 25, 1514, of Pietro Francisco
+de’Medici, a double nephew of Lorenzo, Cosmo’s brother, and Maria
+Soderini, a woman of exemplary goodness and recognized prudence.
+
+Lorenzo lost his father early, and, as he was scarcely nine years of
+age, his first instruction was given under his mother’s supervision.
+But as the child learned with great facility, this education was very
+soon ended, and he left this female tutelage for that of Philippe
+Strozzi, where his strange character developed. He was a strange medley
+of mockery, restlessness, desire, suspicion, impiety, humility and
+pride; whence it resulted that, unless he had motives to conceal, his
+most intimate friends never saw him twice in the same mood. He was one
+of those hermaphrodite beings that capricious Nature produces in her
+periods of dissolution.
+
+It was in a house adjoining the Riccardi Palace that Lorenzo, aided
+by the Spadassin Scoronconcolo, poniarded Duke Alexander, the natural
+brother of Catherine de’Medici, first Duke of Florence and last
+descendant of Cosmo the Father of the Country, for Pope Clement
+VII. had died in 1534 and Cardinal Hippolyte in 1535; and on his
+assassination a singular thing was noticed, namely the six-fold
+combination of the number six. Alexander was assassinated in the year
+1536, at the age of twenty-six, on the 6th day of January, at six
+o’clock at night, with six wounds, after having reigned six years.
+
+The house in which he was assassinated was situated on the spot where
+the stables now stand.
+
+The proverb of the evangelist: “They that take the sword shall perish
+with the sword” was applied to Lorenzo in its rigorous exactitude.
+Lorenzo, who had slain with the poignard, died by the poignard in
+Venice about the year 1557 without any one knowing for certain what
+hand struck the blow; it was only remembered that when Cosmo the First
+mounted the throne he swore not to leave the murder of Duke Alexander
+unpunished.
+
+The murder of Alexander was the last important event that happened in
+this beautiful palace. Abandoned by Cosmo I. in 1540, when he resolved
+to live in the Palazzo Vecchio, it was sold to the Riccardi family,
+whose name it has kept, although I believe it came again into the
+possession of the Medicis under the reign of Ferdinand II.
+
+To-day the famous Della Crusca Academy holds its sessions there: there
+they sift adverbs and shell participles, as our good and witty Charles
+Nodier says.
+
+It is not so poetic, but it is more moral.
+
+
+
+
+                              RABY CASTLE
+
+                            WILLIAM HOWITT
+
+
+As we proceed towards Barnard Castle, we suddenly come into view of the
+Castle of Raby. The road brings us within a few hundred yards of it.
+Its grey extent of towers rises before us, with its park, well peopled
+with herds of deer, stretching around it. Comparatively flat again as
+is the situation, and which would seem to have been better liked by
+the Nevilles than more hilly and romantic ones, there is nothing that
+we recollect to have seen anywhere which impresses us at the first
+view with a stronger feeling of the old feudal grandeur. It stands in
+its antiquity and vastness, the fitting abode of the mighty Nevilles.
+We can almost imagine that we shall find them still inhabiting it.
+The royal Joan, walking with her maidens on the green terrace that
+surrounds it, or the first great Earl of Westmoreland setting out with
+all his train, to scour its wide chases and dales for the deer, or
+to proceed to the Marches to chastise the boldness of the Scots. The
+exterior of the whole place has been well preserved in its true ancient
+character; it is the great, grey, and stately feudal castle,
+
+    “With all its lands and towers.”
+
+Pennant, when he visited it, had a proper feeling of its exterior.
+“It is a noble massy building of its kind, uninjured by any modern
+strokes inconsistent with the general taste of the edifice; but, simply
+magnificent, it strikes by its magnitude, and that idea of strength
+and command naturally annexed to the view of vast walls, lofty towers,
+battlements, and the surrounding outworks of an old baron’s residence.
+The building itself, besides the courts, covers an acre of land; the
+size may from this be concluded. The south front is very beautiful; the
+centre is from a design of Inigo Jones; nothing in the Gothic taste can
+be more elegant than the style and proportion of the windows. The rooms
+are very numerous, and more modern in their proportion and distribution
+than one would easily conceive to be possible within the walls of so
+ancient a building; but by means of numerous passages and closets,
+many of which have been scooped out of the walls, and back-stairs, the
+apartments are extremely convenient, well connected, and at the same
+time perfectly distinct. Several improvements have been lately made,
+which add greatly to the spaciousness and convenience of the apartments
+in general. The bed-chambers and dressing-rooms are of a good size
+and proportion, and some of the lower apartments large, and elegantly
+fitted up. One of the drawing-rooms is thirty feet by twenty, and the
+adjoining dining-room is fifty-one by twenty-one; the windows of both
+of plate glass, and in the smallest and lightest of brass frames,” etc.
+
+  [Illustration: RABY CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
+
+It is, in fact, this complete adaptation to modern uses and splendour,
+which disappoints one in the interior of Raby. The exterior is so
+fine, so feudal, so antiquely great, that when we step in and find
+ourselves at once in modern drawing-rooms, with silken couches and
+gilt cornices, the Nevilles and their times vanish. We forget again
+that we are at Raby, the Castle of the victims of Neville’s Cross, and
+of Joan, the daughter of John of Gaunt, and feel that we are only in
+the saloons of the modern Duke of Cleveland. We revert to the quaint
+description of Leland, and wish that we could see it as he did. “Raby
+is the largest castel of logginges in all the north countery, and is of
+a strong building; but not set either on hill, or very strong ground.
+As I enterid by a causey into it, there was a litle stayre on the right
+honde; and in the first area, were but two towers on a ech ende as
+entres, and no other buildid. In the 2 area, as in entring was a great
+gate of iren, with a tour, and 2 or 3 mo on the right hond. These were
+all the three toures of the 3 court, as in the hart of the castel.
+The haul and al the houses of office be large and stately, and in the
+haul I saw an incredible great leame of an hart. The great chambre was
+exceeding large, but now it is fals rofid, and divided into 2 or 3
+partes. I saw ther a litle chambre wherein was in windowes of colorid
+glasse al the petigre of the Nevilles; but it is now taken down and
+glasid with clere glasse. Ther is a tour in the castel having the mark
+of 2 capital Bs for Bertram Bulmer. Ther is another towr bering the
+name of Jane, bastard sister to Henry IV., and wife to Rafe Neville,
+the first Erl of Westmerland. Ther ’long 3 parkes to Raby, whereof 2 be
+plenished with dere. The midle park hath a lodge in it; and thereby is
+a chace, bering the name of Langeley, and hath fallowe dere. It is a 3
+miles in length.”
+
+It is, in fact, these old towers; these old courts; this great
+baronial hall, and the kitchen, that are objects of real interest
+in Raby; remnants of its antiquity, the co-temporaries of those who
+stamped them with the feeling of belonging to them and their fortunes.
+The Cliffords’ tower, and the tower of Bertram Bulmer, let us ascend to
+them, and gaze over the parks and glades of Raby, to the far distant
+scenes that once formed the princely possessions of the Nevilles. Near
+the top of this tower, which stands separated from the rest of the
+building, and to which you ascend by eighty-nine steps, are raised
+those old letters, the initials of Bertram Bulmer, mentioned by Leland,
+and a splendid prospect south eastward lies before you. Conscliff,
+Darlington, Sadberge, Long-Newton, Stockton, with the Cleveland Hills
+and “Black” Hamilton. From other points of the castle you catch equally
+noble and far views--the distant mountains of Hope and Arkendale, and
+westward the vale filled with the woods of Streatlam and Lady Close.
+
+Carriages can pass through the large Gothic saloon, or entrance hall
+into the interior court. Above the saloon is the old baronial hall,
+which forms one side of the square of the inner area. It is of the
+most magnificent proportions--ninety feet in length, thirty-six in
+breadth, and thirty-four in height. The roof is flat and made of
+wood; the joints ornamented with shields of arms of the family of the
+Nevilles. Here, it is said, assembled in their time, 700 knights who
+held of that family. A gallery of stone crosses the west end of this
+room used in ancient times for music, and that mimicry with which our
+ancestors were so much pleased. Unfortunately, here again our notions
+of the old times are completely disturbed. This roof, which no doubt is
+of real oak, is now smartly painted oak; and this hall, which should
+only display massy furniture, suits of armour, and arms and banners
+properly disposed, is converted into a museum of stuffed birds, Indian
+dresses, and a heap of things which may be better and more numerously
+seen elsewhere. In fact, any ordinary room of this many-roomed castle
+might have served this need. The kitchen, however, remains in all its
+huge and unalloyed antiquity. “It is,” says Pennant, “a magnificent
+and lofty square; has three chimneys--one for the grate, a second for
+stoves, the third for the great cauldrons. The top is arched, and
+a small cupola lights it in the centre; but on the sides are five
+windows, with a gallery passing all round before them, and four steps
+from each pointing down into the kitchen, but ending a great height
+above the floor. There have been many conjectures respecting their use,
+but they certainly must have been in some manner for the conveying away
+of viands. From the floor is another staircase, that conducts to the
+great hall, but the passage is now stopped. What hecatombs must have
+been carried that way!” To this account must be added, that the kitchen
+is a square of thirty feet; the side where no chimney is, opens into
+the larders; opposite to the grate, the steps descend to the floor,
+and are wide enough for three persons abreast. On each of the other
+sides, to the right and left of the grate, are two windows, with five
+steps descending, but not low enough to enable the persons who should
+stand thereon to receive anything from those in the kitchen. There are
+narrow passages channeled in the walls, but not capacious enough, we
+conceive, to allow a person to bear a dish of provisions for the 700
+knights and retainers of the Nevilles. Yet we may very well imagine,
+that in the hurry and confusion of such a dining, those windows and
+descending steps might be very serviceable for the delivery of orders,
+and the passages in the walls for enabling one bustling person to avoid
+another. Besides, they might have some contrivance by a pulley or so,
+to raise the dishes to the person on the steps. Be that as it may, the
+kitchen is a right ancient and singular relic of the genuine baronial
+time.
+
+The park has many fine woods, glades, and lawns, and gives prospects of
+far beauty, but its aspect partakes of the character of the interior of
+the castle--newness. We are surprised to see so little timber bearing
+a relative antiquity to the castle. The trees are comparatively young.
+You see groups and plantations of a very modern date. The whole has
+the air rather of a place new made, than of one old as the days of
+Canute, who is said to have built some part of the original house.
+You do not see those old, grey, and gnarled oaks around you that you
+see in the forests of Sherwood, Needwood--Chartley and other parks.
+It seems as if some great revolution, as is the fact, has passed over
+it; and that in its days of change, the axe of the spoiler has laid
+low its ancient forests. The castle looks like a grey patriarch left
+amid a more juvenile race. Let us rejoice that the strong wall of the
+stout old Nevilles have defied the ravages of politics as well as of
+time, and that future generations may see in them a fine example of
+what the habitation of the great old English noble was. For my part,
+I looked on the old house with eyes of affection. It had, through the
+beautiful ballad of the _Hermit of Warkworth_, been to me a dream
+of youthful poetry. I was carried back into the days when at school we
+chanted that lovely poem over, day by day, under sunny walls and in our
+walks, and even at night when we should have been asleep. There was
+in it a spirit so pure, so refined, so delicate, so full of beauty,
+of love, and of heroic magnanimity, that it mingled itself entirely
+with the pulses of our hearts, because our hearts were then like it
+in soul, in temperament, and in imaginative freedom. What dales of
+Northumberland--what mountains, and glens, and chieftains’ towers of
+Scotland, did it not bring to our spirits’ vision! With what eagerness
+did we follow the forlorn Sir Bertram and his brother, in their
+northern quest for the lost fair Isabel of Widrington. How did we weep
+over the catastrophe!--and when the young Earl Percy and his lovely
+bride, of the house of Neville, appeared for our comfort, how earnestly
+did we follow the venerable prior who, to propitiate the princely
+parents of Eleanor,
+
+    “Then straight to Raby’s distant walls
+      Did kindly wend his way.”
+
+And how many times did we clap our hands as we learnt that
+
+    “Meantime their suit such favour found
+      At Raby’s stately hall;
+    Earl Neville and his princely spouse
+      Now gladly pardon all.
+
+    She, suppliant at her nephew’s throne,
+      The royal grace implored;
+    To all the honours of his race
+      The Percy was restored!”
+
+Mr. Surtees has written a ballad full of the true spirit of that
+composition, suggested by a scene in Raby Park--Langley Dale; a
+beautiful dale and ancient chase, belonging to Raby Castle. An old
+tower, close by the park, is said to have been the residence of a
+mistress of the last Earl of Westmoreland. Mr. Surtees’s ballad,
+however, rather connects itself with the general circumstances of “The
+Rising of the North” than with this particular incident, and, like “The
+Flowers of the Forest,” perpetuates a natural and beautiful sentiment,
+which must have been deeply and long felt, on beholding Raby after that
+fatal event. With this poem we will close our visit to Raby.
+
+
+LANGLEY DALE.
+
+    As I down Raby Park did pass,
+      I heard a fair maid weep and wail,
+    The chiefest of her song it was,
+      Farewell the sweets of Langley Dale.
+
+    The bonny mavis cheers his love,
+      The throstlecock sings in the glen;
+    But I must never hope to rove
+      Within the sweet Langley Dale again.
+
+    The wild-rose blushes in the brae,
+      The primrose shows its blossom pale;
+    But I must bid adieu for aye,
+      To all the joys of Langley Dale.
+
+    The days of mirth and peace are fled,
+      Youth’s golden locks to silver turn;
+    Each northern flowret droops its head
+      By Marwood Chase and Langley Burn.
+
+    False Southrons crop each lovely flower,
+      And throw their blossoms to the gale;
+    Our foes have spoilt the sweetest bower--
+      Alas! for bonny Langley Dale.
+
+
+
+
+                           CASTEL DEL MONTE
+
+                              EDWARD LEAR
+
+
+To the south, on a spur of the hills overlooking the maritime part
+of the province of Basilicata and Capitanata, stands Minervino, and
+thither we directed our course, over undulating green meadows which
+descend to the plain, and we arrived about an hour before sunset at
+the foot of the height on which the town is situated. Minervino enjoys
+a noble prospect northward, over the level of Cannæ to the bay and
+mountain of Gargano, at which distance the outspread breadth of plain
+is so beautifully delicate in its infinity of clear lines, as to
+resemble sea more than earth. The town is a large clean and thriving
+place, with several streets flanked by loggie, and altogether different
+in its appearance and in its population from Abruzzese or Calabrese
+towns. The repose, or to speak more plainly, the stagnation of the
+latter, contrasts very decidedly with these communities of Apulia--all
+bustle and animation--where well-paved streets, good houses, and
+strings of laden mules, proclaim an advance in commercial civilization.
+
+  [Illustration: CASTLE DEL MONTE, SICILY.]
+
+We encountered in the street Don Vincenzino Todeschi, who on reading a
+letter of introduction, given to us for him by Signor Manassei, seemed
+to consider our dwelling with him as a matter of course, and shaking
+hands with us heartily, begged us to go to his house and use it as our
+own; he was busy then, but would join us at supper....
+
+P---- and I are not a little perplexed as to what we shall do
+to-morrow, for, owing to time running short, we have but one day left
+ere we return towards Naples. Canosa (ancient Cannæ) and Castel del
+Monte, are the two points, either of which we could be content to
+reach, but as each demands a hard day’s work, we finally resolve to
+divide them, P---- choosing Canosa, and I the old castle of Frederick
+Barbarossa, of which I had heard so much as one of the wonders of
+Apulia.
+
+_September 23._--Before daylight each of us set off on his
+separate journey on horseback,--P---- with the bulky Don Sebastiano to
+Canosa, I to the Castel del Monte, with a guardiano of Don Vincenzino’s
+family. Oh me! what a day of fatigue and tiresome labour! Almost
+immediately on leaving Minervino we came to the dullest possible
+country,--elevated stony plains--weariest of barren undulations
+stretching in unbroken ugliness towards Altamura and Gravina. Much of
+this hideous tract is ploughed earth, and here and there we encountered
+a farm house with its fountain: no distant prospect ever relieves these
+dismal shrubless Murgie (for so is this part of the province of Bari
+called), and flights of “calendroni,” with a few skylarks above, and
+scattered crocuses below, alone vary the sameness of the journey. At
+length, after nearly five hours of slow riding, we came in sight of the
+castle, which was the object of my journey; it is built at the edge of
+these plains on one of the highest, but gradually rising eminences,
+and looks over a prospect perfectly amazing as to its immense extent
+and singular character. One vast pale pink map, stretching to
+Monte Gargano, and the plains of Foggia, northward is at your feet;
+southward, Terra di Bari, and Terra di Otranto, fade into the horizon;
+and eastward, the boundary of this extensive level is always the blue
+Adriatic, along which, or near its shore, you see, as in a chart, all
+the maritime towns of Puglia in succession, from Barletta southward
+towards Brindisi.
+
+The barren stony hill from which you behold all this extraordinary
+outspread of plain, has upon it one solitary and remarkable building,
+the great hunting palace, called Castel del Monte, erected in the
+Twelfth Century by the Emperor Barbarossa, or Frederick II. Its
+attractions at first sight are those of position and singularity of
+form, which is that of an octagon, with a tower on each of the eight
+corners. But to an architect, the beautiful masonry and exquisite
+detail of the edifice (although it was never completed, and has been
+robbed of its fine carved-work for the purpose of ornamenting churches
+on the plain), render it an object of the highest curiosity and
+interest.
+
+The interior of this ancient building is also extremely striking;
+the inner courtyard and great Gothic Hall, invested with the sombre
+mystery of partial decay, the eight rooms above, the numerous windows,
+all would repay a long visit from any one to whom the details of such
+architecture are desiderata.
+
+Confining myself to making drawings of the general appearance of this
+celebrated castle, I had hardly time to complete two careful sketches
+of it, when the day was so far advanced that my guardiano recommended a
+speedy return, and by the time I had overcome the five hours of stony
+“murgie” I confess to having thought that any thing less interesting
+than Castel del Monte would hardly have compensated for the day’s
+labour. I reached Minervino at one hour of the night, and found P----
+just arrived from his giro to Canosa.
+
+While riding over the Murgie, slowly pacing over those stony hills,
+my guide indulged me with a legend of the old castle, which is worth
+recording, be it authentic or imaginary. The Emperor Frederick II.,
+having resolved to build the magnificent residence on the site it now
+occupies, employed one of the first architects of the day to erect it;
+and during its progress despatched one of his courtiers to inspect the
+work, and to bring him a report of its character and appearance. The
+courtier set out; but on passing through Melfi, halted to rest at the
+house of a friend, where he became enamoured of a beautiful damesel,
+whose eyes caused him to forget Castel del Monte and his sovereign,
+and induced him to linger in the Norman city until a messenger arrived
+there charged by the Emperor to bring him immediately to the Court,
+then at Naples. At that period it was by no means probable that
+Barbarossa, engaged in different warlike schemes, would ever have
+leisure to visit his new castle, and the courtier, fearful of delay,
+resolved to hurry into the presence and risk a description of the
+building which he had not seen, rather than confess his neglect of
+duty. Accordingly he denounced the commencement of the Castel del Monte
+as a total failure, both as to beauty and utility, and the architect
+as an impostor; on hearing which the Emperor sent immediately to the
+unfortunate builder, the messenger carrying an order for his disgrace,
+and a requisition for his instant appearance in the capital. “Suffer me
+to take leave of my wife and children,” said the despairing architect,
+and shutting himself in one of the upper rooms, he forthwith destroyed
+his whole family and himself, rather than fall into the hands of a
+monarch notorious for his severity.
+
+The tidings of this event was, however, brought to the Emperor’s ears,
+and with characteristic impetuosity, he set off for Apulia directly,
+taking with him the first courtier-messenger, doubtless sufficiently
+ill at ease, from anticipations of the results about to follow his
+duplicity. What was Barbarossa’s indignation at beholding one of
+the most beautiful buildings doomed, through the falsehood of his
+messenger, to remain incomplete, and polluted by the blood of his most
+skilful subject, and that of his innocent family!
+
+Foaming with rage, he dragged the offender by the hair of his head to
+the top of the highest tower, and with his own hands threw him down as
+a sacrifice to the memory of the architect and his family, so cruelly
+and wantonly destroyed.
+
+_September 24._--Having risen before sunrise, the energetic
+and practical Don Vincenzino gave us coffee by the aid of a spirit
+lamp, and we passed some hours in drawing the town of Minervino, the
+sparkling lights and delicate grey tints of whose buildings blended
+charmingly with the vast pale rosy plains of Apulia in the far
+distance. At nine we returned to a substantial _déjeûner_, and at
+half-past ten took leave of our thoroughly hospitable and good-natured
+host.
+
+
+
+
+                           CASTEL DEL MONTE
+
+                            HENRY SWINBURNE
+
+
+A most disagreeable stony road brought us to Ruvo, through a vine
+country. The pomegranate hedges in flower, and the holme oak loaded
+with kermes, enlivened the prospect, which otherwise would have
+been very dull.... I here quitted the Roman way, and rode fifteen
+miles westward to Castel del Monte. The country I traversed is open,
+uneven and dry. The castle is a landmark, and stands on the brow of a
+very high hill, the extremity of a ridge that branches out from the
+Apennine. The ascent to it is near half a mile long, and very steep;
+the view from its terrace most extensive. A vast reach of sea and plain
+on one side, and mountains on the other; not a city in the province but
+is distinguishable; yet the barrenness of the foreground takes off a
+great deal of the beauty of the picture. The building is octangular,
+in a plain solid style; the walls are raised with reddish and white
+stones, ten feet six inches thick; the great gate is of marble, cut
+into very intricate ornaments, after the manner of the Arabians; on
+the balustrade of the steps lie two enormous lions of marble, their
+bushy manes nicely, though barbarously, expressed; the court, which is
+in the centre of the edifice, contains an octangular marble bason of
+a surprising diameter. To carry it to the summit of such a hill must
+have cost an infinite deal of labour. Two hundred steps lead up to
+the top of the castle, which consists of two stories. In each of them
+are fifteen saloons of great dimensions, cased throughout with various
+and valuable marbles; the ceilings are supported by triple clustered
+columns of a single block of white marble, the capitals extremely
+simple. Various have been the opinions concerning the founder of this
+castle; but the best grounded ascribe it to Frederick of Swabia. I
+dined and spent the hot hours with great comfort under the porch, which
+commands a noble view of the Adriatic.
+
+In the evening I descended the mountain, and rode nine miles to Andria,
+a large feudal city, east of the Roman road.
+
+
+
+
+                            THE GENERALIFE
+
+                           THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
+
+
+The Generalife is situated not far from the Alhambra on a spur of the
+same mountain. You get to it by a kind of dug out road that traverses
+the ravine of Los Molinos, which is bordered all the way with fig-trees
+of enormous glistening leaves, green oaks, pistachio-trees, laurels,
+and rock roses of a remarkably exuberant vegetation. The ground on
+which you walk is composed of yellow sand oozing with water, wonderful
+in its fecundity. Nothing is more delightful than to follow this
+road, which has the appearance of running through a virgin forest of
+America, so thickly is it choked with foliage and flowers, and so great
+is the overwhelming scent of the aromatic plants you inhale there.
+Vines spring through the cracks of the broken walls, and hang from all
+their branches fantastic tendrils and leaves resembling the tracery
+of Arabian ornaments; the aloe opens its fan of bluish blades and the
+orange trees twist their knotty trunks and cling with fang-like roots
+to the rents in the steep slopes. Everything flourishes and blooms
+in a tangled disorder full of the most charming effects of chance. A
+straying branch of jasmin mingles its white stars with the scarlet
+flowers of the pomegranate, and a laurel leaps from one side of the
+road to the other to embrace a cactus, notwithstanding its thorns.
+Nature, left to herself, seems to take pride in her coquetry, and
+wishes to show how far she surpasses even the most exquisite and
+finished art.
+
+After a quarter of an hour’s walk, you come to the Generalife, which
+is, in some sense, nothing but the _casa de campo_, the country
+house, of the Alhambra. The exterior, like that of all oriental
+buildings, is very simple: it consists of large walls without windows
+and surmounted by a terrace with a gallery divided into arcades,
+the whole being crowned with a little modern belvedere. Of the
+Generalife nothing now remains but some arcades and some large panels
+of arabesques, unfortunately plastered over with layers of whitewash
+that have been applied again and again with all the obstinacy of a
+dispiriting cleanliness. Little by little the delicate sculptures and
+the marvellous guilloches of this fairy-like architecture have been
+obliterated, filled up, and engulfed. What is at present nothing more
+than a faintly-vermiculated wall, was formerly open lace-work as fine
+as those ivory leaves which the patience of the Chinese carves for
+fans. The brush of the whitewasher has caused more _chefs d’œuvre_
+to disappear than the scythe of Time, if I may be allowed to use that
+superannuated, mythological expression. In a fairly well preserved
+hall, you notice a series of smoky portraits of the kings of Spain, but
+these have only a chronological value.
+
+  [Illustration: THE GENERALIFE, SPAIN.]
+
+The real charm of the Generalife consists in its gardens and waters. A
+canal paved with marble runs through the whole length of the enclosure,
+and rolls its abundant and rapid waves under a series of leafy arches,
+formed by yews curiously bent and clipped. Orange-trees and
+cypresses are planted on each border; it was at the foot of one of
+these cypresses, of a prodigious size, and which dates from the time of
+the Moors, that the favourite of Boabdil, if we may believe the legend,
+often proved that bolts and grilles are but slight protectors of the
+virtue of sultanas. One thing, at least, is certain,--that the yew is
+very large and very old.
+
+The perspective is terminated by a porticoed gallery, ornamented
+with fountains and marble columns, like the Patio of Myrtles in the
+Alhambra. The canal turns sharply and you then enter other enclosures
+ornamented with water-works and whose walls still retain traces of the
+frescoes of the Sixteenth Century representing rustic architecture
+and distant views. In the centre of one of these basins of water, a
+gigantic oleander of a singular brilliancy and incomparable beauty
+rises like an immense basket of flowers. At the time that I saw it,
+it seemed like an explosion of blossoms, or a bouquet of vegetable
+fireworks; its ruddy hue was so splendid and vigorous,--indeed almost
+clamorous, if one may apply that word to colours,--as to dim the hue of
+the most vermilion rose. Its lovely flowers leaped with all the ardour
+of desire towards the pure light of the sky; and its noble leaves,
+shaped expressly by nature for a crown of glory and sprinkled by the
+spray of the fountain, sparkled in the sunshine like emeralds. Never
+did anything inspire me with a higher sentiment of the beautiful than
+this rose-bay of the Generalife.
+
+The water is brought to the gardens down a very steep inclined plane,
+bordered by little walls, forming on each side a kind of parapet,
+supporting canals hollowed out and lined with large tiles through which
+the water runs beneath the open sky with the gayest and liveliest
+chatter in the world. At yard intervals, well-supplied water-jets
+burst forth from the centre of little basins and shoot their crystal
+aigrettes into the thick foliage of the groves of laurels whose
+branches interlace above them. The mountain gushes with water on every
+side; at each step a spring starts out, and you continually hear at
+your side the murmuring of some rivulet turned from its course, and
+going to supply a fountain, or to carry refreshment to the foot of
+some tree. The Arabs have carried the art of irrigation to the highest
+degree; their hydraulic-works attest the most advanced state of
+civilization; these works still exist to-day, and it is to them that
+Grenada owes the reputation it has of being the Paradise of Spain, and
+of enjoying eternal spring in an African climate. An arm of the Darro
+has been turned out of its course by the Arabs and carried for more
+than two leagues along the hill of the Alhambra.
+
+From the Belvedere of the Generalife you can clearly see the outline
+of the Alhambra with its enclosure of reddish, half-ruined towers, and
+its pieces of wall which rise and fall with the undulations of the
+mountain. The Palace of Charles V., which is not visible from the side
+of the city, stands out with its square and heavy mass, gilded with a
+pale reflection of sunlight, upon the damask-like slopes of the Sierra
+Nevada, whose white ridges are strongly notched against the sky. The
+bell-tower of Saint-Marie lifts its Christian silhouette above the
+Moorish battlements. A few cypresses thrust their sorrowful leaves
+through the crevices in the walls, in the midst of all this light and
+azure sky, like a melancholy thought at a joyous festival. The slopes
+of the hill running down towards the Darro and the ravine of Los
+Molinos disappear beneath an ocean of verdure. It is one of the most
+beautiful views that can be imagined.
+
+On the other side, as if to form a contrast with so much verdure, there
+rises an uncultivated, scorched, tawny mountain with patches of ocre
+and burnt Sienna which is called La Silla del Moro, on account of some
+ruins of buildings upon its summit. It was from here that King Boabdil
+used to view the Arabian horsemen jousting in the Vega with Christian
+knights. The memory of the Moors is still vivid in Grenada. You would
+think that they left the city only yesterday, and, if we should judge
+of them by their traces, it is a pity that they ever left it at all.
+What southern Spain requires is African civilization and not the
+civilization of Europe, which is not in sympathy with the heat of the
+climate, or the passions it inspires.
+
+
+
+
+                        CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX
+
+                            JULES LOISELEUR
+
+
+Unlike so many other _châteaux_ of Blaissons and Touraine,
+Chenonceaux awakens only gay and happy thoughts. Chambord possesses the
+calm gravity of a monastery; Ambroise is a prison; Blois bears upon
+its face its blot of blood. All the other retreats of the royal Valois
+and all the _châteaux_ of their courtiers, grouped in such number
+upon the banks of the Cher, the Vienne, and the Loire--Loches, Chinon,
+Plessis-lez-Tours, Luynes, Saumur, Brissac,--speak of treachery,
+perfidy, revenge, conspiracy and all the wicked tendencies of human
+nature. Chenonceaux alone recalls only memories of youth, elegance,
+poetry, and love. There is no blood upon its stones. The gentlest and
+the most charming figures of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century,
+Diane de Poitiers, Mary Stuart, Gabrielle and Françoise de’Mercœur come
+in succession to animate that smiling nature and to reflect their fair
+faces in its clear waters. Catherine de Medicis, in passing through
+this beautiful place, here dropped a little of her cold and imperious
+gravity: she has left only the memory of that orgy-like and splendid
+banquet that cost more than a million of our money, and where Madame de
+Sauve, half naked, was the stewardess.
+
+  [Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX, FRANCE.]
+
+The widow of Henri III., promenading in her long robes of mourning,
+lent it another charm,--that of melancholy; and when Rousseau, at last
+raised that voice there which could gather together tempests, it was
+not philosophy, nor social conditions, nor the rights of man of which
+he spoke: it was still love and poetry.
+
+Chenonceaux, by means of its position, its architecture, and its
+history, is so near the other _châteaux_ on the banks of the
+Loire, neighbouring and contemporary pearls, that it is impossible to
+detach it from that jewel-case. However, it is not on the Loire, the
+river of severe horizons and majestic wearisomeness; it is on a less
+proud and more smiling little river, the Cher, three leagues from
+Amboise, that this palace of Armida was built. It rears itself upon the
+bosom of this charming stream which stops here in a lazy curve as if
+to linger and bathe its walls, delighting in reflecting those graceful
+towers and enchanted gardens in its liquid depths. No other palace that
+I know rises thus, like Venus from the breast of the waves, without any
+link to the earth save a single bridge at one of its extremities. It
+was a woman who had this charming idea that gives to the _château_
+a somewhat fairy-like and supernatural effect: for Chenonceaux is not,
+as is too often believed, the work of Thomas Bohier, but of his wife,
+who consecrated to this work, conceived in love, the treasures that
+her husband sent her from Italy. There are two other women, Diane de
+Poitiers and Catherine de’Medici who completed while enlarging the
+thought of Catherine Briçonnet. It seems that women only could possess
+a sufficiently light hand to touch such a delicate work and to design
+the plan.
+
+It was at the north-east corner of the court of honour, between the
+stream and the gardener’s house, that MM. Sechan and Déplechein placed
+themselves to paint the picture used for the scenery in the second act
+of _Les Huguenots_. This choice proved a familiar general view. No
+other spot shows Chenonceaux in a more complete and picturesque aspect.
+Seen from this point, the _château_ presents itself obliquely,
+which enables the eye to embrace at the same time the principal façade
+and the entire construction of the western side, from the apsis of the
+chapel to the end of the gallery that crosses the Cher.
+
+The foreground of the picture is charming.
+
+At the right and in the corner, the court of honour precedes its royal
+avenue of plantains and ends with its stone balustrades. Behind this
+balustrade, stands the beautiful tower with a roof like a pepper box,
+which is used as the porter’s lodge, and which, built upon the firm
+ground, seems like a timid sister watching her big sisters bathing
+their feet in the river without daring to follow them.
+
+In the middle distance, is the bridge with its three unequal arches
+and its heavy buttresses alongside of their half moons in brackets.
+Beyond the bridge, is the principal façade, flanked with two corbelled
+towers presenting under a flying buttress its large caryatides, its
+two balconies in hemicycle, and three charming dormer windows that
+crown it. Farther along in the centre of the picture, is the apsis of
+the chapel with its long lancets flaming in the sun, supported, like
+the principal front, by those heavy courses of stone in which are the
+kitchen offices of the castle; then comes the beautiful eastern front
+that surmounts the great arch and occupies the centre of the stream
+which, as well as the whole corresponding western front, must certainly
+be attributed to Diane de Poitiers, for its windows, its architrave and
+all the details of its entablature bear the mark of the reign of Henri
+II.
+
+Finally, to the left of the picture, are the five arches of the
+bridge built for Diane to connect the left bank of the Cher with the
+great pavilion and, above this bridge, the two stages of galleries
+constructed by Androuet du Cerceau for Catherine de’Medici, with their
+little turrets with arched windows corresponding to the peers, and
+forming so many terraces for the second gallery.
+
+All this, with the river for the foreground and with the large trees on
+both banks for a frame, and the trees of the gardens for perspective,
+and the tops, formerly gilded, of the gallery and the large pavilion,
+the ornamented chimneys, the peaked roofs and the vanes of the
+turrets, peaks, dormer windows, chimneys and weather-vanes, vaporously
+melting into the beautiful sky of Touraine; all this, I say, forms a
+complete whole that would ravish any painter and one that in truth is
+worthy of the honour paid to it by M. Scribe at the Opéra. No false
+tone and no ungraceful nor violent line disturbs the harmony of this
+beautiful picture. Minds that love parallelism and symmetry may regret
+undoubtedly that the enthusiasm of political life did not permit
+Catherine de’Medici to complete that beautiful conception and build
+upon the left bank of the Cher a large pavilion similar to that on the
+right bank: the gallery, which does not come to-day any further than
+the steep bank of the river, would then have occupied the centre of the
+building. But, perhaps, there is in this incompleteness of Chenonceaux,
+which permits everybody to finish it in dreams according to his
+pleasure, something that saves it from banality; perhaps it gains,
+instead of losing, by exciting that admiration mingled with regrets and
+also with criticism which the greater number of men, by an inherent
+weakness of nature, prefer to the enthusiasm without reservation that
+is the right of a perfect work.
+
+
+
+
+                             DUBLIN CASTLE
+
+                              LADY WILDE
+
+
+Few amongst us who tread the Dublin of the present in all its beauty,
+think of the Dublin of the past in all its contrasted insignificance.
+True, the eternal features are the same; the landscape setting of the
+city is coeval with creation. Tyrian, Dane, and Norman have looked as
+we look, and with hearts as responsive to Nature’s loveliness, upon the
+emerald plains, the winding rivers, the hills draperied in violet and
+gold, the mountain gorges, thunder-riven, half veiled by the foam of
+the waterfall, and the eternal ocean encircling all; scenes where God
+said a city should arise, and the mountain and the ocean are still, as
+of old, the magnificent heritage of beauty conferred on our metropolis.
+
+But the early races, whether from the southern sea or northern
+plain, did little to aid the beauty of nature with the products of
+human intellect. Dublin, under the Danish rule, consisted only of
+a fortress, a church, and one rude street. Under the rule of the
+Normans, those great civilizers of the western world, those grand
+energetic organizers, temple and tower builders, it rose gradually
+into a beautiful capital, the chief city of Ireland, the second city
+of the empire. At first the rudimental metropolis gathered round the
+castle, as nebulæ round a central sun, and from this point it radiated
+westward and southward; the O’Briens on the south, the O’Connors on the
+west, the O’Neils on the north, perpetually hovering on the borders,
+but never able to regain the city, never able to dislodge the brave
+Norman garrison who had planted their banners on the castle walls.
+In that castle, during the seven hundred years of its existence, no
+Irishman of the old race has ever held rule for a single hour.
+
+And what a history it has of tragedies and splendours; crowned and
+discrowned monarchs flit across the scene, and tragic destinies,
+likewise, may be recorded of many a viceroy! Piers Gaveston, Lord
+Lieutenant of King Edward, murdered; Roger Mortimer--“The Gentle
+Mortimer”--hanged at Tyburn; the Lord Deputy of King Richard II.
+murdered by the O’Briens; whereupon the King came over to avenge his
+death, just a year before he himself was so ruthlessly murdered at
+Pomfret Castle. Two viceroys died of the plague; how many more were
+plagued to death, history leaves unrecorded; one was beheaded at
+Drogheda; three were beheaded on Tower Hill. Amongst the names of
+illustrious Dublin rulers may be found those of Prince John, the boy
+Deputy of thirteen; Prince Lionel, son of Edward III., who claimed
+Clare in right of his wife, and assumed the title of Clarence from
+having conquered it from the O’Briens.
+
+  [Illustration: DUBLIN CASTLE, IRELAND.]
+
+The great Oliver Cromwell was the Lord-Lieutenant of the Parliament,
+and he in turn appointed his son Henry to succeed him. Dire are
+the memories connected with Cromwell’s reign here, both to his own
+party and to Ireland. Ireton died of the plague after the siege
+of Limerick; General Jones died of the plague after the surrender of
+Dungarvon; a thousand of Cromwell’s men died of the plague before
+Waterford. The climate, in its effect upon English constitutions, seems
+to be the great Nemesis of Ireland’s wrongs.
+
+Strange scenes, dark, secret, and cruel, have been enacted in that
+gloomy pile. No one has told the full story yet. It will be a Ratcliffe
+romance of dungeons and treacheries, of swift death or slow murder.
+God and St. Mary were invoked in vain for the luckless Irish prince
+or chieftain that was caught in that Norman stronghold; but that was
+in the old time--long, long ago. Now the castle courts are crowded
+only with loyal and courtly crowds, gathered to pay homage to the
+illustrious successor of a hundred viceroys.
+
+The strangest scene, perhaps, in the annals of viceroyalty, was
+when Thomas Fitzgerald (Silken Thomas), son of the Earl of Kildare,
+and Lord-Lieutenant in his father’s absence, took up arms for Irish
+independence. He rode through the city with seven score horsemen, in
+shirts of mail and silken fringe on their head-pieces (hence the name
+Silken Thomas), to St. Mary’s Abbey, and there entering the council
+chamber, he flung down the sword of state upon the table, and bade
+defiance to the king and his ministers; then hastening to raise an
+army, he laid siege to Dublin Castle, but with no success. Silken
+Thomas and five uncles were sent to London, and there executed; and
+sixteen Fitzgeralds were hanged and quartered at Dublin. By a singular
+fatality, no plot laid against Dublin Castle ever succeeded; though to
+obtain possession of this foreign fortress was the paramount wish of
+all Irish rebel leaders. This was the object with Lord Maguire and his
+papists, with Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his republicans, with Emmet
+and his enthusiasts, with Smith O’Brien and his nationalists--yet they
+all failed. Once only, during seven centuries, the green flag waved
+over Dublin Castle, with the motto--“Now or Never! Now and for Ever!”
+It was when Tyrconnel held it for King James.
+
+In the ancient stormy times of Norman rule, the nobility naturally
+gathered round the Castle. Skinner’s Row was the “May Fair” of mediæval
+Dublin, Hoey’s Court, Castle Street, Cook Street, Fishamble Street,
+Bridge Street, Werburgh Street, High Street, Golden Lane, Back Lane,
+etc., were the fashionable localities inhabited by lords and bishops,
+chancellors and judges; and Thomas Street was the grand prado where
+viceregal pomp and Norman pride were oftenest exhibited.
+
+
+
+
+                 SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES
+
+                            WILLIAM HOWITT
+
+
+Berlin has its public gardens, and its popular music and dances, as
+well as any other German city; but they who do not care to visit these
+will find pleasure in walking as far as the Kreutzberg, a little
+eminence, a novelty here, at a little distance from the city, on which
+is erected a Gothic cross or monument of metal, in memory of those who
+died in the war; and figures of the chief leaders in it occupy niches,
+and the names of all the great battles in which the Prussians were
+engaged, are exhibited on the different sides. Charlottenburg, a few
+miles from Berlin, is also not only a charming palace in extensive and
+pleasant gardens, but of great interest from the reposing statue of
+the amiable Queen Louise, by Rauch, which is in a little temple in the
+garden.
+
+But Potsdam is the great paradise of this neighbourhood, as we may be
+allowed to call it, for though nearly twenty English miles distant, a
+railway conveys you there in forty minutes. Here the scene is indeed
+changed! Here, instead of sand and monotony, you have hills, water,
+woods, every thing which is attractive in nature. What a splendid
+situation were this for a capital! The city on the plain, backed by
+these beautiful hills, with every possible variety of site for villas
+and pleasure gardens. What woods and hills, and the beautiful river
+Havell spreading itself broad and winding, like a succession of fine
+lakes! Why was not Berlin placed where Potsdam is? Possibly the Havell,
+broad as it looks, may not be so navigable as the Sprey, and there may
+lie the secret, or what a capital would it be here!
+
+  [Illustration: SANS SOUCI, GERMANY.]
+
+Frederick the Great, however, duly appreciated the beauty of this
+neighbourhood. Here he delighted to retire. Steam has now converted
+Potsdam into a suburb of Berlin, and pours on all holidays its
+thousands into it, without which Potsdam were a retirement and a
+solitude still, for grass grows in its streets. But who cares for
+Potsdam itself, as it lies in its hollow, with its great old palace,
+and great old public buildings and barracks, and avenues of great
+trees, except that its old church contains the tomb of Frederick the
+Great, on which Napoleon heaped the incense of his praise, and from
+which he stole the old warrior’s sword. But the hills on the Havell,
+and the views of the Havell from them, the rich meadows, the wild
+forest scenes--these are what justify Frederick’s fondness for this
+spot, and who can enough enjoy them? That Frederick enjoyed them, the
+palaces which he has scattered through them with an extraordinary
+prodigality, sufficiently testify: the Palace in Potsdam, the Palace
+of Sans Souci, the Marble Palace, the New Palaces. That the present
+race enjoy them, various lovely villas, as the Charlottenhof, Grünecke,
+and others shew. That the last king enjoyed them, the Pfauen-Insel is
+a charming proof. If any one wishes to find the lost fairy-land, he
+must steer his course along the Havell, through a wilderness of pine
+woods to the Pfauen-Insel, and there he will acknowledge that he
+has discovered it. Around amid hills shaggy with forests the Havell
+pours its deep and dark waters like an inland sea. The world is shut
+out by the bosky shores and deep pine woods of unknown regions, and
+in the embracing floods lies the most delicious region which a poet’s
+fancy could conjure up, or which nature and art, in mutual labour,
+can construct from the ordinary materials of the earth. Shores of
+softest green, most ravishing lawns, flowers of superbest dyes and in
+gorgeous masses, trees of stateliest growth and gracefullest beauty
+of pendant boughs, invite you ever to scenes where you may wander for
+hours, and every few moments encounter some new surprise. Here feudal
+towers rise above the flood, with heraldic banners flapping over the
+battlements; here stately barge and light shallop lie anchored in some
+lonely creek; here slope sunny uplands under scattered oaks, where the
+shepherd watches his flock. Here you come upon a noble conservatory,
+beautiful with the palms and dates and glorious blossoms of tropical
+regions, and aromatic with their odours. If you would have any illusion
+to persuade you, beyond the charms of nature and of summer, that you
+are in a region of enchantment, you have it. You hear the roar of the
+lion, the cry of the jackal, and the scream of birds unknown in these
+climates. You imagine that some scene in Tasso or Ariosto is about to
+be repeated, and find actually wild beasts of all sorts in different
+dens and cages in various parts of the island. Such were the amusements
+of a king here, after he had helped to bind the great wild beast of
+the age on the rocks of St. Helena; and a more enchanting scene for a
+day’s excursion he could not have left for the pleasure of his subjects.
+
+Amongst the numerous royal palaces we must say a good word for the New
+Palace, as it is called, although it has been often and much abused. If
+not in the purest taste, it still possesses a certain grandeur in its
+enormous extent, and prodigality of colonnades, porticoes, and statues
+connected with it. It lies low, in the meadow below Potsdam, but has
+a fine solitude of woods and quaint gardens about it. It is itself a
+good and cheerful house, and contains many paintings of much merit and
+beauty. It has also a theatre, in which have recently been represented,
+before the court, some of the dramatic pieces of Tieck. If this palace
+were inhabited by the king, with a full and gay court, it would, with
+the necessary life and bustle about it, produce far from a despicable
+impression.
+
+Then there is, in the wood near, that little temple containing the
+second and most beautiful reposing figure of the late Queen by Rauch.
+We had heard this effigy much praised for its beauty; but the beauty
+is that of mind and heart. Representatives of far higher physical
+beauty we have often seen. The somewhat high cheek bones, the shape of
+the nose, and the general contour indeed of the countenance, depart
+from the pure ideal of personal beauty, but a still higher beauty
+distinguishes this charming statue. It is that perfect sweetness of
+disposition; that spirit baptized in heavenly affection; that wife-like
+devotion; that high and dauntless, and holy patriotism, dwelling in a
+meek and lowly nature, which made this excellent queen adored by the
+people when alive, and which glorify her image here in the cold stone.
+
+Not far from this palace is Charlottenhof, the beautiful little villa
+in the Herculaneum style built by the present king, when Crown-Prince,
+for himself. It is fitted up with a simplicity befitting a private
+gentleman, but with a classical purity of taste which makes all
+beautiful. But Sans Souci is the great attraction of the neighbourhood.
+It is a mere villa perched on a hill just above Potsdam, and surrounded
+by the most lovely views over the meadows and wild woody banks of
+the Havell. The hill on which it stands is crowned with gardens in
+successive terraces. As you approach through the fine meadows and
+beneath a noble avenue of trees, broad flights of steps, ascending from
+terrace to terrace up to the house, and the lower part of the house
+half concealed from view by the swell of the hill, give a very singular
+appearance to the whole. It seems as if the house was surrounded by a
+piazza, and that those flights of steps ascended to the top, instead
+of to the bottom of the building. As we ascended these long flights
+of steps, successive terraces of the garden shewed themselves right
+and left, with their vines and fig-trees loaded with fruit, and with
+quantities of golden gourds, each perfectly round, large enough to fill
+a wheelbarrow, lying about; and flowers, in richest autumnal hues,
+glowed around. Arrived on the summit, nothing can be conceived more
+delicious. The fine views over the lovely country; the gardens all
+below you; the space before the palace full of beds of gayest flowers,
+and orange trees standing everywhere in blossom, diffusing through
+the whole air their delicious aroma. Trees of splendid growth added
+their beauty to the spot; the mill of the sturdy old miller shewing
+itself amongst them; and from a circular colonnade, on the other side
+of the house, a brownish, wildish, burnt-up sort of a country, with
+wind-mills, and an artificial ruin of a Grecian temple on a woody hill
+opposite, constructed with better effect than such things generally
+are, presented a fit landscape for an old painter.
+
+Every part of this place abounds with recollections of the victorious
+old Fritz. At each end of the garden, in a green plot, are the graves
+of his horse and dogs, eleven in number, he having ordered himself to
+be laid there to complete the dozen; an order not complied with. In
+the house remain many memorials of him; ’mongst them the clock, which
+stopped exactly as he died, and his library, in which his own works are
+conspicuous. One volume of his poems stood open at this curious passage:
+
+    Mais, quels sont ces cries d’ Alegresse!
+    Quels Chants! Quelles acclamations!
+    Les Français plein de son yvresse
+    Semble vainqueur des Nations.
+    Il l’ est; et voilà qui s’ avance
+    La Pompe du jeune Louis:
+    L’Anglais a perdu sa Balance,
+    L’Autricien, son insolence,
+    Et la Balave encore surpris
+    En grondant bénit La Clemence
+    De ce Héros, dont l’ indulgence----
+
+The wall of the room occupied here by Voltaire is painted all over
+monkeys and parrots. They tell you that Frederick, being desirous
+to have a portrait of the ugly old Frenchman, to which he would not
+consent, the king employed a painter to observe him by stealth from the
+next room whenever the door was opened, which Voltaire becoming aware
+of, clapped a screen before his table; and Frederick to mortify him,
+caused the whole of the walls of his room, the first opportunity, to be
+thus adorned with monkeys and parrots, as indicative of his person and
+loquacity. Poor Frederick paid dearly in his lifetime, in annoyance,
+for his propensity to French philosophy; and his country paid still
+more so for it after his death.
+
+
+
+
+                           WHITEHALL PALACE
+
+                              LEIGH HUNT
+
+
+The whole district containing all that collection of streets and
+houses, which extends from Scotland Yard to Parliament Street, and
+from the river side, with its wharfs, to St. James’s Park, and which
+is still known by the general appellation of Whitehall, was formerly
+occupied by a sumptuous palace and its appurtenances, the only relics
+of which, perhaps the noblest specimen, is the beautiful edifice built
+by Inigo Jones, and retaining its old name of the Banqueting-House.
+
+As this palace was the abode of a series of English sovereigns,
+beginning with Henry the Eighth, who took it from Wolsey, and
+terminating with James the Second, on whose downfall it was destroyed
+by fire, we are now in the very thick of the air of royalty.
+
+  [Illustration: WHITEHALL PALACE, ENGLAND.]
+
+The site of Whitehall was originally occupied by a mansion built by
+Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent and Chief Justice of England in the reign
+of Henry the Third, one of the ancestors of the present Marquess of
+Clanricarde. De Burgh bequeathed it to the brotherhood of the Black
+Friars, near “Oldborne,” in whose church he was buried; the Brotherhood
+sold it to Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, who left it to his
+successors in that see as the archiepiscopal residence, which procured
+it the name of York Place; and under that name, two centuries and a
+half afterwards, it became celebrated for the pomp and splendour of the
+“full-blown” priest, Wolsey, the magnificent butcher’s son. Wolsey, on
+highly probable evidence, is thought to have so improved and enlarged
+the mansion of his predecessors, as to have in a manner rebuilt it, and
+given it its first royalty of aspect: but, as we shall see by and by,
+it was not called Whitehall, nor occupied anything like the space it
+did afterwards, till its seizure by the Cardinal’s master.
+
+On the Cardinal’s downfall, Henry seized his house and goods, and
+converted York Place into a royal residence, under the title of
+Westminster Place, then, for the first time, called also Whitehall.
+
+“It is not impossible,” says Mr. Brayley (Londiniana Vol. II., p. 27),
+“that the Whitehall, properly so called, was erected by Wolsey, and
+obtained its name from the newness and freshness of its appearance,
+when compared with the ancient buildings of York Place. Shakespeare in
+his play of _King Henry VIII._, makes one of the interlocutors
+say, in describing the coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn:--
+
+                    ‘So she parted,
+    And with the same full state paced back again
+    To York Place, where the feast is held.’
+
+To this is replied--
+
+                      ‘Sir, you
+    Must no more call it York Place--that is past.
+    For since the Cardinal fell, that title’s lost.
+    ’Tis now the King’s, and called Whitehall.’”
+
+It was in Whitehall that Henry made his ill-assorted marriage with
+Anne Boleyn; Dr. Lingard says in a “garret”; Stowe says in the royal
+“closet.” It is likely enough that the ceremony was hurried and
+sudden;--a fit of will, perhaps, during his wine; and if the closet was
+not ready, the garret was. The clergyman who officiated was shortly
+afterwards made a bishop.
+
+Henry died in Whitehall; so fat, that he was lifted in and out his
+chamber and sitting-room by means of machinery.
+
+“He was “_somewhat_ gross, or, as we tearme it, bourlie,” says
+time-serving Holinshed.
+
+He _laboured_ under the burden of an extreme fit and unwieldy
+body,” says noble Herbert of Cherbury.
+
+It was under this Prince (as already noticed) that the palace of the
+Archbishop of York first became the “King’s Palace at Westminster,” and
+expanded into that mass of houses which stretched to St. James’s Park.
+He built a gate-house which stood across what is now the open street,
+and a gallery connecting the two places, and overlooking a tilt-yard;
+and on the park-side he built a cockpit, a tennis-court, and alleys
+for bowling; for although he put women to death, he was fond of manly
+sports. He was also a patron of the fine arts, and gave an annuity and
+rooms in the palace to the celebrated Holbein, who is said to have
+designed the gate, as well as decorated the interior.
+
+The reader is to bear in mind that the street in front of the
+modern Banqueting-House was always open, as it is now, from Charing
+Cross to King Street, narrowing opposite to the south end of the
+Banqueting-House, at which point the gate looked up it towards the
+Cross. Just opposite the Banqueting-House on the site of the present
+Horse-Guards, was the Tilt-yard. The whole mass of houses and gardens
+on the river side comprised the royal residence. Down this open street,
+then, just as people walk now, we may picture to ourselves Henry
+coming with his regal pomp, and Wolsey with his priestly; Sir Thomas
+More strolling thoughtfully, perhaps talking with quiet-faced Erasmus;
+Holbein, looking about him with an artist’s eyes; Surrey coming
+gallantly in his cloak and feather, as Holbein has painted him; and a
+succession of Henry’s wives, with their flitting groups on horseback or
+under canopy;--handsome, stately Catherine of Arragon; laughing Anne
+Boleyn; quiet Jane Seymour; gross-bodied but sensible Anne of Cleves;
+demure Catherine Howard, who played such pranks before marriage; and
+disputatious yet buxom Catherine Parr, who survived one tyrant to
+become the broken-hearted wife of a smaller one. Down this road, also
+came gallant companies of knights and squires, to the tilting-yard; but
+of them we shall have more to say in the time of Elizabeth.
+
+We see little of Edward the Sixth, and less of Lady Jane Grey and Queen
+Mary, in connection with Whitehall. Edward once held the Parliament
+there, on account of his sickly condition; and he used to hear Latimer
+preach in the Privy Garden (still so called), where a pulpit was
+erected for him on purpose. As there are gardens there still to the
+houses erected on the spot, one may stand by the rails, and fancy we
+hear the voice of the rustical but eloquent and honest prelate, rising
+through the trees.
+
+It was under Elizabeth that Whitehall shone out in all its romantic
+splendour. It was no longer the splendour of Wolsey alone, nor of Henry
+alone, or with a great name by his side now and then; but of a Queen,
+surrounded and worshipped through a long reign by a galaxy of the
+brightest minds and most chivalrous persons ever assembled in English
+history.
+
+Here she comes, turning the corner from the Strand, under a canopy of
+state, leaving the noisier, huzzaing multitude behind the barriers
+that mark the precincts of the palace, and bending her eyes hither
+and thither, in acknowledgment of the kneeling obeisances of the
+courtiers. Beside her are Cecil and Knolles, and Northampton, and
+Bacon’s father; or, later in life, Leicester, and Burleigh, and Sir
+Philip Sydney, and Greville, and Sir Francis Drake, (and Spenser is
+looking on); or, later still, Essex and Raleigh, and Bacon himself,
+and Southampton, Shakespeare’s friend, with Shakespeare among the
+spectators. We shall see her, by and by, at that period, as brought to
+life to us in the description of Hentzner the traveller. At present
+(as we have her at this moment in our eye) she is younger, of a large
+and tall, but well-made figure, with fine eyes, and finer hands, which
+she is fond of displaying. We are too apt to think of Elizabeth as
+thin and elderly, and patched up; but for a good period of her life
+she was plump and personable, warranting the history of the robust
+romps of the Lord Admiral, Seymour; and till her latter days (and even
+then, as far as her powers went), we are always to fancy her at once
+spirited and stately of carriage, impulsive (except on occasions of
+ordinary ceremony), and ready to manifest her emotions in look and
+voice, whether as woman or Queen; in a word, a sort of Henry the Eighth
+corrected by a female nature and a better understanding--or perhaps
+an Anne Boleyn, enlarged, and made less feminine by the father’s
+grossness. The Protestants have represented her as too staid, and
+the Catholics as too violent and sensual. According to the latter,
+Whitehall was a mere sink of iniquity. It was not likely to be so,
+for many reasons; but neither, on the other hand, do we take it to
+have been anything like the pattern of self-denial which some fond
+writers have supposed. Where there is power, and leisure, and luxury,
+though of the most legitimate kind, and refinement, though of the most
+intellectual, self-denial on the side of enjoyment is not apt to be
+the reigning philosophy; nor would it reasonably be looked for in any
+court, at all living in wealth and splendour.
+
+Imagine the sensations of Elizabeth, when she first set down in the
+palace at Whitehall, after escaping the perils of imputed illegitimacy,
+of confinement for party’s sake and for religion’s, and all the other
+terrors of her father’s reign and of Mary’s, danger of death itself not
+excepted. She was a young Queen of twenty-five years of age, healthy,
+sprightly, good-looking, with plenty of will, power, and imagination;
+and the gallantest spirits of the age were at her feet.
+
+The Court of James the First was a great falling off from that of
+Elizabeth, in point of decency. It was Sir Toby keeping house after the
+death of Olivia; or a fox-hunting squire succeeding to the estate of
+some courtly dame and mingling low life with high.
+
+We have seen court mummeries in the time of Henry the Eighth and
+pageants in that of Elizabeth. In the time of James, the masquings
+of the one, and the gorgeous shows of the other, combined to produce
+the Masque, in its latest and best acceptation; that is, a dramatic
+exhibition of some brief fable or allegory, uniting the most fanciful
+poetry and scenery, and generally heightened with a contrast of humour,
+or an anti-masque. Ben Jonson was their great poetical master in the
+court of James and Inigo Jones claimed to be their no less masterly
+and important setter-forth in scene and show. The poet and artist had
+a quarrel upon this issue, and Inigo’s’ memory suffers from divers
+biting libels in the works of his adversary. The noble Banqueting-House
+remains to show that the architect might have had some right to dispute
+pretensions, even with the author of the _Alchemist_ and the
+_Sad Shepherd_; for it is a piece of the very music of his art
+(if we may so speak)--the harmony of proportion. Within these walls,
+as we now see them, rose, “like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,”
+the elegant lines of Ben Jonson, breathing court flowers,--the clouds
+and painted columns of Jones--and the fair faces, gorgeous dresses, and
+dances, of the beauties that dazzled the young eyesight of the Miltons
+and Wallers. Ben’s burly body would then break out, as it were, after
+his more refined soul, in some burlesque anti-masque, now and then not
+a little coarse; and the sovereign and the poet most probably concluded
+the night in the same manner, though not at the same table in filling
+their skins with wine.
+
+The Court of Charles I. was decorum and virtue itself in comparison
+with that of James. Drunkenness disappeared; there were no scandalous
+favourites; Buckingham alone retained his ascendency as the friend and
+assistant; and the king manifested his notions of the royal dignity by
+a stately reserve. Little remained externally of the old Court but its
+splendour; and to this a new lustre was given by a taste for painting
+and the patronage of Rubens and Vandyke. Charles was a great collector
+of pictures. He was still fonder of poetry than his father, retained
+Ben Jonson as his laureate, encouraged Sandys, and May, and Carew, and
+was a fond reader of Spenser and Shakespeare. It was, upon the whole a
+grave and graceful court, not without an undercurrent of intrigue.
+
+It seems ridiculous to talk of the court of Oliver Cromwell, who had
+so many severe matters to attend to in order to keep himself on his
+throne; but he had a court, nevertheless; and however jealously it was
+watched by the most influential of his adherents, it grew more courtly
+as his protectorate advanced.
+
+But how shall we speak of the court of Charles II.? of that unblushing
+seminary for the misdirection of young ladies, which, occupying the
+ground now inhabited by all which is proper, rendered the mass of
+buildings by the water’s side, from Charing Cross to the Parliament,
+one vast--what are we to call it?--
+
+    “Chi mi darà le voci e le parole
+    Convenienti a sì nobil soggetto?”
+
+Let Mr. Pepys explain. Let Clarendon explain. Let all the world
+explain, who equally reprobate the place and its master, and yet
+somehow are so willing to hear it reprobated, that they read endless
+accounts of it, old and new, from the not very bashful _exposé_
+of the Count de Grammont, down to the blushing deprecations of Mrs.
+Jameson.
+
+The Court of James II. is hardly worth mention. It lasted less
+than four years, and was as dull as himself. The most remarkable
+circumstance attending it was the sight of friars and confessors, and
+the brief restoration of Popery. Waller, too, was once seen there;
+the _fourth_ court of his visiting. There was a poetess also,
+who appears to have been attached by regard as well as office to the
+Court of James--Anne Kingswill, better known by her subsequent title of
+Countess of Winchelsea. The attachment was most probably one of feeling
+only and good nature, for she had no bigotry of any sort. Dryden,
+furthermore, was laureate to King James; and in a fit of politic,
+perhaps real, regret, turned round upon the late court in his famous
+comparison of it with its predecessor.
+
+James fled from England in December, 1688, and the history of Whitehall
+terminates with its conflagration ten years afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+                        THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG
+
+                            HORACE MARRYAT
+
+
+The walks in the neighbourhood of Elsinore are charming, particularly
+that along the Strandrei, by the shore of the Sound--a succession of
+country houses and fishing villages, and well-kept gardens bright with
+flowers: they have a well-to-do prosperous air, as everything has in
+Denmark. An hour’s walk brings you to a maisonette called Dahlsborg,
+beyond which you turn to enter the forest of Egebæksvang, a favourite
+summer drive of the Elsinorians.
+
+A ten minutes’ walk, avoiding all dusty roads across the common or
+waste land which runs down to the seashore--in England it would
+have been the paradise of geese, cricketers and donkeys, but
+here it is deserted, except by the sharpshooters, who keep up a
+cross-fire, practising their targets from eight o’clock till six of an
+evening--brings us to the Castle of Kronborg.
+
+The road lies between two dirty stagnant ponds, dignified by the
+appellation of Holger Dansk’s Spectacles: if they fitted his face,
+he must have had one eye considerably larger than the other. Instead
+of snoring away his time within the dungeons of Kronborg--his beard
+growing into the marble table--he had far better employ his leisure
+moments in cleaning out and sweetening his “brille”; but he only
+appears, they say, when Mr. Sorensen (the Danish John Bull or Brother
+Jonathan) really requires his services. Effectual drainage and sanitary
+reforms are sadly behind-hand, and looked upon as new-fangled vagaries
+by the inhabitants of the island of Zealand.
+
+If in your early youth you have devoured the _Fabliaux et Contes_,
+_King Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table_, and other
+legends of old Romaunce, you will recognize in Holger Dansk,[4] or
+rather Augier le Danois, an old and favourite acquaintance. Some few
+years since I brushed him up when I visited the ruins of _La Joyeuse
+Garde_ and the classic sands of Avalon, on the coast of Brittany.
+The French romancers assert him to be still confined at Avalon,
+together with King Arthur, held in durance vile by the enchantments of
+the fay Morgana. Occasionally she removes from his brow the Lethæan
+crown, when his services are required to fight against the Paynim for
+the good and welfare of Christendom.
+
+  [Illustration: THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG, DENMARK.]
+
+Morgana, she of the Fata, was own sister to our good King Arthur. With
+other mighty fairies, she assisted at the birth of Holger the Dane;
+later she loved him. Seduced by her blandishments, he espoused her:
+no good ever comes of marrying an old woman, be she mortal or fairy.
+Holger the Dane slumbers in the dungeons of Kronborg, not at Avalon,
+as the French would have it, no more than King Arthur, who we all
+know received Christian burial at Glastonbury; but French romancers
+do tell such wicked stories. Endless are the traditions, numerous the
+ballads, of the exploits of this the favourite hero of Danish story:
+when invoked, after much pressing, and, I must own it, exacting first
+the promise of “a good dinner and plenty to drink,” he has frequently
+come to the assistance of fair maidens in their trouble and distress,
+and fought their battles with his enchanted sword, mounted on his good
+steed, “Papillon.” Morgana, the fay, has never deserted entirely the
+country of her beloved: she still sports and exercises her witcheries
+to favoured mortals, when least expected, among the barren heaths and
+wide-spreading moors of the ancient provinces of Jutland.
+
+I have no intention, however, of visiting his prison down below: the
+wind is cast, my limbs are rheumatic--let younger people be more
+adventurous. But we pass the drawbridge and enter the second gate
+of the castle. Verses in the Danish tongue by the Scotchman, Bishop
+Kingo, and the more illustrious pen of Tycho Brahe, adorn the portals
+and celebrate the erection of the buildings. There is one thing sure
+in this world--monarchs never allowed their good works to be hid
+in secret: on every side you see inscriptions, in letters of gold,
+announcing how Christian V. restored this, and Frederic IV. whitewashed
+that. But I must give you some account of the history of the castle.
+
+There is no doubt but, from the earliest period of history, a castle of
+some kind, built for the protection of the Sound, existed on the site
+or near where the Kronborg now stands. In the year 1238 the preceding
+fortress of Flynderborg--situated at the other end of the town, near
+the Strandvei, named after the flounders, of which quantities are
+taken in front of the batteries--was in a state of excellent repair.
+This fortress being found unsuited to the exigencies of the times,
+King Frederic II. determined to rebuild it on a scale of unprecedented
+grandeur: the whole of the expenses were to be discharged from his
+privy purse, and the building was to cost his subjects “not one penny.”
+This was more easy of execution to Frederic, first crowned Protestant
+sovereign of Denmark, than it would have proved to later monarchs. He
+had made a good haul of suppressed monasteries, church lands, plate,
+and treasure--was flush of money, and did not mind spending it. The
+existing castle was then commenced in the year 1577, and completed in
+the course of nine years. Bishop Kingo and Tycho Brahe both sung its
+praises, and the talents of Rubens were called into play--somewhat
+later I imagine--for the decoration of the chapel. The castle is
+strongly fortified with double-bastion, moat, and rampart, after the
+manner of preceding ages.
+
+Kronborg possesses one great advantage over the other Danish buildings
+of the Sixteenth Century: it is built of fine sandstone, the only
+specimen in the kingdom. Though quadrangular and four-towered, it
+is relieved from all appearance of formality by the quaint onion
+pagoda-like minarets by which its towers are surmounted. The lofty
+clock turret[5] too, rising from the centre, higher than those which
+flank the corners, adds to the dignity of the building. Few castles in
+the space of three hundred years have suffered so little from modern
+additions and improvement: one tower has unfortunately been destroyed.
+In an old engraving from Puffendorf of 1688, I see the original had
+already been altered: it was an eyesore, but, in accordance with the
+style of the remainder, capped and ornamented. It, however, fell into
+decay during the reign of Frederic VI., at that unfortunate epoch
+when taste was bad taste, and art atrocity: it was repaired--square
+and hideous--a fearful monument of the age. Formerly it served as a
+telegraph, now as a powder magazine; and unless it be blown up, or
+the powder becomes damp, will, I fear, remain untouched. You enter
+the interior court through a richly ornamented gateway, guarded by
+statues and overhung by a beautiful oriel window, enriched with the
+arms and ciphers of the founder. Opposite to you stands the chapel
+(the works of Rubens have long since disappeared); the fittings of
+the time of Christian IV. have been lately restored, but not too
+carefully. It is curious to trace, as you can by the turret to the
+right of the clock, the gradual transition from the Gothic to the
+Renaissance. The whole of the ornaments are of the latter period; but
+there is still occasionally a sort of feeling as if the architect was
+not quite decided in his views: whether he was or not, Kronborg is
+one of the most perfect specimens of its era--unspoiled, untouched,
+and unrepaired--to be met with in Europe. It has long ceased to be
+occupied as a royal residence. One side is alone retained for the use
+of His Majesty; the rest is occupied by the General Commandant, the
+officers, and the garrison. Above the entrance of the clock-tower,
+surmounting the ornaments, appears the head of a huge mastiff, holding
+in his fore-paws a heart-like shield, with the cipher of Frederic II.,
+and below the favourite device of the King, “T. I. W. B., _Treu ist
+Wiltbratt_.” The same Wildbratt, whose portrait is above, was the
+favourite of King Frederic, and bit everybody save his royal master.
+Over the other door appears the device of his good queen--good Queen
+Sophia of Mecklenburg--“_Meine Hoffnung zu Gott allein_” (My hope
+is in God alone). Within the dungeon of the corner tower, that of
+the restoration--adjoining the wine-cellars of Christian IV., where
+a jolly fat tun carved in stone above the entrance leaves no doubt
+of its identity--was situated the torture-chamber in days gone by:
+none of your papistical virgins, who enticed you to their arms, and
+larded like a fricandeau, then stuck you brimful of pen-knives, but
+good wholesome Protestant thumbscrews, boots, and wooden horses, and
+scavengers’ daughters, such as Queen Bess of glorious memory, and
+our earlier Tudor sovereigns, to say nothing of later Stuarts loved
+to employ on their rebellious subjects who refused to convict their
+masters, rightfully or wrongfully, and bring them to the block--and
+very persuasive implements they were, I doubt not. In the centre of
+the court once stood a fountain, tossing the water high in the air:
+judging from the old engravings, it must have been very ornamental.
+Some thirty or forty iron hooks, fastened into the wall, remain, once
+the larder of King Frederic, hung, when game abounded, with deer, hare,
+and capercailzie--like Bolton Abbey in the olden time--a pretty scene,
+only too near the torture-chamber. After the peace of 1659, when Skaane
+was lost to Denmark forever, the windows of Kronborg Castle, which
+commanded a view of the Swedish coast, were walled up, to exclude a
+sight which caused so many heart-burnings.
+
+In 1588 was celebrated in the Castle of Kronborg the marriage by
+procuration of King James VI. of Scotland with Anne, daughter of King
+Frederic II. of Denmark. Anne was then in her fifteenth year. Marshal
+Earl Keith acted as proxy. This marriage settled the vexed question of
+the Orkney and Shetland Islands, pawned to Scotland when the Princess
+Margaret married King James III. Christian III. meditated an expedition
+against Mary of Guise, then Regent of Scotland, for their recovery
+and later offered to repay the 50,000 florins for which they had been
+pawned; but Dantzay, by order of Catherine de’Medici, put a spoke
+into the arrangement, and they were never redeemed. We all know the
+history of King James’s adventures, and how the real marriage took
+place at Agershuus, in Norway. The royal couple then visited Denmark
+and passed a month in the Castle of Kronborg, where they assisted
+at the nuptials, 19th April, 1590, of the queen’s elder sister, the
+Princess Elizabeth, with Henry Duke of Brunswick. Which were the
+apartments occupied by King James and his bride during his residence
+no one can say--the interior of the building has been much altered
+since that period, the stories divided for the occupation of the
+garrison--but in all probability it was the suite called the apartments
+of Christian IV., now set apart for his present Majesty. They are not
+remarkable for their size, but contain fine chimney-pieces, with the
+cipher of the sovereign, and the doorways are ornamented with marble
+and richly-carved ebony. Tales are still current in Elsinore of the
+drinking-bouts held by King James and his brother-in-law, Prince
+Christian in the halls of Kronborg--how they fell intoxicated under the
+table, rolled into the ditch, etc.
+
+On the exterior of the castle, called Frederic III.’s battery, under
+the windows of the upper story, runs a cornice richly ornamented in the
+style of the earlier part of the Seventeenth Century, in the divisions
+of which are represented medallion portraits of certain personages of
+the royal family of Denmark. Among them that of King James himself,
+with his peaked beard side by side with the full features of his
+consort Queen Anne: in the divisions of each side are sculptured two
+Tudor roses, and in the ornamentation of the cornice is constantly
+introduced the portcullis of the same family. The date of this cornice
+is unknown; but it was in all probability put up to commemorate the
+nuptials of the King of Scots with the Princess Anne of Denmark.
+
+Luckily for James was it that the embassy of Lord Willoughby to
+Kronborg took place some few years before his marriage, and that this
+Scottish assumption of the English badge came not to the ears of the
+Virgin Queen. Tudor he was in all right by his ancestress Margaret, in
+the female line, and nearest heir to the English throne; but Elizabeth,
+when the succession was mooted, brooked no child’s-play. How she would
+have stormed had she known it, and sent a fleet perchance to intercept
+the return of James to his dominions! and the youthful Anne might
+have found a prison in Fotheringay, and a jailer in that exceedingly
+unpleasant individual Sir Amyas Paulet. Such are the souvenirs of King
+James I have met with in the chronicles of Kronborg.
+
+One day, when on an excursion to the back slums of the town of
+Elsinore, I came on a small narrow lane, dignified with the
+appellation--in honour, I suppose, of the royal marriage--of Anna Queen
+Street.
+
+Having finished with pompous pageants and royal nuptials, we come to
+a sadder period of Kronborg story. Scotland still mourns the fate,
+and proclaims the innocence of Mary Stuart, the murdered Queen;
+had she not been a Papist, England--yes, intolerant England--would
+have long since done her justice. France, who, in the last century,
+vented her venom, her calumny, against the Autrichienne, now exalts
+the memory of Marie Antoinette to that of a saint and martyr. So, in
+Denmark, all voices proclaim together the innocence, and deplore the
+fate, of the youthful Queen of Christian VII., our English princess
+Caroline Matilda. Here in Kronborg she was confined a prisoner, torn
+from her palace in Copenhagen, half-dressed, in the middle of the
+night, expecting daily to suffer the fate of Struensee and Brandt,
+until the arrival of a fleet from England effected her liberation.
+Accompanied by the Commandant one morning (General Lunding, the hero
+of Fredericia--military men will tell you all about it), I visited the
+apartments in which she was confined on her arrival--two small rooms on
+the ground-floor, one overshadowed by the bastion, the other looking on
+the courtyard of the castle. Later, I believe, the Commandant placed
+his own apartment at her disposal; and in the small octagon closet of
+the lighthouse turret, which terminates the apartments of Christian
+IV., it is related how the captive queen passed hours and days with
+anxious brow and straining eye, gazing at the waters of the Sound, in
+momentary expectation of the appearance of the fleet from England, she
+having received some secret tidings of its coming. No relics of her
+incarceration here remain: the ancient furniture of the palace was
+unluckily removed, destroyed, and neglected in Frederic VI.’s reign. He
+detested Kronborg, and never visited Elsinore; these recollections of
+his mother’s imprisonment were odious to him, and the royal apartments
+fell into decay.
+
+The ramparts of Kronborg are charming: before them the fishers
+everlastingly ply their trade--flounders, and a fish called
+“green-bone,” a horn-fish, are their prey. Had Shakespeare searched the
+world round he never could have selected so fitting a locality for the
+ghost-scene. I can see the ghost myself--pale moon, clouds flitting
+o’er her, frowning castle, and the space necessary to follow him; but
+the romance of Kronborg is over; her bastions are redolent with deep
+purple violets, and the roseate buds of a statice--Krigskarl, or the
+Warrior, they here call it--which looks as if it should be something
+better, but will, I dare say, turn out common thrift after all. When
+the fishing-boats return at sunset, a little girl runs down to the
+shore side, and waits; as they pass by, a small flounder is thrown to
+her from each boat; she gathers them up in her apron, and then returns
+to the castle.
+
+
+
+
+                          CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE
+
+                            JULES LOISELEUR
+
+
+Those whose natures are sufficiently artistic to seek that intimate
+and sympathetic accord that exists between human monuments and their
+natural surroundings will do well to visit Chaumont on a fine summer’s
+day under the rays of a scorching sun. Those strong towers built
+to withstand a siege, and those towers still so white after four
+centuries, should stand out strongly against the deep blue of a July
+sky in order to produce their full effect. Then that gleaming mount
+from which the ancient castle took its name, those great trees that
+frame it, and that lazy stream sleeping at its feet attain their full
+value. There is no discordant tone, nor any noise of man or beast, to
+disturb the majestic unity of this beautiful spectacle.
+
+  [Illustration: CHÂTEAU SUR LOIRE, FRANCE.]
+
+Seated on the opposite bank, on that embankment of the Loire that
+goes back to the time of Louis le Débonnaire, at one glance the
+traveller sees a picture that would enchant a painter, from the Loire
+that ripples at his feet, the white houses of the little village of
+Chaumont extending like a boa at the foot of the castle, pressed in as
+it is between the hill and the river, and the stone stairway which by
+a hundred and sixty steps ascends the side of the hill that broadens
+towards its summit to give room for the little church of the bourg as
+well as for the giant elm planted by Catherine de’Medici, to the
+castle terrace hanging two hundred feet above the gorge, the carved
+buttresses of the chapel in which George Amboise dreamed of the papacy,
+and the vanes of the tower from which the widow of Henry II. questioned
+the stars. At this noon-day hour when all nature is silent, the sun
+that turns the sands of the stream into beds of gold, and picks out
+ruby aigrettes in the rose windows of the chapel, casts the silhouettes
+of pilasters that support it on the wall of the gallery that terminates
+the courtyard of the castle, giving an infinite charm to the semi-gloom
+of that gallery and to the beneficently shaded steps that must be
+mounted to arrive there.
+
+Those who love to arrange effects and not include an entire monument
+in a single glance but allow it time to some extent to present itself
+to the view and successively reveal the various features of its
+physiognomy, will do well to avoid the rude stone stairway cut in the
+rock and rather take the verdurous avenue that leaves the road and
+leads by a lessened though still steep slope to the platform on which
+the castle stands. By this means, they will see it rise progressively
+through the openings of a clump of ancient elms called the Queen’s Mall.
+
+Approached on this side, Chaumont presents itself at an angle and
+spreads out in the form of a fan. At the extremity of each of the two
+ribs of this fan rises a great tower, and the bottom of the fan which
+is cant-shaped is guarded by two somewhat smaller towers between which
+is the main entrance.
+
+From this disposition, it results that from the angle occupied by this
+gateway the visitor may include the four towers of the castle in one
+field of vision: to the left is the Amboise tower, which is the highest
+and the best preserved; to the right is that of Catherine de’Medici,
+with its battlements still imprinted with cabalistic signs; and in
+front are the two towers of the gateway. On these towers and on the
+walls that connect them, about one-third of the way up, is a belt of
+carving alternately framing a mountain with flames issuing from its top
+and two C’s back to back, ϽC. These carvings present a somewhat curious
+archæological puzzle.
+
+The outer moat, at the present day largely filled up and replaced by a
+flowery sward, somewhat relieves the heavy character of the drawbridge
+that defends the entrance to the castle. We must halt upon this
+drawbridge to examine the details of the thick oaken door, on which are
+carved the Twelve Apostles, and the stone medallion that decorates the
+archway. This medallion, which has recently been restored, offers a
+remarkable exception to the rule generally followed in the Fourteenth
+and Fifteenth Century, when it was customary to carve above the
+principal gateway the arms of the family to whom the castle belonged,
+and sometimes the statue of its founder. Here, framed by delicate
+ornamentation, we see the initials of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany,
+his second wife: the L on a ground sewn with _fleurs de lis_ and
+the A among the arms of Brittany. On a level with this medallion, arms
+are incrusted on the towers guarding the gateway: on that on the right
+are the arms of Georges d’Amboise surmounted by the cardinal’s hat; on
+the tower on the left are those of his nephew, Charles of Chaumont,
+Admiral and Grand Master of France. It is doubtless the latter to whom
+all these sculptures should be attributed. It is presumable that on his
+return from Nantes, where he had just espoused the widow of Charles
+VIII., Louis XII. stopped at Chaumont in company with his new wife and
+his minister, and that the Maréchal de Chaumont, to do honour to his
+uncle and the royal pair, had this medallion and these arms carved on
+the gateway and towers, and therefore they date from the year 1499.
+
+We pass the drawbridge and the gate, leaving on our left a painted
+gallery full of luminous shadow, and find ourselves in a vast
+quadrilateral court of honour surrounded on three sides by bodies of
+buildings and having the fourth open on immensity. Like the others,
+this fourth side was once enclosed by buildings and flanked by two
+towers commanding the Loire. These constructions were razed four
+hundred years ago by a counsellor of the Parliament of Paris, named
+Bertin de Vaugien, who at that time was the owner of the Castle. This
+man did an intelligent thing in this, but probably without suspecting
+it: by chance it happened that vandalism had good taste for once.
+
+Leaning on the iron railing that has taken the place of this fourth
+body of buildings, the visitor gazes over an immense horizon line and
+a landscape “made for the delight of the eyes.” In the foreground are
+terraces thick with flowers; a little lower down, through the stunted
+trees that have thrust themselves through the clefts in the rock, peep
+the sharp and symmetrical roofs of the little village of Chaumont;
+behind this village is the Loire; behind the Loire stands the hamlet of
+Escures; farther away is the railroad, the black and wearisome lines of
+which lengthen out on their gravel bed; in the background appear the
+church of the large town of Onzain and the ruins of the old castle in
+which Voltaire wrote _La Pucelle_. There is no monument, however
+fairy-like it might be imagined, that would not be crushed by such a
+frame. Therefore Chaumont suffers by being viewed close at hand, from
+the height of this magic balcony whence the work of divinity reveals
+itself with a splendour that effaces the finest conceptions of man.
+
+The great hall that comes after the anteroom contains nothing
+remarkable but a long chest of carved wood set against the wall, and a
+niche around which are reproduced the names or arms of all the lords of
+Chaumont from Eudes I., Count of Blois, who lived at the close of the
+Tenth Century and who consequently had no arms, to Vincent Walsh, whose
+arms are three lance-heads.
+
+A curtain over a door is raised and we are in the bedchamber of
+Catherine de’Medici. Here the work of restoration is happy and
+sufficiently complete. Here is the bed of the ambitious Florentine, a
+bed with torso columns the carved top of which supports a royal crown.
+On one side is the Queen’s _prie-dieu_ with her Hours open; on the
+other is her toilette-table with her opiate boxes; the whole is framed
+in tapestries of high gloss which give to this chamber the sombre and
+somewhat sinister character that befits it. These curious tapestries
+were certainly made for Chaumont, since we see the Castle reproduced
+in one of their panels. We suppose that they date back to Charles
+d’Amboise who rebuilt Chaumont towards the end of the reign of Louis
+XI., or at least to his son, Marshal Chaumont, the friend and companion
+of Louis XII.
+
+Catherine was in possession of Chaumont for nine years, from 1550 to
+1559, that is to say, during almost the entire reign of her husband.
+This was the difficult and humiliating period of her life; that of her
+struggle with the Constable Montmorency and Diana of Poitiers. The
+curious _bahut_ that is admired in this chamber must have had many
+state secrets concealed in its innumerable drawers, including many
+plots, baffled or prepared, and many formidable projects. This chamber,
+in which Catherine nursed her troubles as a queen and an outraged
+woman, possessed one great advantage for her. She had at hand her two
+guides, her two customary consolations,--Astrology and Religion. By
+that door she could penetrate into the tower where she cast horoscopes
+in company with Ruggieri; by the other one she could enter directly
+into the chapel.
+
+This pretty chapel forms a striking contrast with its neighbouring
+tower. Just in proportion as the chamber in the tower is deaf, cold and
+dumb, and admits a sinister light by its single window, pierced in a
+wall of more than three metres’ thickness, to the same degree is the
+chapel elegant, coquettish and smiling. Windows of bold contours pour a
+flood of rosy light upon the choir, tiled with white faïence sewn with
+blue crosses, producing a charming effect. Pretty bas-reliefs in oak
+upon a gold background form the base of the altar. A tall and fine oak
+chair, carved and emblazoned, which is said to have belonged to Georges
+d’Amboise, stands beside the sanctuary. A red cardinal’s hat, attached
+to the vault, hangs above this arm-chair.
+
+This chapel terminates the edifice most happily. The apartments that
+precede it have seen many masters pass through; they recall many
+perfidies, struggles, and illustrious and unfortunate existences.
+After all this tumult of glorious or withered memories, our mind, like
+our eyes, finds grateful repose in the smiling and calm sanctuary. It
+reaches God by an insensible and natural law of contrast as the sole
+master who has not changed in this abode, the sole guest who has never
+left behind him anything but good memories and consolation.
+
+The Castle of Chaumont, as it has come down to us, is a building of the
+Fifteenth Century. It was erected by Charles Amboise on the ruins of a
+more ancient fortress razed by order of Louis XI. and which itself had
+been built about 1159 on the remains of a strong castle destroyed by
+Thibault V., Count of Blois and Champagne. The first and most ancient
+of these constructions had been built about 908 by Eudes I., Count of
+Blois, the eldest son of the celebrated Thibault the Trickster.
+
+
+
+
+                            WINDSOR CASTLE
+
+                         THE MARQUIS OF LORNE
+
+
+From out the dimness of England’s ancient story, Windsor and
+Winchester, and Camelot and Caerleon are raised aloft, lit with the
+light of the romance of Arthur. Warwick, Dover, and Belvoir, and
+Alnwick and Conway and Caernarvon, the tower of London and again
+Windsor, rise from the times of the Norman dominion. Edinburgh,
+Kenilworth, Penshurst, and Naworth; Carisbrooke, and again Windsor,
+remain in our sight to recall most forcibly the period when “our loyal
+passion for our temperate kings” began to make these castle-landmarks
+of our story scarcer in the land.
+
+Through all the long review of points of time that challenge
+observation, Windsor stands the most enduring and the most majestic of
+the places around which gather the memories of all ages of England’s
+greatness.
+
+In the valley of England’s famous river the Normans built two strong
+towers, that of London and that of Windsor. This stream nursed the
+cradle of Norman power, and saw the renewed birth of English liberty,
+when the stranger-barons, whose fathers subdued England, wrung from
+their king the great charter of the rights of the subject.
+
+No wonder William found the hill a good place, for there is no fairer
+view in England. That from Richmond is not so extensive; and at Windsor
+he possessed besides, a grand forest country for his sports. His men
+could put off their chain-mail and pointed helmets with the straight
+face-guards, and give chase to the red deer, which then abounded all
+over the country, the hunters having no metal about them except the
+sharp, plain Norman spur on their heels, and the iron on the tips of
+their arrows.
+
+Now the distant smoke of the mightiest city in the world can be
+descried on the horizon. In those days so rarely was smoke visible,
+that signals were transmitted by kindling fires at market-places,
+and the clear air knew not the fumes that make the white river-fogs
+dark-yellow in colour, and stifling to breathe. The chequered
+appearance of the nearer landscape, divided by hedgerow and field to
+the north and east, is modern; but to the south and west the woods of
+oak must present much their appearance of the olden days. No engineer
+has altered the river, or been able even to abate its occasional winter
+floods, which turn the banks above Windsor into a shallow lake. The
+further landscape is still what it was. It is still a wooded land.
+There are no sterile patches, no ugly intervals, no naked tracts of
+sand or earth. All is green, and better than in the early days in
+this--that the cheerfulness of peace is on it, and the “stately homes”
+are more frequent, and the villages need no rampart, but expand in
+security, and, it must be added, often with a system of architecture to
+which distance alone can lend enchantment.
+
+  [Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
+
+The Castle was very strong. These keeps were built so that there was
+no chance of a surprise. Massive gates placed in security beyond deep
+ditches were let into the walls, well defended by battlement and
+flanking towers. Drawbridges and portcullises might be forced, but
+there the enemy only found himself at the beginning of his work.
+
+Narrow passages led to other defences, and the keep itself was reached
+by a stair so narrow that one man only could enter at a time.
+
+The walls of the lowest story showed only tiny shot- or loopholes. The
+second story showed more of these, but so narrow that no torch could be
+thrown in. The third story had windows so high in the wall that arrows
+or bolts shot from below could only hit the arch of the opening, to
+fall back harmless.
+
+The top stories were filled with weapons that could throw darts,
+stones, and heavy balls, so assailants could not easily take a Norman
+keep.
+
+The Normans had taste as well as strength, and gradually the whole
+neighbourhood was made more beautiful. During reign after reign the
+kings showered favours on their finest possession.
+
+Around the Keep arose a Central Ward--that is the space outside was
+enclosed with towers and walls and gardens. Then lower down the ridge
+another king built a church, and beyond it again other great towers, as
+the town arose, under the Castle’s shelter and protection. This part
+was again flanked and made strong, and called the Lower Ward. The
+church was dedicated first to St. Edmond, and then to St. George.
+
+But on the other side of the Keep the monarchs built themselves
+something in the way of lodging far better than the small rooms of
+the Keep, for a wide range of palace apartments existed there before
+even the days of the Tudors. These were extended and improved from the
+days of Queen Elizabeth to the days of Queen Victoria. These buildings
+formed the Upper Ward.
+
+The effect of this mass of buildings, dominated by the Round Tower, is
+very fine, and no better example exists of the feudal fortress. Whether
+seen from the river, with the red-roofed houses of the town clustered
+below the great white walls, or from the park, where Windsor rises like
+an enchanted castle above the wide greensward, which is varied with the
+groves of ancient oak and beech, there is nothing to compare with it.
+
+All who speak the English tongue may be equally proud of the palace
+strength of their great forefathers.
+
+Chambers built over castle gateways were often used as prisons for
+those whose lot was not to be made too hard. For the unfortunates who
+were to be severely dealt with, a far more horrible prison was provided
+in the shape of a dungeon with a narrow orifice above, through which
+the victim was let down with cords into a vault, having often no
+windows. Places like this must have soon become foul and fatal to the
+captives.
+
+At Windsor there is a very fair prison above the gateway, through which
+you must pass before entering the great stair that climbs the mound
+of the Keep. Although the windows are narrow they give light enough,
+and on the walls are the names of the men who here, in their durance
+vile, amused themselves by writing their name or making their mark by
+scratches on the stone. Sometimes they added a little tracing of their
+arms.
+
+These small rooms are among the few which remain exactly as they
+existed in the Middle Ages. In other apartments there has been much
+alteration. Most of the ceilings of Verrio are gone, the ancient
+tapestries have been removed, the heavy ornamentation of the times of
+the Georges, and almost all the still ponderous yet better decorations
+of Jacobean times, have disappeared.
+
+But the towers which held celebrated prisoners of State are yet
+pointed out. The two most notable are just under the hill on which
+the great round Keep is built. One of these has been raised high, and
+a very narrow stair communicates with each of its little rooms. Here
+King John of France had many a long hour in which to repent of his
+bad generalship at Poitiers, where the young Black Prince took him
+prisoner. Here he was brought after that ride through the streets of
+London, which must have been to him so humiliating, although he was
+shown much courtesy by his captor.
+
+It was the opposite tower across the Upper Ward, with better
+accommodations that Henry V. of England assigned to the use of the
+young King of Scotland, who had been illegally captured during a time
+of truce. Young James of Scotland’s uncle, the old Duke of Albany,
+was not supposed to be particularly sorry to have his sovereign and
+nephew kept in England, for it gave Albany all power in Scotland. So
+at Windsor James remained for nearly twenty years, becoming expert in
+literature and in knightly exercises.
+
+The English were kind to him, and it was from this building of his
+captivity, now called Edward the Third’s Tower, that he saw his future
+Queen, a daughter of the House of Beaufort, walking in the garden at
+the base of the Keep.
+
+His long residence in England was beneficial to James in many ways,
+and when he was at last allowed to return to his northern kingdom,
+he entered it the most accomplished knight of his time. He was much
+beloved by the English, with whom he managed, when on the throne, to
+keep on fair terms. His reign was illustrious, and worthy of a better
+close than that of the tragic assassination by which it was ended.
+
+We need not think of all the terrible things that have happened at
+Windsor Castle--of prisoners dying by inches in dark dungeons; of men
+mutilated for treason, like the Earl of Eu; of the rare attacks the
+Castle has been called to endure; of the ruin wrought in glorious
+chapel and halls by Cromwell’s soldiery. For Windsor has chiefly been
+associated with the brighter and more cheery events of the national
+life.
+
+Here, more often than in any other royal home, were the joy-bells rung
+for the births and marriages of our princes; although here, too, the
+funeral knell has also been often heard; for it is the tomb, as it is
+the dwelling-place, of the monarchs of England.
+
+The most daring and most romantic of the Constables of the Round Tower,
+the fiery Prince Rupert, made his rooms beautiful with pictures, with
+tapestry, and with ornament. At once an artist and a warrior, such as
+few countries have produced, he lived to see the palace a prey to the
+spoiler.
+
+Earlier as well as later days are recalled by the buildings below,
+which are now devoted to the library. They overlook the Thames and
+England’s great school of Eton. From their windows one gazes across
+the river far below, on the roofs and towers of the college founded by
+Henry VI.
+
+Between the groups of houses and the thickly-scattered trees one may
+catch glimpses of bands of boys in the distance playing football or
+cricket, or rowing on the Thames. The poet Gray, looking on the same
+cheerful scene, wrote gloomily, “Alas! regardless of their doom, the
+little victims play.” Well, they are fortunate victims, and the men who
+have been at school there would gladly live over again the years they
+spent at Eton.
+
+It was in this part of the Castle that Queen Elizabeth lived and moved
+and had her imperious being. It was in a little chamber in a turret
+here that Queen Anne received the despatch from Marlborough wishing her
+joy on the victory of Blenheim. He wrote on a scrap of paper from the
+field, “Your Majesty’s troops have had a great victory, and Marshall
+Tallard is in my coach.” He had, with Prince Eugene, achieved one of
+the most fruitful successes of that reign of victories.
+
+The old look of a fortress has given way to that of the palace, fearing
+no foeman; and long may this be so! But the Castle could be made strong
+against everything save long-range artillery. The walls could contain
+a large force, and its underground apartments have the solidity of
+bomb-proof. Sentries pace its ramparts, and a regiment of guards is
+also at hand.
+
+Nor is it dependent for water on river or outside supply. Not long ago
+a room in the Round Tower was complained of as always cold. The floor
+was taken up, and there lay a vast circular stone with great iron
+rings. By these it was lifted, and a deep, carefully-constructed Norman
+well was discovered, going down to the level of the Thames itself.
+
+The interior of the group of rooms extending from the north side of
+the Norman Gate to the angle at which the red-coated porters await
+visitors, now devoted to a fine library, is not always shown. But
+for those who have leave, a most interesting collection of medals,
+illuminated manuscripts, ancient buildings, and Oriental miniatures,
+is displayed. Handsome Elizabethan chimney-pieces, on one of which the
+great Queen herself is represented, warm the north wall. The windows
+on the other, embayed in presses full of well-arranged literature,
+look out towards that far-off church, the spire of which is easily
+recognised through glass, where Gray wrote his immortal _Elegy_.
+One little room is that in which Queen Anne was sitting when
+Marlborough’s despatch announcing the victory of Blenheim was brought
+to her.
+
+Where the library ends is the first of a set of splendid apartments,
+used only by the public and the greatest sovereigns. Paintings by
+Zuccarelli, who, at his best, is always most pleasing, are hung over
+cabinets containing very beautiful porcelain. Onwards, on the north
+side, room after room can be most profitably examined, for the pictures
+are of particular interest, either on account of their history or their
+art. Formerly the Sovereign’s family lived in this part of the Castle.
+Now they live on the southern side of the Upper Ward, where dwelt in
+other days the great officers of state.
+
+
+
+
+                         THE PALACE OF URBINO
+
+                        JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
+
+
+The sunset was almost spent, and a four days’ moon hung above the
+Western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is
+a fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like
+some castle reared by Atlante’s magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero,
+or palace sought in fairy-land by Astolf winding his enchanted horn.
+Where shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed
+battlemented bulk of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies,
+suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses?
+This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of
+the time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto--or
+more exactly with Boiardo’s epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace
+at Urbino just at the moment when the Count of Scandiano had begun
+to chaunt his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry,
+transmuted by the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint,
+survived as a frail work of art. The man-at-arms of the Condottieri
+still glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumes and
+bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; their velvet
+caps with medals bearing legendary emblems. The pomp and circumstance
+of feudal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of the Gascon or the
+Switzer’s pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions had not begun
+for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII.’s holiday excursion would
+reveal the internal rottenness and weakness of her rival states, and
+the peninsula for half a century to come would be drenched in the blood
+of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, fighting for her cities as their
+prey. But now Lorenzo de’Medici was still alive. The famous policy
+which bears his name held Italy suspended for a golden time in false
+tranquillity and independence. The princes who shared his culture and
+his love of art were gradually passing into modern noblemen, abandoning
+the savage feuds and passions of more virile centuries, yielding to
+luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The castles were becoming courts, and
+despotisms won by force were settling into dynasties.
+
+  [Illustration: THE PALACE OF URBINO, ITALY.]
+
+It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle at
+Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, one
+of the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined
+in himself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And
+these he impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to
+the mediæval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it
+the just embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfect
+analogue of the “_Orlando Innamorato_.” By comparing it with the
+castle of the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas
+at Mantua, we place it in its right position between mediæval and
+Renaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the
+ruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynastic
+under Spain.
+
+The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give
+the building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed
+_loggie_ and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the
+city ramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep
+ravine which separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take
+our station near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can
+appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group it
+forms with the cathedral dome and tower and square masses of numerous
+outbuildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, though baffling
+to a close observer of its details, is one of singular advantage to its
+inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino’s towering eminence, it fronts
+a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits towards the rising
+and the setting sun. There is nothing but illimitable air between the
+terraces and loggias of the Duchess’s apartments and the spreading
+pyramid of Monte Catria.
+
+A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this,
+which Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his
+_Cortegiano_. To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular
+how the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring
+back the antique life, and link the present with the past--a hint,
+perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies
+of the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising
+to the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when
+one of them exclaimed, “The day has broken!” “He pointed to the light
+which was beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon
+we flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which looks
+towards the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of
+rosy hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had
+vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the
+border-lands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though
+a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness,
+and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the
+sweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds.”
+
+Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still
+only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian, and the
+beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the construction,
+was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like the Istrian
+stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel mark with
+wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must have had
+the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in scroll
+or foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves each
+cusp and angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispness and
+the sharpness of a crystal. When wrought by a clever craftsman, its
+surface has neither the waxiness of the Parian, nor the brittle edge
+of Carrara marble; and it resists weather better than marble of the
+choicest quality. This may be observed in many monuments of Venice,
+where the stone has been long exposed to sea-air. These qualities
+of the Dalmatian limestone, no less than its agreeable creamy hue
+and smooth dull polish, adapt it to decoration in dull relief. The
+most attractive details in the palace at Urbino are friezes carved
+of this material in choice designs of early Renaissance dignity and
+grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli Angeli deserves special
+comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, with gilt hair and wings, their
+naked bodies left white on a ground of ultramarine, is supported by
+broad flat pilasters. These are engraved with children holding pots
+of flowers; roses on one side, carnations on the other. Above the
+frieze another pair of angels, one at each end, hold lighted torches;
+and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is carved with two more, flying,
+and supporting the eagle of the Montefeltri on a raised medallion.
+Throughout the palace we notice emblems appropriate to the Houses of
+Montefeltro and Della Rovere: their arms, three golden bends upon
+a field of azure: the Imperial eagle, granted when Montefeltro was
+made a fief of the Empire: The Garter of England, worn by the Dukes
+Federigo and Guidobaldo: The ermine of Naples: the _ventosa_, or
+cupping-glass, adopted for a private badge by Frederick: the golden
+oak-tree on an azure field of Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent
+beneath a block of stone, with its accompanying motto, _Inclinata
+Resurgam_: the cipher, FE DX. Profile medallions of Federigo
+and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible relief, adorn the
+staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze of military engines
+and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of war, alluding to
+Duke Frederick’s profession of Condottiere. The doorways are enriched
+with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthus foliage, honey-suckles,
+ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in all the riot of
+Renaissance fancy.
+
+This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains
+to show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione,
+writing in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that “in the opinion of many
+it is the fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well
+with all things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a
+palace than a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use,
+vessels of silver, the trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold
+and silk, and such-like furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze
+and marble statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of
+all sorts. There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent
+quality to be seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast
+cost a large number of the best and rarest books on Greek, Latin, and
+Hebrew, all of which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them
+the chiefest treasure of his spacious palace.” When Cesare Borgia
+entered Urbino as conqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off
+loot to the value of 150,000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a
+million sterling.
+
+The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in
+its length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How
+shall we reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with
+sound, the splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted
+here? It is not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with
+liveried servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair
+escapes from tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even
+replace the tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again
+the sideboards with their embossed gilded plate. But are these
+chambers really those where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo
+and Castiglione; where Bibbiena’s witticisms and Fra Serafino’s
+pranks raised smiles on courtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, “the
+Unique,” declaimed his verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible
+that into yonder hall, where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone
+on staring desolation, strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war,
+a gilded glittering dragon, and from the daïs tore the Montefeltri’s
+throne, and from the arras stripped their ensigns, replacing those
+with his own Bull and Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for
+Francesco Maria’s wedding-feast and read _Aminta_ to Lucrezia
+d’Este. Here Guidobaldo listened to the jests and whispered scandals
+of the Aretine. Here Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy
+Raphael, cap in hand, took, signed and sealed credentials from his
+Duchess to the Gonfalonier of Florence. Somewhere in these huge
+chambers, the courtiers sat before a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena’s
+_Calandria_ and Castiglione’s _Tirsi_, with their miracles
+of masques and mummers, whiled the night away. Somewhere, we know
+not where, Guiliano de’Medici made love in these bare rooms to that
+mysterious mother of ill-fated Cardinal Ippolito; somewhere, in some
+darker nook, the bastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned
+life of tyranny and license, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a
+traitor’s poignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many men, illustrious for
+arts and letters, memorable by their virtues or their crimes, have
+trod these silent corridors, from the great Pope Julius down to James
+III., self-titled King of England, who tarried here with Clementina
+Sobieski through some twelve months of his ex-royal exile! The memories
+of all this folk, flown guests and masters of the still-abiding
+palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry through. They are but filmy
+shadows. We cannot grasp them, localize them, people surrounding
+emptiness with more than withering cobweb forms.
+
+It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling
+round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and
+the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into
+harmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted
+balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye,
+and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Once
+more imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio ware
+upon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay--the pavement
+paced in these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets--that
+pavement where Monsignor Bembo courted “dear dead women” with Platonic
+phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce culled from
+Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, lifted above
+the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest converse. They
+lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of the balustrade,
+he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing
+with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea,
+broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo’s favourite and
+carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of Rome’s Prefect,
+widow of Venanzio Verano, whom the Borgia strangled. On their discourse
+a tale will hang of a woman’s frailty and a man’s boldness--Camerino’s
+Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor’s stalwart charms. And more will
+follow, when that lady’s brother, furious Francesco Maria della Rovere,
+shall stab the bravo in torch-litten palace-rooms with twenty poignard
+strokes ’twixt waist and throat, and their Pandarus shall be sent down
+to his account by a varlet’s _coltellata_ through the midriff.
+Imagination shifts the scene, and shows in that same loggia Rome’s
+warlike Pope, attended by his cardinals and all Urbino’s chivalry. The
+snowy beard of Julius flows down upon his breast, where jewels clasp
+the crimson mantle, as in Raphael’s picture. His eyes are bright with
+wine; for he has come to gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber and to
+watch the line of lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice
+in his honour. Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a
+conqueror to Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bold
+man, close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved
+in purest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he
+tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand.
+This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young
+wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant’s round
+of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean brained superstition. He
+drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his
+line by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the
+bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of the
+Church reverts Urbino’s lordship, and even now he meditates the terms
+of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort for
+the ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See.
+
+Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us
+at the inn. His horses sleek, well-fed, and rested, toss their heads
+impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a
+sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections,
+and are half-way on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and whir
+of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. There is
+just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We stand bareheaded
+to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. Then the
+open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement.
+
+
+
+
+                            ALNWICK CASTLE
+
+                             CUTHBERT BEDE
+
+
+Alnwick is built on the summit of the southern bank of the Aln,
+on a plateau of five acres of ground, walled round with strong
+fortifications, defended by sixteen towers, and divided into two large
+courtyards, with the Keep in the midst. The Keep is polygonal in form,
+faced by nine towers, and is built round a third, or inner court. We
+have the northern side of the second courtyard, with the Round (or
+Record) Tower; next to that is the abutment, called the Ravine Tower,
+in whose recess is the stone seat called “Hotspur’s Chair,” and between
+which and the Record Tower is “the Bloody Gap,”--a name given to
+that part of the curtain-wall from a breach being there made by the
+Scots during some Border war, in a vain effort to capture the castle.
+Three hundred Scots are said to have fallen there, and the extent of
+“the Bloody Gap” is plainly to be discerned from the variations in
+the masonry. We then come to the Constable’s Tower, and the Postern
+Tower, or Sally Port, and then to the Keep itself, which was protected
+by a low curtain-wall, carried in a semicircle to the Armourer’s
+Tower and the Falconer’s Tower. These are the two towers lately swept
+away (together with their curtain-wall) in order to accommodate the
+arrangements consequent upon the erection of the Prudhoe Tower, for
+which also the two north-western round towers of the Keep were also
+destroyed. One of these towers contains the ancient banqueting-hall of
+the Percies; and the successive sacrifice of these four towers with
+their many interesting evidences of feudal times, in order that the
+modern Italian interior of the castle might not be interfered with,
+has raised a storm of discussion among such distinguished architects
+as Scott, Cockerell, Donaldson, Godwin, Pocock, Ferguson, and Salvin,
+under whom the recently completed works have been carried out, chiefly
+from the designs of Commendatore Canina. These works have been hailed
+with applause, and hailed upon with disapprobation. It is an example
+of one of those Sir Roger de Coverley cases, where much may be said
+on both sides. In the last six years these works have magically
+transformed the interior of the feudal castle of the chivalrous Earls
+of Northumberland (much debased, it is true, by Batty-Langley and
+Strawberry-Hill Gothic) into a Roman palazzo, with the most gorgeous
+and costly decorations of the Renaissance. For six years have two
+hundred workmen been employed in these alterations; much has been done
+at Rome, and much on the spot, especially by the twenty-seven native
+wood-carvers. There are no shams in the decorations; the ceilings
+and cornices are carved, and not cast or moulded: the walnut and
+maple-woods are what they pretend to be; and, to such an extent has
+this Ruskinism “conscientiousness of art” been carried that, in this
+age of _papier-mâché_, _carton-pierre_, gutta-percha, and the
+like, there are several _miles_ of the egg-ornament laboriously
+carved by hand, while a door panel has occupied its carver four months,
+and a shutter-panel, a twelvemonth. This modern sumptuousness of
+decoration is a remarkable contrast to that peculiar species of economy
+imposed upon the proud Percies of three centuries back, when Clarkson’s
+report (in 1567) advised the taking out of the glass windows whenever
+my lord and his friends were not there, and laying them up in safety
+until their return, justifying this economical act by the “decaye and
+waste” of the windows “throwe extreme winds.”
+
+  [Illustration: ALNWICK CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
+
+Next to these now destroyed Armourer’s and Falconer’s Towers, comes the
+Abbot’s Tower (the large corner one), where the abbot had apartments,
+whenever choice or necessity caused him to leave his abbey, snugly
+situated down in the wooded valley by the river-side. Beyond this is
+seen the West Garret, and the outer of “Utter Ward,” with its square
+and octagonal towers, and its advanced barbican, forming a picturesque
+mass of great size and strength, and a noble entrance to a noble castle.
+
+Walking along the parapets from the Round Tower, we pass East Garret.
+Beginning at the left hand, we first come to the Guard House, and the
+Auditor’s Tower, which flank the southern gate. The south wall is then
+continued to the Middle Ward, which, as being the second great entrance
+to the castle, is a building of great size and strength. Over it was
+the chapel, approached from the library,--a noble room that occupied
+the greater part of this block of building--but which has now been
+converted into the private apartments of the Duke and Duchess. This
+block of building divides the two courtyards, and is terminated in the
+Keep, whose two semi-octagonal towers were added, in advance, to the
+old square Norman tower, by the second Lord Percy, about the year 1350.
+
+A series of escutcheons on the upper part of the towers helps us to
+the date of their erection; and though we know not their architect,
+we have full proof that he did his work well, for the towers have not
+needed repairs up to this day, and even a rector’s legal adviser would
+experience some difficulty in awarding dilapidations. The moat and
+drawbridge that guarded the entrance to the Keep have long since passed
+away; but, at the time of my visit, a field-piece, backed up by a
+pyramidal pile of cannon balls, did harmless duty on either side of the
+gateway, and playfully menaced the Auditor’s Tower and the Guard House
+on the opposite side of the courtyard.
+
+The ground-floor of the octagonal towers of the Keep is lighted by
+long arrow slits that admit a thin wedge of light to the wine-cellar,
+on the left hand, and to the chief dungeon, on the right. Each of the
+lodges at the various gates was furnished with dungeons; but this was
+the chief dungeon for the State offenders. Its size is eleven feet four
+inches, by ten feet four inches. In the floor is an iron grating, over
+a pit; and, a light being lowered into this for the depth of eleven
+feet, discloses a horrible grave (worthy of Naples and the dark ages)
+nine feet by eight, into which the wretched prisoner was lowered, or
+shot like a sack of coals. Let us thank Heaven that such a place can
+now only be shown as a curiosity. The breakfast-room was over the
+gateway: we see one of its windows over the mound of the Keep. The
+windows in the first round tower, and the windows in the flat wall to
+the left, lighted the old dining-room. The next round tower contained
+the old drawing-room whose interior shape was that of the ace of clubs.
+A portion of the low curtain-wall is seen at the base of the Keep
+mound; and then, immediately on the right is the postern tower, or
+sally-port. In the lower part was a laboratory; in the upper part, a
+collection of old armour, and a museum of miscellaneous antiquities;
+Roman remains; small cannon, used at the first invention of gunpowder;
+and the old standard bushel of Northumberland, and a chain of several
+links, that could be bound around an arm, like an iron chain, and was
+carved out of a solid block of stone.
+
+Let us now pass between those two great octagonal towers, and up the
+long dark tunnel that will lead us into the heart of the Keep, the
+third, or inner court; the carriages rattle under that dark archway
+with a peculiar dull sound, for its pavement is of wood, as is
+also the pavement of the inner court. It is a polygon, having nine
+sides of various dimensions, besides other little angles, and it is
+about a hundred feet across from the one side to the other; and,
+as it is walled in with high towers on every side, it has somewhat
+of a well-like aspect. Its two great architectural and antiquarian
+curiosities are the Saxon (or Norman, if you are a great stickler for
+this point) mouldings on the inner face of the archway, presenting a
+great diversity of enrichments--and the old draw-well, for the use of
+the castle during a siege. This is built in the thickness of the wall,
+with three pointed arches, surmounted by one large discharging arch, on
+the point of which is a humorous-looking corbel, supporting the figure
+of a priest, who is in the attitude of blessing the water. The old
+axle, with its pegged hand-wheels, still remains, and this interesting
+draw-well has not been interfered with in the recent alterations,
+though the aspect of the Inner Court has been altered by the addition
+of the covered drive.
+
+The limits of this paper do not allow me to say more of Alnwick Castle,
+or to touch upon the varied events that have befallen it and its
+owners, from those early Percy days when--
+
+            “in the Conqueror’s fleet
+    Lord William shipp’d his powers,”
+
+(as one of the family has told us in his ballad of the _Hermit of
+Warkworth_) down to those later times of handsome Hugh Smithson,
+the London apothecary, and his descendants, when, as the American
+poet Halleck sings in that ballad, which is not so well known (in its
+entirety) as it deserves to be:--
+
+    “The present representatives
+    Of Hotspur and his gentle Kate,
+    Are some half-dozen serving-men,
+    In the drab coats of William Penn--”
+
+who will bow you
+
+    “From donjon vault, to turret wall,
+    For ten-and-sixpence sterling.”
+
+I have not space to dwell upon these matters, although there is very
+much to interest us in the records of the Castle and its owners,
+and much for salient anecdote and gossip, not only as to the people
+but also their manners and customs. As, for example, that curious
+manuscript book, dated 1512, which tells us how the fifth Earl and his
+family lived; they had fresh meat from Midsummer to Michaelmas, and
+salt meat for all the rest of the year; how the servants rarely had
+anything else than salt meat, with few or no vegetables (the roast beef
+of Old England being a mere Jack-o’-Lantern to them); how my lord and
+lady had no sheets to their bed, and only washed their tablecloths once
+a month; how they rose at six, breakfasted at seven on a quart of beer,
+a quart of wine, two pieces of salt fish, six red herrings, four white
+herrings, and a dish of sprats--half a chyne of mutton and a chyne
+of boiled beef being added on flesh days; how they dined at ten and
+supped at four, and went to bed at nine; how there were only two cooks,
+with two assistants to provide for a household of two hundred and
+twenty-three, and how the head cook was so great a monarch that when
+he gives an order for the making of mustard it bears this preamble:
+“It seemeth good to us and our council;” how the players at Christmas
+had twenty-pence for every play, and the rockers in the nursery had as
+many shillings each year; how, in the winter, only a peck of coals were
+allowed for each fire, and no fires after Lady-day, except half-fires
+for my lord and lady, and the nursery. There is all this, and very
+much more, that is both curious and interesting, but space, and not
+material, fails me.
+
+Nor can I speak of the out-of-door lions of Alnwick,--the park, the
+gardens, the model farm, the Duchess’s dairy, the ruins of Alnwick
+Abbey, down in the sequestered dell by the river, the ruins of Hulne
+Abbey upon the slope of the hill over against the Castle--Brislee
+Tower, a Strawberry-hill erection eighty feet high, called by Mr.
+Walter White “an elegant structure”; but, in my humble opinion, a
+very hideous affair, and a fit companion to Kew Pagoda; and more
+useful than ornamental, for the summit commands a glorious view;--the
+monument to commemorate the capture of William the Lion, and the cross
+to commemorate the death of King Malcolm. It bears the following
+inscriptions: “Malcolm III., King of Scotland, besieging Alnwick
+Castle, was slain here, Nov. XIII., an. MXCIII.--K. Malcolm’s cross,
+decayed by time, was restored by his descendant, Eliz. Dutchess of
+Northumberland, MDCCLXXIV.” It is distant about three-quarters of a
+mile from the castle, on the opposite side of the river; but, from
+what the ancient chartulary of Alnwick Abbey says, the spot where
+Malcolm died was two or three hundred yards nearer to the castle,
+where Malcolm’s Well now is. Malcolm was ravaging Northumberland with
+fire and sword, and, in due course, laid siege to Alnwick, which was
+stoutly defended by Moroll of Bamburgh. When the garrison could hold
+out no longer, a certain man rode forth to Malcolm, bearing the keys
+of the castle tied to the end of his spear, and presented himself in a
+suppliant posture, as being come to surrender up possession. Malcolm
+advanced to receive the keys, when the soldier pierced him with a
+mortal wound, and, dashing through the swollen river, escaped by the
+fleetness of his horse. Malcolm dropped dead; a panic arose among the
+Scots, and the desperate defenders of Alnwick made a successful sortie,
+and put their enemy to the rout. Prince Edward, Malcolm’s eldest son,
+received mortal wounds in this fight. The old Abbey chronicle says that
+the soldier’s name was Hammond, and the place where he swam the river
+was called “Hammond’s Ford.” But Hector Bœtius has improved the story
+into a legend, and says the soldier’s name was Mowbray, and that he
+pierced Malcolm through the eye, and from that circumstance acquired
+the name of Pierce-eye, and became the founder of the proud family of
+Percy, Earls of Northumberland. A very pretty legend, but somewhat
+damaged by obtrusive facts, especially by that fact that the ancestor
+of the family was that William de Percy, of the town of Percy in Lower
+Normandy, who was one of the Norman chieftains who came over with the
+Conqueror, and whose name is recorded in the rolls of Battle Abbey.
+
+
+
+
+                       THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD
+
+                           J. J. BOURRASSÉE.
+
+
+The name Saint-Cloud involuntarily carries us back to one of the most
+agitated epochs of our history and recalls a scene of savage violence.
+Clodowald, son of Clodomir, King of Orleans, saw his two brothers
+assassinated before his eyes: the executioners were his two uncles.
+The cruel spectacle was never effaced from his memory. Clodowald
+himself cut off his long hair, the emblem of his illustrious origin,
+preferring the humility of the cloister to the splendour of a crown.
+His pious self-abnegation received its reward even in this world. The
+village of Nogent took the name of its patron who was included in the
+list of saints: history has connected the name of Saint-Cloud with
+events that fill the universe. Here Henri III. fell beneath the blade
+of an assassin, and with him the Valois branch ended. Here suddenly
+died, not without suspicions of poison, the witty and brilliant
+Henrietta of England, wife of Louis the Fourteenth’s brother. In this
+same spot Marie Antoinette was preparing the most charming of royal
+residences when the Revolution came to drag her to the scaffold. Here
+the Revolution of Brumaire XVIII. overturned the French republic. In
+1815, the foreigners, with Wellington and Blücher at their head, are
+at Saint-Cloud, where the capitulation of Paris is signed on July
+3d. Here, on July 28th, 1830, Charles X. signs the fatal orders which
+are immediately followed by a new revolution. This prince leaves
+Saint-Cloud on July 30th, at 3 A. M., to go into exile where
+he is to find his tomb.
+
+The purity of the air, the abundance of water, the freshness of
+the landscape and the beauty of the banks of the Seine have always
+attracted the dwellers of Paris to Saint-Cloud. Nobles of the court,
+members of the parliament and men of finance built elegant country
+houses here. The masses, following a tradition which has not yet
+disappeared, went out there to take breath at liberty, to stroll about
+in the shade and to play their gambols.
+
+It must be confessed that at the gates of Paris one could not find
+a more agreeable promenade nor a more attractive dwelling-place.
+Consequently, at the period of our internecine wars, the possession
+of it was bitterly wanted. In 1346 Saint-Cloud was revisited by the
+English, and its inhabitants were so fortunate as to drive them off.
+But in 1358, after the fatal battle of Poitiers, the English took
+the place and pillaged and reduced it to ashes without sparing the
+pleasure-houses established in the vicinity. Under the reign of the
+unfortunate Charles VI., the Armagnacs and Bourguignons alternately
+fell upon the village and ravaged the countryside. These multiplied
+disasters were promptly repaired and the hills of Saint-Cloud again
+adorned themselves with elegant abodes framed in verdure.
+
+  [Illustration: THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD, FRANCE.]
+
+The house that served as the kernel of the royal castle of Saint-Cloud
+first belonged to Jérôme Gonde. He was an Italian who came to
+France in the suite of Catherine de’ Medici. Like several of his
+fellow-countrymen, he succeeded in amassing a considerable fortune
+here. More fortunate than some of them, he kept in favour with the
+Queen Mother. It was in this house, August 1st, 1589, that Henri III.
+was assassinated by Jacques Clément. Devoted servants saluted Henri
+IV. as King of France: he was at Saint-Cloud in the Tillet house. This
+house, the witness of the accession to the throne of the Bourbon line,
+has since disappeared: its site is marked in the gardens of the castle
+by the Tillet alley.
+
+The grandson of Henri IV., so passionate for the grandeur of his house,
+bought Saint-Cloud for Philip of Orleans, his brother, generally
+called _Monsieur_. Various acquisitions were successively made to
+complete this beautiful demesne: the castle was rebuilt by Lepautre,
+and the gardens laid out by Le Nôtre. Saint-Cloud for a long time
+remained the favourite residence of the Dukes of Orleans. Henrietta
+of England with her gay spirit, her beautiful manners, her love of
+_fêtes_, her taste for pomp, her engaging character, her discreet
+advances, and the friendship shown for her by her brother-in-law,
+rendered it the most elegant abode, the centre of the most select
+gatherings, and the palace of decent and delicate pleasures.
+
+Alas! these brilliant entertainments of fashion were very soon to
+be interrupted by a terrible blow which fell suddenly like a clap
+of thunder. Henrietta returned from England whither she had been,
+charged by Louis XIV. with the negotiation of a secret treaty with
+her brother, Charles II. Arriving in the beginning of June, 1670,
+she was quietly resting at Saint-Cloud, when, on the twenty-ninth of
+the same month, suddenly in the castle in the middle of the night the
+terrible cry was heard: “Madame is dying!” and, eight hours later:
+“Madame is dead!” This princess was twenty-six years old. The disease
+declared itself by frightful agony the moment after drinking a glass
+of chicory water. At first she declared that she had been poisoned;
+if she retracted this afterwards, it was under the apprehension of
+the terrible consequences that a false declaration might entail. Her
+suspicions have been shared by historians, who briefly add that Louis
+XIV. was happy to learn that his brother was innocent of this crime.
+
+Monsieur showed his grief by grand funeral ceremonies. What makes the
+memory of these obsequies notable is the funeral oration delivered by
+Bossuet. It is one of the masterpieces of pulpit eloquence.
+
+The tears, feigned or genuine, were scarcely dry before they began to
+think of filling the place left empty by death. The King made overtures
+on this subject to Mademoiselle, daughter of Gaston of Orleans, the
+brother of Louis XIII.; but this princess at that time was occupied
+with a project that became the torment of her life; she wanted to marry
+the Comte de Lauzun.
+
+Four months after the death of the gentle and witty Henrietta of
+England, Monsieur married the Princess Palatine, the daughter of the
+Elector Palatine. A robust German with strongly marked features, an
+enemy to ceremony, detesting entertainments on account of impatience
+with constraint, holding the toilette in aversion because it
+interfered with her usual habits, the Princess Palatine formed a
+complete contrast to the lively and delicate Henrietta. She abjured
+Lutheranism on the eve of her marriage. From this we may judge of
+the changes that followed at first in the customs of the castle of
+Saint-Cloud. But they did not last long. Philip of Orleans loved to
+hold a court and he was anxious to see it constantly filled with
+people who could amuse themselves. High play occurred there and many
+ladies came, who, says Saint Simon, “would scarcely have been received
+elsewhere.” At Saint-Cloud, as at the Palais Royale, there was an
+uninterrupted succession of entertainments. Madame often sulked at the
+company. She spent the greatest part of the day in her cabinet. Her
+husband allowed her every liberty and freely used his own, without
+concerning himself about her in any way.
+
+In 1701, Philip of Orleans, the King’s brother, died at Saint-Cloud.
+The Princess Palatine also breathed her last gasp there. This
+magnificent residence continued to be occupied with the same
+sumptuousness and luxury by the new owners; these were the Duke of
+Chartres who, on his father’s death, took the title of Duke of Orleans,
+and his wife, Mlle. de Blois, daughter of Louis XIV. This princess
+wanted to hold a court there that would do sufficient honour to the
+first prince of the blood. The King approved, provided that she took
+care to gather together a distinguished company free from the confused
+and objectionable mixture that had defiled the society of the late
+Duke of Orleans. The beginnings of this new court were admirable.
+Families of the best positions in the realm crowded into the receptions
+at Saint-Cloud. The drawing-rooms and gardens were filled with
+personages belonging to the most illustrious houses. Since Louis XIV.
+was old and Versailles did not always afford much pleasure, the young
+generation gladly turned to Saint-Cloud where politeness, liberality,
+magnificence, fine manners and an amiable freedom attracted and held
+everybody.
+
+In 1752, Louis Philippe of Orleans, grandson of the Regent, gave a
+splendid _fête_ at Saint-Cloud, a detailed description of which
+was given by the writers of the time with great gusto. It was remarked
+that the populace was admitted to take part in it. This remark, which
+was dwelt on with a kind of affectation, shows the influence of new
+ideas. In 1759, this prince lost his wife, Louise Henriette de Bourbon
+Conti, and in 1773 he secretly married the Marquise de Montesson.
+The latter, desiring a modest abode, induced the Duke of Orleans to
+sell the castle of Saint-Cloud. In 1785, this beautiful residence was
+purchased by Queen Marie Antoinette for six millions. By the Queen’s
+orders numerous changes were made. The new chapel was built at that
+time, and on the site of the old one a staircase of honour was built,
+leading to the grand apartments. Considerable additions were made
+to the buildings by doubling two bodies of outbuildings. The works
+were carried forward rapidly; but events were marching still faster;
+they were not yet completed when the Revolution burst. The palace was
+abandoned; the gardens were reserved for the pleasure of the citizens.
+
+A great political event was soon to happen at Saint-Cloud. After
+horrible and sterile agitation like that of a tempest, the Directory,
+far from healing France of the excesses of anarchy, was impotent,
+and its weakness, not less than the light conduct of the Directors,
+caused it to fall into discredit. All was ready for a new revolution,
+and it came on the 18th of Brumaire (Nov. 9th, 1799). The legislative
+body had been transferred to the castle of Saint-Cloud. The victor of
+Lodi and Arcola, having recently returned from Egypt, was ripe for
+new destinies. Surrounded by a crowd of superior officers determined
+to put an end to the _government of lawyers_, it was necessary
+to act. So he went to Saint-Cloud after having taken his measures in
+Paris.... At the sight of the grenadiers advancing with fixed bayonets,
+the terrified members of the council dispersed in flight through the
+passages, or jumping out of the windows. A new era was about to open;
+Napoleon Bonaparte is nominated First Consul, Consul for ten years,
+Consul for life, and lastly, Emperor.
+
+From the year 1800, the royal residences had been placed at the
+disposal of the new representative of sovereign authority in France,
+and he chose the castle of Saint-Cloud for his summer residence. It was
+here that he received the decree that proclaimed him Emperor of the
+French. Napoleon often came here for repose after his victories. Here,
+in quiet, he planned new conquests, and more especially he elaborated
+those regulations of public administration that, together with the code
+that bears his name, perhaps constitute his best title to glory in the
+eyes of posterity.
+
+In 1810, on April 1st, the marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise was
+celebrated in the chapel of Saint-Cloud. The castle and gardens then
+witnessed rejoicings that seemed as if they could never be saddened by
+any cloud. In 1815, alas! the scene has greatly changed. Saint Cloud
+is invaded by a horde of foreigners. The conqueror wants to dishonour
+the palace of the hero whom Fortune has betrayed. Troops are encamped
+in the gardens; horses are watered in the park fountains. Nothing is
+respected, not even the private chamber of the Empress. A pack of
+hounds is put there; the furniture is soiled and torn books litter the
+floor. A soldier sleeps in his uniform in Napoleon’s bed and amuses
+himself with tearing the imperial draperies with his spurs. Those were
+days of mourning for Saint-Cloud and for France! The capitulation of
+Paris was signed at Saint-Cloud, July 3d, 1813.
+
+Fifteen years later, also in the month of July, another revolution
+chased Charles X. from Saint-Cloud. It was here that that prince signed
+the orders of July 24, 1830. Six days later, the royal family of
+Bourbon was on the road of exile! The government of the Restoration had
+various embellishments done to the palace and gardens of Saint-Cloud.
+We owe to Charles X. the construction of the building for the
+accommodation of the servants of his establishment, as well as a fine
+barracks, situated in the gardens of the lower park, for his bodyguard.
+
+Louis Philippe did not forget Saint-Cloud which recalled youthful
+memories. The apartments were renovated and richly furnished, and new
+distributions still further improved this beautiful residence.
+
+Notwithstanding the considerable works undertaken at different periods,
+it was easy to recognize the modern works from the ancient parts. The
+front on the court of honour was executed after the plans of Gerard;
+the two pavilions were by the architect Lepautre. The apartments of
+Napoleon III. and the Empress were situated on the first story in the
+left wing. Queen Marie Antoinette, the Empress Marie Louise and the
+Duchess of Angoulême occupied this part of the castle. The Apollo
+Gallery, inaugurated by a splendid _fête_ given by Philip of
+Orleans to his brother, Louis XIV., was on the first story of the right
+wing. Under the Directory, this gallery was used for the sittings of
+the council of the _Anciens_. The emperor’s vestibule was in the
+centre of the façade, with the staircase built on the site of the old
+chapel. The internal decoration of the palace was of the greatest
+magnificence; the paintings on the ceilings were by illustrious
+artists, and the furniture, renewed several times, was of rare elegance
+and dazzling richness.
+
+The heir of Napoleon I. was soon to reappear there: it was at
+Saint-Cloud, Dec. 2, 1852, that the Empire was restored.
+
+The palace of Saint-Cloud was burnt during the siege of Paris by the
+German army in 1870–1871.
+
+
+
+
+                            STIRLING CASTLE
+
+                          NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
+
+
+We passed through the outer rampart of Queen Anne; through the old
+round gate-tower of an earlier day, and beneath the vacant arch where
+the portcullis used to fall, thus reaching the inner region, where
+stand the old palace on one side and the old Parliament House on the
+other. The former looks aged, ragged and rusty, but makes a good
+appearance enough pictorially, being adorned all round about with
+statues, which may have been white marble once, but are as grey as
+weather-beaten granite now, and look down from beneath the windows
+above the basement story. A photograph would give the idea of very rich
+antiquity, but as it really stands, looking on a gravelled courtyard,
+and with “Canteen” painted on one of its doors, the spectator does
+not find it very impressive. The great hall of this palace is now
+partitioned off into two or three rooms, and the whole edifice
+is arranged to serve as barracks. Of course, no trace of ancient
+magnificence, if anywise destructible, can be left in the interior. We
+were not shown into this palace, nor into the Parliament House, nor
+into the tower, where King James stabbed the Earl of Douglas. When I
+was here a year ago, I went up the old staircase and into the room
+where the murder was committed, although it had recently been the scene
+of a fire which consumed as much of it as was inflammable. The
+window whence the Earl’s body was thrown then remained; but now the
+whole tower seems to have been removed, leaving only the mullions of
+the historic window.
+
+  [Illustration: STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND.]
+
+We merely looked up at the new, light-coloured freestone of the
+restored tower in passing, and ascended to the ramparts, where we found
+one of the most splendid views, morally and materially, that this
+world can show. Indeed, I think there cannot be such a landscape as
+the Carse of Stirling, set in such a frame as it is,--the Highlands,
+comprehending our friends Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, Ben An, and the whole
+Ben brotherhood, with the Grampians surrounding it to the westward and
+northward, and in other directions some range of prominent objects to
+shut it in; and the plain itself, so worthy of the richest setting, so
+fertile, so beautiful, so written over and over again with histories.
+The silver Links of Forth are as sweet and gently picturesque an object
+as a man sees in a lifetime. I do not wonder that Providence caused
+great things to happen on this plain; it was like choosing a good piece
+of canvas to paint a great picture upon. The battle of Bannockburn
+(which we saw beneath us, with the Gillie’s Hill on the right) could
+not have been fought upon a meaner plain, nor Wallace’s victory gained;
+and if any other great historic act still remains to be done in this
+country, I should imagine the Carse of Stirling to be the future scene
+of it. Scott seems to me hardly to have done justice to this landscape,
+or to have bestowed pains enough to put it in strong relief before the
+world; although it is from the lights shed on it, and so much other
+Scottish scenery, by his mind, that we chiefly see it and take an
+interest in it.
+
+I do not remember seeing the hill of execution before,--a mound on
+the same level as the castle’s base, looking towards the Highlands. A
+solitary cow was now feeding upon it. I should imagine that no person
+could ever have been unjustly executed there; the spot is too much in
+the sight of heaven and earth to countenance injustice.
+
+Descending from the ramparts, we went into the Armoury, which I did
+not see on my former visit. The superintendent of this department is
+an old soldier of very great intelligence and vast communicativeness,
+and quite absorbed in thinking of and handling weapons; for he is a
+practical armourer. He had a few things to show us that were very
+interesting,--a helmet or two, a bomb and grenade from the Crimea;
+also some muskets from the same quarter, one of which, with a sword at
+the end, he spoke of admiringly, as the best weapon in the collection,
+its only fault being its extreme weight. He showed us, too, some Minie
+rifles, and whole ranges of the old-fashioned Brown Bess, which had
+helped to win Wellington’s victories; also the halberts of sergeants,
+now laid aside, and some swords that had been used at the battle of
+Sheriffmuir. These latter were very short, not reaching to the floor,
+when I held one of them point downward, in my hand. The shortness of
+the blade and consequent closeness of the encounter, must have given
+the weapon a most dagger-like murderousness. Hanging in the hall of
+arms, there were two tattered banners that had gone through the
+Peninsular battles, one of them belonged to the gallant 42d Regiment.
+The armourer gave my wife a rag from each of these banners, consecrated
+by so much battle smoke; also a piece of old oak, half-burned to
+charcoal, which had been rescued from the panelling of the Douglas
+Tower. We saw better things, moreover, than all these rusty weapons
+and ragged flags; namely, the pulpit and communion-table of John Knox.
+The frame of the former, if I remember aright, is complete; but one
+or two of the panels are knocked out and lost, and, on the whole, it
+looks as if it had been shaken to pieces by the thunder of his holdings
+forth,--much worm-eaten, too, is the old oak wood, as well it may be,
+for the letters MD (1500) are carved on its front. The communion table
+is polished, and in much better preservation.
+
+Then the armourer showed us a Damascus blade, of the kind that will cut
+a delicate silk handkerchief while floating in the air; and some inlaid
+match-lock guns. A child’s little toy-gun was lying on a work-bench
+among all this array of weapons; and when I took it up and smiled, he
+said it was his son’s. So he called in a little fellow of four years
+old, who was playing in the castle yard, and made him go through the
+musketry exercise which he did with great good-will. This small Son
+of a Gun, the father assured us, cares for nothing but arms, and
+has attained all his skill with the musket merely by looking at the
+soldiers on parade.
+
+Our soldier, who had resigned the care of us to the armourer, met us
+again at the door, and led us round the remainder of the ramparts,
+dismissing us finally at the gate by which we entered. All the time
+we were in the castle, there had been a great discordance of drums
+and fifes, caused by the musicians who were practicing just under the
+walls; likewise the sergeants were drilling their squads of men, and
+putting them through strange gymnastic motions. Most, if not all, of
+the garrison belongs to a Highland regiment, and those whom we saw on
+duty in full costume looked very martial and gallant. Emerging from the
+Castle, we took the broad and pleasant footpath, which circles it about
+midway on the grassy steep which descends from the rocky precipice on
+which the walls are built. This is a very beautiful walk, and affords
+a most striking view of the Castle, right above our heads, the height
+of its wall forming one line with the precipice. The grassy hillside
+is almost as precipitous as the dark grey rock that rises out of it,
+to form the foundations of the Castle; but wild rosebushes, both of a
+white and red variety, are abundant here, and all in bloom; nor are
+these the only flowers. There is also shrubbery in some spots, tossing
+up green waves against the precipice; and broad sheets of ivy here and
+there mantle the head-long rock, which also has a growth of weeds in
+its crevices. The Castle walls above, however, are quite bare of any
+such growth. Thus, looking up at the old storied fortress, and looking
+down over the wide, historic plain, we wandered half-way round the
+Castle, and then, retracing our steps, entered the town close by an old
+hospital.
+
+
+
+
+                      THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS
+
+                           THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
+
+
+When in your caïque upon the Bosphorus you have passed the Tower of
+Leander,[6] you see opposite Scutari an immense, unfinished palace
+that bathes its white feet in the blue and rapid waters. There is a
+superstition in the East, supported by the architects, that no one
+dies while the house he is having built is uncompleted; therefore the
+Sultans always take care to have some palace on hand.
+
+As a rare instance among the Turks, who consecrate solid and precious
+materials to the house of God and erect for the transitory habitation
+of man only wooden kiosks hardly more enduring than himself, this
+palace is all of marble and built for eternity. It is composed of one
+great body and two wings. To say to what order of architecture it
+belongs would be difficult; it is not Greek, nor Roman, nor Gothic, nor
+Renaissance, nor Saracen, nor Arab, nor Turkish; it approaches that
+style which the Spaniards call _plateresco_, and which makes the
+façade of a building resemble a great piece of goldsmith’s work owing
+to the complicated wealth of its ornaments and the maddening mass of
+the details.
+
+  [Illustration: THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS, TURKEY.]
+
+Windows with open-work balconies, small enwreathed columns, ribbed
+trefoils, festooned frames, and intervening spaces crowded with
+sculpture and arabesques, recall the Lombard style and make you think
+of the ancient palaces of Venice; only there is the same difference
+between the Palace Dario or Casa d’oro and the Sultan’s Palace as
+between the Grand Canal and the Bosphorus.
+
+This enormous building of Marmora marble, of a bluish white that seems
+a little cold owing to the sharp glitter from its newness, produces a
+very majestic effect between the blue of the sky and the blue of the
+sea; it will produce a better one when the warm sun of Asia shall have
+gilded it with its rays which are received direct and at first-hand.
+Vignola, doubtless, would not know what to make of this hybrid façade
+where the styles of all periods and all countries form a composite
+order which he did not foresee. But one cannot deny that this multitude
+of flowers, foliage, and rose-work, carved like jewels of precious
+material possesses a tufted and complicated appearance, gorgeous and
+delightful to the eye. It is a palace that might have been made by an
+ornament-worker who was not an architect, and who spared neither the
+work of his hands, nor time, nor money. Such as it is, I prefer it
+to those horrid, classic reproductions, so beastly, so flat, so cold
+and so tiresome, such as are built by pedants and those who like to
+be conventional, and I greatly prefer these gay, ornamental masses of
+foliage interlacing with fantastic elegance, to a triangular pediment
+or a horizontal attic, resting on six or eight lean columns.
+
+This naïve ignorance displayed upon so gigantic a scale has its charm;
+it is probable that the bold builders of our cathedrals knew little
+more, and their works are not the less admirable for that.
+
+Along the whole length of the palace, there runs a platform, bordered
+on the side of the Bosphorus with monumental pillars linked together by
+grilles of beautiful and charming wrought-iron, where the iron curves
+in a thousand flowered arabesques, resembling the flourishes of a bold
+pen sweeping the paper. These gilded grilles form an extremely rich
+balustrade.
+
+The two wings, built at a different period, are very much too low for
+the body of the principal dwelling, with which they have, moreover, no
+harmony of style or form. Imagine a double row of Odéons or Chambers of
+Deputies in miniature, following each other in wearisome alternation
+and presenting to the eye a line of slender little columns that seem to
+be of wood, although they are of marble.
+
+In passing and repassing before this palace, the desire to visit it
+had come to me many times. In Italy nothing would have been simpler;
+but to bring your caïque to an imperial landing-place in Turkey, would
+be a grave performance that might bring serious consequences. Happily,
+through the agency of a friend, I was put into communication with the
+architect, M. Balyan, a young Armenian of great intelligence, and who
+spoke French.
+
+M. Balyan had the kindness to take me in his boat of three pairs of
+oars, and made me enter first an old kiosk, a remnant of the former
+palace, where we were served with pipes, coffee, and sherbet flavoured
+with rose; then he conducted me himself through the apartments with a
+kindness and charming politeness for which I thank him here, hoping
+that one day his eye will fall upon these lines.
+
+The interior has not been entirely finished yet, but, nevertheless, you
+can get an idea of the future splendour of the whole. The religious
+ideas of the Turks debar from their ornamentation a host of happy
+motives and restrict considerably the fancy of the artist, who must
+carefully abstain from mingling with his arabesques the representation
+of any living objects:--thus, there are no statues, no bas-reliefs, no
+masks, no chimæras, no griffins, no dolphins, no birds, no sphinxes, no
+serpents, no butterflies, no little figures half-woman and half-flower,
+no heraldic monsters, and none of those strange creatures that compose
+the fabulous zoölogy of ornamentation, and of which Raphael has made
+such marvellous use in the galleries of the Vatican.
+
+The Arabian style, with its interruptions, distortions and its
+broken lines, its lace of stucco cut out with a punch, its ceilings
+of stalactites, its bee-hive niches, its marble perforated like the
+lid of a perfume-box, its mottos in florid Cufic, and its colourings
+of green, white and red, discretely enhanced with gold, would have
+afforded natural resources for the decoration of an oriental palace;
+but the Sultan, with the same caprice that makes us build Alhambras in
+Paris, wished to have a palace in the modern taste. One is astonished
+at first at his caprice, but, upon reflection, nothing is more natural.
+Having so few motives at his disposition, M. Balyan has needed a rare
+fertility of imagination in order to decorate in different ways more
+than three hundred halls or chambers.
+
+The general arrangement is very simple: the rooms follow each other in
+succession, or open upon a large corridor; the harem, among others,
+is so arranged. The apartment of each woman opens by a single door
+into a vast passage, like the cells of nuns in a cloister. At each
+end, a guard of eunuchs, or _bostangis_, can be posted. From the
+threshold, I threw a glance over this retreat of secret pleasure, which
+resembles a convent or a boarding-school much more than one would
+imagine. Here are extinguished, without having shone upon the outside
+world, the stars of beauty unknown, but the eye of the master has
+rested upon them, for one minute perhaps, and that is enough.
+
+The apartment of the Sultana-Validé, composed of lofty rooms looking
+upon the Bosphorus, is remarkable for its ceilings painted in fresco
+with an incomparable elegance and freshness. I do not know who are
+the workmen that made these marvels, but Diaz would not find upon
+his palette finer, more vaporous, more tender and, at the same time,
+richer tones. Sometimes they are skies of turquoise sown with light
+clouds floating in incredible depths, sometimes immense lace veils of
+marvellous figures, then a great shell of mother-of-pearl irised with
+all the hues of the prism, or still again of imaginary flowers hanging
+their corollas and leaves upon golden trellises; other chambers are
+similarly ornamented; sometimes a casket whose jewels are scattered
+about in playful disorder, necklaces whose pearls have broken from
+their strings and roll about like raindrops, a rillet of diamonds,
+sapphires and rubies forming the _motif_ of the decoration; golden
+boxes painted upon the cornices allow the bluish smoke of perfumes
+to escape and compose a ceiling with their transparent haze. Here
+Phingari through a rift in the cloud shows his silver crescent, so
+dear to the Mussulman; there modest Aurora colours a morning sky with
+rose, like the cheeks of virgin; farther away a large piece of brocade
+streaked with light glittering like cloth of gold, and held up by a
+clasp of carbuncles, reveals a corner of blue. Arabesques with infinite
+interlacings, sculptured compartments, golden rose-work, and bouquets
+of imaginary or real flowers, blue lilies of Iran, or roses of Schiraz,
+come to vary these themes, the chief of which I have cited, without
+attempting to enter into impossible details, and which the imagination
+of the reader must supplement.
+
+The Sultan’s apartments are in the style of Louis XIV. Orientalized,
+where one feels an intentional imitation of the splendours of
+Versailles, the doors, the windows, and their frames are of cedar,
+mahogany, massive violet-ebony, exquisitely carved, and fastening
+by rich bolts gilded in ormoulu. From the windows you have the most
+marvellous view in the world: a panorama without a rival, and such as
+never sovereign had before in front of his palace. The coast of Asia,
+where upon an immense curtain of black cypress Scutari stands out, with
+its picturesque landing-place crowded with vessels, its pink houses,
+its white mosques among which are distinguished Buyuck-Djami and
+Sultan-Selim; and the Bosphorus with its rapid and transparent waters
+furrowed with the perpetual going and coming of the sailing-vessels,
+steam-boats, feluccas, prames, boats from Ismid and Trebizond, with
+antique shapes, peculiar sails, canoes, and caïques, above which fly
+the familiar swarms of sea-mews and gulls. If you lean out a little,
+you can discern upon the two shores a succession of summer homes and
+kiosks, painted in flesh colours that form a double key of palaces
+for this marvellous marine river. Add to this the thousand accidents
+of lights, the effects of sun and moon, and you will have a spectacle
+which imagination could not surpass.
+
+One of the peculiarities of the palace is a large hall roofed with a
+dome of red glass. When the sun shines through this dome of rubies,
+everything assumes strange hues; the air seems to be in flames, and you
+seem to breathe fire; the columns seem like torch-lights, the marble
+pavement reddens into a floor of lava; a pink fire devours the walls;
+you fancy yourself in the reception-hall of a palace of salamanders
+built of metal in fusion; your eyes glitter like red spangles and your
+clothes become vestments of purple. An operatic hell, lighted with
+Bengal fire, can alone give an idea of this peculiar effect, of a
+questionable taste, perhaps, but very striking, nevertheless.
+
+A little marvel which would not mar the most fairy-like architecture of
+the Thousand and One Nights, is the Sultan’s hall of baths. It is in
+the Moorish style, of veined Egyptian alabaster, and seems to have been
+cut out of one block of precious stone, with its columns, its splayed
+capitals, its heart-shaped arcades, and its ceiling constellated with
+crystal eyes that shine like diamonds. To what luxury might the body
+abandon itself upon these flags, transparent as agates, surrendering
+its flexible limbs to the skilful manipulations of the _tellacks_
+in the midst of a cloud of perfumed vapour and under a shower of
+rose-water and balsam!
+
+Tired of these marvels and fatigued with admiration, I thanked M.
+Balyan, who made me come out through the court of honour, the gate
+of which is a kind of triumphal arch of white marble of a very
+rich and florid ornamentation, and which forms on the land side an
+entrance quite worthy of this sumptuous palace. Then, as I was dying
+of hunger, I went into a fruiterer’s shop and was served with two
+_brochettes_ of _kabobs_, wrapped in a thick pancake, which
+I moistened with a glass of sherbet,--a very sober and entirely local
+repast.
+
+
+
+
+                           PLESSIS-LES-TOURS
+
+                           J. J. BOURRASSÉE
+
+
+The castle of Plessis stands to the west of the city of Tours in a vast
+plain watered by the Loire and Cher. To reach it, you follow a road
+bordered with old mulberry-trees, the remains or heirs of those planted
+by Henri IV. in 1607, and renewed in 1690 by Louvois. Impressed by
+the terrible memories of Louis XI., turn not your head towards those
+trees to look for those hanged by Messire Tristan L’Hermite. Neither be
+afraid of finding beneath your feet those man-traps that were planted
+in the vicinity of the Castle to catch the curious and the rustics
+who ventured upon the lands of His Majesty. To-day the country is
+safe and there is nothing to be feared from the Castle, even if it is
+not attractive; but, in the Fifteenth Century, a safe-conduct and an
+experienced guide were necessary for crossing this dangerous region.
+
+Plessis did not play any part in our national history until the reign
+of Louis XI. Until then, it was only an obscure lordship with a little
+castle on one of those rocky hillocks that still exist in the vale.
+This spot pleasing him much more than the castles of Amboise, Loches,
+or Chinon, the King bought it from his chamberlain, Hardouin de Maillé,
+in 1463, for the sum of 5,500 gold crowns, and abolished its old name
+of Montils. Here he built a castle in the Fifteenth-Century taste,
+simple and even severe, for brick largely figured in it, and with a
+glass gallery on the interior façade: a dwelling more worthy of a rich
+citizen than a King of France. Here, after his accession, Louis XI.
+spent the greater part of his life.
+
+Towards the end of the year 1464, the King gathered together the
+prelates and principal lords of the realm at Plessis with the pretext
+of seeking their advice as to the means of remedying the discontent
+that was beginning to break out. In this assembly, Charles, Duke of
+Orleans, thought it his duty to hazard a few remonstrances; but Louis
+XI. replied to the duke in such harsh and offensive language that the
+unfortunate prince died of chagrin at Amboise a few days later. This
+attitude of the King drew the nobles into the League of Public Welfare,
+and the Duke of Berri placed himself at the head of the discontented.
+In order to try to calm them, the King was obliged to call together the
+States-General at Tours in 1468.
+
+  [Illustration: PLESSIS-LES-TOURS, FRANCE.]
+
+The opposition of the nobles drove Louis XI. towards the middle
+classes, not that he had the least democratic tendencies, but because
+he felt more at ease among these small people, whose situation rendered
+them supple and easy. He always liked to have them about him, and
+raised them to the highest dignities, in hatred and defiance of the
+high nobility, because they were broken into the practice of affairs
+by commerce, and possessed the art, always prized by governments, of
+managing the finances skilfully and creating resources at critical
+moments. His selections were not always happy: witness La Balue,
+whom from a simple clerk he raised to the rank of bishop and even
+cardinal, and who betrayed him to the profit of the Duke of Burgundy.
+Louis XI., carrying a certain refinement of cruelty even into his most
+legitimate vengeance, had the cardinal confined in an iron cage. It is
+said that this odious invention was due to La Balue himself, and that
+he was the first on whom it was tried. After languishing for some time
+in one of the cells at Plessis, the cardinal was transferred to Loches
+and then to Montbazon: he did not recover his liberty till 1480, after
+a long and hard captivity.
+
+Notwithstanding the success of his policy, Louis XI. had a sad and
+morose old age. Separated from his wife and son, more suspicious of
+everybody than ever, he shut himself up closely at Plessis and there
+redoubled his minute precautions. But two terrible guests whom the
+“guard that keeps watch at the barriers of the Louvre” can never stop,
+disease and death, soon came to seek him. When he felt the first pangs
+of the disease that was to carry him off, he multiplied his vows, acts
+of devotion and pilgrimages. Then he sent and fetched all the way from
+Calabria a poor hermit named Francisco Paolo, with the hope that the
+holy man’s prayers would obtain his recovery. As soon as the King was
+informed of his arrival, he ordered the Dauphin to go to meet him with
+the chief lords of the court and to receive him with all the respect
+due to so saintly a personage; he himself did not think he could do
+the saint too much honour and lodged him with his companions in the
+castle; but dwelling in the court ill suited the pious hermit and so
+they gave him a lodging in the Plessis courtyard. So many precautions
+and so many prayers failed to bend Heaven; even the holy ampulla was
+powerless. Louis XI. died at the Castle of Plessis, August 30th,
+1483, aged sixty, after reigning twenty-two years. His body was first
+taken from Plessis to the church of St. Martin of Tours, where it lay
+in state for eight days; then it was taken to Notre Dame de Cléry,
+the spot which he himself had chosen for his burial. St. Francis had
+not been able to perform the miracle of curing the King; but he had
+prepared him for his approaching death, and it must be acknowledged
+that with a man like Louis XI. this was no small prodigy.
+
+On the death of Louis XI. the court was installed at Plessis for some
+time. The Dauphin Charles, born at the Castle of Amboise in 1470,
+had reached his legal majority; but intelligence was very slightly
+developed in this puny and deformed child. His sister, Anne de Beaujeu,
+“fine and subtle, if any one ever was,” says Brantôme, “and the very
+image of her father in everything,” unhesitatingly took the regency,
+and, to resist the malcontents who wanted to deprive her of it, she
+convoked the States-General at Tours for January 1st, 1484. This
+celebrated assembly gave firm and vigilant attention to all the affairs
+of the realm and obtained quite a sensible reduction of taxes.
+
+Amid the shock of intrigues and diverse ambitions, the lady of Beaujeu
+conducted herself with so much address and prudence, that the States
+confirmed the last wishes of Louis XI. in her favour.
+
+The little King, as he was called, was not long in shaking off his
+sister’s yoke, and began his reign with an act of magnanimity by
+himself going in despite of his council and breaking the chains of
+the Duke of Orleans. Since the battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, that
+prince had been confined in the great tower of Bourges. One evening
+with a small suite the young King set out, or rather fled, from the
+Castle of Plessis under the pretext of a hunting-party, and went to
+free his prisoner. The Regent thought that Charles VIII. was going to
+return at the head of her enemies to proscribe her in turn. Happily she
+was mistaken. The reconciliation took place at Plessis, and from that
+day Louis of Orleans became the most faithful subject of his King.
+
+The Castle of Plessis was a fortunate place for the Duke of Orleans.
+After the death of Charles VIII., he was proclaimed King under the
+title of Louis XII. and visited Touraine several times and stayed at
+the castle where his reconciliation with Anne de Beaujeu had been
+effected. There he convoked the States General in 1506, and the
+opening of this assembly took place in the great hall of Plessis on
+the fourteenth of May. The purpose of this assembly was to free the
+King’s word and by the intervention of the nation to break the treaty,
+impolitic as well as onerous to France, that had been signed at Lyons
+in 1503 and by which Louis XII. had promised to give his daughter
+Claude, then only seven years of age, in marriage to Charles of
+Luxembourg, who afterwards became the Emperor Charles V. and to whom
+she was to take as a dowry the duchies of Milan and Brittany and the
+county of Blois. It was a veritable dismemberment of France and the
+ruin of that wise policy which by the two marriages of the Duchess
+Anne with Charles VIII. and Louis XII. had secured Brittany to France.
+The States rose in force against the treaty and demanded the marriage
+of François of Valois, then twelve years old, with Claude of France.
+These wishes were favourably received, and Cardinal Georges d’Amboise
+proceeded to the ceremony of betrothal on the twentieth of May, in the
+great hall of Plessis.
+
+Beginning with Francis the First, the court made only rare appearances
+at Plessis: the more splendid castles of Chenonceaux, Amboise, Blois,
+Chambord, and Fontainebleau received the preference. Henry III.,
+however, when tossed about by events, found himself there; and when
+Paris embraced the cause of the League, he transferred his little court
+thither in 1589. Mayenne followed to attack him. The King of Navarre,
+who had recently signed a truce with Henry III., hastened to help him,
+and set his troops in battle array on the right bank of the Loire near
+Saint Cyr. Thence he sent to say that if His Majesty would deign to
+come as far as the faubourg, he would kiss His Majesty’s hands and take
+his orders. Henry III., not thinking it wise to go, invited the King
+of Navarre to pass the Loire and come to visit him at Plessis. Some of
+the Huguenot captains feared a snare; but the Béarnais, as loyal as
+he was brave, did not hesitate for a moment and set out accompanied
+by his nobles. The interview took place in the great alley of the
+park of Plessis, and the crowd was so great that the two kings, with
+outstretched arms, had great trouble to approach each other. At last,
+having embraced, they mutually exchanged evidences of the most sincere
+affection. This touching scene occurred amid the liveliest acclamations
+of the public, who saw in this reconciliation of the two princes the
+end of the evils of the civil war. The two kings afterwards held a two
+hours’ council, and, when the King of Navarre departed, Henry III.
+accompanied him as far as the St. Anne bridge.
+
+This was the last memorable event that occurred at Plessis.
+Pre-occupied with the ever-increasing political importance of Paris,
+Henry IV. left Touraine for good, and transported his court to the
+capital, so as to be at hand to supervise and direct its movements.
+
+For a century and a half, the royal garden of Plessis, under the
+management of able gardeners, has been the most active and fruitful
+school of French horticulture. Here have been produced the “good
+Christian pear,” the Queen Claude plum dedicated to the wife of Francis
+the First, and doubtless a host of other excellent fruits and charming
+flowers. In the Seventeenth Century, the gardens were abandoned, or
+transformed into mulberry nurseries: they no longer gave impulse
+to local horticulture, but they contributed in another way to the
+prosperity of the province. From 1744 to 1762, the Plessis nurseries
+distributed not less than four hundred thousand feet of mulberry trees
+in Touraine, and which gave a vigorous impulse to the silk industry.
+The castle underwent a new transformation in 1778, became a place of
+confinement for vagrants. Finally, it was alienated in the Revolution
+and partly demolished. By the cruel irony of Fate, the terrible abode
+of Louis XI. has become a depot for fertilizers!
+
+
+
+
+                         HAMPTON COURT PALACE
+
+                              ERNEST LAW
+
+
+Among the many places of interest that lie within easy reach of London,
+there is none, if we except Windsor Castle, that can be held to vie in
+historic and artistic charms with the Queen’s magnificent palace at
+Hampton Court.
+
+Nowhere else do we meet with attractions so uncommon, and yet so
+varied, as those which are to be found within its precincts. There we
+may behold a building, which still remains, altered and restored though
+it has been, an almost perfect specimen of Tudor palatial architecture,
+side by side with the best example existing in England of the debased
+classic of Louis XIV., namely Wren’s State Apartments. There, too, we
+may feel, in a more than ordinary degree, amid its red-brick courts,
+solemn cloisters, picturesque gables, towers, turrets, embattled
+parapets, and mullioned and latticed windows, that indescribable charm
+which invests all ancient and historic places. While walking through
+Wolsey’s courts we may recall the splendour and wealth of the mighty
+Cardinal; and while standing in Henry VIII.’s chapel, or his gorgeous
+Gothic hall, ponder on the many thrilling events within the palace
+in the days of the Tudors and Stuarts--the birth of Edward VI. and
+the death of Jane Seymour; the marriages of Catherine Howard and
+Catherine Parr; the honeymoons of Philip of Spain and Mary Tudor, and
+of Charles II. and Catherine of Braganza; James I.’s conference with
+the Puritans; and Cromwell’s sojourn here in almost regal splendour.
+And while passing through William III.’s splendid suite of rooms, with
+their painted ceilings, carved cornices, tapestried and oak-panelled
+walls, we may mentally people them again with the kings and queens,
+and statesmen and courtiers, who thronged them in the last century.
+Moreover, by the aid of an unbroken series of historical pictures and
+portraits, illustrative of three centuries of English history, we may
+recall the past with a vividness that no books can ever excite.
+
+And then, when satiated with art and archæology, we can relax the
+mind by wandering beneath the shade of Queen Anne’s stately avenues
+of chestnut and lime; strolling in the ever delightful gardens where
+Wolsey paced in anxious meditation a few weeks before his fall;
+where Henry VIII. made love to Anne Boleyn and to Catherine Howard;
+along the paths where Queen Elizabeth took her daily morning walk;
+past the tennis-court where Charles I. played his last game on the
+day he escaped from the palace; beneath the bower where Queen Mary
+sat at needlework with her maids of honour; along the terrace to the
+bowling-green and pavilions where George II. made love to Mrs. Howard
+and Mary Bellenden; under the lime-groves which sheltered from the sun
+Pope and Hervey, Swift and Addison, Walpole and Bolingbroke.
+
+  [Illustration: HAMPTON COURT PALACE, ENGLAND.]
+
+Yet, strange to say, though Hampton Court is so rich in historic
+associations, it has found no writer to investigate and chronicle
+its past. Any one curious as to its history must make researches for
+himself, or be content with the scanty and often misleading information
+supplied in old country histories and topographical works.
+
+In the same way its architecture, which is particularly characteristic
+of the Tudor period, and in many points most unique and instructive to
+the student of ancient manners, has to a great extent been overlooked
+in books where these topics are treated of.
+
+The whole domain, consisting now of about 1,900 acres, has been
+divided, probably ever since Saxon times, into two parts by the highway
+from Kingston and Hampton Wick to Hampton, which passes in front of
+the garden gates, within 250 yards of the palace. To the north of this
+road lies Bushey Park, which, with its appurtenances, is fringed on
+its western, northern, and eastern sides by the districts of Hampton,
+Teddington, and Hampton Wick; while to the south of the Kingston road
+lies the House or Home Park, bounded on its three sides by the Thames
+and the palace, with its various subsidiary buildings, courtyards,
+gardens, and grounds.
+
+The natural features of the country in which Hampton Court is situated,
+are not particularly striking. The ground is flat, with scarcely an
+undulation rising more than twenty feet above the dead level, and
+the soil, though light and gravelly, supports very little indigenous
+timber. Indeed, in primeval times, the whole district of Hampton
+appears to have been an open track, forming part of the famous Hounslow
+Heath, to which it immediately adjoins; and the thorns in Bushey Park,
+with a few ancient gigantic elms and oaks in the Home Park, are the
+still surviving remnants or traces of its original state. One of the
+oaks, which is believed to be the largest in England, is as much as
+thirty-seven feet in girth at the waist; and there is a magnificent
+elm, of which the smallest girth is twenty-three feet, and which is
+known as “The Two Sisters,” or “King Charles’s Swing.”
+
+Nevertheless, the surrounding prospect must, from the earliest times,
+have been not unpleasing. The stretch of the river opposite Hampton
+Court--studded with eyots, and bordered with luxuriant meadows fringed
+with willows--is one of the prettiest in the lower Thames; and the
+stream, which is particularly clear and swift at this point, is always
+lively with boats and barges. When we add, that the view from the
+palace extends, across the river, over a wide expanse of
+
+    “Meads forever crowned with flowers,”
+
+clusters of trees, flowery hedgerows, and broad undulating heath-clad
+commons,--
+
+    “To Claremont’s terraced height and Esher’s groves,
+    By the soft windings of the silent Mole,----”
+
+and that in the distance can be traced the dim blue outline of the
+Surrey hills; while on another side appear the crowded gables and the
+picturesque old church-tower of Kingston, we have enumerated all the
+natural and local amenities of Hampton Court.
+
+Several motives probably weighed with Wolsey in fixing on Hampton
+Court as a residence. In the first place, he was in need of a secluded
+country place, within easy access of London, whither he could withdraw
+occasionally for rest and quiet, without being too far from the centre
+of affairs--as he would certainly have been, had he retired to his
+diocesan palaces of York, Lincoln, or Durham. At the same time he
+was anxious to select a place where his health, which suffered much
+from the fogs and smoke of London, might be recruited in fresh and
+pure air. We may presume, too, that he was not regardless of the
+advantage attaching to a site on the banks of the Thames, in days when,
+on account of the badness and danger of the roads, no route was so
+safe, convenient and expeditious as the “silent highway” of a river.
+Indeed it would take Wolsey scarcely more time to be rowed down, by
+eight stout oarsmen from Hampton Court to the stairs of his palace at
+Whitehall, than it now takes one to go up to Waterloo Station by the
+South Western trains.
+
+Wolsey had no sooner entered into possession of Hampton Court, than he
+began with characteristic energy to plan the erection of a vast and
+sumptuous edifice, commensurate with the dignity and wealth he had just
+attained to. He was then on the threshold of his career of greatness,
+and already receiving enormous revenues.
+
+The old manor-house already stood in the midst of an extensive domain
+of pasture land, consisting of some two thousand acres. All this he
+proceeded to convert into two parks, fencing them partly with paling,
+and partly enclosing them with a stout red-brick buttressed wall,
+a great part of which remains to this day, and may be identified by
+its deep crimson colour, toned here and there with chequered lines of
+black, burnt bricks. There may be found, too, inserted in this wall
+of Wolsey’s, in the Kingston road near the Paddock, a curious device
+of these black bricks, disposed in the form of a cross evidently an
+allusion to his ecclesiastical character; and similar crosses may be
+observed on an old tower, standing near a piece of ground which was
+formerly the Cardinal’s orchard, and on one of the turrets in the Clock
+Court. At the same time he surrounded the house and gardens with a
+great moat--a precaution which is noticeable as the mediæval custom of
+so defending dwelling-places had generally died out, since the Wars of
+the Roses, and Wolsey’s moat here must have been one of the last made.
+It remained as a prominent feature in front of the palace till the time
+of William III., and traces of it still exist on the north side of the
+palace.
+
+His gardens, also, were to be an appanage in every way worthy of the
+princely residence he was projecting.
+
+The general plan and scope of the building were, no doubt, determined
+by the Cardinal himself, whose style was so distinct, both in this
+palace and in his other edifices, from the ordinary ecclesiastical
+Gothic, as to be often designated by the term, “The Wolsey
+Architecture.”
+
+The material selected was red brick, stone being employed for the
+windows, the doorways, the copings of the parapets and turrets, the
+string courses, and the various ornamental details--such as pinnacles,
+gargoyles, and heraldic beasts, on gables and elsewhere.
+
+The first portion taken in hand was, doubtless, the great west front
+of the building, which extends, with its two wings, from north to
+south, 400 feet. This façade, though only two stories in height, has
+considerable beauty about it, and the picturesque turrets at the angles
+of the building, the embrasured parapet, the chimneys of carved and
+twisted brick, the graceful gables with their gargoyles and pinnacles,
+and the varied mullioned windows, form an admirable specimen of
+Tudor domestic architecture. It still preserves much of the charm of
+old work, although it has frequently been subjected to repairs and
+alterations; but the effect is marred by the absence from the numerous
+turrets of the leaden cupolas (or “types” to use the correct old
+English term) which, with their crockets, pinnacles, and gilded vanes,
+formerly gave so uniquely picturesque an appearance to this part of the
+building.
+
+An especially striking feature in Wolsey’s west front, as in other
+parts of the Tudor building, is the delicately moulded forms of the
+chimney shafts which rise in variously grouped clusters, like slender
+turrets above the battlements and gables. They are all of red brick,
+constructed on many varieties of plan, and wrought and rubbed, with the
+greatest nicety, into different decorative patterns. Some are circular,
+some square (but set diagonally), and some octagonal; and they are
+grouped together in twos or fours, with their shafts sometimes carried
+up solid, and sometimes separate.
+
+Another charm is the deep crimson of the bricks, approximating often
+to a rich purple, which contrasts favourably with the staring scarlet
+of modern red-brick work. This is particularly the case in the south
+or right-hand wing, one of the most picturesque portions of the whole
+palace.
+
+By the month of May, 1516, the building had so far advanced that Wolsey
+was able to receive the King and Queen at dinner in his new abode. This
+was a time when Henry delighted to honour with his company his “awne
+goode Cardinall,” as he termed him, at pleasant little entertainments,
+when he could throw off the restraints of royalty, and join in
+unconventional intercourse with his personal friends. During dinner or
+supper the minstrels usually played music, and afterwards the King and
+a few intimate friends took part in a masquerade or an impromptu dance.
+Sometimes he “would oblige the company with a song,” accompanying
+himself on the harpsichord or lute. At other times the King would visit
+the Cardinal in state accompanied by his whole court.
+
+After Wolsey’s return from the meeting at the “Field of the Cloth of
+Gold,” in 1520, he appears to have made more prolonged stays than
+heretofore at Hampton Court, which had now nearly arrived at that stage
+of completion in which he left it. We are not able exactly to define
+the limits of the Cardinal’s palace, for after his death Henry VIII.
+carried out many alterations and additions, which in their turn have
+been subsequently modified; but we can form a rough idea of its extent.
+We have already noticed the West Front as being entirely Wolsey’s; the
+same may be said of the First Court, otherwise called the Base Court,
+or Utter (that is _Outer_) Court, which is the largest courtyard
+in the palace, being 167 feet from north to south, and 142 from east
+to west. It gives us no mean idea of Tudor palatial architecture; and
+when we restore in imagination the green turf which originally covered
+the area, the cupolas on the turrets, and the latticed windows, we
+see it as it appeared to the great Cardinal when riding through it on
+his mule. It has a look of warmth and comfort and repose, and an air
+of picturesque gloom which is in pleasing contrast with the staring
+vulgarities of the “cheerful” cockney buildings of the present day.
+
+The Clock Court, access to which is had from the First Court through
+the archway of the Clock Tower, formed the inner and principal part of
+Wolsey’s original palace; but the alterations that it has undergone
+since his time cause it to present a very different appearance now. In
+the first place, the present Great Hall, which occupies the whole of
+its north side, though often called Wolsey’s hall, was not erected by
+him, but, after his death, by Henry VIII., though it doubtless stands
+on the site of the smaller and older hall of the Cardinal’s building.
+Then half of the east side of the court was rebuilt by George II.,
+while the original south range is almost entirely obscured from view by
+the Ionic colonnade of Sir Christopher Wren. Here, however, we are in
+one of the most interesting corners of Hampton Court; for behind this
+colonnade remains the original range of buildings in which are situated
+the very rooms occupied by Cardinal Wolsey himself.
+
+Attached to this corner was one of the Cardinal’s galleries, in which
+he used to pace, meditating on his political plans, on his chances for
+the popedom, and on the failing favour of the King. To this, which must
+have been demolished by William III., and to the other long galleries
+in the First Court, Cavendish makes reference in his metrical life of
+his master:
+
+    “My gallories were fayer, both large and long
+    To walk in them when that it lyked me best.”
+
+On the north side of the last two mentioned courts is a long intricate
+range of buildings, enclosing various smaller courts, and containing
+kitchens and other offices and bedrooms for the numerous members of
+his household. Much of this part of the building, together with the
+cloisters and courts to the north-east, called the Round Kitchen and
+Chapel Courts, seem also to have been the work of the great Cardinal.
+The chapel, however, was remodelled, if not entirely rebuilt, by Henry
+VIII., though we may assume that it occupies the same site as that of
+Wolsey and the ancient one of the Knights Hospitallers, whose tombs
+perhaps lie beneath the kitchens and other offices contiguous to the
+Chapel Court.
+
+When, therefore, we take into consideration William III.’s demolitions,
+which included some of the Cardinal’s original structure as well as
+Henry VIII.’s additions, we may conclude that Wolsey’s palace cannot
+have been very much smaller than the existing one, which covers eight
+acres, and has a thousand rooms.
+
+
+
+
+                       THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN
+
+                          BHOLANAUTH CHUNDER
+
+
+Our next excursion was to the Fort, or Palace of Shah Jehan, which
+resembles a city on a miniature scale. In circuit, the high red walls
+encompassing it are a mile and a half. The space enclosed is 600,000
+yards. There is no wall on the river-face. Bernier’s account holds true
+to the present day, so far as the walls are five to six feet thick,
+forty to fifty feet high, and flanked with turrets and cupolas at
+intervals, similar to those on the walls of the city. They are built of
+granite, but possess no more the beauty of polished marble. The wide
+and deep moat round the walls, that he describes as full of water,
+and abounding with fish, is now all dry--the freestone pavement being
+beat upon by the sun. No longer, also, beyond the moat, are there any
+gardens extending to the skirts of the royal abode.
+
+Facing the _Nowbut-Khanna_ on the inside about a hundred and
+twenty yards distant, is the first suite of the royal buildings, styled
+the _Dewanni-anum_, or the hall of public audience. The ranges
+of two-storied buildings, once about this place, with their walls and
+arches adorned with a profusion of the richest tapestries, velvets,
+and silks, have all disappeared. The _Dewanni-anum_ of Shah Jehan
+is considerably larger and loftier than the building of the same name
+at Agra. It is a quadrangular hall, open at three sides, the roof of
+which is supported upon four rows of tall redstone pillars, formerly
+ornamented with gilt arabesque paintings of flowers, but now covered
+with the eternal whitewash. The building was now occupied by the
+troops, and it was a great disappointment for us to miss the celebrated
+Marble Throne which all travellers speak of with admiration,--though
+it was in a state, we were told, that did not make it a very great
+curiosity. The throne is in an elevated recess, or niche in the
+back-wall, from which it projects into the hall, in front of the large
+central arch. There is a staircase to get up to it, the seat being
+raised ten feet from the floor. The size of the throne is about ten
+feet, and over it is a marble canopy supported on four marble pillars,
+all beautifully inlaid with mosaic work exquisitely finished, but now
+much dilapidated. In the wall behind is a doorway, by which the emperor
+entered from his apartments in the harem. This wall is covered with
+mosaic paintings in precious stones of various birds, beasts, fruits,
+and flowers. Many of them are executed in a very natural manner,
+and represent the birds and beasts of the several countries ruled
+over by Shah Jehan. On the upper part, in the centre of the wall “is
+represented, in the same precious stones, and in the graceful attitude,
+the figure of an European in a kind of Spanish costume, who is playing
+upon his guitar.” This has been interpreted into a group of Orpheus,
+charming the birds and beasts with his music, and is what decides the
+work to be from the hands of a French artist, mentioned by Bernier
+under the name of La Grange, _alias_ Austin de Bordeaux.
+
+  [Illustration: THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN, INDIA.]
+
+Upon this throne did Shah Jehan seat himself every day at noon, to
+receive the compliments or petitions of his subjects. He appeared
+on such occasions in great state, preceded by a _cortège_ of
+mace-bearers, bearing silver figures upon silver sticks. His sons sat
+on each side of him, decked in costly apparel and jewels. Behind them
+stood in array eunuchs in rich liveries. Some of them drove off flies
+by moving _chowries_ made of peacocks’ feathers. Others waved
+fans of coloured silk or velvet, embroidered with gold and precious
+stones. The _chobdars_ and other messengers waited next in
+respectful silence to receive the commands of the sovereign. On a fine
+large slab of white marble, raised some three feet above the ground,
+and fenced with silver rails, stood the vizier and other secretaries,
+in front of the throne, to hand up petitions to their master, and to
+receive and convey his imperial commands. Next to them stood in humble
+attendance tributary Rajahs, dependent chiefs, and ambassadors from
+foreign princes. Beyond them was the place for the _Munsubdars_,
+who showed themselves in the same attitude of respect and humility
+that marked the demeanour of the other attendants in the hall. In
+the furthermost part of the building, as well as in the outer court
+in front of it, thronged all sorts of people and visitants in one
+promiscuous crowd.
+
+Thus hedged round by divinity, sat Shah Jehan, as the Vicegerent of God
+upon earth, with his face turned towards Mecca.
+
+The next suite of apartments is the _Dewanni-Khas_, or hall of
+private audience. There is certainly much to admire in this building,
+but the expectations raised by reading are not half fulfilled. In
+richness of materials it may stand unrivalled, but in point of
+architectural design it does not possess more than ordinary excellence.
+
+Rising from a terrace, elevated some four to five feet from the ground,
+the _Dewanni-Khas_ forms an oblong-shaped pavilion, which measures
+one hundred and fifty feet in length, by forty feet in breadth. The
+height is well proportioned to these dimensions. The building has a
+flat roof, supported upon ranges of massive arcaded pillars, all of a
+rich bluish-white marble. Between each of the front row of pillars is
+a balustrade of the same material, chastely carved in various designs
+of perforated work. The cornices and borders are decorated with a
+great quantity of frieze and sculptured work. The top is ornamented
+with four elegant marble pavilions, with gilt cupolas. In short,
+the _Dewanni-Khas_ is an open, airy, and lightsome building,
+possessing in the highest degree all those features which, suggested
+by local climate form the peculiarity of Indian architecture. It is
+advantageously situated near the river, and affords, on a sultry night,
+the best place for delicious zephyrs to fan you to sleep.
+
+Nothing that is recorded in fiction or fact comes up to the
+magnificence of this hall. There traces remaining of that magnificence
+are enough to show that the reality of wealth develops those ideas
+of grandeur, which surpass all the imaginings of imagination. The
+gorgeous Pandemonium of Milton, of which the idea may have been
+taken from Bernier’s account of the Mogul court, is eclipsed by the
+_Dewanni-Khas_, the grandeur of which is not apocryphal, but a
+realized fact. That “jasper pavement,” which the mighty poet deemed
+to be so rich as to adorn the court of heaven, is seen here by every
+individual with his eyes broadly open. The pillars and arches are
+ornamented with tendrils of bright flowers and wreaths of bloodstone,
+agate, jasper, cornelian, and amethyst, that seem “snatched as it
+were from the garden, and pressed into the snowy blocks.” There was a
+rich foliage of silver filagree work covering the entire ceiling. The
+Mahrattas in 1759, under their celebrated General Bhao, tore this down,
+and melted it into seventeen lacs of rupees. It has been replaced by
+one of gilt copper worked in a flower pattern. Never could the gorgeous
+splendour of this hall have been more emphatically summed up than in
+the inscription which is sculptured in letters of gold in the cornices
+of the interior room--“If there is a paradise upon earth, it is this,
+it is this, it is this.”
+
+In this hall was the _Tukt Taous_, or the famous _Peacock
+Throne_. It was so called from its having the figures of two
+peacocks, with their tails spread, that were so naturally executed
+in sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other precious stones of
+appropriate colours, as to represent life, and strike every beholder
+with the most dazzling splendour. “The throne itself was six feet long
+by four feet broad; it stood on six massive feet, which, with the body,
+were of solid gold, inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. It
+was surmounted by a canopy of gold supported by twelve pillars, all
+richly emblazoned with costly gems, and a fringe of pearls ornamented
+the borders of the canopy. Between the two peacocks stood the figure
+of a parrot of the ordinary size, said to have been carved out of a
+single emerald (?). On either side of the throne stood a _chatta_
+or umbrella, one of the Oriental emblems of royalty; they were formed
+of crimson velvet, richly embroidered and fringed with pearls,
+the handles were eight feet high, of solid gold, and studded with
+diamonds.” Tavernier, a jeweller by profession, and who saw this superb
+throne, estimates the cost of it at six and a half millions sterling,
+or six crores of rupees. The device was not original; it seems to
+have been taken from a representation of the Karteek of the Hindoos.
+The umbrella, also, was one of the insignia of Hindoo royalty. It was
+on the birthday of Soliman Sheko that the joy of a grandfather had
+been especially manifested by Shah Jehan’s first mounting the _Tukt
+Taous_.
+
+It is recorded by Bernier, that the “King appeared seated upon this
+throne at one extremity of the great hall of the _Am-Khas_,
+splendidly attired, his garment being of white flowered satin, richly
+embroidered, his turban of gold cloth, having an aigrette worked upon
+it, the feet of which were studded with diamonds of extraordinary
+lustre and value, and in the centre was a beautiful Oriental topaz
+of matchless size and splendour, shining like a little sun: round
+his neck was a string of pearls, of great value, which hung down to
+his waist. The throne on which he sat was supported by six pillars
+of massive gold, enriched with a profusion of rubies, emeralds,
+and diamonds, and his other insignia of state were embellished
+with equal grandeur.... The pillars of the hall were magnificently
+ornamented with gold tapestry, and the ceiling was covered over with
+beautiful flowered satin, fastened with red silk cords, having at
+each corner festoons with gold tassels. Below nothing was to be seen
+but rich silk tapestries of extraordinary dimensions. In the court,
+at a little distance, was pitched a tent called the _Aspek_,
+which in length and breadth somewhat exceeded the hall, and reached
+almost to the centre of the court. It was likewise surrounded with
+a large balustrade of solid silver, and supported by three poles,
+of the height and thickness of a large mast, and by several smaller
+ones,--covered with plates of silver. The outside was red, and the
+lining within of beautiful chintz, manufactured expressly for the
+purpose at Masulipatam, representing a hundred different flowers, so
+naturally done, and the colours so vivid, that one would imagine it to
+be a hanging parterre.” No mention of the Koh-i-noor appears in this
+account--it must have been somewhere, either in the Peacock Throne, or
+on the arm or turban of the monarch. Possibly, the string of pearls
+spoken of was the same that Runjeet Sing afterwards wore around his
+waist. The cynicism of a poet may style all this as “barbaric pearl and
+gold,” but it is what, after all, quiets the yearnings of all civilized
+men.
+
+The Peacock Throne no longer exists. It was carried off as a trophy
+by Nadir Shah, and had to be broken up in all probability, into ten
+thousand pieces of stone, now scattered all over the world. In its
+place is a simple marble throne that by itself is not an ordinary
+piece of workmanship. In strolling through the hall we paused before
+this throne; and as a monument of fallen greatness it failed not
+to affect us with the usual sentiment of “all is vanity under the
+sun.” It may be looked upon almost as the seat of Shah Jehan, and
+Aurungzebe, and Shah Alum,--and raises a host of associations that
+come rapping at the door of memory. Here stood the graceful Soliman,
+his hands bound in gilded fetters, entreating in the most pathetic
+language to be put to death at once, rather than be sentenced to die
+by slow poison,--thereby affecting many of the courtiers to tears, and
+making the ladies of the harem to weep aloud from behind the screens.
+Here Sevajee in expectation of an honourable reception, but finding
+himself to be treated with studied neglect, could not control his
+feelings of indignation, changed colour, and sank to the ground in
+a swoon,--while a daughter of Aurungzebe, seeing the young stranger
+from behind a curtain, became enamoured of him. Here sat Mahomed Shah
+bandying compliments with Nadir Shah, and sipping coffee, while the
+corpses of a hundred thousand slaughtered Delhi-ites tainted the air.
+It is related “that the coffee was delivered to the two sovereigns in
+this room upon a gold salver, by the most polished gentleman of the
+court. His motions, as he entered the gorgeous apartment, amidst the
+splendid trains of the two emperors, were watched with great anxiety;
+if he presented the coffee first to his own master, the furious
+conqueror, before whom the sovereign of India and all his courtiers
+trembled, might order him to instant execution; if he presented it
+to Nadir first, he would insult his own sovereign out of fear of the
+stranger. To the astonishment of all, he walked up with a steady step
+direct to his own master. ‘I cannot,’ said he, ‘aspire to the honour of
+presenting the cup to the King of Kings, your Majesty’s honoured guest,
+nor would your Majesty wish that any hand but your own should do so.’
+The emperor took the cup from the golden salver, and presented it to
+Nadir Shah, who said with a smile as he took it, ‘Had all your officers
+known and done their duty like this man, you had never, my good cousin,
+seen me and my Kussilbashees at Delhi; take care of him, for your own
+sake, and get round you as many like him as you can.’”
+
+The _Dewanni-Khas_ is now all desolate and forlorn. It is a
+matter of heartfelt regret to see the barbarous ravages that have been
+committed in picking out the different precious stones. There is a
+mark of violence on one of the pillars, which the Mahrattas attempted
+to break. No rose-beds or fountains about the building now--only the
+bare skeleton of it is standing. The Great Mogul’s hall of audience
+was, till lately, used as a museum, the contents of which have been now
+removed to the new Delhi Institute.
+
+The freest public lounge is not more open to access than is now the
+seat of Mogul jealousy--the _Seraglio_. “There was scarcely
+a chamber that had not a reservoir adjoining it--with parterres,
+beautiful walks, groves, rivulets, fountains, grottos, jets of water,
+alcoves, and raised terraces to sleep upon, and enjoy the cool air
+at night.” Now that everything has disappeared, this description of
+Bernier seems to be almost imaginary--an account of the “baseless
+fabric of a vision.” The “parterres,” “walks,” “groves,” “grottos,” and
+“raised terraces” have all ceased to exist.
+
+
+
+
+                           EDINBURGH CASTLE
+
+                        ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
+
+
+Meditative people will find a charm in a certain conancy between the
+aspect of the city and its odd and stirring history. Few places, if
+any, offer a more barbaric display of contrasts to the eye. In the very
+midst stands one of the most satisfactory crags in nature--a Bass Rock
+upon dry land, rooted in a garden, shaken by passing trains, carrying
+a crown of battlements and turrets, and describing its warlike shadow
+over the liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the new town. From
+their smoky beehives, ten stories high, the unwashed look down upon
+the open squares and gardens of the wealthy; and gay people sunning
+themselves along Princes Street, with its mile of commercial palaces
+all beflagged upon some great occasion, see, across a gardened valley
+set with statues, where the washings of the old town flutter in the
+breeze at its high windows. And then, upon all sides, what a clashing
+of architecture! In this one valley, where the life of the town goes
+most busily forward, there may be seen, shown one above and behind
+another by the accidents of the ground, buildings in almost every
+style upon the globe. Egyptian and Greek temples, Venetian palaces and
+Gothic spires, are huddled one over another in a most admired disorder;
+while, above all, the brute mass of the Castle and the summit of
+Arthur’s Seat look down upon these imitations with a becoming dignity,
+as the works of Nature may look down upon the monuments of Art. But
+Nature is a more indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in
+no way frightened of a strong effect. The birds roost as willingly
+among the Corinthian capitals as in the crannies of the crag; the
+same atmosphere and daylight clothe the eternal rock and yesterday’s
+imitation portico; and as the soft northern sunshine throws out
+everything into a glorified distinctness--or easterly mists, coming up
+with the blue evening fuse all these incongruous features into one, and
+the lamps begin to glitter along the street, and faint lights to burn
+in the high windows across the valley--the feeling grows upon you that
+this also is a piece of nature in the most intimate sense; that this
+profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock, is
+not a drop-scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of every-day
+reality, connected by railway and telegraph-wire with all the capitals
+of Europe, and inhabited by citizens of the familiar type, who keep
+ledgers and attend church, and have sold their immortal portion to a
+daily paper. By all the canons of romance, the place demands to be half
+deserted and leaning towards decay; birds we might admit in profusion,
+the play of the sun and winds, and a few gypsies encamped in the chief
+thoroughfare: but these citizens, with their cabs and tramways, their
+trains and posters, are altogether out of key. Chartered tourists, they
+make free with historic localities, and rear their young among the
+most picturesque sites with a grand human indifference. To see them
+thronging by, in their neat clothes and conscious moral rectitude, and
+with a little air of possession that verges on the absurd, is not the
+least striking feature of the place.
+
+  [Illustration: EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND.]
+
+The Old Town, it is pretended, is the chief characteristic, and, from
+a picturesque point of view, the liver-wing of Edinburgh. It is one
+of the most common forms of depreciation to throw cold water on the
+whole by adroit over-commendation of a part, since everything worth
+judging, whether it be a man, a work of art, or only a fine city, must
+be judged upon its merits as a whole. The Old Town depends for much of
+its effect on the new quarters that lie around it, on the sufficiency
+of its situation, and on the hills that back it up. If you were to set
+it somewhere else by itself, it would look remarkably like Stirling
+in a bolder and loftier edition. The point is to see this embellished
+Stirling planted in the midst of a large, active, and fantastic modern
+city; for there the two re-act in a picturesque sense, and the one is
+the making of the other.
+
+The Old Town occupies a sloping ridge or tail of diluvial matter,
+protected, in some subsidence of the waters, by the Castle cliffs,
+which fortify it to the west. On the one side of it and the other the
+new towns of the south and of the north occupy their lower, broader,
+and more gentle hill-tops. Thus, the quarter of the Castle overtops the
+whole city and keeps an open view to sea and land. It dominates for
+miles on every side; and people on the decks of ships, or ploughing in
+quiet country places over in Fife, can see the banner on the Castle
+battlements, and the smoke of the Old Town blowing abroad over the
+subjacent country. A city that is set upon a hill. It was, I suppose,
+from this distant aspect that she got her name of _Auld Reekie_.
+Perhaps it was given her by people who had never crossed her doors; day
+after day, from their various rustic Pisgahs, they had seen the pile of
+building on the hill-top, and the long plume of smoke over the plain;
+so it appeared to them; so it had appeared to their fathers tilling the
+same field; and as that was all they knew of the place, it could be all
+expressed in two words.
+
+There is a silly story of a subterranean passage between the Castle
+and Holyrood, and a bold Highland piper who volunteered to explore its
+windings. He made his entrance by the upper end, playing a strathspey;
+the curious footed it after him down the street, following his descent
+by the sound of the chanter from below; until all of a sudden, about
+the level of St. Giles’s, the music came abruptly to an end, and the
+people in the street stood at fault with hands uplifted. Whether he was
+choked with gasses, or perished in a quag, or was removed bodily by the
+Evil One, remains a point of doubt; but the piper has never again been
+seen or heard of from that day to this. Perhaps he wandered down into
+the land of Thomas the Rhymer, and some day, when it is least expected,
+may take a thought to revisit the sunlit upper world. That will be a
+strange moment for the cabmen on the stands beside St. Giles’s, when
+they hear the drone of his pipes reascending from the bowels of the
+earth below their horses’ feet.
+
+Of all places for a view Calton Hill is perhaps the best; since you
+can see the Castle, which you lose from the Castle, and Arthur’s Seat,
+which you cannot see from Arthur’s Seat. It is the place to stroll on
+one of those days of sunshine and east wind which are so common in our
+more than temperate summer. Upon the right, the roofs and spire of the
+Old Town climb one above another to where the citadel prints its broad
+bulk and jagged crown of bastions on the western sky.--Perhaps it is
+now one in the afternoon; and at the same instant of time, a ball rises
+to the summit of Nelson’s flagstaff close at hand, and, far away, a
+puff of smoke followed by a report bursts from the half-moon battery
+at the Castle. This is the time-gun by which people set their watches,
+as far as the sea-coast or in hill farms upon the Pentlands. And while
+you are looking across upon the Castle Hill, the drums and bugles begin
+to recall the scattered garrison; the air thrills with the sound; the
+bugles sing aloud; and the last rising flourish mounts and melts into
+the darkness like a star: a martial swan-song, fitly rounding in the
+labours of the day.
+
+
+
+
+                           EDINBURGH CASTLE
+
+                          JAMES NORRIS BREWER
+
+
+The Castle of Edinburgh was originally denominated _Castelh Mynyd
+Agned_, that is, “the fortress of the hill of Agnes;” and the hill
+itself was termed _Mynyd Agned Cathre-gonion_, which implies
+in the language of the ancient Britons, “the Hill Agned nigh the
+fortress.” From which appellations it would appear that the Castle
+was founded after the introduction of Christianity to Scotland. At a
+subsequent period, the fortress was called _Castrum Puellarum_,
+because, as some assert, the daughters of the Pictish chiefs received
+“their education” in the Castle. It is beyond a question that a very
+short period would have been sufficient for all the instruction
+which the rude chieftains of the Picts were anxious to bestow on
+the daughters; but the Castle answered a more needful purpose, by
+protecting those high-born damsels from the indignities to which they
+might have been subject in a residence of less strength, while their
+fathers and brothers were despoiling neighbouring territories, and
+making free with the families of conquered rivals. Some persons have
+wished to ascribe a very remote origin to Edinburgh Castle; but it is
+certain that a battle was fought on the site of the building by Arthur,
+King of the Britons, towards the close of the Fifth Century.
+
+The ground-plot of the fortress occupies about six acres. At the
+western extremity is the outer barrier, which is formed of strong
+palisadoes. Beyond this are a dry ditch, a drawbridge and a gate,
+defended by two flanking batteries.
+
+In the south-east quarter of the castle, state-prisoners were formerly
+kept, and here, in an apartment called the _crown-room_ it is by
+some pretended that the regalia of Scotland are still deposited. It is
+well known that they were lodged here, with much formality on the 26th
+of March, 1707.
+
+Neither history nor tradition records any circumstance in which
+Edinburgh Castle is conspicuous, till the year 1093. On the authority
+of Fordun and Dalrymple, the following story concerning that period
+is related:--when Malcolm Canmore was slain in battle, his widow,
+Queen Margaret, took refuge in the Castle of Edinburgh, where she very
+shortly died. “Donald Bane, uncle to Malcolm’s children, having usurped
+the throne, now besieged the Castle in which the orphan-heir to the
+crown resided. The usurper, presuming from the steepness of the rock
+that Malcolm’s children could escape only at the gates, ordered them
+alone to be guarded. But those in the garrison, knowing this, conveyed
+the body of the Queen through a postern gate on the west side of the
+Castle, to the church of Dunfermline, where it lies interred: and the
+children escaping to England, where they were protected and educated by
+their uncle, Edgar Atheling.”
+
+After the murder of James I. at Perth, the son and successor of that
+Monarch, who inherited the crown at the age of seven years, was
+placed under the care of Crichton, the chancellor, while Sir Thomas
+Livingstone was appointed regent. But a quarrel occurring between
+the two great officers of state, James was detained, in splendid
+confinement, at Edinburgh Castle, by Sir William Crichton. But the
+Queen-Dowager, who favoured the opposite party, resolved to rescue
+her son, and place him in the hands of the regent. In pursuit of this
+purpose, she paid a visit to the youthful Sovereign, during which
+she affected to display great friendship towards the chancellor,
+and asserted an intention of never interfering in matters of state.
+Crichton was deceived by these assurances, and readily granted the
+Queen permission to remove certain articles from the Castle, which
+would be wanted by her in the course of a pilgrimage to a church in
+East Lothian, which she was on the point of undertaking. The effects
+were conveyed from the Castle at an early hour of the morning, and
+among them, concealed in a trunk, was removed the young King, who was
+supposed to be asleep and secure in his chamber. A vessel was ready,
+and he, the same night, reached Stirling, where he was received with
+open arms by the triumphant Queen and regent.
+
+But the fruit of the Queen’s ingenuity was soon wrested from her by the
+superior address of the chancellor. Crichton knew that the King hunted
+frequently in the woods near Stirling, and he watched an opportunity
+during the absence of the regent, to conceal himself, and a determined
+band, in the deep shade of a wood through which it was likely the King
+would pass. James fell into the snare, and the chancellor, with many
+protestations of respect, and much show of real courtesy, conducted him
+to his former place of secluded residence.
+
+The over-weening power and extreme insolence of the _Earl of
+Douglas_ caused a reconciliation to take place, shortly after
+this event, between the chancellor and the regent, who were mutually
+apprehensive of the ill consequences of a division in the state, while
+the ambitious Douglas was daily increasing in authority and turbulence.
+Convinced of the inefficacy of the executive power to inflict justice
+on the Earl, or to put a stop to his oppressive proceedings, the two
+new co-adjutors resolved on proving the sincerity of their alliance, by
+the assassination of their rival; and, for this purpose, the chancellor
+decoyed him into the Castle. Lord Douglas was treated with so much
+well-counterfeited respect that he felt assured of security, and
+consented to share a banquet with the King and the two great officers
+who ruled in the Monarch’s name. Here smiles and hilarity prevailed:
+the regent flattered the pride of Douglas, and the chancellor pressed
+his hand, with warm assurances of attachment. But, towards the
+conclusion of the entertainment, _a bull’s head_ was set before
+the unsuspicious guest. Douglas understood the fatal symbol, and sprang
+from the table; but he was instantly surrounded by armed men, who
+dragged him, in spite of the King’s tears and supplications, to the
+outer court of the Castle, where he was murdered.
+
+
+
+
+                            LAMBTON CASTLE
+
+                            WILLIAM HOWITT
+
+
+Lambton Castle is a perfect and expressive image of the feudalism
+of the Nineteenth Century; of feudalism made easy, to the present
+generation; of feudalism which has never ceased to exist, whatever
+concussions shook the empire, or whatever spasms rocked the
+constitution; which has for the greater part of a thousand years fought
+its way, whether in steel jacket or in scarlet broadcloth, with spear
+or with musket; which has never failed to hold its own, and to hand
+down the huge domains which it won in England, under the banners of
+William of Normandy. It is now polished indeed, but it is still strong;
+it prides itself on its most ancient style of habitation, but over
+and around that habitation it has poured the grace of modern art, and
+filled it with all the amenities, the comforts, the softnesses, and
+intellectual resources of a busy, scientific, refined, and luxurious
+age. Such is the entire character of Lambton Castle. You see before
+you, indeed, Gothic towers and battlements, but around them spread
+lawns such only as England and the England of our day knows. You
+approach it by roads not made for the hoofs of old war horses to
+disturb, but for the wheels of gay chariots to roll over; and within
+you find a glittering and sumptuous succession of books, paintings,
+statues, marble pillars, gorgeous vases, soft carpets of richest
+dyes and softer beds, curtained into silken privacy; and all the
+nameless and numberless little articles and marks of taste, which, to
+a true old castle-dweller, would form a wilderness of contemptible
+baubles, and a heap of articles that he would never even wish to want.
+
+  [Illustration: LAMBTON CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
+
+At the time that I visited Lambton Castle, its possessor was even then
+seeking relief from indisposition in the south of England, and serious
+fears were entertained that his life would not be long. That curious
+old legend of Lambton, of which we shall have presently to speak,
+seemed still, in the physical condition of the existing lord, to assert
+that it was more than a superstition of the old times, but was founded
+on an influence fatal to the longevity of the race. Though the period
+of the spell was said to terminate in General Lambton, as the ninth
+in descent from the slayer of the Worm, yet neither his son nor his
+grandson has been longer lived, nor have they died at home.
+
+It was not without a more sensible interest, that, reflecting on these
+circumstances, I went through the grounds and the Castle of Lambton.
+Here were all that nature and art could effect in combination to make a
+noble abode for its possessor; but a mysterious fiat of destiny seemed
+to be pronounced over the race, of short and embittered enjoyment of it.
+
+The Wear here performs some of its most beautiful windings, for
+which it is so remarkable, and its lofty banks hung with fine woods,
+presented the most lovely views whichever way you looked. A new bridge
+leads across the river, and a winding carriage-road conducts you by
+an easy ascent through pleasant woodlands up to the Castle. You pass
+under a light suspension bridge which leads from the Castle, along the
+banks above the river, through the woods of great beauty, and where you
+find the most pleasant solitudes, with varied views of the river and
+sounds of its hurrying water. The Castle, in all its newness of aspect,
+stands boldly on the height above the river, with beautiful green
+slopes descending towards it. As you approach the Castle, and enter it,
+everything impresses you with a sense of its strength, tastefulness,
+and completeness. The compact and well-built walls of clam-stone; the
+well-paved and well-finished courts; the numerous and complete offices;
+the kitchens, furnished with every convenience and implement that
+modern skill and ingenuity can bring together; all tell you that you
+are in the abode of a man of the amplest resources. As you advance,
+elegance and luxury are added to completeness; and you are surrounded
+not by the rude and quaint objects of our old houses, but by the
+rich requisites of present aristocratic existence. The snug boudoir,
+the lord’s dressing-room, the bath, the library, the saloon, the
+drawing-room, and all the various apartments of a noble modern house,
+into which are sometimes crowded several hundred guests--we shall not
+attempt to describe.
+
+One of the most remarkable things about Lambton, is that Legend of the
+Worm, and the popular ideas attached to it, to which we have already
+alluded. The story of the Worm of Lambton cannot be better told than
+in the words of Surtees: “The heir of Lambton, fishing, as was his
+profane custom, in the Wear of a Sunday, hooked a small worm or eft,
+which he carelessly threw into a well, and thought no more of the
+adventure. The worm, at first neglected, grew till it was too large
+for its first habitation, and issuing forth from the _Worm Well_,
+betook itself to the Wear, where it usually lay a part of the day
+coiled round a crag in the middle of the water; it also frequented a
+green mound near the well, called thence ‘_The Worm Hill_,’ where
+it lapped itself nine times round, leaving vermicular traces, of which,
+grave living witnesses depose that they have seen the vestiges. It
+now became the terror of the country; and, amongst other enormities,
+levied a daily contribution of nine cows’ milk, which was always placed
+for it at the green hill, and in default of which it devoured man and
+beast. Young Lambton had, it seems, meanwhile, totally repented him
+of his former life and conversation; had bathed himself in a bath of
+holy water, taken the sign of the Cross, and joined the Crusaders. On
+his return home he was extremely shocked at witnessing the effects of
+his youthful imprudence, saw that the Worm must be at once destroyed,
+and immediately undertook the adventure. After several fierce
+combats, in which the crusader was foiled by his enemy’s _power of
+self-union_, he found it expedient to add policy to courage, and
+not, perhaps, possessing much of the former quality, he went to consult
+a witch, or wise woman. By her judicious advice, he armed himself in
+a coat of mail, studded with razor-blades, and thus prepared, placed
+himself on the crag in the river, and awaited the monster’s arrival.
+At the usual time, the Worm came to the rock, and wound himself with
+great fury round the armed knight, who had the satisfaction to see his
+enemy cut in pieces by his own efforts, while the stream washing away
+the several parts prevented the possibility of re-union. There is still
+a sequel to the story. The witch had promised Lambton success only on
+one condition--that he would slay the first living thing which met his
+sight after the victory. To avoid the possibility of human slaughter,
+Lambton had directed his father, that as soon as he heard him sound
+three blasts on his bugle, in token of the achievement performed, he
+should release his favourite greyhound, which would immediately fly to
+the sound of the horn, and was destined to be the sacrifice. On hearing
+his son’s bugle, however, the old chief was so overjoyed that he forgot
+his injunctions, and ran himself with open arms to meet his son.
+Instead of committing a parricide, the conqueror again repaired to his
+adviser, who pronounced, as the alternative of disobeying the original
+instructions, that no chief of the Lambtons should die in his bed for
+seven, or, as some accounts say, for nine generations--a commutation
+which, to a martial spirit, had nothing probably very terrible, and
+which was willingly complied with.”
+
+Popular tradition assigns the chapel of Brigford as the spot where
+Lambton offered up his vows before and after the adventure. In the
+garden-house at Lambton are two figures of great antiquity. A knight,
+in good style, armed cap-à-pie, the back however _not studded with
+razor blades_, who holds the Worm by one ear with his left hand,
+and with his right, thrusts his sword to the hilt down his throat; and
+a lady, who wears a coronet, with bare breasts, etc., in the style
+of Charles II.’s Beauties--a wound on whose bosom, and an accidental
+mutilation of the hand, are said to be the work of the Worm. A real
+good Andrea Ferrara, inscribed on the blade 1521, notwithstanding the
+date, has also been pressed into the service, and is said to be the
+identical weapon by which the Worm perished.
+
+The scene of the Worm’s haunts, and the combat, is at a considerable
+distance from the Castle; in fact, about a mile and a half from the
+_old_ Lambton Hall, where the Lambtons then dwelt. It is on the
+north bank of the Wear, in the estate of North Biddick, and now in
+quite a populous location. The Worm Hill is a conspicuous conical mound
+of considerable size, but having all the appearance of an ancient
+barrow, or other artificial tumulus. It stands in a meadow just at
+the backs of some houses, is perfectly green with grass; and now,
+whatever it might do formerly, bears not the slightest trace of the
+place where the worm coiled itself. It is about eighty yards from the
+river, and the well lay twenty-six yards from the hill. Half a century
+ago the Worm Well was in repute as a _Wishing Well_, and was one
+of the scenes dedicated to the usual festivities and superstitions of
+Midsummer Eve.
+
+
+
+
+                               ARANJUEZ
+
+                           EDMONDO DE AMICIS
+
+
+In leaving Madrid by the southern route, you traverse an uninhabited
+country that recalls the poorest provinces of Aragon and old Castile,
+just as happened on your arrival by the northern. These are vast,
+yellowish, and dried-up plains; you would say that if you beat upon it,
+the earth would resound like an empty box, or crumble away like the
+crust of a burnt tart; occasionally you see miserable villages, of the
+same colour as the land, which look as if they would ignite like a heap
+of dry leaves, if any one were to bring a match to the roof of one of
+the houses. After an hour’s travel, my shoulder sought the side of the
+carriage, my elbow a leaning-place, and I fell into a profound sleep,
+like a member of Leopardi’s _Ateneo d’ Ascoltazione_.
+
+I looked around me: the vast deserted plain was transformed as if by
+enchantment into an immense garden full of delightful groves, crossed
+in every direction by great avenues, dotted with little country houses
+and rustic cabins covered with vines; and, here and there were tossing
+fountains, shady nooks, flowery meadows, vineyards, little footpaths,
+and a greenness, a freshness, an odour of spring, a breath of joy and
+delight that wafted your soul to paradise. We had arrived at Aranjuez.
+I left the train, threaded my way down a beautiful avenue shaded by
+two rows of gigantic trees, and in an instant found myself opposite the
+royal palace.
+
+  [Illustration: ARANJUEZ, SPAIN.]
+
+Castelar, the minister, wrote recently in his _memorandum_ that
+the fall of the ancient Spanish monarchy was foreseen on the day that
+a herd of populace with abuse on their lips and anger in their hearts,
+invaded the palace of Aranjuez to disturb the tranquil majesty of its
+sovereigns. I was precisely on that spot, where, on March 17, 1808,
+occurred the events that formed the prologue to the national war
+and the first word of the sentence, as it were, that condemned the
+ancient monarchy to death. I immediately looked for the windows of the
+apartment of the Prince of Peace; I pictured him, fleeing from hall
+to hall, pale and dishevelled, hunting for a hiding-place, amidst the
+echoing cries of the multitude that mounted the stairway; I saw poor
+Charles IV. place the crown on the head of the Prince of the Asturias
+with trembling hands; all the scenes of that terrible drama passed
+before my eyes; and the deep silence of this place and the sight of
+that shut and abandoned palace chilled me to the heart.
+
+The palace is built like a castle; it is of brick with corners of white
+marble, and covered with a slate roof. Every one knows that Philip
+II. had it built by the celebrated architect Herrera, and that nearly
+all his successors embellished it, and lived there during the summer
+season. I entered: the interior is splendid; there is a resplendent
+hall for the reception of ambassadors, a beautiful Chinese cabinet of
+Charles III., a superb dressing-room of Isabella II., and a profusion
+of precious ornaments. But all the riches of the palace are not worth
+the view of the gardens. Expectations are not deceived. The gardens
+of Aranjuez (Aranjuez is the name of the little town situate a short
+distance from the palace) seem to have been laid out for the family
+of Titan Kings, to whom the parks and gardens of our Kings would have
+appeared like terrace parterres and sheep-folds. Avenues, extending
+as far as the eye can reach and bordered by trees of an inordinate
+height uniting their branches and leaning towards us as if bent by
+two contrary winds, in every direction cross a forest the boundaries
+of which one cannot see; and through this forest the wide and rapid
+Tagus describes a majestic curve, forming here and there cascades
+and basins; a luxuriant and flourishing vegetation abounds amid a
+labyrinth of little avenues and cross-roads; everywhere is seen the
+whiteness of statues, fountains, columns and high jets of water that
+fall in sheets and rain and spray on all the flowers known to Europe
+and America; and to the majestic sound of the cascade of the Tagus is
+joined the song of innumerable nightingales that pour their trills into
+the mysterious shade of the lonely paths. Beyond the gardens, rises
+a little marble palace, modest in appearance, which contains all the
+marvels of the most magnificent royal residence, and where one still
+breathes the atmosphere of the life of the Kings of Spain. Here are
+the little secret chambers the ceilings of which may be touched by the
+hand, the billiard-room of Charles IV., cushions embroidered by the
+hands of queens, musical clocks that amused the idle children, little
+stairways, tiny windows that preserve a hundred little traditions
+of the caprice of princes: and, finally, the richest toilet-room in
+Europe, due to a whim of Charles IV., and which contains in itself
+so much wealth that one could draw enough from it to build a palace,
+without depriving it of the noble pre-eminence it boasts above all
+rooms appropriated to the same use.
+
+Beyond this palace, and around the woodlands, extend vineyards,
+olive-trees, plantations of fruit-trees and smiling meadows. It is a
+veritable oasis surrounded by a desert which Philip II. chose in a day
+of good humour, as if to alleviate the black melancholy of the Escurial
+with a gay picture. On returning from the little marble palace to the
+great palace of the Escurial down these long avenues, beneath the shade
+of these large trees, in this profound peace of the forest, I thought
+of the splendid pageants of ladies and cavaliers that formerly followed
+the steps of the gay young monarchs and capricious and unrestrained
+queens to the sound of love-songs and hymns, celebrating the grandeur
+and the glory of unvanquished Spain, and I repeated sadly with the poet
+of Recanati:
+
+    “... All is peace and silence,
+         And one speaks no longer of them....”
+
+
+
+
+                             GLAMIS CASTLE
+
+                              LADY GLAMIS
+
+
+To the lover of Shakespeare, the name of Glammis (as it was sometimes
+spelt) will recall the act of treachery and murder which tradition
+gives as having taken place there, when King Duncan was done to death
+by the hand or at the instigation of the ambitious and unscrupulous
+Lady Macbeth; although there is no possibility of proving or testing
+the truth as to the details or locality of the tragedy.
+
+To the antiquarian, the Castle must be of immense interest on account
+of the great age of the central portion, or keep, which is known to
+have been standing in 1016, but “whose birth tradition notes not”;
+while to the romantic and superstitious it is associated as a place
+where ghosts and spirits moving silently down winding stairs and dark
+passages are wont to make night fearsome. This feeling of eeriness is
+not confined to the naturally nervous, for Sir Walter Scott, who spent
+a night at Glamis in 1794, writes:
+
+“After a very hospitable reception, ... I was conducted to my apartment
+in a distant part of the building. I must own that when I heard door
+after door shut, after my conductor had retired, I began to consider
+myself too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead.”
+
+  [Illustration: GLAMIS CASTLE, SCOTLAND.]
+
+Additional interest attaches to this castle from the fact that its
+venerable walls enshroud a _mysterious something_, which has for
+centuries baffled the curiosity and investigations of all unauthorized
+persons; this secret is known only to three people--the Earl of the
+time being, his eldest son, and one other individual, whom they think
+worthy of their confidence.
+
+Most people have theories upon this subject, and many ridiculous
+stories are told; but so carefully has the mystery been guarded, that
+no suspicion of the truth has ever come to light. One version of the
+story is as follows: Several centuries ago the Lord Glamis of the time
+was entertaining the head of another noble family then resident in
+Angus; and in the course of the evening they commenced to play cards.
+It was Saturday night, and so intent were they on wagering lands and
+money on the issue of the game, that they did not recognize the fact
+that Sunday morning was approaching until an old retainer ventured to
+remind them of the hour. Whereupon one of the gamblers swore a great
+oath, with the tacit approval of the other, that they did not care what
+day it might be, but they would finish their game at any cost, even if
+they went on playing till Doomsday! It had struck midnight ere he had
+finished his sentence, when there suddenly appeared a stranger dressed
+in black, who politely informed their lordships that he would take them
+at their word, and vanished.
+
+The story goes on to aver that annually on that night three noblemen,
+or their spirits, meet and play cards in the _secret room_ of the
+Castle, and that this will go on till Doomsday. In corroboration of
+this story, it is said that on a certain night in the autumn of every
+year, loud noises are heard, and some of the casements of the Castle
+are blown open.
+
+Glamis Castle stands in the centre of the vale of Strathmore, in a
+picturesque and well-wooded part of Forfarshire; the heather-clad
+sides of the Sidlaws, which divide Strathmore from the sea, rising to
+the south, while away to the north tower the Grampians, which form a
+magnificent background to the ancient pile of buildings, whose turrets
+rise some hundred and fifteen feet above the level of the ground.
+
+The poet, Gray, in a letter, describes the exterior of the castle in
+the following words:
+
+“The house, from the height of it, the greatness of its mass, the many
+towers atop, and the spread of its wings, has really a very singular
+and striking appearance, like nothing I ever saw.”
+
+The oldest portions of the Castle are formed of huge irregular blocks
+of old red sandstone, which time and weather have mellowed into a
+beautiful grey, pink colour. The walls in many places are sixteen
+feet thick, which in the olden days had the essential recommendation
+of great security, and also of allowing space for secret rooms and
+passages as means of escape in times of peril; and as a matter of
+fact, two secret staircases have been discovered within the last
+five-and-twenty years, and possibly there are others which still remain
+forgotten and unused.
+
+The narrow windows appear at irregular heights and distances in the
+central building or keep and left wing (the right wing having been
+burnt down and rebuilt early in 1800, is not so interesting), but the
+great staircase added by Patrick, Lord Glamis, in 1605, is very fine,
+occupying a circular tower, the space for which has been partly dug
+out of the old walls of the keep, and rises to the third story. This
+staircase (the designing for which has been attributed to Inigo Jones)
+is spiral, with a hollow newel in the centre, and is composed of stone
+to the summit. It consists of 143 steps, 6 feet 10 inches in width,
+each of _one_ stone.
+
+The staircases, which were in use before 1600, are very narrow, dark,
+and some of them winding, the steps steep and irregular in height, worn
+into hollows by the many feet that for centuries climbed them. Up two
+flights of these dimly lit, uneven stairs, the wounded king, Malcolm
+II., after having been treacherously attacked and mortally wounded
+by Kenneth V. and his adherents on the Hunter’s Hill, about a mile
+from the Castle, was carried by his followers to die in the chamber
+that still bears the name of King Malcolm’s room. This murder of King
+Malcolm is the first authentic event mentioned by the chroniclers in
+connection with Glamis.
+
+In the time of King Malcolm, Glamis was a royal residence, and remained
+so till 1372, when Sir John Lyon, “a young man of very good parts
+and qualities, and of a very graceful and comely person, and a great
+favourite with the king” (Robert II.), was made Lord High Chamberlain
+of Scotland. At that time the king’s daughter, the Princess Jean,
+fell in love with this young knight, and was given him in marriage
+together with the lands of the thanedom of Glamis, “_pro laudabili
+et fideli servitio et continuis laboribus_,” as the charter bears
+witness, March 18, 1372. Ten years later Sir John fell in a duel with
+Sir James Lindsay of Crawford, and was buried at Scone among the kings
+of Scotland. He left one son, from whom the present family of Lyon have
+descended without a break from _father to son_ to the present day.
+Fifty years later, Sir Patrick Lyon (Sir John’s grandson), who was one
+of the hostages to the English for the ransom of James I. from 1424 to
+1427, was created Baron Glamis, and appointed Master of the Household
+to the King of Scotland. For the next hundred years nothing of interest
+occurred till John, sixth Lord Glamis, married the beautiful Janet
+Douglas, granddaughter of the great Earl of Angus (Bell-the-Cat), and
+died in 1528. Lady Glamis married, secondly, Archibald Campbell, of
+Kepneith, whose relative, another Campbell, fell in love with her.
+Finding, however, that his addresses were but ill received by this
+lady, who was as good as she was lovely, his love turned to hate, and
+he revenged himself by informing the authorities that Lady Glamis, her
+son, Lord Glamis, and John Lyon, his relative, were conspiring against
+the life of the king, James V., by poison or witchcraft. They were
+tried for high treason, and wrongfully convicted! Lady Glamis and her
+young son were both sentenced to be _burned_, and the estate of
+Glamis was forfeited and annexed to the Crown by Act of Parliament,
+December 3d, 1540. However, these brutal judges, on account of the
+extreme youth of Lord Glamis, feared to bring him to execution, so the
+boy was kept in prison, with the death sentence hanging over him, while
+the beautiful Lady Glamis was dragged forth and burned at the stake on
+the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, July 17th, 1537. Those were days when
+acts of violence and cruelty were regarded with an indifference that
+we cannot now realize, although when she stood up in her beauty to
+undergo this fearful sentence, it is recorded that all heads were bowed
+in sorrowful sympathy. When this infamous execution was accomplished,
+remorse seems to have come over Campbell, who was visited by visions of
+his victim looking at him with sad, reproachful eyes. When, some years
+later, his death was drawing nigh, he confessed that his evidence at
+the trial was altogether false. Lord Glamis was therefore released from
+prison, and his estates and honours restored.
+
+To return to the Castle. The exterior is much ornamented with ancient
+armorial bearings in carved stone, while a round niche over the
+front door contains a bust of Earl Patrick. The principal entrance
+is a striking feature. The doorway is small and low, and a stout
+iron-clenched oaken door, thickly studded with nails, is guarded on
+the inside by a heavily grated iron gate, which opens right on to
+the staircase. A flight of steps to the right of the entrance leads
+down to the dungeons, vaults, and the old well (now filled up) which
+supplied the inmates with water in times of siege; while another stair
+to the left leads up to the Retainers’ Hall (or Crypt as it is now
+called), low, and fifty feet in length, with walls and arched roof
+entirely composed of stone. Of the seven windows, which are small, four
+or five are cut out of the thickness of the walls, and make recesses
+just large enough to form small rooms, which might have been used as
+sleeping chambers in old days. Lay figures, clad in complete armour,
+stand in the recesses, which, especially in the dusk, give an eerie
+effect to this part of the Castle. It is said that a ghostly man in
+armour walks this floor at night--possibly the original of one of those
+armoured figures standing silently in the crypt year after year, who
+may, perchance, have ended his life in the dungeon that lies exactly
+underneath.
+
+
+
+
+                           CHÂTEAU DE CHINON
+
+                           J. J. BOURRASSÉE
+
+
+To the traveller who arrives at Chinon from the south or west, the
+aspect of the old castle is imposing. What an effect it must have
+produced at the period of its full splendour! Originally it was a
+fortress situated on an eminence commanding the course of the Vienne
+and the fertile plain of Veron. It might be regarded as the key of
+lower Touraine. Therefore we see the Romans, the Visigoths, the Franks,
+and, later, the Counts of Anjou and Touraine, the Kings of England and
+France sparing no efforts to secure its possession. In 462, Frederic,
+brother of Theodoric King of the Visigoths, having advanced as far as
+the banks of the Loire, seized the Castle of Chinon: up to that time
+the Romans had occupied it, and by its favourable position it had
+become the last citadel of their power in this part of Gaul. Ægidius
+Afranius, the Roman governor of Gaul, hastened into Touraine to recover
+Chinon; but he could not do it by force of arms. Despairing of carrying
+the place of assault, the Romans blockaded it. The defenders were at
+the last extremity from lack of water when a violent storm poured
+abundant rain within the ramparts. The Romans raised the siege and the
+Visigoths remained masters of the castle until the defeat of Alaric in
+the plains of Vouille. The conquering Clovis understood the importance
+of this military post and made it one of the ramparts of his kingdom.
+
+The Frankish princes installed themselves there so well that no foe
+ever thought of disputing its possession with them. The Carlovingians
+were still its masters when feudalism transformed to the profit of the
+great barons the precarious title that they held by the confidence of
+the sovereign. Thibault the Trickster had Touraine as his share in this
+vast parcelling out of France. He had the Castle of Chinon repaired and
+often resided there, as in an impregnable fortress. Thibault’s lot in
+the partition of the territory was not in the least an agreeable one,
+for he had to defend it against the envy of his neighbors. Touraine
+for about a century was a prey over which rival powers fought. In
+the end it remained with the strongest. The Count of Anjou became
+completely master of it after the battle of Nouy, fought on the heights
+of Montlouis in 1044. Even in the bosom of this powerful house there
+were quarrels over the possession of the Castle of Chinon. An unequal
+partition between Geoffroy le Barbu and Foulques le Rechin led to war
+between those two brothers. Abandoned and betrayed by his followers,
+Geoffroy was made prisoner and cast into the cells of the Castle of
+Chinon, where he remained closely immured for the space of eighteen
+years with such rigour that he almost lost his reason. Nothing less
+than the intervention of Pope Urban II. in 1096 was required to have
+him set at liberty.
+
+  [Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE CHINON, FRANCE.]
+
+Thanks to a marriage, the house of Anjou mounted the throne of
+England and Chinon became a royal possession. Henry Plantagenet,
+great-grandson of Foulques le Rechin, brings this fine residence into
+new relief. Henry II. made it his favourite manor. He made it the
+seat of a royally privileged domain, comprising Cande, Champigny,
+La Haye, L’Île Bouchard, Saint Epain, Sainte Maure, Azay le Rideau
+and Bourgueil. Henry II. added to the Castle of Chinon a fortress
+distinct from the other buildings, with its own ramparts, moats, gates,
+drawbridges, buildings for the accommodation of the King, his court
+and his archers, and its church dedicated to St. George. From his
+donjon keep, the King of England ceaselessly laboured to increase his
+territory and his influence on the Continent. By means of his marriage
+with Eleanor of Guienne, repudiated by King Louis VII., he had become
+more powerful than his sovereign. It seems as if nothing could stay the
+course of such success, were it not for discord in his own family. At
+war with Philip Augustus, and with his own son the famous Richard Cœur
+de Lion, the King of England retired to Chinon. Necessity compelled
+him to sign with the King of France the humiliating peace of Azay sur
+Cher. “Shame!” he cried, “shame to the vanquished king! Cursed be the
+day I was born! Curses upon my two sons!” This fit of fury sent him to
+the tomb, July 6, 1189. He was carried without pomp to the Abbey of
+Fontévrault, near Chinon, where he had desired to be buried.
+
+Ten years later, another train took the same road: it was that of
+Richard Cœur de Lion. Being mortally wounded at the siege of Chaluz,
+that prince caused himself to be taken to Chinon, where he quickly
+succumbed in cruel agony. He was buried beside Henry II. in the Abbey
+of Fontévrault, that celebrated house that has had as abbess fourteen
+princesses of the royal blood, and that had deserved the name of
+_King’s Cemetery_. In an obscure corner are still to be seen the
+admirable statues of the counts of Anjou, masterpieces of the statuary
+at the close of the Twelfth Century.
+
+At that time, nothing presaged that the Castle of Chinon was to leave
+the hands of the Kings of England, when suddenly a protracted cry of
+horror and indignation resounded through the world. John Lackland had
+just got rid of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by a cowardly murder
+at Rouen. Philip Augustus summoned the murderer to appear before the
+court of the peers of the realm. After several adjournments regularly
+notified, the criminal, not having presented himself, was condemned to
+lose the fiefs held from the French crown. The sentence was easy to
+deliver, but not so easy to execute. The King of France hastened to
+Touraine at the head of an army and took possession of Tours, Loches
+and Chinon.
+
+It must be admitted that the Castle of Chinon was valiantly defended;
+it was carried by assault after an obstinate struggle in 1205. Philip
+Augustus gave it a good garrison. After that day, the English never
+set foot in it; and when during our intestine discord they profited by
+treason and dominated many of our provinces, the Castle of Chinon was
+the last refuge of the monarchy. From there were struck all the blows
+that gave France back her independence.
+
+Feudalism had greatly lessened the royal power. Noble efforts had
+been made to restore the authority that the king ought never to have
+lost. These attempts had produced memorable results; but the great
+feudatories were discontented. They wanted to profit by the minority
+of Louis IX. and the regency of a woman to recover the power that had
+escaped them. Events called St. Louis and Queen Blanche to Chinon. The
+young king held a parliament of twenty days at the castle gates. The
+rebel lords refused to attend, but their plans were rendered abortive,
+thanks to the activity of Blanche of Castile.
+
+Philip Augustus had partly rebuilt the Castle of Chinon: the Thirteenth
+Century work is easily visible amid the later constructions. Under the
+reign of St. Louis, further works to render this fortress as a whole
+more formidable were executed.
+
+In 1308, a great bustle was manifest in the Castle and town of Chinon:
+Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Order of the Templars, Hughes de
+Péraldo, Visitor of France, and the Commanders of Cyprus, Aquitaine and
+Normandy had just been brought in. Other Knights of the same Order had
+already been confined there. They were all to be taken to Poictiers
+where were Pope Clement V. and Philippe le Bel, King of France; but
+several of them had fallen ill on the road, so the sovereign pontiff
+deputed three cardinals to proceed with the investigation at Chinon.
+Every one knows the result of these grave proceedings: the Order of the
+Templars was suppressed, and those who were prisoners at Chinon only
+left their cells to go to the stake at Paris. They had confessed their
+crimes in the question to which they had been put; but most of them
+retracted amidst the flames. This frightful execution took place in
+1313.
+
+Towards the end of the Fourteenth Century, Charles VI. ceded the duchy
+of Touraine and the county of Chinon to his brother Louis, Duke of
+Orleans, who was afterwards assassinated by order of John the Fearless,
+Duke of Burgundy. This period recalls the most mournful memories of our
+history. Our land was ravaged by bands of English, skilful to profit by
+our dissensions. At last the hour of deliverance has arrived. France
+will now see more prosperous days; and Charles VII., the Victorious,
+will stretch his sceptre over the territory formerly subject to his
+ancestor.
+
+Charles VII. established his court at Chinon. Joan of Arc came to see
+him there and to inaugurate her extraordinary mission beneath the
+castle arches. Everybody knows the details of the heroine’s arrival
+at Chinon: how she recognized the disguised king in the midst of his
+courtiers, revealed a secret known only to himself and God, showed
+herself full of confidence in the cause that she was to make triumphant
+and finally succeeded in inspiring the hearts of others with the
+enthusiasm that overflowed her own.
+
+Thus the first public deeds of the providential mission of Joan of
+Arc are connected with Chinon. At this moment, Charles VII. had by
+his side another woman of generous heart and strong spirit: this was
+the queen, Marie of Anjou. Her influence was greater than historians
+have recognized; it was much more salutary and efficacious than that
+of Agnes Sorel. When the latter appeared at Chinon for the first time
+before the eyes of Charles VII., it was already six months since
+Joan of Arc had gone to the stake at Rouen. Is not that enough for
+us to say that France had already been saved and that the advice and
+remonstrances of Agnes Sorel came too late?
+
+However that may be, the presence of Agnes Sorel at the court of Chinon
+was insupportable to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. He even made
+it a pretext for a conspiracy against his father. These designs of an
+unnatural son did not succeed, but they poisoned the King’s last years.
+
+In 1461, Charles VII. died at Mehun sur Yèvre, and Louis XI. succeeded
+to the throne. Louis XI. took up his abode by preference at the Castle
+of Plessis-lez-Tours: he often came to Chinon. It was in the environs
+of that town, at the Castle of Forges, that he felt the first attack
+of the malady that carried him off. Philippe de Commines, Seigneur
+d’Argenton, governor of the Castle of Chinon, informs us how this
+accident, which was nothing less than an attack of apoplexy, came upon
+him.
+
+In the very year of the death of Louis XI. a famous personage in
+buffoon literature was born at Chinon. François Rabelais is the most
+cynical of writers, and if, as some people assert, he tried to hide his
+philosophy beneath the masque of folly, it must be acknowledged that he
+succeeded.
+
+After the reign of Louis XI., the Castle of Chinon was very little
+frequented by the court. Catherine de’Medici was there in 1560, and
+the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henri III. appeared there at the head
+of his army, marching against the Reformers, who were to be so rudely
+chastised in the plains of Montoncour.
+
+In 1629, the Princess de Conti, who possessed Chinon by virtue of an
+exchange of property with Henry of Lorraine, Duke of Chevreuse, sold
+the castle with all its dependencies to Cardinal Richelieu. The sale
+gave the signal, so to speak, for the demolition of the royal castle of
+the Plantagenets and French monarchs. When the Revolution, that piled
+up so many ruins arrived, it found nothing more to do here.
+
+The remains of the old manor are still gigantic. Those high walls,
+dismantled curtains, crenellated masonry, and discrowned turrets
+harbour glorious memories; but it is not always easy to distinguish
+what belongs to each century, or clearly to discern the work of
+the Romans or the Visigoths, of Thibault the Trickster, Henry II.,
+Philip Augustus, Charles VII., or Louis XI. The greater part of these
+ruins, however, is characteristic of the Fifteenth Century. Scarcely
+anything remains intact except the belfry tower, now called the _Tour
+de l’Horloge_, twenty to twenty-five meters in height. These
+picturesque ruins belong to the town of Chinon, having been left to it
+by the house of Richelieu.
+
+
+
+
+                           THE SUMMER PALACE
+
+                          MAURICE PALÉOLOGUE
+
+
+THE last time that I saw the Imperial Palace of Pekin was on a morning
+in the last of April. The air was fresh and limpid, and the vault of
+heaven seemed to have lifted itself to a prodigious height. It was
+not that somewhat misty atmosphere of spring in France, which seems
+impregnated with damp and vegetable odours, and which bathes the
+unstable outlines of objects; neither was it that tenuous light of
+those mornings in the East that overspreads the distances, envelops
+objects, and defines their planes. It was a very dry air, for five
+months had passed since a drop of rain had fallen, with an almost
+brutal clearness which seemed to bring the horizon nearer and which
+harshly exhibited the forms of the buildings and the lines of the
+landscape.
+
+I went out very early, and the windings of my course took me to the
+Imperial City, one of the three cities that compose the capital of the
+Middle Kingdom. The streets differed in appearance from those of the
+quarters I had just traversed, the shops became rarer, the roadways
+wider, and the temples and palaces closer together. But at this early
+hour there was still greater animation here, and a crowd of horsemen,
+pedestrians, and carriages made passage difficult.
+
+I was about to turn in order to return to the French Legation, when
+a cart, peculiarly constructed upon two wheels placed almost at the
+back, and escorted by two horsemen, made my horse stand aside; it was
+a Tartar carriage from the court stables: a black mule harnessed with
+yellow leather and led by a groom, also in yellow livery, drew it along
+with great strides.
+
+In front, visible between the open curtains, a young woman was seated
+with her legs crossed beneath her. She was clothed in a large mantle of
+salmon-pink silk bordered with blue and gold lace and ornamented down
+the front and on the sleeves with clusters of flowers embroidered with
+very delicate brilliancy and delicious harmony of colour. This vestment
+almost entirely covered her gown of a pale and dead green that fell in
+folds about her.
+
+Her hair, gathered up on the top of her head, was divided in two thick
+folds, crossed here and there by long pins of gold, surmounted by
+butterflies of silver filagree, and artificial flowers of the strangest
+forms and hues. Also, as is customary among ladies of quality, her
+face was entirely painted with ceruse; but the cheeks and the dimple
+of the chin and the lips were coated with a thick layer of carmine,
+while a line of antimony immoderately lengthened her eyes out towards
+the temples, and two black _mouches_ stuck near the cheek-bone,
+gave a peculiar appearance, a sort of air of morbid coquetry, to this
+depressing face in which life seemed to have been extinguished.
+
+  [Illustration: THE SUMMER PALACE, CHINA.]
+
+She held herself in a paralyzed immobility, with a hebetated fixity of
+gaze and a doubtful glimmer of intelligence, oscillating like a waxen
+puppet or an idol in a procession, at each jolt of the carriage. She
+was, doubtless, judging from the livery of the driver and the escorting
+horsemen, a young Tartar lady of the court, one of the Empress’s maids
+of honour, or one of the imperial princesses shut up in the Palace.
+
+I set out to follow her at a distance. Her chariot ascended the
+inclined plane of a bridge, the flooring of which was of marble; the
+balustrade, also of marble, supported some sculptured dragons.
+
+Beneath the arches, the waters of a lake glittered. The light of the
+sun, still near the horizon, barely touched the liquid surface but
+spread its brilliancy everywhere else. In certain spots, lotus flowers
+blossomed and made the lake look like a meadow floating upon the clear
+and sleeping waters. It was the “Golden Lake,” a dependency of the
+Imperial Palace, whose high walls and golden roofs could be seen in the
+background.
+
+Light buildings, such as kiosks and temples, reached to the shore. The
+vast number of these roofs assumed rosy hues and the slightest details
+of their complicated architecture stood out clearly, looking in the
+liquid air that enveloped them, elegant, graceful and fresh amid the
+apricot trees and blossoming mimosas that covered the banks.
+
+North China was, in fact, just emerging from her long winter’s
+mourning, and the impression given by that spring-tide picture of
+earth’s new awakening was exquisite.
+
+The Tartar chariot continued to advance with the rapid steps of its
+mule: it was now passing at the foot of an artificial hill, planted
+with green trees, at the summit of which rose a Buddhist obelisk that
+stood out almost harshly against the blue of the sky.
+
+But along the shore of the lake, the tints had already become deeper,
+and the lines less sharp. The kiosks, the pavilions, and the temples
+that rose upon the banks exhibited the original type of Chinese
+buildings, a canvas tent with turned up corners. The extreme profusion
+of ornamental details did not succeed in hiding the poverty of the
+original conception: dragons, chimeras, phœnixes, and tortoises, an
+entire fabulous and fantastic zoology of sculptured wood or terra
+cotta, surcharged the ridge-poles; figurines and painted flowers of
+clay weighed down the cornices, the larmiers, and the pediments; gaudy
+colors made a motley mixture upon the capitals of the columns and the
+architraves; but beneath this bristling and unrestrained decoration,
+you always found the absolute and invariable type that China has
+uniformly adopted at every epoch of her history and throughout her
+entire empire.
+
+However, I had by this time arrived at the fortified enclosure of the
+palace. High above me a rampart reared itself, thirty feet high and
+surrounded by a wide moat. At regular intervals, towers with turned-up
+roofs jutted out over this line of stone which extended so far that it
+seemed to shut in an entire city. A few trees had crossed the sloping
+wall, and the shadows of their branches spread over the dark and
+stagnant waters of the moat.
+
+A large gateway, surmounted by an enormous square tower, gave access to
+the interior of the palace, and three gigantic black letters engraved
+upon a golden panel at the summit of the tower seemed a mysterious
+inscription placed at the threshold of an unknown world.
+
+And at the moment when the Tartar carriage became engulfed under the
+arch and was lost in the Imperial enclosure, I experienced still more
+powerfully the impression that I had received three years before in
+Morocco in front of the palace of the Sultan Moulay-Hassan. There also,
+in the old city of Islam shining in the sunlight, I had felt myself
+transported into the midst of a new world, but I saw the barriers
+broken down, I was able to pass through the great pointed doorways of
+Dar-el-Mechouar, and the Court of the Scherifs was opened before me, as
+a scene of fairy-land or dreamland unfolds in a dazzling brilliancy of
+light and colour.
+
+Here, on the contrary, everything remained closed and impenetrable.
+
+However, the topography of the palace was not entirely unknown to me;
+I had already studied the plan made by the Jesuit missionaries who
+visited it in the Eighteenth Century, and, indeed, from the heights
+of the ramparts of the Tartar village, I had been able to recognize
+the general arrangement and distinguish the regular succession of its
+rectangular courtyards and gardens containing forty-eight enormous
+palaces and about the same number of pavilions, kiosks, arches and
+gateways.
+
+Only the tops of the principal buildings rose above the surrounding
+wall and into the clumps of verdure. Very far away, in the south, near
+the “Gate of Eternal Purity,” I perceived the temple of the ancestors
+of the dynasty of Ta-Thsing now reigning, where the Emperor comes at
+stated dates to accomplish the sacred rites of the official cult.
+
+Then nearer, three buildings, taller than the rest, stood in a row, and
+the sculptured dragons on the ridge-poles and the glazed tiles on the
+roofs were resplendent in the sunlight: these were the three palaces
+of the “Sovereign Concord, Medium Concord, and Protective Concord,”
+where the Sovereign attends to the affairs of state and traces with
+his vermilion-steeped pencil the characters that express his decisions
+and that are laws venerated as the figured and material form of the
+Imperial will. There, every morning at two o’clock, the Emperor
+presides at the Grand Council of the Middle Kingdom; five ministers
+only have access to it. There, no matter what their age or fatigue,
+they must remain standing the whole time, or bow their foreheads to the
+ground when, from his throne, a stage of gilded wood raised six feet
+above the floor, the Son of Heaven addresses them. During the minority
+of the sovereigns, as is the case with the present Emperor, the Empress
+Regent is present also in the council, but she is not considered as
+there, and a screen of yellow silk hides her from all eyes.
+
+Then I saw a confused mass of houses of imperial princes, Manchus,
+chamberlains, daughters of Emperors married to Mongol princes and
+immured in the palace until their death, wives of the second degree and
+concubines of the deceased sovereigns, ladies of honour, mistresses
+of ceremonies, and eunuchs, an entire population, a wisely arranged
+hierarchy amounting to more than eight thousand persons. Towards the
+east, in the dazzling sunlight, appeared also the barracks of the three
+banners of the guard, the treasury, the shops of porcelain, silver,
+and silk, ornaments, garments, tea, religious objects destined for the
+Son of Heaven, and manufactories where things are prepared for his
+exclusive use; the armoury, the stables, the Imperial library where
+the oldest annals of the world are kept, the “Pavilion of the Literary
+Flowers,” whither the Emperor repairs in the second moon of the year
+to interpret the sacred books; and the temple of the Tchouan-sin-tien
+where the sacrifices to the memory of Confucius and the great
+philosophers are performed.
+
+Finally, very near me, behind the gardens that ran along the length
+of the wall of the enclosure, I caught a glimpse of the “Palace of
+the Superior Terrestrial Element,” which recalled the memory of that
+unfortunate Empress Aluteh, who died in 1875 at the age of eighteen.
+She was the daughter of a Manchu prince. When very young, barely
+fifteen years, a decree proclaiming her for the Emperor tossed her
+brusquely into the Court of Pekin from her province in Tartary, and
+shut her up in the palace which she was to leave only with her life. On
+November 16, 1872, at midnight, she entered in bridal toilette through
+the “Gate of Celestial Purity”: she wore a robe of red silk embroidered
+with dragon and phœnix, a large scarlet veil enveloped her from head to
+foot. Three years later she went out dead through the “Flowered Gate
+of the East”: she had killed herself on learning of the death of her
+husband, the Emperor Tong-Tche: an unusual luxury was lavished upon
+her funeral procession, and embroideries of pale blue silk upon white
+satin embossed with gold covered her coffin.
+
+However, the hour was advancing; the meeting of the Council was over;
+the couriers of state were departing for the provinces; the great
+mandarins came out of the palace, and after making interminable bows,
+got into their chariots, and I returned to the French Legation.
+
+
+
+
+                            BERKELEY CASTLE
+
+                        ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN
+
+
+For sylvan beauty and pastoral loveliness there is no fairer
+countryside in all England than the broad domains of which the old
+feudal stronghold of the Berkeleys is the centre. A mile to the
+westward, the Severn’s broad flood sweeps slowly to the Bristol
+Channel, only twenty miles away. Five miles or so to the eastward,
+the last spurs of the Cotswold Hills sink to the level of the plain.
+There is Stinchcomb Hill with its flat bare top dotted with the white
+tents of its summer camp. Beautiful Dursley lies in a neighbouring
+hollow. Nibley Knoll, where begin the beeches of Westridge Woods,
+amid which are the earthworks of a Roman or Saxon fort, can be easily
+distinguished by the column by Teulon that rises about one hundred feet
+to commemorate the part William Tyndale took in the Reformation. The
+little valleys running into these hills (locally called _bottoms_)
+hear the call of spring long before the uplands, and along the margins
+of their streams the snowdrops wake to nod graciously at their
+reflected beauty; and then, before the Westridge Woods are clothed in
+green, among the shielding trunks the primrose spreads a cloth of gold
+above the last year’s leaves.
+
+This whole district is thronged with historic memories; many a Norman
+cross and church lies within a circuit of twelve miles’ radius.
+Tortworth Court is close at hand. A few miles down across the river,
+stands mighty Chepstow with the Wye washing her ruined walls; but
+Berkeley is still intact and inhabited after seven centuries’ assault
+by Time and civil strife. This is what renders Berkeley so remarkable
+among English castles: it retains its ancient shell, and it has always
+been owned and inhabited by a lineal descendant of the original owner
+and builder.
+
+The “Faire Vale of Berkeley” was always famous for its beauty and
+fertility. William of Malmesbury describes it as “rich in corn,
+productive in fruits ... enticing even the lazy to industry by the
+prospect of a hundredfold return.... Neither has any county in England
+more numerous or richer vineyards ... the wine is but little inferior
+to that of France in sweetness.” The vineyards have long disappeared,
+and the only vines now seen are those that beautify the walls and frame
+the latticed casements of the cottages.
+
+In Domesday Book, Berkeley appears as a royal demesne and borough: one
+of the trees mentioned as a boundary of the hundred is still pointed
+out in the Deer Park, and known as King William’s Oak. The Conqueror
+gave the manor to Roger de Berkeley who erected the Keep about 1093. At
+first this was only a military hold to keep the neighbourhood in check,
+but buildings were gradually added till the castle assumed its present
+form and the lord took up his residence here under Cœur de Lion, a
+century later.
+
+  [Illustration: BERKELEY CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
+
+Situated on a little rise, its strong battlements and towers look
+across the tops of the beautiful trees that now shade its useless
+moat, and the visitor enjoys a lovely view in every direction. Situated
+midway between Gloucester and Bristol, the baron, predatory doubtless
+as was the custom of the age, was in a fine position to levy toll
+on merchant caravans that must pass through the vale. The form of
+the castle is that of an irregular circle. The drawbridge leads to a
+portcullised gateway in massive walls between two hexagonal towers. The
+donjon is a square tower with turrets at the angles, built on higher
+ground than the other constructions to dominate the rest of the castle.
+It was erected in 1342. It is called Thorpe’s tower after the family
+who held lands in tenure from the lord in return for acting as its
+warders. The strong keep also still stands and shows the warder’s walk
+fifty-eight feet in length, in perfect preservation. The dimensions of
+the great hall are forty-eight by thirty-three feet. Its great chimney
+is adorned with mediæval armour and antlers. The ancient kitchen and
+other offices still exist, and so does the chapel with its Decorated
+style of architecture. The sacrarium is of special interest since it is
+divided into two floors, each with a separate entrance and fireplace,
+the lower for the use of the retainers and the upper, or Oriel, for the
+family and guests. The living-rooms contain many pictures by famous
+masters, and some historic furniture. Among the latter, are some ebony
+chairs and a table that Drake brought home from the Spanish Main.
+
+Rich as the castle is in antiquarian remains, however, the interest
+of these walls is multiplied a hundredfold by their historical
+associations. When we take our stand on the summit of the Donjon and
+look around and below us, what memories are evoked! When we recall
+the history of the family, we cannot but marvel that the ancient line
+is still in possession; for a turbulent race were the Berkeleys, and
+often arrayed against the Crown. Roger de Berkeley joined Stephen
+against the granddaughter of his father’s benefactor, and therefore
+Henry Fitz-Empress confiscated his fief, and conferred it upon Robert
+Fitz-Harding, Governor of Bristol, of royal Danish descent, at the
+same time making him a baron. The latter’s son, however, married
+Roger’s heiress, and thus the Berkeleys were restored in their son
+Maurice. Robert, the son of the latter, joined the barons against John,
+who seized the castle, and was there in the last year of his reign.
+However, Robert’s brother Thomas managed to get it restored, in 1233,
+by Henry III. Maurice, the son of Thomas, was in rebellion with Simon
+de Montfort twenty-five years later, and, as a result, Berkeley was
+again confiscated. His son Thomas served Edward I., the “Hammer of the
+Scots,” so well in the North that he got back his ancestral honours
+and domains and was summoned to Parliament as Baron Berkeley in 1295.
+This lord and his son and grandson were rich and powerful, and all the
+beautiful “Edwardian” stone-work is of this period. Much of the older
+work was cleared away for the new buildings of the loveliest style of
+English Gothic. But what a deed of violence was perpetrated in the
+narrow chamber in the adjoining building below us! We have reached the
+dark memory that above all else enshrouds Berkeley. The effeminate king
+who lost Bannockburn and handed over the reins of government to the
+unworthy Gaveston and De Spencers, decimating the English baronage at
+their behests, and revelling in Oriental vice and ferocity, finally
+succumbed to his wife and her paramour at Kenilworth early in 1327.
+The Lord of Berkeley now was Thomas, the grandson of the favourite of
+Edward I. To him and to two knights named John Maltravers and Thomas
+de Gournay was entrusted the custody of the dethroned Edward II. The
+two latter removed their captive secretly and treated him with every
+indignity: they crowned him with a crown of hay and shaved him with
+ditch-water along the way. A circumstantial account tells how he said
+therefore he would supply his own hot water with tears! On Palm Sunday,
+Baron Thomas received him kindly and treated him with consideration,
+whereupon he received a reprimand from Queen Isabel, bidding him
+“use no familiarity with Edward, the late king;” and so, fearing for
+himself, he “departed with heavy cheere, perceiving what violence was
+intended.” Lovely as was the view from his window, the long summer from
+April to September brought no joy to the prisoner. The _Berkeley
+MS._ says that “this poor, foolish king did nothing but lament for
+his wife, singing love-songs in a low voice and grieving that she would
+neither see him nor permit his son or any of his relatives to come near
+him. The Queen was afraid that the Church would compel her to live
+with him again, and therefore urged his death.” At first, his keepers
+tried to ruin his health by piling putrid carcases in the pit below his
+chamber; then they kept him half-starved and half-clad. Yet the Queen
+reproved them for excessive clemency! Marlowe quotes the historian in
+noble verse when Edward complains:
+
+    “In mire and puddle I have stood
+    This ten days’ space; and, lest that I should sleep,
+    One plays continually upon a drum.
+    They give me bread and water, being a king,
+    So that, for want of sleep and sustenance,
+    My mind’s distempered and my body’s numbed....
+    O, would my blood dropped out from every vein,
+    As doth this water from my tattered robes.
+    Tell Isabel, the queen, I looked not thus,
+    When for her sake I ran at tilt in France,
+    And there unhorsed the Duke of Cleremont!”
+
+The night of September 22nd heard the shrieks of the tortured king:
+that they reached the ears of people in the town, who crossed
+themselves and prayed for the passing soul, is doubtless a statement
+due to the historian’s sympathy, for the walls are thick. In the
+morning, the citizens of Bristol were called to gaze upon the distorted
+features of their dead king, who otherwise bore no sign of violence.
+All were afraid to bury Isabel’s victim, till the Abbot of Gloucester
+bravely undertook the task. The next year Isabel and Mortimer actually
+visited Berkeley, and were entertained by its wealthy lord. The latter
+kept twelve knights to wait upon him, each of whom was served by two
+servants and a page. He also had twenty-four esquires, each of whom
+had a horse and an attendant. There were about three hundred in his
+household who fed at his board. The Lord of Berkeley was a mighty
+baron in those days. The blame had to be shifted, however, and so he
+was brought to an irregular trial before twelve knights, instead of his
+peers: he was finally acquitted of complicity in the crime in 1330.
+In that year, his son and successor, Maurice, was born. He fought in
+Granada and Gascony, and was so desperately wounded at Poictiers in
+1366 that he died at Berkeley two years later. His son Thomas was also
+a warrior who unfurled his banner in Spain, France and Scotland. He
+entertained Richard II. at Berkeley in 1386, but this did not prevent
+his voting for Richard’s deposition in favour of Bolingbroke in 1399.
+
+The direct male line fails soon after this and the Berkeley heiress
+marries a Talbot. A collateral branch comes in and the descendants have
+rival claims and start what is usually called the longest law-suit on
+record: it is not finally settled till 1609. In the course of this
+suit, occurs the last battle that was fought between independent
+noblemen in England. Lord Lisle of Wotton, the grandson of the great
+Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, claims Berkeley which is held by William,
+a fiery youth of nineteen. (Wotton-under-Edge lies under the edge of
+the hills three miles beyond Nibley Knoll.) On March 22nd, 1470, the
+Viscount sends a challenge to Berkeley to settle all differences by
+combat: it is eagerly accepted. There was bustle in the castle that
+night. The meeting was at Nibley Green. Long Lane still preserves
+memories of how the men of Berkeley chased the men of Wotton into the
+churchyard till the grass was heavy with crimson dew. Berkeley far
+outnumbered Lisle; moreover the latter were taken as they were marching
+unawares, and an arrow entered their leader’s open visor and a dagger
+afterwards finished him. The victors proceed to Wotton and sacked
+Lisle’s house. His widow gave premature birth to a dead son amid the
+carnage, and the Lisle claims were ended. The Wars of the Roses were
+still raging and a little affair of that kind passed unnoticed.
+
+Margaret of Anjon rested once at Berkeley in her campaigning. Richard
+III. created Viscount Berkeley an Earl, but, true to his race, he went
+over. When Henry of Richmond landed at Milford Haven, Berkeley joined
+him and, to spite his heir, made over to him his castle and domains.
+After Bosworth, Henry created him a Marquess, but his avarice induced
+him to keep the property. In default of heirs male, however, on the
+death of Edward II., it lapsed to the Berkeley heirs again. The new
+lord of Berkeley was a mighty hunter and delighted in his beautiful
+deer park. On one of her progresses, Good Queen Bess paid him a visit.
+He happened to be absent, but his venison proved useful in victualling
+the courtly following. Everybody knows what it cost to entertain that
+locust-swarm! When Lord Henry returned, he was greatly enraged at the
+havoc, and ordered his park to be disparked rather than let it be a
+future temptation. Elizabeth heard of this and sent him a quiet hint
+to “beware of his words and actions, for the Earl of Leicester greatly
+desired the castle for himself!” One of the rooms in this “Naboth’s
+vineyard” is still called Queen Elizabeth’s room. Other royal guests
+who have visited the castle are George IV. and William IV.
+
+The Earls of Berkeley no longer own their ancestral home, in fact they
+maintain that the title is not rightfully theirs. This celebrated
+romance of the peerage started with the fifth Earl. Some of his
+children were born before the only marriage he could prove to the
+satisfaction of the House of Lords, though he maintained that he and
+the lady had previously gone through a secret marriage ceremony. The
+Earl left the castle and estates to his eldest son, and the Crown
+created him Baron Fitzhardinge. The late Earl of Berkeley never took
+his seat in the House of Lords nor assumed his title in any way since
+the decision that set the baton sinister in the escutcheon of the elder
+sons of the fifth Earl.
+
+
+
+
+                         THE CASTLE OF CHILLON
+
+                          NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
+
+
+Further onward we saw a white, ancient-looking group of towers, beneath
+a mountain, which was so high, and rushed so precipitately down upon
+this pile of building as quite to dwarf it; besides which, its dingy
+whiteness had not a very picturesque effect. Nevertheless, this was the
+Castle of Chillon. It appears to sit right upon the water, and does not
+rise very loftily above it. I was disappointed in its aspect, having
+imagined this famous castle as situated upon a rock, a hundred, or for
+aught I know, a thousand feet above the surface of the lake; but it is
+quite as impressive a fact--supposing it to be true--that the water
+is eight hundred feet deep at its base. By this time, the mountains
+had taken the beautiful lake into their deepest heart; they girdled it
+quite round with their grandeur and beauty, and, being able to do no
+more for it, they here withheld it from extending any farther; and here
+our voyage came to an end. I have never beheld any scene so exquisite;
+nor do I ask of Heaven to show me any lovelier or nobler one, but only
+to give me such depth and breadth of sympathy with nature, that I may
+worthily enjoy this. It is beauty more than enough for poor, perishable
+mortals. If this be earth, what must Heaven be!
+
+It was nearly eight o’clock when we arrived; and then we had a walk
+of at least a mile to the Hotel Byron. I had forgot to mention that
+in the latter part of our voyage there was a shower in some part of
+the sky, and though none of it fell upon us, we had the benefit of
+those gentle tears in a rainbow, which arched itself across the lake
+from mountain to mountain, so that our track lay directly under this
+triumphal arch. We took it as a good omen, nor were we discouraged,
+though, after the rainbow had vanished, a few sprinkles of the shower
+came down.
+
+  [Illustration: THE CASTLE OF CHILLON, SWITZERLAND.]
+
+We found the Hotel Byron very grand indeed, and a good one, too. There
+was a beautiful moonlight on the lake and hills, but we contented
+ourselves with looking out of our lofty window, whence, likewise, we
+had a sidelong glimpse at the white battlements of Chillon, not more
+than a mile off, on the water’s edge. The castle is wofully in need of
+a pedestal. If its site were elevated to a height equal to its own it
+would make a far better appearance. As it now is, it looks, so to speak
+profanely of what poetry has consecrated, when seen from the water, or
+along the shore of the lake, very like an old whitewashed factory or
+mill.
+
+This morning I walked to the Castle of Chillon with J----, who sketches
+everything he sees, from a wild flower to a castle or a range of
+mountains. The morning had sunshine thinly scattered through it; but,
+nevertheless, there was a continual sprinkle, sometimes scarcely
+perceptible, and then again amounting to a decided drizzle. The road,
+which is built along on a little elevation above the lake shore, led us
+past the Castle of Chillon; and we took a side-path, which passes still
+nearer the castle-gate. The castle stands on an isthmus of gravel,
+permanently connecting it with the mainland. A wooden bridge covered
+with a roof, passes from the shore to the arched entrance; and beneath
+this shelter, which has wooden walls as well as roof and floor, we
+saw a soldier or _gendarme_, who seemed to act as warder. As it
+sprinkled rather more freely than at first, I thought of appealing to
+his hospitality for shelter from the rain, but concluded to pass on.
+
+The castle makes a far better appearance on a nearer view, and from
+the land, than when seen at a distance and from the water. It is built
+of stone, and seems to have been anciently covered with plaster, which
+imparts the whiteness to which Byron does much more than justice, when
+he speaks of “Chillon’s snow-white battlements.” There is a lofty
+eternal wall, with a cluster of round towers about it, each crowned
+with its pyramidal roof of tiles, and from the central portion of the
+castle rises a square tower, also crowned with its own pyramid to a
+considerably greater height than the circumjacent ones. The whole are
+in a close cluster, and make a fine picture of ancient strength when
+seen at a proper proximity; for I do not think that distance adds
+anything to the effect. There are hardly any windows, or few, and very
+small ones, except the loopholes for arrows and for the garrison of the
+castle to peep from on the sides towards the water; indeed, there are
+larger windows at least in the upper apartments; but in that direction,
+no doubt, the castle was considered impregnable. Trees here and there
+on the land side grow up against the castle wall, on one part of which,
+moreover, there was a green curtain of ivy spreading from base to
+battlement. The walls retain their machicolations, and I should judge
+that nothing had been altered, nor any more work been done upon the old
+fortress than to keep it in singularly good repair. It was formerly a
+castle of the Duke of Savoy, and since his sway over the country ceased
+(three hundred years at least), it has been in the hands of the Swiss
+government, who still keep some arms and ammunition there.
+
+We passed on, and found the view of it better, as we thought, from
+a farther point along the road. The raindrops began to spatter down
+faster, and we took shelter under an impending precipice, where the
+ledge of rock had been blasted and hewn away to form the road. Our
+refuge was not a very convenient and comfortable one, so we took
+advantage of the partial cessation of the shower to turn homeward,
+but we had not gone far when we met mamma and all her train. As we
+were close by the castle entrance, we thought it advisable to seek
+admission, though rather doubtful whether the Swiss _gendarmes_
+might not deem it a sin to let us into the castle on Sunday. But he
+very readily admitted us under his covered drawbridge, and called an
+old man from within the fortress to show us whatever was to be seen.
+This latter personage was a staid, rather grim, and Calvinistic-looking
+old worthy; but he received us without scruple, and forthwith proceeded
+to usher us into a range of the most dismal dungeons, extending along
+the basement of the castle, on a level with the surface of the lake.
+First, if I remember aright, we came to what he said had been a chapel,
+and which, at all events, looked like an aisle of one, or rather such
+a crypt as I have seen beneath a cathedral, being a succession of
+massive pillars supporting groined arches,--a very admirable piece of
+Gothic architecture. Next, we came to a very dark compartment of the
+same dungeon range, where he pointed to a sort of bed, or what might
+serve for a bed, hewn in the solid rock, and this, our guide said, had
+been the last sleeping-place of condemned prisoners on the night before
+their execution. The next compartment was still duskier and dismaller
+than the last, and he bade us cast our eyes up into the obscurity and
+see a beam, where the condemned ones used to be hanged. I looked and
+looked, and closed my eyes so as to see the clearer in this horrible
+duskiness on opening them again. Finally, I thought I discerned the
+accursed beam, and the rest of the party were certain that they saw it.
+Next, beyond this, I think, was a stone staircase, steep, rudely cut
+and narrow, down which the condemned were brought to death; and beyond
+this, still on the same basement range of the castle, a low and narrow
+[corridor] through which we passed, and saw a row of seven massive
+pillars, supporting two parallel series of groined arches, like those
+in the chapel which we first entered. This was Bonnivard’s prison, and
+the scene of Byron’s poem.
+
+The arches are dimly lighted by narrow loopholes, pierced through the
+immensely thick wall, but at such a height above the floor that we
+could catch no glimpse of land or water, or scarcely of the sky. The
+prisoner of Chillon could not possibly have seen the island to which
+Byron alludes, and which is a little way from the shore, exactly
+opposite the town of Villeneuve. There was light enough in this long,
+grey, vaulted room, to show us that all the pillars were inscribed
+with the names of visitors, among which I saw no interesting one,
+except that of Byron himself, which is cut, in letters an inch long
+or more, into one of the pillars next to that to which Bonnivard was
+chained. The letters are deep enough to remain in the pillar as long
+as the castle stands. Byron seems to have had a fancy for recording
+his name in this and similar ways; as witness the record which I saw
+on a tree of Newstead Abbey. In Bonnivard’s pillar there still remains
+an iron ring, at the height of perhaps three feet from the ground.
+His chain was fastened to this ring, and his only freedom was to walk
+round this pillar, about which he is said to have worn a path in the
+stone pavement of the dungeon; but as the floor is now covered with
+earth of gravel, I could not satisfy myself whether this be true.
+Certainly six years with nothing else to do in them save to walk round
+the pillar, might well suffice to wear away the rock, even with naked
+feet. This column and all the columns, were cut and hewn in a good
+style of architecture, and the dungeon arches are not without a certain
+gloomy beauty. On Bonnivard’s pillar, as well as on all the rest, were
+many names inscribed; but I thought better of Byron’s delicacy and
+sensitiveness for not cutting his name into that very pillar. Perhaps,
+knowing nothing of Bonnivard’s story, he did not know to which column
+he was chained.
+
+Emerging from the dungeon-vaults, our guide led us through other
+parts of the castle, showing us the Duke of Savoy’s kitchen, with a
+fireplace at least twelve feet long; also the judgment-hall, or some
+such place, hung round with the coats-of-arms of some officers or
+other, and having at one end a wooden post, reaching from floor to
+ceiling, and having upon it the marks of fire. By means of this post
+contumacious prisoners were put to a dreadful torture, being drawn
+up by cords and pulleys, while their limbs were scorched by a fire
+underneath. We also saw a chapel or two, one of which is still in good
+and sanctified condition, and was to be used this very day, our guide
+told us, for religious purposes. We saw, moreover, the Duke’s private
+chamber, with a part of the bedstead on which he used to sleep, and be
+haunted with horrible dreams, no doubt, and the ghosts of wretches whom
+he had tortured and hanged; likewise the bedchamber of his duchess,
+that had in its window two stone seats, where, directly over the head
+of Bonnivard, the ducal pair might look out on the beautiful scene of
+lake and mountains, and feel the warmth of the blessed sun. Under this
+window, the guide said, the water of the lake is eight hundred feet in
+depth; an immense profundity, indeed, for an inland lake, but it is
+not very difficult to believe that the mountain at the foot of which
+Chillon stands may descend so far beneath the water. In other parts
+of the lake and not distant, more than nine hundred feet have been
+sounded. I looked out of the duchess’s window, and could certainly see
+no appearance of a bottom in the light blue water.
+
+The last thing that the guide showed us was a trap-door, or opening,
+beneath a crazy old floor. Looking down into this aperture we saw
+three stone steps, which we should have taken to be the beginning of a
+flight of stairs that descended into a dungeon, or series of dungeons,
+such as we had already seen. But inspecting them more closely, we
+saw that the third step terminated the flight, and beyond was a dark
+vacancy. Three steps a person would grope down, planting his uncertain
+foot on a dimly seen stone; the fourth step would be in the empty air.
+
+
+
+
+                          ROCCA MALATESTIANA
+
+                            CHARLES YRIARTE
+
+
+The name of Malatesta illuminates every step in Rimini. The
+fortification that serves to enclose the town, strengthened by
+towers of defence and by windows that resemble our modern casements,
+is certainly due to them. The celebrated fortress known under the
+name of Rocca Malatestiana still commands the city, although it is
+now dismantled and converted into a prison, and upon the square,
+San Francesco, there rises the Temple of the Malatestas (Tempio
+Malatestiano), the purest building, perhaps, of the most beautiful
+period of Italian art, upon the pediment of which you read the pompous
+inscription: “To Immortal God Sigismond Malatesta, son of Pandolphe.”
+
+  [Illustration: ROCCA MALATESTIANA, ITALY.]
+
+In 1294, Malatesta da Verucchio built the castle upon the same site,
+and he made of it at once a sumptuous residence and a solid fortress
+to which was given the name of Gattolo dei Malatesta. It is from there
+that Verucchio dates his will. The great Ghiberti, the sculptor of
+the “Gates of Paradise,” tells us, in his _Commentaries_ that
+in 1400 he made some enamels for the apartments and that he painted
+some frescoes. Alas! nothing of these remains for us. In 1446, comes
+Sigismond, son of Pandolphe, the great warrior and conqueror, he who
+has been nicknamed Poliorcète, skilful in making fortifications,
+pupil and soon the rival of Roberto Valturco, the celebrated author of
+the volume of _Re Militari_; he battered down the Gattolo, or,
+at least, he changed it from roof to basement at the moment when the
+discovery of artillery had changed all the conditions of the attack
+and defence of old castles. It was during this transformation that
+the frescoes and all the ornamentation, of which Ghiberti speaks,
+disappeared. Two superb inscriptions, one Gothic, the other of the
+first half of the Fifteenth Century, surmounted by the escutcheon of
+the Malatestas with the helmet crowned by elephants’ heads and the
+chess-board, are sure guarantees of these serious modifications. In
+order that they should be proved with more certainty, Matteo de’ Pasti,
+a pensioner of the lord of Rimini, struck, by order of his master, the
+superb commemorative medal representing the Rocca Malatestiana. Piero
+della Francesca, the great artist to whom we owe the greater number
+of the beautiful portraits of the Bentivoglios, the Montefeltros, and
+the Malatestas, brings us, in his turn, an unexceptionable proof,--the
+day when, in the temple of San Francesco of Rimini, the pantheon of
+the Malatesta family, he represents the lord of Rimini kneeling before
+Saint Sigismond, and gives the view of the Rocca as a background for
+his precious fresco.
+
+So imposing a mass should certainly have triumphed over time, but it
+has been disfigured at the pleasure of succeeding generations. Upon the
+ground where we walk while regarding the present façade, is dug the
+first enclosure, a large moat a hundred feet wide and thirty-five feet
+deep, to-day filled up and forming a platform. We find no longer the
+six towers, eighty feet high, destroyed by Urbain VIII. (1625), who has
+also given his name to the building for more than a century,--Castello
+Urbano. Finally, in 1826, the first circuit was razed, and, the moat
+having already disappeared, they did away with the drawbridge. It is
+nothing more than a prison, through the gratings of which we see the
+red caps of the prisoners who come to gaze upon a bit of blue sky.
+
+Another tradition insists that the Malatestas, sons of Verucchio,
+lived, during the lifetime of their father, in a dwelling near the old
+gate of San Andrea; but the house designated, dating at most from the
+last centuries, belonged to the Graziani, and to-day it serves as the
+residence for the family of the Ugolini Micheli. One sees how difficult
+it is to establish anything even after long inquiry; however, the
+conclusion of the historian, Tonini, must also be our own: the cruel
+scene must have taken place in Rimini, and probably in the Gattolo
+de Santa Colomba, that is to say in the fortress known to-day under
+the name of Rocca Malatestiana, a residence greatly disfigured and
+modified, where it would be impossible to identify the exact spot of
+the murder, but which, according to a number of chronicles, was at the
+moment this murder was accomplished, a princely residence, “containing
+noble apartments,” with the exterior appearance of a castle.
+
+Since Francesca was born in Ravenna, why has posterity unanimously
+designated her under the name of Francesca da Rimini? Logically she
+should be Francesca da Ravenna; but she lived in Rimini as the wife
+of Giovanni Malatesta, and it was there that she expiated her crime,
+or her weakness, by death; it was there that her tomb was made, and
+posterity will therefore forever call her by the name of Francesca da
+Rimini. Moreover, if we sum up the opinions of the chroniclers and
+historians, it is understood by the most of them that the deed was
+accomplished in this town, and they doubt it so little that the idea
+never occurs to them to support a contrary opinion. Marco Battaglia,
+Benvenuto da Imola, Fra Giovanni da Serravalle, and Baldo di Branchi
+furnish proofs that might be considered as negative; but if they do not
+cite the name of Rimini, it never occurs to them to mention any other
+town. As for Jacopo Della Lana, Gradinego and Boccaccio, all three name
+the city of the Malatestas, and later, when Silvio Pellico and many
+other dramatic poets of other nations will write their dramas, their
+poems, or their stories, they will not hesitate to place the scene in
+the same city. Count Odoardo Fabri will not do otherwise, and if Lord
+Byron had realized the plan he conceived and which he made known to
+Murray, his publisher, in the letters which are now in everybody’s
+hands, Rimini would still be the scene. Is it necessary to speak of
+our compatriot, M. Auguste Thomas, the composer of _Mignon_, who
+having written the score of _Francesca da Rimini_, dedicated it to
+M. Tonini, the librarian of the Gambalunghiana.
+
+Francesca then is not Francesca da Ravenna, she is and she will ever
+remain “Francesca da Rimini.”
+
+She belongs to the history of this town, or if you prefer, to its
+legend. It is in vain to turn over the leaves of the archives, you
+cannot deprive the city of the Malatestas of its touching picture.
+
+Before formulating our conclusions we will note, merely for the
+curiosity of the fact, a singular document taken from a volume printed
+in Rimini in 1581, by Simbeni, entitled _Il Vermicello della
+seta_, signed under the name Giovanni Andrea Corsucci da Sascorbaro,
+and cited by Luigi Tonini:
+
+“A few days ago in the church of Saint Augustin, in Rimini, they found
+in a marble sepulchre Paolo Malatesta and Francesca, daughter of Guido
+da Polenta, lord of Ravenna, who were put to death by Lancilotto, son
+of Malatesta, lord of Rimini, brother of the said Paolo found under
+the accomplishment of a dishonest deed, and both miserably killed with
+the blows of a poignard, as Petrarch describes in his _Triumph of
+Love_. Their clothes were of silk, and, although they had been shut
+up in this sepulchre for so many years, they were found in a perfect
+state of preservation.”
+
+Upon what document Sascorbaro relies for this statement no one can say;
+there was no inscription, no medal and no sign whatever that could
+certify to the identity of the skeletons; but the legend was evidently
+established, since Boccaccio and the greater number of chroniclers had
+said that the two bodies were united in the same tomb. The assertion
+of Sascorbaro, deprived of all proofs as it is, has come to confirm
+the opinion of the Florentine story-teller. Rimini persists in its
+legend, if legend it is; and I also discovered a few days ago, at
+Gambalunghiana, the bit of silk tissued with gold, and placed in a
+frame upon which the erudite son of Tonini, successor to the historian
+of Rimini, does not willingly call to the attention of learned
+historians, because history desires authentic proofs; but the common
+people view with great pleasure a contemporary relic of Francesca and
+Paolo.
+
+
+
+
+                             THE WARTBURG
+
+                              L. PUTTICH
+
+
+The Wartburg lies on the north-western slope of the Thuringer Forest
+at the top of a spur that commands an extensive view over the fruitful
+fields and woody Thuringian ridges. If the traveller has enjoyed the
+prospect during the ascent, he is engrossed by other feelings as soon
+as he has passed through the gateway into the old stronghold and
+mentally rehabilitates the entire castle as it was in days of yore.
+For the Wartburg is not only memorable as having been the abode for a
+century of the powerful landgraves of Thuringia who had their court
+here from the time this hold was built by Ludwig II. at the end of the
+Eleventh Century (1080 A. D. is usually considered the year
+of its completion) to the extinction of his line with Heinrich Raspe
+in the middle of the Thirteenth Century, but it has also acquired a
+classic repute in German history by three important occurrences: the
+famous Singer-war, the life of Saint Elizabeth, and Luther’s sojourn
+here.
+
+  [Illustration: THE WARTBURG, GERMANY.]
+
+The Singer-war, also called the war of the Wartburg, was brought about,
+as is well known, by the Minnesong-enthusiast landgrave, Hermann I.
+and his art-loving wife, Sophia. In 1206, they assembled six of the
+most celebrated Minnesingers,--Walter von der Vogelweide, Heinrich von
+Ofterdingen, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich (the virtuous writer),
+Johann Bitterolff, and Reimer von Zwethin, partly native and partly
+foreign,--and arranged a singing-contest among them. Heinrich von
+Ofterdingen sang of the knightly qualities of the Archduke Leopold II.
+of Austria; Eschenbach celebrated the fame of the King of France; and
+Walter von der Vogelweide, the preëminence of the landgrave Hermann;
+whilst the other singers extolled other princes. But this gave rise
+to a serious strife, and the irritated contestants agreed (so it is
+said) that the defeated singer should die by the executioner’s hand.
+The landgrave strongly forbade such a bargain over his undertaking, but
+nevertheless when Ofterdingen was declared the loser, the protection
+of the landgravine, to whom he fled, was necessary to save him from
+his adversaries. The landgrave adjusted the quarrel by arranging
+a new contest, to which Ofterdingen had to fetch from Hungary the
+world-famous meistersinger, Klingsor, to act as umpire. About a year
+afterwards, therefore, the latter appeared with Ofterdingen and the
+contest began again. Klingsor, however, would not decide in favour of
+any one singer, but rather sought to reconcile the parties. In this he
+was successful, and so the “War of the Wartburg” ended in feasting and
+revels which the landgrave provided.
+
+Although its original features have been destroyed, the Minnesinger
+Hall in which the contest took place still stands, and might easily be
+restored; but fragments of the poems of the Wartburg war are preserved
+in the _Maneseichen_, _Docenschen_, and other collections. It
+has been held, however, and not without good grounds, that the poems
+still extant of that contest were first collected a century after it
+was held. It seems certain, nevertheless, that the kernel of the matter
+is largely contained in these collections.
+
+Saint Elizabeth, the daughter of King Andrew II. of Hungary, became
+the wife of the landgrave Ludwig VI., the Pious, in 1221; and resided
+at the Wartburg with him. She was a model of simplicity, piety
+and gentleness; and during a famine and accompanying pestilence
+that ravaged Thuringia, she displayed these great virtues to the
+highest degree, proving herself a true mother of her country by her
+self-sacrifice in nursing the sick and dying.
+
+Luther had left the Diet at Worms; he had been outlawed, and the
+safe-conduct granted to him by the Emperor Charles V. was soon about
+to lapse, for it was limited to twenty-one days. His friends and
+protectors therefore feared for his life, and, in order to hide him,
+Luther was snatched up by masked servants while passing through the
+Thuringer Forest, and brought to the Wartburg. It is scarcely to
+be doubted that this happened by the contrivance of the Kurfurst
+Friedrich, although at first he may have avoided all knowledge of
+Luther’s retreat, in order to be able to meet all official inquiries.
+Luther arrived at the Wartburg in May, 1521, under the name of a knight
+Görg. Here, for nearly a year, he lived in a little chamber, in a wing
+to the right of the chief tower, very simply adorned and furnished only
+with the barest necessaries. It still exists in its original condition,
+and it is with awe that the visitor enters the little abode wherein the
+great man partly accomplished his undying work,--the translation of the
+Bible. The castle chapel in the landgrave’s quarters still contains
+the pulpit from which Luther often preached to the inmates.
+
+When we approach the castle from the east, where the carriage road
+leading from the town of Eisenach first winds through a wooded valley
+up to the tree-clad ridge, the Wartburg sits enthroned high above on
+the top of the mountain. From this point we see the landgrave-abode,
+and to its immediate right the residence built in 1791, and fortified
+walls stretching to the gate-house, or knight-house (_Ritterhaus_).
+
+The ridge on which the castle extends from north to south is long and
+narrow and of very irregular form. It was formerly entirely covered
+with buildings that surrounded the inner courtyard. The single main
+entrance originally consisted of three or four gateways constructed
+one behind another with intermediate spaces, on the north-east. The
+outermost of these, supplied with a high tower, stood close to the
+narrow and steep approach which is cut in the rock and leads to the
+top of the mount. This outermost tower, it is conjectured, overhung
+this steep path, so that in case of attack the foe might be more
+easily repelled. The innermost gateway, which led into the stronghold
+itself, is the only one now standing. Formerly it was furnished with a
+drawbridge which recently has been changed to a strong bridge of stone.
+Above the gateway, rises the so-called _Ritterhaus_ (knight-house)
+which retains evidences of having been much higher formerly than it
+now is. It probably formed the tower-gate which, in 1558, was partly
+demolished and brought into closer relations with the other buildings.
+The _Ritterhaus_ served as the dwelling of the knights whom the
+landgrave assembled about him for the defence of the castle: it is
+now the dwelling of the Castellan. The style of those buildings still
+standing shows that they belong to the Fifteenth Century, and only
+the lower part of the walls is of the date at which the castle was
+founded, at the end of the Eleventh or some time during the Twelfth
+Century. The relief carved on the wall over the gateway also belongs
+to the same date. Its meaning cannot be solved. Popularly, it is
+called the Jonah; but it represents a knight about to be devoured by
+a dragon. The coat-of-arms hanging at the knight’s neck appears to
+bear the imperial eagle. Another perhaps equally ancient relief, which
+is found on the west wall not far from the square tower, is also to
+be noted. It represents a man sitting on a lion and tearing its jaws
+apart: it refers to the fact that the landgrave Ludwig the Good once
+single-handed bound a lion that his father-in-law had sent to him, and
+that had escaped from its cage in the courtyard.
+
+Through the door under the _Ritterhaus_, we enter the courtyard
+of the Wartburg, and see to the west one of the continuations of the
+_Ritterhaus_. Adjoining this to the south, are other buildings;
+among others, that containing Luther’s chamber. On the left, to the
+east, runs a long high wall from the _Ritterhaus_ to the chief
+building standing on that side. This wall is covered with a defence-way
+of very simple form resembling those still occasionally found in old
+city walls. The first chief building already mentioned on that side
+was formerly called the _Musshaus_ (house of ease and leisure).
+Between it and the above-mentioned wall at the end of the courtyard,
+was originally a high wall with a wide doorway, so that the whole rear
+part of the castle, the residence of the ruling family, was separated
+from the front part where the knights and attendants dwelt. According
+to ancient report, the _Musshaus_ was only a tall, plain block,
+though the interior was not devoid of luxury, and here the landgrave’s
+family dwelt.
+
+Adjoining the south side of the _Musshaus_ was the _Landgravenhaus_
+(landgrave-house), also called the great or high house, which was
+devoted to ceremonials in the days of the landgraves. It is a stately
+structure that originated perhaps in the time of Ludwig III. in
+the middle of the Twelfth Century. In Germany it stands alone as a
+princely private building of such dimensions that still preserves its
+original form in the Byzantine or Roman style of architecture. In these
+respects, there is no ancestral secular building that can compare with
+it abroad also. On the west, it is connected with the Minnesinger Hall
+which formerly formed the chief entrance to the above hall through
+broad windows, divided up into round arches by little columns, for the
+other three sides had no entrance. The columns rest upon a low sill, so
+that people can look between them into the hall; so that it is to be
+presumed that the passage thus formed was intended for spectators. The
+little columns are ornamented with delicate capitals and volutes. They
+have Attic bases. In the time of Friedrich I. this hall was adorned
+with mural paintings of battles and other memorable occurrences of the
+life of the period. Traces of these paintings were still visible at the
+beginning of the present century.
+
+
+
+
+                           CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE
+
+                            JULES LOISELEUR
+
+
+The Castle of Amboise is placed at the entrance of Touraine like the
+jealous sentinel guarding the entrance to the Garden of the Hesperides.
+It is not a palace like the castle of Blois, nor a villa of a royal
+mistress like Chenonceaux, nor a sort of immense convent full of
+mysterious cells like Chambord: it is a military place, a veritable
+fortress of the Middle Ages upon which is grafted a castle of the
+Fifteenth Century.
+
+This formidable military position has been at all times the key of this
+beautiful province. When Cæsar marched against the Armoricans, there
+lodged here a Roman garrison. From the height of these impregnable
+rocks, the counts of Anjou, and later the Plantagenets, their
+descendants, these worthy sons of the Black Falcon restrained within
+their talons the slightest movements of Touraine, while they kept a
+jealous watch over the counts of Blois and Champagne, who possessed
+but a few leagues away the sombre fortress of Chaumont. Amboise and
+Chaumont were the two advanced sentinels of these two impregnable
+neighbours. These solid walls served under Charles VII. as the rampart
+for the monarchy menaced by the English invasion; they protected the
+Catholic royalty of Francis II. against the stroke of Renaudie; they
+have enclosed turn by turn the illustrious victims of royal ingratitude
+like the Marshall de Gié, powerful rebels like the princes of Vendôme,
+accomplices of Chalais, state prisoners like Fouquet and Lauzun, and
+the vanquished like Abd-el-Kader. When you interrogate these enormous
+towers, these menacing battlements, and these inaccessible walls, you
+draw from them no memories of joy, peace, or love; nothing but bloody
+deeds spring from them; nothing but memories of mourning are evoked.
+
+Buildings have, even more than mankind, their own physiognomy upon
+which their history is reflected. History and physiognomy are here in
+perfect union. No romancer, even were he possessed with Melusine’s
+enchanted ring, would dare to place an intrigue of love behind these
+walls impressed with deep wounds of gun-shots, or, if he did so, it
+would doubtless be on account of that law of contrasts, so loved of
+Nature, that places the nests of the warbler in the mouths of deserted
+cannon.
+
+  [Illustration: CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE, FRANCE.]
+
+Stop upon this old bridge constructed by Hugues d’Amboise, one of the
+heroes of Tasso. From here you will take in the entire imposing and
+truly Roman view of the powerful citadel, from the Gate of the Lions,
+which opens upon the moat dug by Cæsar, as far as the two towers, now
+decapitated, of the ancient donjon above the trunks of which rises
+the slender spire of the Chapel of St. Hubert. Remove by imagination
+the narrow and common dwellings that encroach upon the old castle.
+Throw into the Loire the modern levee and quay that obstruct it
+here, and picture the noble river freely beating the base of the
+fortress. The great tower erected by Charles VIII. casts its shadow
+upon the Loire, on which opens a door that forms on this side the only
+entrance to the castle. Further back, and as if lost in the shadow of
+the immense tower, is the principal building of this habitation, the
+base of which dates from the counts of Amboise and whose five windows
+pierced at a considerable height on the side overlooking the Loire,
+although they are on the ground floor on the side of the court, seem
+like vigilant eyes upon the country. Then by mental effort throw down
+the terrace in front of these windows, the work of Louis-Philippe, who
+caused this façade to lose some of its crabbed countenance; close up
+the five rounded bay windows, also the work of the same King, which
+light the kitchens; in a word, leave nothing that juts out upon that
+straight and perpendicular façade except the balcony that overhangs
+the five casements of which we shall speak, and upon which open the
+large windows of the royal apartment. You will then have an approximate
+idea of what Amboise was in the time of Henri III., when Du Cerceau
+conceived the plan in 157–.
+
+This balcony from which you look upon the Loire, is the work of Louis
+XII.: it is an historical monument. Nothing could be less complicated,
+nothing could be more formidable in its simplicity. It was upon this
+balcony that the chief ringleaders of the conspiracy against Amboise
+were hanged. The bodies, attached to these solid bars, hung in the
+open air; the stroke of a poignard cut the rope and they fell into the
+Loire: a means of burial as rapid as had been the judgment and the
+execution. Such is the Castle of Amboise seen from the Loire.
+
+The tunnel, the stairway, and even the vault are modern works, which
+in moulding this old castle to our ideas of comfort deprive it of its
+feudal character. It is by the southern tower that we must ascend if we
+wish to be deeply impressed by this character. In the time of Charles
+VIII., this tower was the only entrance for knights and litters, for
+the one on the north corresponding to it bathes its foot in the Loire,
+as we have said. It was through the southern tower that Charles V.
+entered when he crossed France in 1539. This solid and immovable work
+is certainly the largest construction of the kind in France. The thick
+masonry that forms the nucleus of it is in itself a respectable size.
+The stairway turns four times from the base to the summit around this
+hollowed-out centre, and reaches a height of more than 600 feet.
+
+This stairway, or rather these steps in helix, rest upon an ogival
+vault. Carvings sustain the points from which the large arches spring
+and terminate the nerves of the little arches. These carvings present
+all kinds of little figures, some of which are fantastic, others
+grotesque, and others again indecent, for the artists of the late
+Gothic period were willing enough to execute the latter to please their
+patrons who enjoyed these grotesques and the laughter they caused far
+more than fine arabesques. Monks abound in these sculptures. This
+one holds his stomach in both hands, like a gastronome punished by
+his exploits; this one, suffering from a terrible toothache, makes a
+grimace like one possessed. Most of these figures have been mutilated
+with blows of the bayonet by the prisoners who for about fifteen
+years were shut up in this tower in 1815. Louis-Philippe began its
+restoration.
+
+About one-third of the way up, a little stone step, pierced in the
+outer wall, leads to a kind of hollowed-out rostrum, where, if we may
+believe tradition, Louis XII. harangued the multitude, when an attack
+on the municipal franchise aroused the inhabitants of the town of
+Amboise, or Petit-Fort. Happy time! when revolutionary uprisings could
+be calmed by orations!
+
+At the top of this tower you see the gigantic horns of a stag that
+formerly ornamented the base of the Chapel of Saint Hubert. This is
+more than ten feet high, and was made at the order of Charles VIII.
+with such art and truthfulness of imitation that allows the guide
+to show it to unsophisticated tourists for the natural horns of a
+full-grown and gigantic stag killed in some forest in the Brobdinagian
+country.
+
+The donjon, the first dwelling of the lords of Amboise, occupied the
+west, the space comprised between the two little headless towers which
+still exist.
+
+On the side of the Loire, opposite the building of the Sept-Vertues,
+there rise other buildings belonging to Amboise, but they were restored
+by Charles VIII. and completely changed by Louis XII. and Francis I.
+There are to be found the apartment of the King and Queen, due to
+the last prince, and close beside it, that curious chamber which was
+supported by four massive pillars of masonry, and to which no entrance
+was possible except by a single opening pierced through the floor. This
+was the work of Catharine de’Medici, after one of her astrologers had
+forewarned her of the fall of a great edifice. She thought that, by
+means of these material precautions, she could escape the menace of
+Fortune which allowed her to see the fall of quite a different edifice
+to Amboise: that of the Valois dynasty, so laboriously restored by her
+efforts.
+
+The chapel is the perfect antithesis of the castle.
+
+Just as the one is sombre, severe, dominating and sinistrously
+beautiful, on account of its mass and size, the other is bright,
+efflorescent, and smiling, delicately embroidered and pierced like lace.
+
+This charming chapel, proudly encamped upon a rocky peak, is one of the
+best products of the third ogival style of that period of Flamboyant
+Gothic that immediately preceded the Renaissance. But it is not, as
+has been believed until now, the work of Italian artists brought
+from Naples by Charles VIII. That is an error in which even M. Jules
+Quicherat shared, but which was obliterated at the recent discovery of
+an itemized account of all the expenses of furnishing and decorating
+the Chapel of Amboise and for the contiguous apartments in the towers.
+This precious document states that the expenses commenced in 1490
+and continued until 1494. Now the year 1494, in which Charles VIII.
+finished ornamenting and furnishing the Chapel of Amboise, is precisely
+the one in which he started on his expedition to Italy. The honour of
+this charming conception then reverts wholly to native artists.
+
+The façade is entirely occupied by a large ogival entrance, the top
+of which presents one of those great, circular rose-windows,--the
+characteristic sign of the Flamboyant Gothic. An authority no less
+exact for the construction of this façade is shown in the form of
+the two doors cut in the entrance, these showing that surbased arch
+so common in the English buildings of the reigns of Henry VII. and
+Henry VIII., and which derives from them the name of the Tudor arch.
+These two doors, separated by a pilaster and niche, support a stone
+bas-relief, the principal motive of which is the conversion of Saint
+Hubert.
+
+A gigantic stag stands in the centre of the composition. Between his
+horns there rises a flamboyant cross. The ardent huntsman stops in
+terror at this sight, he bends one knee, and with one hand restrains
+his horse, while with the other he salutes the miraculous sign destined
+to convert him to Christianity: instead of the Aquitaine Nimrod, the
+persecutor of the forests of Ardennes, he is only an apostle, the
+successor of Saint Lambert. A host of wild animals form the accessories
+of this picture, as if the entire population of the forests is taking
+part in the conversion of the patron of huntsmen. Saint Anthony, in a
+corner to the left, contemplates Saint Christopher bearing his divine
+burden.
+
+This bas-relief, somewhat clumsy in workmanship, does not give the
+slightest idea of the charming delicacy of the interior. The banal and
+rather strained comparison of lace woven by the fays, is more than a
+truthful one here. Imagine two rows of _point d’ Alençon_, half a
+metre high, festooned the entire length of the walls to form a series
+of canopies and niches in corbelling, diversified by graceful little
+columns with prismatic arches. Carvings and figures, inexhaustible in
+variety, terminate the pendentives of these niches. Not one of these
+motives is repeated a second time: vine leaves, acanthus leaves, holly
+leaves, oak leaves, cabbage leaves, and thistle leaves,--the entire
+architectural flora of the Fifteenth Century is here under our eyes
+mingled with a host of real and fantastic animals. There are also some
+human figures: a little monk in a corner by the side of the altar blows
+the trumpet in a whimsical manner, exactly like the one that serves for
+a reading-desk in the _Temptation_ by Callot.
+
+Upon this profusion of lace, of foliage, of crockets, and stags’ horns,
+upon this mass of curled leaves, pinked leaves, and leaves turned and
+twisted in a hundred fashions, there falls a glowing light, sifted
+through the windows, where vermilion, orpiment and ultramarine are the
+dominating colours. These windows, upon which saints are represented
+in life-size, were made in Sèvres, some of them after the designs of
+the Princess Marie d’Orléans. Perhaps there is a slight false note in
+the selection of these strong colours. Light tones and yellowish and
+whitish tints were generally preferred at the end of the Fifteenth
+Century. It was this gradual abandoning of colour that fifty years
+later engendered the _grisailles_.
+
+Before it was restored by Louis-Philippe, this church had been used for
+twenty years as the hall for the castle’s police. One may judge by that
+alone of the seriousness of the mutilations.
+
+
+
+
+                            BLARNEY CASTLE
+
+                        MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL
+
+
+Few places in Ireland are more familiar to English ears than Blarney;
+the notoriety is attributable, first, to the marvellous qualities of
+its famous “stone,” and next, to the extensive popularity of the song,--
+
+    “The groves of Blarney, they are so charming.”
+
+When or how the stone obtained its singular reputation, it is difficult
+to determine; the exact position among the ruins of the castle is also
+a matter of doubt; the peasant-guides humour the visitor according to
+his capacity for climbing, and direct, either to the summit or the
+base, the attention of him who desires to “greet it with a holy kiss.”
+He who has been dipped in the Shannon is presumed to have obtained, in
+abundance, the gift of that “civil courage” which makes an Irishman
+at ease and unconstrained in all places and under all circumstances;
+and he who has kissed the Blarney stone is assumed to be endowed with
+a fluent and persuasive tongue, although it may be associated with
+insincerity; the term “Blarney” being generally used to characterize
+words that are meant neither to be “honest nor true.” It is conjectured
+that the comparatively modern application of the term “Blarney” first
+had existence when the possessor, Lord Clancarty, was a prisoner to Sir
+George Carew, by whom he was subjected to several examinations touching
+his loyalty, which he was required to prove by surrendering his strong
+castle to the soldiers of the Queen; this bet he always endeavoured
+to evade by some plausible excuse, but as invariably professing his
+willingness to do so. The particulars are fully detailed in the “Pacata
+Hibernia.”
+
+It is certain that to no particular stone of the ancient structure is
+the marvellous quality exclusively attributed; but in order to make
+it as difficult as possible to attain the enviable gift, it had long
+been the custom to point out a stone, a few feet below the battlements,
+which the very daring only would run the hazard of touching with their
+lips. The attempt to do so was, indeed, so dangerous, that a few years
+ago Mr. Jeffreys had it removed from the wall and placed on the highest
+point of the building, where the visitor may now greet it with little
+risk. It is about two feet square, and contains the date 1703, with
+a portion of the arms of the Jeffreys family, but the date, at once,
+negatives its claim to be considered the true marvel of Blarney.[7]
+A few days before our visit a madman made his way to the top of the
+castle, and after dancing around it for some hours, his escape from
+death being almost miraculous, he flung this stone from the tower;
+it was broken in the fall, and now as the guide stated to us, the
+“three halves” must receive three distinct kisses to be in any degree
+effective.
+
+  [Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE, IRELAND.]
+
+The age of the song has been satisfactorily ascertained; it was written
+in the year 1798 or 1799, by Richard Alfred Millikin, an attorney
+of Cork. The author little anticipated the celebrity his lines were
+destined to acquire; they were composed to ridicule the nonsense verses
+of the village poets, who, with a limited knowledge of the English
+language, and a smattering of classical names, were in the habit of
+indulging their still more ignorant auditors, by stringing together
+sounds that had no sense, but conveyed a notion of the prodigious
+learning of the singer.
+
+Millikin’s song has been injurious to Ireland; it has raised many a
+laugh at Ireland’s expense, and contributed largely to aid the artist
+and the actor, of gone-by times, in exhibiting the Irishman as little
+better than a buffoon--very amusing, no doubt, but exciting any feeling
+rather than that of respect.
+
+It is impossible to contemplate the romantic ruins of Blarney Castle
+without a feeling more akin to melancholy than to pleasure; they bear,
+so perfectly, the aspect of strength utterly subdued, and remind one
+so forcibly that the “glory” of Ireland belongs to days departed. The
+castle stands--
+
+                        “as stands a lofty mind,
+    Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,
+    All tenantless, save to the crannying wind.”
+
+The stronghold of Blarney was erected about the middle of the Fifteenth
+Century by Cormac MacCarthy, surnamed “Laider,” or the Strong; whose
+ancestors had been chieftains in Munster from a period long antecedent
+to the English invasion, and whose descendants, as Lords of Muskerry
+and Clancarty, retained no inconsiderable portion of their power and
+estates until the year 1689, when their immense possessions were
+confiscated, and the last earl became an exile, like the monarch whose
+cause he had supported. The castle, village, mills, fairs, and customs
+of Blarney, with the land and park thereunto belonging, containing
+1400 acres, were “set up by cant” in the year 1702, purchased by Sir
+Richard Pyne, Lord Chief Justice, for £3,000, and by him disposed of,
+the following year, to General Sir James Jeffreys, in whose family the
+property continues. Although the walls of this castle are still strong,
+many of the outworks have long since been levelled with the earth; the
+plough has passed over their foundations, and “the stones of which they
+were built have been used in repairing the turnpike-roads.”
+
+The small village of Blarney is about four miles north-west of Cork;
+a few years ago it was remarkably clean, neat, and thriving; its
+prosperity having resulted from the establishment of several linen
+and cotton factories, the whole of which have been swept away, and
+the hamlet is now, like the castle, an assemblage of ruins. In the
+vicinity, however, there is yet a woollen-manufactory and a paper-mill,
+both in full work. The scenery in the neighbourhood is agreeable, but
+the grounds that immediately surround the castle are of exceeding
+beauty. Nature has done much more for them than art; although there
+is evidence that the hand of taste had busied itself in the duty
+of improvement. “The sweet Rock-close” is a small dell, in which
+evergreens grow luxuriantly, completely shaded with magnificent trees.
+At its termination, are the “Witches’ Stairs”; a series of rugged stone
+steps which lead down through a passage in the rock to a delicious
+spot of greensward forming the bank of a clear rivulet--and where some
+singular masses appear to have been “the work of Druid hands of old.”
+
+
+
+
+                           CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES
+
+                           J. J. BOURRASSÉE
+
+
+The traveller who visits Loches for the first time is greatly struck by
+the picturesque position of the town on an elevation--gently sloping
+down to the meadows watered by the Indre. Above the houses rise the
+turrets of the castle, which in turn are dominated by the pyramids
+of the old collegiate church of Our Lady, above which again appears
+the ancient mediæval fortress in its somewhat austere majesty. The
+combination forms an enchanting view seen under the first beams of the
+rising sun from the edge of the forest on the Montrésor road.
+
+About the beginning of the Sixth Century, St. Ours came to Touraine
+to settle at Loches. There several monks placed themselves under his
+discipline. The monastery of St. Ours made a town of Loches. As has
+often been remarked, the people of the country like to group around
+these religious houses where they find at the same time a church with
+its spiritual aid, a refuge always open against the persecution of the
+mighty, a school, a hospital, and a model farm with its agricultural
+and industrial instruction. In a few years the collection became
+sufficiently important for the establishment of a _castrum_. This
+strong castle, which was already in existence at the time of Gregory
+of Tours, was placed in a position that was very easy to defend: it
+was protected on one side by that elbow of the mountain to which St.
+Ours had retired and by the escarpment towards the Indre, a flank that
+was rendered almost inaccessible by the river and the valley marshes;
+on another, by the natural depression of the vale of Mazerolles; and,
+on the third, by a deep and wide cutting in the chalky tufa. The castle
+which crowned the hill and commanded the surrounding country was so
+strong for that age that all conquerors contended for its possession.
+
+  [Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES, FRANCE.]
+
+After the Romans, we find the Visigoths here, and then the Mérovingian
+princes, the feudal lords, the counts of Anjou and Touraine who became
+kings of England and the kings of France after Philip Augustus. At the
+foot of the ancient castle of Loches, a hundred fights of chivalry were
+settled. Under the feudal rule, the surrounding fields were thronged
+with bands of men marching under various banners.
+
+The counts of Anjou, whose ambition was the scourge of our province,
+had become masters of Loches, thanks to skilfully calculated
+matrimonial alliances. The citadel of Loches became the boulevard of
+their warlike enterprises in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.
+
+The Eleventh Century fortress, whose square donjon commands the
+surrounding country, is not so well preserved as the collegiate church.
+Nevertheless, the learned who study our national antiquities consider
+it one of the most precious remains of the military architecture of
+that remote age. Picture to yourself an imposing mass, formed of two
+bodies of buildings shoulder to shoulder rising to a height of forty
+_mètres_. The principal building is 25 m. 33 cm. long while
+the other attains only half this length. The interior disposition
+of the small tower is visible at the first glance on account of the
+disappearance of the floors that formerly divided it into four stories.
+In the lower portion is a low hall from which rose a stairway of from
+thirty-five to forty steps, with two landings, by which to reach the
+principal rooms. At the top of this stairway is the door that gave
+access to every part of the donjon. On the first story, it opens into
+a hall of the great tower, the dimensions of which are so vast that
+it could contain five hundred men; then, at the same level, into the
+corresponding hall of the little tower; and lastly by a secret passage,
+twenty-four _mètres_ in length, hidden in the thickness of the
+wall, one could descend to the vaulted hall that occupied the base of
+the donjon, and that served as an arsenal, a treasury and a prison.
+Three flights of steps, at present interrupted and set in the interior
+of the walls, led to the upper stories. The donjon probably terminated
+in an exterior wooden gallery resting on a movable scaffolding intended
+for repulsing assaults; the numerous holes to be seen at the top of the
+wall authorize this supposition.
+
+Thus established, the Roman donjon of Loches is one of the most
+remarkable monuments of its kind. The beauty of its size, the masterly
+skill of its construction, the imposing amplitude of its mass, half
+disguised by round buttresses that rise to the summit, the artifice of
+its military dispositions, the ingenious multiplicity of its defences,
+the boldness of its outline, and the proud aspect of the whole, all
+recommend it to the attention of the antiquary and the artist. To-day
+it is of no military importance; but for the town of Loches it will
+ever constitute a picturesque element of the first order.
+
+In 1194, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, being delivered from the prison in which
+he was unjustly kept by the Emperor of Germany, made haste to Touraine,
+his possession of which was being disputed by Philip Augustus. Nothing
+could moderate his boiling heat. After having captured and ransomed
+Châteauneuf de Tours, the King of England hastened to Loches. The
+castle was defended by twenty knights and eighty archers under the
+command of Guy de Laval. The governor at first defended himself
+resolutely enough; but Richard attacked the place with such fury, and
+himself directed the assault with such energy, that it was necessary to
+yield. Guy de Laval was made prisoner with some of his most intrepid
+knights. But the struggle was far from being ended: it only slumbered
+for a few years. Richard, wounded at the siege of Chaluz, in Limousin,
+died at Chinon at the age of forty-two, April 6, 1199. He was buried at
+Fontevrault, leaving behind a troubled and more especially a greatly
+disputed heritage. Queen Berengaria, his wife, received Loches and
+Montbazon with their domains and dependencies as her dowry.
+
+In 1204, we see Philip Augustus reappear in Touraine. In consequence of
+the confiscation pronounced against John Lackland, the King of France
+himself came to take possession of the principal places and towns in
+the province. Tours opened her gates at the first summons. Loches did
+not show herself so obliging. The castle was defended by Girard d’Athée
+and other lords devoted to the interests of England.
+
+It was necessary to lay a regular siege. After a year of struggle and
+toil, the place was forced to capitulate on account of the failure of
+provisions and ammunition. Philip Augustus gave it in recompense to
+Dreux de Mello, constable of France, a brave knight, celebrated for his
+exploits in France and Palestine, whither he had accompanied the King.
+Afterwards this gift was bought back by St. Louis, by an act dated
+December, 1249, on the banks of the Nile in Egypt.
+
+On returning to France, St. Louis spent several days at Loches. In 1301
+and 1307, Philippe le Bel rested eight days at the castle of Loches on
+his way to talk to Pope Clement V. about the affair of the Templars.
+Half a century later, John II. arrived at Loches at the head of the
+flower of French chivalry on his way to Poictiers to give battle to
+the Black Prince. Fortune appeared to be smiling upon him and victory
+seemed to be assured; but instead of accepting the advantageous
+propositions made by his adversary, he wanted to crush the army of
+the foe. He then fell victim to one of those disasters that leave a
+long and sad echo in history. The evils that overwhelmed France were
+horrible. Anarchy was complete, and reigned in every rank of the
+hierarchy. The English retook Loches, and for more than half-a-century
+the foreigner trampled on and desolated our provinces.
+
+At length came Charles VII. When he first visited Loches, he was
+still only the King of Bourges. A poor suite followed him; but he was
+accompanied by Marie d’Anjou, a princess of rare prudence and a courage
+proof against everything. This virtuous queen was France’s good genius.
+In spite of the miseries of the time, she never despaired of her
+country. Her confidence was not deceived: Joan of Arc soon accomplished
+her glorious mission: France was saved.
+
+In 1436, Charles VII. reappeared at Loches; but this time the queen was
+not alone. In her company was a young girl whose timidity seemed to
+recommend her, but whose position was no mystery to anybody: she was
+Agnes Sorel, born in the village of Fromenteau in Touraine. Charles
+VII. gave her the castle of Beauté in Champagne, it is said, so that
+she might be _Dame de Beauté_ by title as well as in reality.
+Agnes possessed a small house at Beaulieu where she sometimes stayed
+to hide herself from the eyes of the courtiers. So the King had the
+tower built at the Castle of Loches that still bears the name of Agnes
+Sorel. This tower stands in a delightful spot: it commands the smiling
+vale of the Indre, and from it the view embraces a charming panorama.
+The eye is arrested by a curtain of verdure formed by the ancient oaks
+of the forest and then wanders with pleasure over the freshest meadows
+imaginable. Agnes Sorel is in the choir of the church at Loches. Her
+white marble tomb, with her statue also of white marble, the feet
+resting on two little lambs and hands clasped, is now to be seen in the
+castle tower that bears her name.
+
+The strong position of the castle of Loches gained for it at an early
+date the sad honour of becoming a state prison. Behind its beautiful
+and solid walls, great lords came to expiate their ambitious intrigues,
+or the simple misfortune of having displeased those more powerful than
+themselves. Geoffroy de Saint-Aignan was shut up here and strangled in
+the Eleventh Century; Thibault, Count of Tours, suffered the severest
+treatment here after his defeat at Nouy; and John, Duke of Alençon, was
+cast into a deep cell here by order of Charles VII. for having aided an
+ungrateful son in his attempts at rebellion, a son who was always ready
+to foment trouble in the realm. But it was Louis XI. who made the most
+frequent use of the Loches cells.
+
+Charles VIII. often inhabited the castle during his early youth.
+Charlotte of Savoy, his mother, was treated in it almost like a
+prisoner by the suspicious Louis XI., who never exhibited a very lively
+friendship for his wife. On his accession, Charles did not forget
+Loches; he began the great tower that was completed by his successor,
+and he took his graceful wife, Anne of Brittany, thither. Louis XII.
+constructed the building that connects the round with the square tower.
+In this is found the low room in which Louis le More was confined in
+1505. The Duke of Milan spent several years in his prison at Loches, in
+a truly sinister cell.
+
+The soldier became an artist, and on the sombre walls of his cell
+he laid a strange and original composition, full of grandeur and
+character. Over the chimney-piece he placed his portrait, more than
+life size, with casque on head as on the day of battle, and vizor
+raised. The energetic features of this profile, the aquiline nose,
+prominent chin and upper lip curled in a disdainful smile, depict for
+us the entire man. Between the lines _pens_ are ranged, punning
+allusions to the pains he suffered. The whole cell is decorated in
+three colours, yellow ochre, red brown and almost blue black, combined
+with the white of the walls. It was with this work that Sforza occupied
+the interminable hours of his solitude. Travellers view these paintings
+with curiosity as if to probe the secret thoughts that filled the
+bitter heart of the dethroned prince. One cannot help shuddering at
+the thought that the unfortunate Duke of Milan lived here for long
+years, shut up in this _in pace_ by the good Louis XII. However,
+Ludovic did not remain forever in this cell. Towards the last, the
+King permitted him to occupy the upper apartments of the palace under
+surveillance of some Scottish soldiers.
+
+Another noted prisoner deserves mention. John, lord of Saint Vallier,
+father of Diana of Poictiers, allowed himself to be drawn into the
+conspiracy of the Duke of Bourbon. The plot was revealed by Louis de
+Brézé, who had no idea that he was implicating his father-in-law.
+Saint Vallier was arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Loches.
+From his prison, September 19, 1523, he wrote touching letters to his
+children begging them to appeal to the King in his favour. But Francis
+I. showed himself hard and impenetrable. The guilty man was condemned
+and led to the Place de Grève, more dead than alive, to be decapitated.
+At the moment when the sentence was about to be carried out, an
+archer came from the King, bringing, not a pardon, but a commutation.
+The unfortunate man, whose hair had turned white in a night, was so
+affected by the preparation for his death that he almost lost his
+reason. Ever afterwards he was afflicted with a nervous trembling,
+accompanied by fever, which became known as the _fever of St.
+Vallier_.
+
+By a singular irony of fate, splendid _fêtes_ were held in this
+same castle, whither so many wretches came to groan. Thirty years had
+not elapsed since the Duke of Milan had breathed his last sigh, when
+the conqueror of Pavia was received at Loches by him who there had lost
+“all but honour.” Francis I., like a generous prince, on this occasion
+displayed extreme magnificence: he came to meet his rival, December
+12, 1539, accompanied by his queen, Eleanor, and followed by his whole
+court. The entertainments were numerous and splendid, and only ended
+when the Emperor had arrived on the frontier of the Low Countries.
+
+The splendour of _fêtes_ shone anew at Loches in 1559, when Henri
+II. and Catherine de’Medici passed through ten years afterwards; Henri
+III., while still the Dauphin, stayed there for several days, at the
+moment when he was going to take his place at the head of the army
+concentrated in the environs, on the eve of the victory of Moncontour.
+Here also were seen Charles IX., Henri IV. and Marie de’Medici. The
+latter was a fugitive, taking refuge here for a few moments after
+leaving the Castle of Blois, whence she had succeeded in escaping.
+From that epoch, silence has invaded the vast halls and towers, the
+terraces and gardens. Nothing has interrupted it except the savage
+cries of the Revolution. To-day the palace of the Kings, discrowned and
+almost deserted, keeps only the memory of magnificence gone forever.
+
+
+
+
+                        THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM
+
+                          NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
+
+
+The park gate of Blenheim stands close to the end of the village street
+of Woodstock. Immediately on passing through its portals, we saw the
+stately palace in the distance, but made a wide circuit of the park
+before approaching it. This noble park contains three thousand acres
+of land, and is fourteen miles in circumference. Having been, in
+part, a royal domain before it was granted to the Marlborough family,
+it contains many trees of unsurpassed antiquity, and has doubtless
+been the haunt of game and deer for centuries. We saw pheasants in
+abundance, feeding in the open lawns and glades; and the stags tossed
+their antlers and bounded away, not affrighted, but only shy and
+gamesome, as we drove by. It is a magnificent pleasure-ground, not
+too tamely kept, nor rigidly subjected within rule, but vast enough
+to have lapsed back into nature again, after all the pains that the
+landscape-gardeners of Queen Anne’s time bestowed on it, when the
+domain of Blenheim was scientifically laid out. The great, knotted
+slanting trunks of the old oaks do not now look as if man had much
+intermeddled with their growth and postures. The trees of later date,
+that were set out in the Great Duke’s time, are arranged on the plan
+of the order of battle in which the illustrious commander ranked his
+troops at Blenheim; but the ground covered is so extensive, and
+the trees now so luxuriant, that the spectator is not disagreeably
+conscious of their standing in military array, as if Orpheus had
+summoned them together by beat of drum. The effect must have been
+very formal a hundred and fifty years ago, but has ceased to be
+so,--although the trees, I presume, have kept their ranks with even
+more fidelity than Marlborough’s veteran’s did.
+
+  [Illustration: THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM, ENGLAND.]
+
+After driving a good way, we came to a battlemented tower and adjoining
+house, which used to be the residence of the Ranger of Woodstock
+Park, who held charge of the property for the King before the Duke of
+Marlborough possessed it. The keeper opened the door for us, and in the
+entrance hall we found various things that had to do with the chase and
+woodland sports. We mounted the staircase, through several stories,
+up to the top of the tower, whence there was a view of the spires
+of Oxford, and of points much farther off,--very indistinctly seen,
+however, as is usually the case with the misty distances of England.
+Returning to the ground-floor, we were ushered into the room in which
+died Wilmot, the wicked Earl of Rochester, who was Ranger of the Park
+in Charles’s time. It is a low and bare little room, with a window in
+front, and a smaller one behind; and in the contiguous entrance-room
+there are the remains of an old bedstead, beneath the canopy of which,
+perhaps, Rochester may have made the penitent end that Bishop Burnet
+attributes to him. I hardly know what it is, in this poor fellow’s
+character, which affects us with greater tenderness on his behalf than
+for all the other profligates of his day, who seem to have been neither
+better nor worse than himself. I rather suspect that he had a human
+heart which never quite died out of him, and the warmth of which is
+still faintly perceptible amid the dissolute trash which he left behind.
+
+Methinks, if such good fortune ever befell a bookish man, I should
+choose this lodge for my own residence, with the topmost room of the
+tower for a study, and all the seclusion of cultivated wilderness
+beneath to ramble in. There being no such possibility, we drove on,
+catching glimpses of the palace in new points of view, and by and by
+came to Rosamond’s Well. The particular tradition that connects Fair
+Rosamond with it is not now in my memory; but if Rosamond ever lived
+and loved, and ever had her abode in the maze of Woodstock, it way
+well be believed that she and Henry sometimes sat beside this spring.
+It gushes out from a bank, through some old stone-work, and dashes its
+little cascade (about as abundant as one might turn out of a large
+pitcher) into a pool whence it steals away towards the lake, which is
+not far removed.
+
+Passing through a gateway on the opposite side of the quadrangle, we
+had before us the noble classic front of the palace, with its two
+projecting wings. We ascended the lofty steps of the portal, and were
+admitted into the entrance-hall, the height of which, from floor to
+ceiling, is not much less than seventy feet, being the entire elevation
+of the edifice. The hall is lighted by windows in the upper story, and
+it being a clear bright day, was very radiant with lofty sunshine, amid
+which a swallow was flitting to and fro. The ceiling was painted by
+Sir James Thornhill in some allegorical design (doubtless commemorative
+of Marlborough’s victories) the purport of which I did not take the
+trouble to make out,--contenting myself with the general effect, which
+was most splendidly and effectively ornamental.
+
+We were guided through the show-rooms by a very civil person, who
+allowed us to take pretty much our own time in looking at the pictures.
+The collection is exceedingly valuable,--many of these works of Art
+having been presented to the Grand Duke by the crowned heads of England
+or the Continent. One room was all aglow with pictures by Rubens; and
+there were works of Raphael, and many other famous painters, any one
+of which would be sufficient to illustrate the meanest house that
+might contain it. I remember none of them, however (not being in a
+picture-seeing mood), so well as Vandyck’s large and familiar picture
+of Charles I. on horseback, with a figure and face of melancholy
+dignity such as never by any other hand was put on canvas.
+
+After passing through the first suite of rooms, we were conducted
+through a corresponding suite on the opposite side of the
+entrance-hall. These latter apartments are most richly adorned with
+tapestries, wrought and presented to the first Duke by a sisterhood of
+Flemish nuns; they look like great, glowing pictures, and completely
+cover the walls of the rooms. The designs purport to represent the
+Duke’s battles and sieges; and everywhere we see the hero himself, as
+large as life, and as gorgeous in scarlet and gold as the holy sisters
+could make him, with a three-cornered hat and flowing wig, reining in
+his horse, and extending his leading-staff in the attitude of command.
+Next to Marlborough, Prince Eugene is the most prominent figure. In the
+way of upholstery, there can never have been anything more magnificent
+than these tapestries; and, considered as works of Art, they have quite
+as much merit as nine pictures out of ten.
+
+One whole wing of the palace is occupied by the library, a most noble
+room, with a vast perspective length from end to end.
+
+The next business was to see the private gardens. An old Scotch
+under-gardener admitted us and led the way, and seemed to have a fair
+prospect of earning the fee all by himself; but by and by another
+respectable Scotchman made his appearance and took us in charge,
+proving to be the head-gardener in person. He was extremely intelligent
+and agreeable, talking both scientifically and lovingly about trees and
+plants, of which there is every variety capable of English cultivation.
+Positively, the Garden of Eden cannot have been more beautiful than
+this private garden of Blenheim. It contains three hundred acres, and
+by the artificial circumlocution of the paths, and the undulations, and
+the skilfully interposed clumps of trees, is made to appear limitless.
+The sylvan delights of a whole country are compressed into this space,
+as whole fields of Persian roses go to the concoction of an ounce of
+precious attar. The world within that garden-fence is not the same
+weary and dusty world with which we outside mortals are conversant;
+it is a finer, lovelier, more harmonious Nature; and the Great Mother
+lends herself kindly to the gardener’s will, knowing that he will make
+evident the half-obliterated traits of her pristine and ideal beauty,
+and allow her to take all the credit and praise to herself. I doubt
+whether there is ever any winter within that precinct,--any clouds
+except the fleecy ones of summer. The sunshine that I saw there rests
+upon my recollection of it as if it were eternal. The lawns and glades
+are like the memory of places where one has wandered when first in love.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] A guide for travellers, furnished by the villages.
+
+[2] Court of the magistrate attached to the palace.
+
+[3] “The following account of Akbar’s Pachisi-board is from an old
+Agra periodical:--The game is usually played by four persons, each of
+whom is supplied with four wooden or ivory cones, which are called
+‘gots,’ and are of different colours for distinction. Victory consists
+in getting these four pieces safely through all the squares of each
+rectangle into the vacant place in the centre,--the difficulty being
+that the adversaries take up in the same way as pieces are taken
+at backgammon. Moving is regulated by throwing ‘cowries,’ whose
+apertures falling uppermost or not, affect the amount of the throw
+by certain fixed rules. But on this Titanic board of Akbar’s, wooden
+or ivory ‘gots’ would be lost altogether. Sixteen girls, therefore,
+dressed distinctively--say four in red, four in blue, four in white,
+four in yellow--were trotted up and down the squares, taken up by an
+adversary, and put back at the beginning again; and at last, after many
+difficulties, four of the same colour would find themselves gliding
+into their _dopattas_ together in the middle space, and the game
+was won.”--_Bholanauth Chunder._
+
+[4] Oluf, called God-dreng, who reigned before King Ring, is by Adam of
+Bremen supposed to be the real Holger Dansk: he accompanied Charlemagne
+to the Holy Sepulchre, and helped to place Prester John on the throne
+of India.
+
+[5] In 1538 the citizens of Lund received orders to pull down the stone
+churches in disuse since the Reformation, and forward the materials
+to Copenhagen to be employed for the building of the new castle; and
+again, in 1552, a second supply was sent. Even Laura Maria, the big
+bell purchased with the legacy of Bishop Absalom, was not spared; she
+got cracked on the journey, was melted down and recast into two little
+ones, which still hang in the clock-tower of Kronborg. Laura Maria was
+looked upon almost as a saint, and Valdemar Atterdag, who believed in
+nothing, when on his death-bed is said to have roared out in a paroxysm
+of pain, “Help me, Soro! help me, Esrom! help me, Laura Maria, you big
+bell of Lund!”
+
+[6] The Maiden’s Tower.
+
+[7] The Rev. Matthew Horgan, the parish priest of Blarney, informs
+us that “the curious traveller will seek in vain for the _real_
+stone, unless he allows himself to be lowered from the northern angle
+of the lofty castle, when he will discover it about twenty feet from
+the top with this inscription:--
+
+    Cormac MacCarthy Fortis,
+    Me Fieri Fecit. A. D., 1446.”
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes:
+
+1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
+corrected silently.
+
+2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
+been retained as in the original.
+
+3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77405 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77405 ***</div>
+
+
+
+<p id="half-title" class="p6">Romantic Castles and Palaces</p>
+
+<div class="border">
+<p class="center sm">BOOKS BY MISS SINGLETON.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p class="center sm"><i>FAMOUS PICTURES, SCENES AND
+ BUILDINGS DESCRIBED BY GREAT
+ WRITERS.</i></p>
+
+<div class="parent">
+<ul class="left sm">
+  <li>TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES.</li>
+  <li>GREAT PICTURES.</li>
+  <li>WONDERS OF NATURE.</li>
+  <li>ROMANTIC CASTLES AND PALACES.</li>
+  <li>FAMOUS PAINTINGS.</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="parent">
+<ul class="left sm" style="margin-top: 0em">
+  <li>PARIS.</li>
+  <li>LONDON.</li>
+  <li>A GUIDE TO THE OPERA.</li>
+  <li>LOVE IN LITERATURE AND ART.</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_frontis">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_frontis.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">CONWAY CASTLE, WALES.</p>
+  </div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1><span class="xl">Romantic</span><br>
+<span class="gesperrt">Castles and Palaces</span></h1></div>
+
+<p class="center p2">As Seen and Described<br>
+by Famous Writers</p>
+
+<p class="center p2 xs">EDITED AND TRANSLATED</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By</span> ESTHER SINGLETON</p>
+
+<p class="center xs">AUTHOR OF “TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES,” “GREAT PICTURES,”<br>
+“WONDERS OF NATURE,” “PARIS,” AND “A GUIDE TO THE OPERA,”<br>
+AND TRANSLATOR OF “THE MUSIC DRAMAS OF RICHARD WAGNER”</p>
+
+<p class="center sm p1"><i>With Numerous Illustrations</i></p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter">
+  <img
+    class="p2"
+    src="images/i_title.jpg"
+    alt="">
+  </div>
+
+<p class="center p4 sm">NEW YORK<br>
+DODD, MEAD &amp; COMPANY<br>
+1911</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center p4 xs"><i>Copyright, 1901</i><br>
+<span class="smcap">By Dodd, Mead &amp; Company</span></p>
+
+<p class="center xs">First edition, published October, 1901.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="lg"><b>Preface</b></h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">In making a selection from the large number of castles and palaces that
+might be included, I have endeavoured to choose those that would appeal
+equally to the lovers of fine architecture and to the lovers of history
+and legend.</p>
+
+<p>There is probably no class of buildings that engages the interest of so
+many different minds as the castle. To the architect, such strongholds
+as Conway, Warwick, Arundel, Lambeth, Blois, Caernavon, Kronborg,
+Windsor, Urbino, Berkeley, Amboise, Loches, etc., etc., are valuable
+studies. For example, Conway, half castle, half palace, contains Early
+Decorated architecture in Queen Eleanor’s Oratory and fine lancet
+windows; the donjon of Arundel dates from the days of King Alfred;
+Warwick, one of the few mediæval fortresses that has lasted unchanged
+from the time of William the Conqueror to that of King Edward VII.,
+shows us what Kenilworth and the other baronial castles of England
+were like; the feudal stronghold of Berkeley has also preserved its
+ancient appearance through seven centuries; Windsor retains its Norman
+Keep and affords a splendid example of the dwelling-place of royalty;
+the mediæval fortress of Amboise with its Flamboyant Gothic chapel
+displays a wonderful contrast of styles; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span> at Blois four periods of
+architecture may be contemplated side by side. Turning to palaces, it
+is sufficient merely to name the Ducal Palace, the Alhambra, Hampton
+Court Palace, Fontainebleau, Chenonceaux, Futtehpore-Sikri, and the
+Palace of Shah Jehan to recall the wealth that exists in such vast
+volumes of art and architecture. The Mikado’s Palace, and the Summer
+Palace at Pekin transport us into another and mysterious world,
+appealing strongly to our imagination.</p>
+
+<p>The castle was built for defence as well as for a dwelling-place;
+the palace, generally speaking, is the abode of monarchs or nobles;
+and as both have been the scene of plots, imprisonments, murders,
+entertainments, love-making, marriages, births and deaths, their
+walls enclose innumerable memories of history and legend. As the most
+brilliant displays of human pleasure and the blackest manifestations of
+human conduct have occurred in their halls, towers and dungeons, the
+phantoms of the most striking characters in history hover amid their
+crumbling and ivy-clad stones.</p>
+
+<p>In every castle there are one or two characters, events, or legends
+that dominate all the others. For instance, in the Vaults of Kronborg
+Holger Danske (Ogier le Danois, beloved of Morgan le Fay) sleeps; but
+the better-remembered legend is that of the pale ghost that walks
+the platform at Elsinore in the nipping and eager air of midnight.
+Glamis is the supposed scene of Macbeth’s murder of Duncan; Warwick is
+associated with the legendary Guy, the Wars of the Roses and the great
+Earl, the “King-Maker;”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span> Linlithgow is rich in Stuart memories,—it was
+the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots; Caernavon was the birthplace of
+the first Prince of Wales; Raby was the home of the famous Nevilles;
+Harry Hotspur dwelt at Alnwick; the shadow of Louis XI. darkens
+Plessis-les-Tours; Wyclif, Stephen Langton and the Lollards cling to
+Lambeth; Futtehpore-Sikri recalls the splendours of the great Akbar;
+Wolsey dominates Hampton Court Palace; Catherine de’Medici presides
+over Chaumont; Charles VII., Joan of Arc and Agnes Sorel may be evoked
+at Chinon; Berkeley was the scene of the murder of Edward II.; Agnes
+Sorel is again at Loches; François I., Henri IV. and Diane de Poictiers
+haunt Fontainebleau; the Riccardi is filled with Medici crimes; the
+sombre Vecchio holds memories of the brilliant and wicked Cosmo I.;
+and as the entire history of Florence may be read in the walls of the
+latter palace, so all the events and phases of Venetian story are
+centred in the Ducal Palace. Chenonceaux, “the fairy palace of Armida,”
+and Kensington are exceptional in containing no stains of blood. Leigh
+Hunt aptly remarks: “Windsor Castle is a place to receive monarchs in;
+Buckingham Palace, to see fashions in; Kensington Palace a place to
+drink tea in,” exhibiting “the domestic side of royalty.” Its gardens,
+however, call up all the fashion, beauty and wit of the Eighteenth
+Century.</p>
+
+<p>We may suggest to the lovers of beautiful scenery that the pleasure
+they experience is often largely due to the presence of the castle in
+the landscape; and we may remind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span> him, what an important feature Turner
+made of the castle in his paintings. Sometimes, indeed, he went so far
+as to introduce one when his artistic feeling told him that a peak
+or crag was incomplete without its embattled towers. What would the
+rock of Edinburgh be without “Auld Reekie,” or the parks of Arundel,
+Berkeley, or Alnwick without their grey towers seen through vistas
+framed in foliage? The Wartburg in the Thuringer Forest, and Stirling
+and Conway, surrounded by the mountains of Scotland and Wales, are also
+notable examples of the aid of the castle in completing the picturesque
+effect of the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>The translations have been made especially for this book; and in order
+to give as much continuous history of each building as possible, I have
+sometimes been compelled to cut. Otherwise, the essays remain unchanged.</p>
+
+<p>My thanks are extended to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co. for their
+kind permission to reprint the selections from Hawthorne.</p>
+
+<p class="r2 p-min">E. S.</p>
+
+<p class="p-left p-min sm"><span class="smcap">New York</span>, <i>August, 1901</i>.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="lg"><b>Contents</b></h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class="smaller" style="max-width: 50em">
+ <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Conway Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Grant Allen.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Ducal Palace</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Theophile Gautier.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Palace of Linlithgow</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Sir Walter Scott.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Arundel Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Alice Meynell.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Palazzo Vecchio</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_41">41</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Alexandre Dumas.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Kensington Palace</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Leigh Hunt.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Mikado’s Palace</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_61">61</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Pierre Loti.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Warwick Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Lady Warwick.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Alhambra</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Edmondo De Amicis.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Lambeth Palace</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">John Richard Green.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château de Blois</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Jules Loiseleur.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Futtehpore-Sikri</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Louis Rousselet.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Caernavon Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">William Howitt.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">A Ball at the Winter Palace</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Theophile Gautier.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Fontainebleau</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Grant Allen.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Riccardi Palace</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Alexandre Dumas.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Raby Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">William Howitt.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Castle del Monte</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">&nbsp;I. Edward Lear.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">II. Henry Swinburne.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Generalife</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Theophile Gautier.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château de Chenonceaux</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Jules Loiseleur.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Dublin Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_179">179</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Lady Wilde.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Sans Souci and Other Prussian Palaces</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">William Howitt.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Whitehall Palace</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_190">190</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Leigh Hunt.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Castle of Kronborg</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Horace Marryat.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Chaumont sur Loire</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_210">210</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Jules Loiseleur.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Windsor Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_217">217</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">The Marquis of Lorne.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of Urbino</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">John Addington Symonds.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Alnwick Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_236">236</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Cuthbert Bede.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of Saint-Cloud</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">J. J. Bourrassee.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Stirling Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Nathaniel Hawthorne.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of the Bosphorus</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Theophile Gautier.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Plessis-les-Tours</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">J. J. Bourrassee.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Hampton Court Palace</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Ernest Law.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of Shah Jehan</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Bholanauth Chunder.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Edinburgh Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">&nbsp;I. Robert Louis Stevenson.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">II. James Norris Brewer.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Lambton Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_304">304</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">William Howitt.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Aranjuez</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Edmondo De Amicis.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Glamis Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Lady Glamis.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château de Chinon</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_321">321</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">J. J. Bourrassee.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Summer Palace</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Maurice Paleologue.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Berkeley Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_337">337</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Arthur Shadwell Martin.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Castle of Chillon</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_346">346</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Nathaniel Hawthorne.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Rocca Malatestiana</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_354">354</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Charles Yriarte.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Wartburg</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_360">360</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">L. Puttich.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château d’Amboise</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_367">367</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Jules Loiseleur.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Blarney Castle</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_375">375</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château de Loches</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_380">380</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">J. J. Bourrassee.</td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of Blenheim</td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#Page_390">390</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <td class="cht1 smcap" colspan="2">Nathaniel Hawthorne.</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="p2"><b>Illustrations</b></h2>
+</div>
+
+<table class="smaller" style="max-width: 50em">
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Conway Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Wales</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_frontis"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+  <tr>
+    <th></th>
+    <th></th>
+    <th class="pag">FACING PAGE</th>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Ducal Palace</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Italy</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp8">8</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Palace of Linlithgow</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Scotland</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp21">21</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Arundel Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp32">32</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Palazzo Vecchio</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Italy</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp41">41</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Kensington Palace</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp51">51</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Mikado’s Palace</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Japan</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp61">61</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Warwick Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp68">68</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Alhambra</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Spain</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp78">78</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Lambeth Palace</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp89">89</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château de Blois</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>France</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp99">99</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Futtehpore-Sikri</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>India</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp105">105</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Caernavon Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Wales</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp115">115</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Winter Palace</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Russia</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp124">124</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Fontainebleau</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>France</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp133">133</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Riccardi Palace</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Italy</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp143">143</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Raby Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp153">153</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Castel del Monte</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Sicily</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp162">162</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Generalife</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Spain</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp169">169</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château de Chenonceaux</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>France</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp174">174</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Dublin Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Ireland</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp179">179</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Sans Souci</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Germany</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp183">183</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Whitehall Palace</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp190">190</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Castle of Kronborg</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Denmark</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp199">199</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Chaumont sur Loire</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>France</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp210">210</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Windsor Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp217">217</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of Urbino</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Italy</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp226">226</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Alnwick Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp236">236</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of Saint-Cloud</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>France</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp245">245</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Stirling Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Scotland</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp254">254</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of the Bosphorus</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Turkey</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp259">259</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Plessis-les-Tours</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>France</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp267">267</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Hampton Court Palace</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp275">275</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of Shah Jehan</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>India</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp285">285</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Edinburgh Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Scotland</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp295">295</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Lambton Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp304">304</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Aranjuez</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Spain</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp310">310</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Glamis Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Scotland</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp314">314</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château de Chinon</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>France</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp321">321</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Summer Palace</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>China</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp329">329</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Berkeley Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp337">337</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Castle of Chillon</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Switzerland</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp346">346</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Rocca Malatestiana</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Italy</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp354">354</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Wartburg</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Germany</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp360">360</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château d’Amboise</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>France</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp367">367</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Blarney Castle</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>Ireland</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp375">375</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">Château de Loches</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>France</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp380">380</a></td>
+  </tr>
+
+   <tr>
+    <td class="cht smcap">The Palace of Blenheim</td>
+    <td class="cht"><i>England</i></td>
+    <td class="pag"><a href="#i_fp390">390</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
+
+<p class="p4 center xl"><b>Castles and Palaces</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<h2>CONWAY CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">GRANT ALLEN</span></h2>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">To call the town at the mouth of the Conway plain Conway is as absurd
+as if we were to call the town at the mouth of the Tyne plain Tyne
+instead of Tynemouth.</p>
+
+<p>By whatever name we call it, however, Conway town itself is equally
+interesting and equally beautiful. It still presents perhaps the best
+specimen yet remaining in Britain of a mediæval borough, begirt to this
+day with its Thirteenth Century walls, and overlooked by the towers of
+its strong castle-fortress. Even Telford’s graceful suspension-bridge,
+in admirable harmony of tone and plan with the surrounding buildings,
+hardly detracts at all from the old-world character of the familiar
+scene; nay, I am not sure that it does not even add somewhat to its
+picturesqueness. As much cannot be said for the huge iron boxes of
+Stephenson’s tubular bridge which carries the London and North-Western
+line across the river on its way to Holyhead.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> But taken as a whole,
+the mouth of the Conway, with its town and castle, has hardly an equal
+perhaps in Britain, save the mouth of the Dart in the equally Celtic
+Devonian uplands.</p>
+
+<p>Yet to the Welshman, the towers of Conway, beautiful as they are from
+every point of view, must long have seemed a badge of servitude. We
+forget too often in looking at these picturesque relics of the lawless
+days how stern and business-like they must once have appeared, how
+suggestive of none but purely military and aggressive associations.
+Time has softened the murderous effect of keep and bastion, and left us
+nothing but the graceful tinge of poetic mediævalism. But when Edward
+I. impressed into his service the unpaid labour of the conquered Welsh
+to raise his great castles around the disaffected mountain land, he
+did it with the distinct and deliberate purpose of holding in check
+for the future all wild aspirations of the native race after Cymric
+independence. The great triangle formed by the three strong castles of
+Harlech, Caernavon, and Conway (like the famous Austrian quadrilateral
+in North Italy) was a standing menace to the national movement and an
+effectual curb upon the national desire to rise in revolt. The three
+proud strongholds occupy the keys to the three chief routes into the
+heart of Snowdonia. Harlech blocks the way by the Vale of Festiniog or
+the Pass of Aberglaslyn: Caernavon guards the bare ravine of Llanberis:
+Conway frowns down upon the Bettws road and stops the coast path by
+Penmaenmawr and Bangor. Dominated and daunted by these three imposing
+fortresses, so vastly superior<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> in design and construction to the
+little tower keeps of her native princelings, the mountain heart of
+Gwynedd lay still for centuries, only galvanized for a moment once
+into spasmodic life, during the troublous times of civil commotion in
+England, by the adventurous spirit of that Deeside chief whose name
+Englishmen travesty into Owen Glendower.</p>
+
+<p>Nowhere is the genius of Edward’s great architect, Henry of Elreton,
+more conspicuous than in this noble pile at Conway. Half castle,
+half palace—for Edward meant to be king as well as conqueror—it
+combined the military solidity of Anglo-Norman work with the domestic
+magnificence of later Tudor mansions. Its great hall, in particular,
+must have formed, when perfect, one of the most regal and splendid
+reception rooms then existing in any part of England. The remaining
+lancet windows of the royal private apartments, and the beautiful
+early-decorated workmanship of Queen Eleanor’s oratory, survive to show
+with what royal state Edward kept his court both here and at Caernavon.
+For it is quite a mistake to regard the greatest of Plantagenets
+as a mere savage conqueror—the “ruthless king” of Gray’s immortal
+calumny. If Edward repressed sternly, he meant to reign peacefully.
+The “massacre of the bards” and all the other poetical rubbish with
+which Welsh legend has clouded the history of the national defeat, must
+be relegated to the limbo of exploded fable. The plain truth is that,
+when once Llewelyn and Dafydd were dead, Edward’s whole policy in the
+Welsh question was a policy of conciliation. His object was to pacify
+and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> Anglicize the disaffected uplands, to make communications safe
+through what had once been the stronghold of Taffy, that typical robber
+outlaw, and to reorganize the broken Celtic community on the familiar
+model of the English kingdom. It was not in mere play, therefore,
+that he presented to the Welsh his own eldest son, born by deliberate
+arrangement an indigenous Welshman in Caernavon Castle, as the first
+Prince of Wales of a new and more powerful line, or that he built and
+decorated those great royal reception rooms in his Cambrian palaces,
+where the chieftains of Gwynedd and the rude lords of Anglesey might
+for the first time see and be duly impressed by the splendour and the
+glitter of Anglo-Norman chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>Viewed from this wider standpoint, the beautiful chain-bridge and the
+ugly boxes of Stephenson’s iron monstrosity are themselves in a certain
+sort the direct heirs and truest modern representatives of Edward’s
+wise and necessary policy. So seen, they cease to interfere with the
+unity of the view and merge into one with the great Plantagenet design
+of the palace-castle. For both these important works, with their still
+vaster and more wonderful sister-bridges over the Menai at Bangor,
+form to this day the outer and visible sign of that coalescence of the
+Celtic and Teutonic elements in Britain to which Edward devoted all
+his life and energy. The first great roads made by the first great
+road-makers in England were the roads that connected London, the centre
+of the empire, with the Irish packets at Holyhead; and both those
+roads, whether coastwise or internal, by Glan Ogwen or Penmaenmawr,
+led through<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> the wildest parts of Wild Wales. The greatest life task
+of the greatest engineer before the railway period—Telford—was the
+Holyhead road: the greatest life task of the inventor of the locomotive
+and his still abler sons—George and Robert Stephenson—was the iron
+line from London to Holyhead. In these gigantic undertakings, Celt and
+Saxon were united for all, and the better day of fraternal friendship
+was inaugurated in full sight of Edward’s threatening castle towers.
+Dr. Arnold loved to look at the railway engine, snorting steam across
+the midland acres, and think that feudalism was dead forever. It is
+pleasant in like manner to look even at Stephenson’s hideous tubular
+bridge, and think, that ill as it contrasts in beauty with the
+Plantagenet turrets, it is nevertheless the symbol of that complete
+fellowship between Saxon and Celt in this land of Britain which forms
+the final goal and ideal of our national unity.</p>
+
+<p>The vale of Conway does not stop abruptly at Conway town; it prolongs
+itself seaward by gentle degrees far into the shallow waters of
+Beaumaris Bay. On either side lie the wide tidal sandbanks, formed of
+material which the river has washed down from the peaks of Snowdon,
+Glyder, and the Carnedds, the very source from which they are derived
+being often traceable in the mineralogical peculiarities of the
+individual grains. About these sands the weird and melancholy Celtic
+fancy has woven a variation on the common mournful Celtic legend of
+the submerged country—the legend which meets us again under a hundred
+disguises in the story of Sythenin Cardigan Bay,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> the floods of Sarn
+Badrig, the lost land of Lyonesse, and the sunken city of Is on the
+coasts of Brittany.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever the Cymric Celt remains, there these stories survive and
+accompany him. Perhaps they may inclose some true kernel of tradition
+about the terrific submergence which undoubtedly once took place round
+the coasts of the two Britains—the greater and the less—at the
+period when the forest-bed of post-glacial date was swallowed up by
+the devouring Atlantic. It seemed more probable, however, and it is
+certainly far more comforting to believe that the vast earth-movement
+took place so quietly, and was spread over so many peaceful centuries,
+that it was no more recognized by the men who lived during its gradual
+progress than the slow and gradual submergence of Scandinavia—an inch
+at a time—is noticed in our own day by the Norwegian peasant. Rather
+do these stories reflect and embody the gloomy fancy of a conquered
+people, whose traditions of glory all referred to a remote and unreal
+past, and who felt in their despair that the very elements themselves
+had wrested from them those fertile lands which their fathers had never
+really owned or cultivated.</p>
+
+<p>Be this as it may, local legend declares that the Lavan sands—the
+very name in Welsh means Banks of Lamentation—represent the relics
+of a rich lowland hundred, engulfed by the sea at one wild swoop in
+the early part of the Middle Ages. About a fathom deep, off Y Foel
+Llus, lies a submarine bank still known as Llys Helig, or Helig’s
+Palace. Here, according to tradition, stood the lofty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> castle of the
+Cymric lord who owned for miles around the fertile plain; and Welsh
+imagination still sees at low tide through the clear water of the bay
+the boundary stones of the ancient road that passed from the British
+stronghold at Rhuddlan to the fortress of Treganwy, now equally
+overwhelmed beneath the sands of Beaumaris. It is a little unfortunate
+for the truth of the tale that similar evidences of historical verity
+are always produced in favour of Caer Is and all the other Celtic
+buried cities—and that no Saxon eye has ever clearly beheld them.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE DUCAL PALACE<br>
+<span class="subhed">THÉOPHILE GAUTIER</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The Ducal Palace as we see it to-day dates from Marino Faliero and is
+the successor of an older one begun in 809 under Angelo Participazio
+and carried on by the different Doges. It was Marino Faliero who caused
+the two façades on the Mole and the Piazzetta to be built in 1355 as
+they now are. This construction brought happiness neither to him who
+ordered nor to the architect: the former was decapitated and the latter
+hanged.</p>
+
+<p>Into this strange edifice,—at once a palace, senate, tribunal and
+prison under the government of the Republic,—we enter by a charming
+door in St. Mark’s corner, between the pillars of St. John of Acre and
+the great, thick column supporting the entire weight of the immense
+white and rose marble wall that gives such an original aspect to the
+ancient palace of the Doges.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp8">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp8.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE DUCAL PALACE</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>This door, called Della Carta, is in charming architectural taste,
+adorned with little columns, trefoils and statues, without counting
+the inevitable, indispensable winged lion of St. Mark, and leads into
+the great interior court by a vaulted passage. This somewhat singular
+arrangement of an entrance so to speak placed without the edifice to
+which it leads has the advantage of not interfering in any <span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>way with
+the unity of its façades, which are not broken by any projection except
+that of their monumental windows.</p>
+
+<p>Before passing under the arcade, let us glance over the exterior of
+the palace to note a few of its interesting details. Above the thick
+and robust column of which we have just spoken, there is a bas-relief
+of savage aspect representing the <i>Judgment of Solomon</i>, with
+mediæval costume and a certain barbarity of execution that renders it
+hard to recognize the subject. This bas-relief opens into the long
+twisted little columns that cordon each angle of the building.</p>
+
+<p>On the façade of the Piazzetta, up on the second gallery, two columns
+of red marble mark the place whence the death sentences were read,—a
+custom that still exists to-day. All the capitals are in exquisite
+taste and inexhaustible variety. Not one is a repetition. They contain
+chimæræ, children, angels, fantastic animals, and sometimes Biblical or
+historical subjects, mingled with foliage, acanthus, fruits and flowers
+that forcibly show up the poverty of invention of our modern artists:
+several bear half effaced inscriptions in Gothic characters, which in
+order to be fluently read would require a skilful paleographer. There
+are twenty-seven arcades on the Mole and eighteen on the Piazzetta.</p>
+
+<p>The Porta della Carta leads you to the Giant’s Staircase, which is not
+itself gigantic, but takes its name from the two colossi of Neptune
+and Mars, a dozen feet in height, by Sansovino, standing on pedestals
+at the top of the flight. This staircase, leading from the courtyard
+to the second gallery that decks the interior as well as the exterior
+of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> palace, was raised during the dogedom of Agostino Barbarigo
+by Antonio Rizzio. It is of white marble, decorated by Domenico and
+Bernardo of Mantua with arabesques and trophies in very slight relief,
+but of such perfection as to be the despair of all the ornamenters,
+carvers and engravers in the world. It is no longer architecture, but
+goldsmith’s work, such as Benvenuto Cellini and Vechte alone could
+produce. Every morsel of this open balustrade is a world of invention;
+the weapons and casques of every bas-relief, each one different, are of
+the rarest fancy and the purest style; even the slabs of the steps are
+ornamented with exquisite <i>niello</i>, and yet who knows anything of
+Domenico and Bernardo of Mantua? The memory of mankind, already wearied
+with a hundred illustrious names, refuses to retain any more, and
+consigns to oblivion names that are deserving of all glory.</p>
+
+<p>If we turn around on reaching the head of this staircase, we see the
+inner side of the doorway of Bartolomeo, flowered over with volutes and
+plated with little columns and statues, with remnants of blue painting
+starred with gold in the tympanums of the arch. Among the statues, one
+in particular is very remarkable: it is an Eve by Antonio Rizzio of
+Verona, carved in 1471. The other side, facing the Wells, was built
+in 1607 in the style of the Renaissance, with columns and niches full
+of antique statues from Greece, representing warriors, orators, and
+divinities. A clock and a statue of the Duke Urbino, carved by Gio
+Bandini of Florence in 1625, complete this severe and classic front.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span></p>
+
+<p>Letting your glance fall towards the middle of the court, you see
+what look like magnificent bronze altars. They are the mouths of the
+cisterns of Nicolo de’ Conti and Francesco Alberghetti. The first dates
+from 1556, the second from 1559. Both are masterpieces. Besides the
+obligatory accompaniment of griffins, sirens, and chimæræ, various
+aquatic subjects taken from the Scriptures are represented in them. One
+could not imagine such richness of invention, such exquisite taste,
+such perfection of carving, nor such finished work as is displayed by
+the kerbs of these wells enriched with the polish and verdigris of
+time. Even the inside of the mouth is plated with thin sheets of bronze
+branched with a damascene of arabesques. These two wells are said to
+contain the best water in Venice.</p>
+
+<p>Near the Giant’s Staircase is an inscription framed with ornaments
+and figures by Alessandro Vittoria recalling the passage of Henry
+III. through Venice; and farther on in the gallery at the approach to
+the golden staircase are two statues by Antonio Aspetti,—Hercules
+and Atlas bending beneath the starry firmament, the weight of which
+the mighty hero is about to transfer to his own bull-neck. This
+magnificent staircase, adorned with stuccos by Vittoria and paintings
+by Giambatista, is by Sansovino, and leads to the library which now
+occupies several rooms of the Palace of the Doges. To attempt to
+describe them one by one would be a work of patience and erudition that
+would require a whole volume.</p>
+
+<p>The old hall of the Grand Council is one of the largest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> you could find
+anywhere. The Court of Lions at the Alhambra would easily go inside it.
+On entering, you stand still, struck with astonishment. By an effect
+that is somewhat frequently found in architecture, this hall looks
+much larger than the building that contains it. A sombre and severe
+wainscoting, where bookcases have taken the place of the seats of the
+old senators, serves as a plinth for immense paintings that extend all
+around the walls, broken only by windows, below a line of portraits of
+the Doges and a colossal gilded ceiling of incredible exuberance of
+ornamentation, with great compartments, square, octagonal and oval,
+with foliage, volutes, and rock-work in a taste scarcely appropriate
+to the style of the palace, but so imposing and magnificent that you
+are quite dazzled by it. Unfortunately, the pictures by Paul Veronese,
+Tintoret, Palma the Younger, and other great masters, that filled these
+superb frames have now been removed on account of indispensable repairs.</p>
+
+<p>That side of the hall by which you enter is entirely occupied by
+a gigantic <i>Paradise</i> by Tintoret, which contains a world of
+figures. It is a strong painting and it is a pity that time has so
+greatly darkened it. The smoky shadows that cover it belong to a Hell
+rather than to a Glory. Behind this canvas, a fact that we have not
+been in a position to verify, it is said that there is an ancient
+<i>Paradise</i> painted in green camaïeu upon the wall by Guariento of
+Padua in 1365. It would be curious to be able to compare this green
+<i>Paradise</i> with the black one. It is only Venice that has one
+depth of painting below another.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p>
+
+<p>This hall is a kind of Versailles museum of Venetian history, with
+the difference that if the exploits are not so great, the painting
+is far better. It is impossible to imagine a more wonderful effect
+than is produced by this immense hall entirely covered by these
+pompous paintings that excel in the Venetian genius. Above these great
+historical scenes, is a row of portraits of the Doges by Tintoret,
+Bassano, and other painters; as a rule, they have a smoky and bearded
+appearance, although, contrary to the impression we form, they have no
+beards. In one corner the eye is arrested at an empty and black frame
+that makes a hole as dark as a tomb in this chronological gallery. It
+is the space that should be occupied by the portrait of Marino Faliero,
+as told by this inscription: <i>Locus Marini Phaletri, decapitati pro
+criminibus</i>. All the effigies of Marino Faliero were also destroyed,
+so that his portrait may be said to be undiscoverable. However, it is
+pretended that there is one in the possession of an amateur at Verona.
+The republic wanted to destroy the memory of this haughty old man who
+brought it within an inch of ruin in revenge for a youth’s jest that
+was sufficiently punished by a few months’ imprisonment. To finish with
+Marino Faliero, let us note that he was not beheaded at the head of
+the Giant’s Staircase, as is represented in several prints, since that
+stairway was not built till a hundred and fifty years later, but in
+the opposite corner at the other end of the gallery, upon the top of a
+flight of steps since demolished.</p>
+
+<p>We will now name the most celebrated chambers of the palace without
+pretending to describe them in detail. In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> the chamber <i>dei
+Scarlatti</i>, the chimney-piece is covered with marble reliefs of
+the finest workmanship. On the impost also is seen a very curious
+bas-relief in marble representing the Doge Loredan on his knees before
+the Virgin and Child, accompanied by several saints,—an admirable
+piece of work by an unknown artist. The Hall of the Shield: here the
+arms of the living Doge were emblazoned. It is hung with geographical
+charts by the Abbé Grisellini that trace the discoveries of Marco
+Polo, so long treated as fabulous, and of other illustrious Venetian
+travellers, such as Zeni and Cabota. Here also is kept a globe, found
+on a Turkish galley, engraved upon wood and of strange configuration
+being in accordance with Oriental ideas and covered with Arabic
+characters cut with marvellous delicacy; also a great bird’s-eye view
+of Venice by Albrecht Dürer, who made a long stay in the city of the
+Doges. The aspect of the city is generally the same as to-day, since
+for three centuries one stone has not been laid upon another in the
+Italian cities.</p>
+
+<p>In the Hall of the Philosophers, a very beautiful chimney-piece by
+Pierre Lombard is to be noticed. The Hall of Stuccos, so called because
+of its ornamentation, contains paintings by Salviati, Pordenone, and
+Bassano: the <i>Virgin</i>, a <i>Descent from the Cross</i>, and the
+<i>Nativity of Jesus Christ</i>. The banquet-hall is where the Doge
+used to give certain feasts of etiquette,—diplomatic dinners, as we
+should say to-day. Here we see a portrait of Henry III. by Tintoret,
+very strong and very fine; and facing the door is the <i>Adoration
+of the Magi</i>, a warm painting by Bonifazio, that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span> great master of
+whose work we possess scarcely anything in Paris. The Hall of the Four
+Doors has a square anteroom, the ceiling of which, painted by Tintoret,
+represents Justice giving the sword and scales to the Doge Priuli. The
+four doors are adorned with statues of grand form by Guilio del Moro,
+Francesco Caselli, Girolamo Campagna, and Alessandro Vittoria; the
+paintings that enrich the room are masterpieces.</p>
+
+<p>From this hall let us pass into the Anti-Collegio; it is the
+waiting-room of the ambassadors, the architecture being by Scamozzi.
+The envoys of the various powers who came to present their credentials
+to the Most Serene Republic could scarcely have been in a hurry to
+be introduced: the masterpieces crowded with such lavishness into
+this splendid anteroom would induce anyone to be patient. The four
+pictures near the door are by Tintoret, and among his best. These are
+the subjects: <i>Mercury and the Graces</i>; <i>Vulcan’s Forge</i>;
+<i>Pallas, accompanied by Joy and Abundance, chasing Mars</i>; and
+<i>Ariadne consoled by Bacchus</i>. Apart from a few rather forced
+foreshortenings and a few violent attitudes in which this master took
+pleasure on account of their difficulty, we can do nothing but praise
+the virile energy of touch, the warmth of colour, the truth of the
+flesh, the lifelike power and that forceful and charming grace that
+distinguishes mighty talents when they have to render sweet and gentle
+subjects.</p>
+
+<p>But the marvel of this sanctuary of art is the <i>Rape of Europa</i>,
+by Paul Veronese. What lovely white shoulders! what blonde curling
+tresses! what round and charming<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> arms! what smiles of eternal youth
+in this wonderful canvas in which Paul Veronese seems to have spoken
+his final word! Sky, clouds, trees, flowers, meadows, seas, tints,
+draperies, all seem bathed in the glow of an unknown Elysium. If we
+had to choose one single example of all Paul Veronese’s work, this is
+the one we should prefer: it is the most beautiful pearl in this rich
+casket.</p>
+
+<p>On the ceiling the great artist has seated his dear Venice on a golden
+throne with that amplitude of drapery and that abundant grace of which
+he possesses the secret. For this <i>Assumption</i>, in which Venice
+takes the place of the Virgin, he always knows how to find fresh blues
+and new radiance.</p>
+
+<p>The magnificent chimney-piece by Aspetti, a stucco cornice by
+Vittoria and Bombarda, blue camaïeu by Sebastian Rizzi and columns
+of <i>verde antique</i> and Cipolin marble framing the door complete
+this marvellous decoration in which shines the most beautiful of all
+luxuries,—that of genius.</p>
+
+<p>The reception-hall, or the Collegio, comes next. Here we find
+Tintoret and Paul Veronese, the former red and violent, the other
+azure and calm; the first, suited to great expanses of wall, the
+second, for immense ceilings. We will not speak of the camaïeu, the
+<i>grisailles</i>, the columns of <i>verde antique</i>, the little
+arches of flowered jasper and sculptures by G. Campagna: we should
+never finish; and those are the ordinary sumptuous details in the
+Palace of the Doges.</p>
+
+<p>There are many other admirable rooms in the Ducal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> Palace that we
+have not mentioned. The Hall of the Council of Ten, the Hall of the
+Supreme Council, the Hall of the State Inquisitors, and many others.
+Upon their walls and ceilings sit side by side the apotheosis of
+Venice and the Assumption of the Virgin; the Doges on their knees
+before some Madonna or other; and mythological heroes or fabulous
+gods; the Lion of St. Mark and Jupiter’s Eagle; the Emperor Frederick
+Barbarossa and a Neptune; Pope Alexander III. and a short-kilted
+Allegory. Mix up stories from the Bible and holy Virgins beneath
+baldaquins, captures of Zara embroidered with more numerous episodes
+than one of Ariosto’s songs, and surprises of Candia with jumbles of
+Turks; carve the door-cases; cover the cornices with mouldings and
+stucco; set up statues in every corner; lay gold upon everything that
+is not covered by the brush of a superior artist; say: “All those who
+have laboured here, even the obscure, had twenty times as much talent
+as our celebrities of the present day; and the greatest masters have
+employed their lives here;” and then you will have a feeble idea
+of all this magnificence that defies description. Painters, whose
+names are not uttered once a century, here hold their place in most
+terrible proximities. You would say that genius was in the air at that
+climacteric epoch of human progress and that nothing was easier than
+to produce masterpieces. The sculptors especially, of whom no one
+ever speaks, display an extraordinary talent and are not in the least
+inferior to the greatest painters.</p>
+
+<p>Close to the door of one of these rooms we still see,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> though robbed of
+all its prestige of terror, and reduced to the condition of an unused
+letter-box, the ancient Lion’s Mouth to which the informers came to
+cast in their denunciations. Nothing remains now but a hole in the
+wall: the jaw has been removed. A sombre corridor leads you to the Hall
+of the State Inquisitors, to the Leads, and to the Wells that have
+served as a text for an infinity of sentimental declamation. Certainly
+there are no beautiful prisons; but the truth is that the Leads were
+large chambers covered with lead, a material with which the roofs
+of most of the edifices of Venice are covered and which has nothing
+particularly cruel about it; and that the Wells were not below the
+level of the lagoon. We visited two or three of these cells. Covered
+with wood on the inside, they had a low door and a little opening
+facing the lamp fixed to the roof of the passage. A wooden camp-bed
+occupied one of the corners.</p>
+
+<p>It was black and stifling, but without any melodramatic accessories.
+Upon the walls are decipherable several of those inscriptions that
+prison weariness engraves with a nail upon the wall of the tomb:
+signatures, dates, short sentences from the Bible, philosophical
+reflections appropriate to the spot, a timid sigh for liberty,
+sometimes the cause of the imprisonment, such as the inscription in
+which a captive says that he has been incarcerated for sacrilege. At
+the entrance to a corridor they showed us a stone seat on which those
+who were secretly executed in the prison were made to sit. A slender
+cord cast around the neck and twisted like a garotte strangled them
+in the Turkish<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> manner. These clandestine executions were only for
+state prisoners convicted of political crimes. The deed being done,
+the corpse was bundled into a gondola through a door opening on to the
+Canal della Paglia and it was taken away to be sunk with a cannon-ball
+or stone at the feet in the Orfanello Canal which is very deep and
+where fishermen are forbidden to cast their nets.</p>
+
+<p>Vulgar assassins are executed between the two columns at the entrance
+of the Piazzetta. The Bridge of Sighs, which seen from the Paille
+Bridge, looks like a cenotaph suspended over the water, has nothing
+remarkable inside: it is a double corridor divided by a wall which
+serves as a covered way from the Ducal Palace to the Prison, the severe
+and solid edifice built by Antonio da Ponte, and situated on the other
+side of the Canal facing the lateral façade of the Palace which is
+supposed to have been built from the plans of Antonio Riccio. The name
+of the Bridge of Sighs, given to that tomb that connects two prisons,
+probably comes from the lamentations of the unfortunates going from
+their cell to the tribunal and back again, broken by torture, or in
+despair after condemnation. In the evening this Canal, squeezed between
+the high walls of the two sombre edifices and illumined by some rare
+gleam, has a very sinister and mysterious aspect, and the gondolas that
+glide along there bearing some handsome pair of lovers going to get a
+little fresh air on the lagoon, look as if they have a burden for the
+Orfanello Canal.</p>
+
+<p>We have also visited the ancient apartments of the Doge; nothing
+remains of their primitive magnificence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> except a highly ornamental
+ceiling divided into gilded and painted hexagonal compartments. In
+these spaces, shielded by foliage and rosebushes, was an invisible hole
+through which the State Inquisitors and the members of the Council of
+Ten could spy upon what the Doge was doing at all hours of the day and
+of the night. The walls, not content with listening by an ear, like the
+prison of Denys the Tyrant, watched with an ever open eye, and the Doge
+who had conquered at Zara or at Candia heard, like Angelo, “steps in
+his walls” and felt a mysterious and jealous watch all about him.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span></p>
+
+<h2>PALACE OF LINLITHGOW<br>
+<span class="subhed">SIR WALTER SCOTT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Linlithgow, distinguished by the combined strength and beauty of its
+situation, must have been early selected as a royal residence. David,
+who bought the title of Saint by his liberality to the church, refers
+several of his characters to his town of Linlithgow, and in that of
+Holy Rood expressly bestows on the new monastery all the skins of the
+rams, ewes, and lambs belonging to his Castle of Linlitcu which shall
+die during the year.</p>
+
+<p>The convenience afforded for the sport of falconry, which was so
+great a favourite during the feudal ages, was probably one cause of
+an attachment of the ancient Scottish monarchs to Linlithgow, and
+its fine lake. The sport of hunting was also followed with success
+in the neighbourhood, from which circumstance it probably arises
+that the ancient arms of the city represent a black greyhound-bitch
+tied to a tree. Tradition, however, ascribes other causes for this
+remarkable emblem, but is, as usual, rather inconsistent in accounting
+for it otherwise. One legend says simply, that such a hound was found
+so tied on the small island on the east side of the loch. Another
+tradition hints at a witch who used to assume this shape. A third more
+ungallantly adopts a metaphorical meaning, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> affirms that a mistress
+of one of the kings was designated under this hieroglyphic. A Celt,
+according to Chalmers, might plausibly derive the name of Linlithgow
+from <i>Lin-liath-cu</i>, the Lake of the Greyhound. Chalmers himself,
+seems to prefer the Gothic derivation of <i>Lin-lyth-gow</i>, or the
+Lake of the Great Vale. <i>Non nostrum est.</i></p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp21">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp21.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">PALACE OF LINLITHGOW, SCOTLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The Castle of Linlithgow is only mentioned as being a peel (a pile,
+that is, an embattled tower surrounded by an outwork). In 1300 it was
+rebuilt or repaired by Edward I., and used as one of the citadels by
+which he hoped to maintain his usurped dominion in Scotland. It is
+described by Barbour as “meihle and stark and stuffed weel.” Piers
+Luband, a Gascoigne knight, was appointed the keeper, and appears to
+have remained there until the autumn of 1313, when the Scots recovered
+the Castle under the following interesting circumstances:—</p>
+
+<p>There was, says our authority, Barbour, dwelling in the neighbourhood
+of Linlithgow, a stout-hearted husbandman, named William Binnock,
+who, observing that the Scots were on every hand recovering from the
+English the castles and fortresses which the invaders possessed within
+Scotland, could not brook that the peel in his vicinity, which was
+large, strong, and well supplied with arms and garrisons, should remain
+unassailed. He formed a stratagem, equally remarkable for ingenuity and
+audacity. The garrison was usually supplied by Binnock with hay, and
+they had lately required from him a fresh supply. He assured them of
+the excellence of the forage, and undertook to send it in early in the
+morning. But the hay was so arranged on the wain <span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>as to conceal eight
+well-armed and determined men; the team was driven by a sturdy peasant,
+who bore a sharp axe under his gaberdion. Binnock himself walked beside
+the waggon, to superintend, as it seemed, the safe delivery of the
+forage. The porter, on approach of Binnock, with his well-known wain,
+lowered the drawbridge and raised the portcullis. Just at the very
+gateway, the driver, as he had been instructed, drew his axe suddenly
+and cut asunder the soam, or tackle, by which the oxen were attached
+to the waggon. Binnock at the same instant struck the warder dead, and
+shouted the signal word, which was “Call all, call all.” The assailants
+jumped from amongst the hay, and attacked the astonished garrison.
+The wain was so placed that neither could the gate be shut nor the
+portcullis lowered, nor the bridge raised, and a party of Scots, who
+were in ambush for the purpose, rushed in to second their forlorn hope,
+and were soon masters of the place.</p>
+
+<p>Bruce, faithful to his usual policy, caused the peel of Linlithgow to
+be dismantled, and worthily rewarded William Binnock, who had behaved
+with such gallantry on the occasion. From this bold yeoman the Binnies
+of West Lothian are proud to trace their descent; and most, if not all
+of them, bear in their arms something connected with the waggon, which
+was the instrument of his stratagem.</p>
+
+<p>When times of comparative peace returned, Linlithgow again became the
+occasional residence of the sovereign. In 1411 the town was burned
+by accident, and in 1414 was again subjected to the same calamity,
+together with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> Church and Palace of the King, as is expressly
+mentioned by Bower.</p>
+
+<p>The present Church, which is a fine specimen of Gothic architecture,
+having a steeple surmounted by an imperial crown, was probably erected
+soon after that calamity.</p>
+
+<p>The Palace arose from its ashes with greater splendour than before; for
+the family of Stuart, unhappy in so many respects, were all of them
+fortunate in their taste for the fine arts, and particularly for that
+of architecture. The Lordship of Linlithgow was settled as a dowry upon
+Mary of Gueldres in 1449, and again upon Margaret of Denmark in 1468.</p>
+
+<p>James the Fourth, as splendid a gallant, seems to have founded the most
+magnificent part of Linlithgow Palace; together with the noble entrance
+betwixt two flanking towers bearing on rich entablatures the royal arms
+of Scotland, with the collar of the Order of the Thistle, Garter, and
+Saint Michael.</p>
+
+<p>James IV., also erected in the Church a throne for himself, and twelve
+stalls for Knights Companions of the Thistle. It was sitting here, in
+the time of public worship, and musing, perhaps, on his approaching
+invasion of England, that he received a singular advice from a singular
+personage, which we cannot express better than in the words of
+Pitscottie:—</p>
+
+<p>“At this time the King visited Linlithgow, where he was at the Council,
+very sad and dolorous, making his prayers to God to send him a good
+success in his voyage. And there came a man clad in a blue gown, belted
+about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> him with a roll of lining, and a pair of <i>brottikines</i> on
+his feet, and all other things conform thereto. But he had nothing on
+his head but side hair to his shoulders, and bald before. He seemed
+to be a man of fifty years, and came fast forwards, crying among the
+lords, and specially for the King, saying, that he desired to speak
+with him; while at the last he came to the desk where the King was at
+prayers. But when he saw the King, he gave him no due reverence nor
+salutation, but leaned him down gruffly upon the desk, and said, ‘Sir
+King, my mother has sent me to thee, desiring thee not to go where
+thou art purposed, which if thou do, thou shalt not fare well in thy
+journey, nor none that is with thee. Farther, she forbade thee, not
+to mell nor use the counsel of women, which if thou do, thou wilt be
+confounded and brought to shame.’ By [<i>the time</i>] this man had
+spoken these words to the King, the even-song was near done, and the
+King paused on these words, studying to him an answer. But in the
+meantime, before the King’s eyes, and in presence of the whole lords
+that were about him for the time, this man evanished away, and could no
+more be seen. I heard Sir David Lindsay, Lyon-herald, and John Inglis,
+the Marishall, who were at that time young men and special servants to
+the King’s grace, thought to have taken this man, but they could not,
+that they might have speired [<i>asked</i>] further tidings at him, but
+they could not touch him.”</p>
+
+<p>Buchanan confirms this strange story on the word of a spectator,
+Sir David Lindsay, whose testimony he describes as unimpeachable.
+Thus supported, we have only to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> choose betwixt a deception and
+a supernatural appearance. The temper of James was one of those
+described by the poet as being “of imagination all compact.” He was
+amorous, devotional, and chivalrous. This renders it highly probable
+that the simulated vision was contrived by some of the numerous party
+who advised a continuance of peace with England, and who might be of
+opinion that counsels conveyed in this mysterious manner might have
+some effect on the romantic spirit of the King. It is usually supposed
+that the vision was intended to represent Saint Andrew; but the use
+of the words, “my mother,” seem rather to imply the Apostle John, who
+indicated by that term the Virgin Mary.</p>
+
+<p>The death of James IV. and rout of his army clouded for many a day the
+glory of Scotland, and marred the mirth of her palaces.</p>
+
+<p>James V. was much attached to Linlithgow, and added to the Palace
+both the Chapel and Parliament Hall, the last of which is peculiarly
+striking. So that when he brought his bride Mary of Guise there, amid
+the festivities which accompanied their wedding, she might have more
+reasons than mere complaisance for highly commending the edifice, and
+saying that she never saw a more princely palace. It was long her
+residence, and that of her royal husband, at Linlithgow. Mary was born
+there in an apartment still shown; and the ill-fated father dying
+within a few days of that event, left the ominous diadem which he wore
+to the still more unfortunate infant.</p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable that during this reign there was acted at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> Linlithgow,
+in presence of the King, Queen, and whole court, and, so far as
+appears, with great applause, a play, or theatrical presentation, by
+Sir David Lindsay, called the <i>Satire of the Three Estates</i>, in
+which much coarse and indelicate farce and buffoonery is intermixed
+with the most pointed censure upon the affairs both of church and
+state. The comic mummery was undoubtedly thrown in with the purpose
+of Rabelais, to mitigate the edge of the satire, by representing the
+whole as matter of idle and extravagant mirth. But when the serious
+and direct tenor of the piece is considered, no one can doubt that the
+Prince before whom it was acted, and by whom it seems to have been well
+received, meditated reforms both in church and state, however diverted
+from them by the arts of the churchmen.</p>
+
+<p>In the subsequent reign of Queen Mary, Linlithgow was the scene of
+several remarkable events; the most interesting of which was the
+assassination of the Regent Murray by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. This
+James VI. loved the royal residence of Linlithgow, and completed the
+original plan of the Palace, closing the great square by a stately
+range of apartments of great architectural beauty. He also made a
+magnificent fountain in the Palace-yard, now ruinous, as are all the
+buildings around. Another grotesque Gothic fountain adorns the street
+of the town, which, with the number of fine springs, leads to the
+popular rhyme:</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div><i>Linlithgow for wells,</i></div>
+        <div><i>Stirling for bells.</i></div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span></p>
+
+<p>Among the attendants of James the Sixth was a distinguished personage
+of a class which may be found in most places of public resort. This was
+the celebrated Rob Gibb, the king’s fool or jester. Fool as he was,
+Rob Gibb seems to have understood his own interest. Upon one occasion
+it pleased his sapient Majesty King Jamie to instal Rob in his own
+royal chair, the sport being to see how he would demean himself as
+sovereign. The courtiers entered into the king’s humour, overwhelming
+Rob Gibb with petitions for places, pensions, and benefices, not sorry
+perhaps to have an opportunity of hinting, in the presence of the real
+sovereign, secret hopes and wishes, which they might have no other
+opportunity of expressing. But Rob Gibb sternly repelled the whole
+supplicants together, as a set of unmercifully greedy sycophants, who
+followed their worthy king only to see what they could make of him.
+“Get ye hence, ye covetous selfish loons,” he exclaimed, “and bring to
+me my own dear and trusty servant, Rob Gibb, that I may honour the only
+one of my court who serves me for stark love and kindness.” It would
+not have been unlike King Jamie to have answered, “that he was but a
+fool, and knew no better.”</p>
+
+<p>Rob’s presence of mind did not go unrewarded; for either on this or
+some future occasion, he was in such “good foolery” as to get a grant
+of a small estate in the vicinity of the burgh.</p>
+
+<p>When the sceptre passed from Scotland, oblivion sat down in the
+halls of Linlithgow; but her absolute desolation was reserved for
+the memorable era of 1745–6<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> About the middle of January in that
+year, General Hawley marched at the head of a strong army to raise
+the siege of Stirling, then pressed by the Highland insurgents under
+the adventurous Charles Edward. The English general had expressed
+considerable contempt of his enemy, who, he affirmed, would not stand a
+charge of cavalry. On the night of the 17th he returned to Linlithgow,
+with all the marks of defeat, having burned his tents, and left his
+artillery and baggage. His disordered troops were quartered in the
+Palace, and began to make such great fires on the hearth as to endanger
+the safety of the edifice. A lady of the Livingston family who had
+apartments there, remonstrated with General Hawley, who treated her
+fears with contempt. “I can run away from fire as fast as you can,
+General,” answered the high-spirited dame, and with this sarcasm took
+horse for Edinburgh. Very soon after her departure her apprehensions
+were realized; the Palace of Linlithgow caught fire, and was burned to
+the ground. The ruins alone remain to show its former splendour.</p>
+
+<p>The situation of Linlithgow Palace is eminently beautiful. It stands on
+a promontory of some elevation, which advances almost into the midst
+of the lake. The form is that of a square court, composed of buildings
+of four stories high, with towers at the angles. The fronts within the
+square, and the windows, are highly ornamented, and the size of the
+rooms, as well as the width and character of the staircases, are upon
+a magnificent scale. One banquet-room is ninety-four feet long, thirty
+feet wide, and thirty-three feet high, with a gallery for music. The
+King’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> wardrobe, or dressing-room, looking to the west, projects over
+the walls so as to have a delicious prospect on three sides, and is one
+of the most enviable boudoirs we have ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>There were two main entrances to Linlithgow Palace. That from the south
+ascends rather steeply from the town, and passes through a striking
+Gothic archway, flanked by two round towers. The portal has been richly
+adorned by sculpture, in which can be traced the arms of Scotland with
+the collars of the Thistle, the Garter, and Saint Michael. This was the
+work of James V., and is in a most beautiful character.</p>
+
+<p>The other entrance is from the eastward. The gateway is at some height
+from the foundation of the wall, and there are opposite to it the
+remains of a <i>perron</i>, or ramp of mason-work, which those who
+desired to enter must have ascended by steps. A drawbridge, which could
+be raised at pleasure, united, when it was lowered, the ramp with the
+threshold of the gateway, and when raised, left a gap between them,
+which answered the purpose of a moat. On the inside of the eastern
+gateway is a figure, much mutilated, said to have been that of Pope
+Julius II., the same Pontiff who sent to James IV. the beautiful sword
+which makes part of the Regalia.</p>
+
+<p>“To what base offices we may return!” In the course of the last war,
+those beautiful remains, so full of ancient remembrances, very narrowly
+escaped being defaced and dishonoured, by an attempt to convert them
+into barracks for French prisoners of war. The late President Blair,
+as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> zealous a patriot as he was an excellent lawyer, had the merit of
+averting this insult upon one of the most striking objects of antiquity
+which Scotland yet affords. I am happy to add, that of late years the
+Court of the Exchequer have, in this and similar cases, shown much zeal
+to preserve our national antiquities, and stop the dilapidations which
+were fast consuming them.</p>
+
+<p>In coming to Linlithgow by the Edinburgh road, the first view of the
+town, with its beautiful steeple, surmounted with a royal crown, and
+the ruinous towers of the Palace arising out of a canopy of trees,
+forms a most impressive object. All that is wanting is something of
+more elevated dignity to the margin of the lake. But it is not easy to
+satisfy the inconsistent wishes of amateurs.</p>
+
+<p>We may in taking leave of this subject, use once more the words of old
+Sir David of the Mount, in his Complaint of the Papingo:—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div><i>Farewell Linlithgow, whose Palace of pleasaunce</i></div>
+        <div><i>Might be a pattern in Portugal or France.</i></div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span></p>
+
+<h2>ARUNDEL CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">ALICE MEYNELL</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Even pastoral England, which has a character of its own so different
+from that of pastoral districts elsewhere—so much richer in its
+details is it, and so much blunter and rounder in its forms, than
+the pasture-lands and cornlands of Italy, or France, or Spain, or
+Greece—even this distinctive and separated country has variations
+within itself. The heart of England—the country of George Eliot and
+the tract which lies within near or distant sight of the Malvern
+Hills—has a drier, crisper beauty about its green fields and rich
+woods. The great peaceful plain is broken by undulations, which are
+lost from a distant view, and nowhere, not even by the brimming waters
+of the Severn, are there such perfectly flat fields, pasture, marsh,
+and cornfield lying together, even and low, as those into which the
+gently raised tablelands of England subside between the downs of the
+South Coast. Such lands lie about the feet of the Arundel hills, open
+to a boundless sky, invested in light night mists, full of cattle,
+watered by a little river and its streams which scarcely creep towards
+the sea where it lies level with the land, or in some places level with
+the hedgerows.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp32">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp32.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">ARUNDEL CASTLE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The aspect of things here is Tennysonian. Looking <span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>along the fields
+towards Arundel where it curves into the arm of its hill, and from a
+distance sufficient to lend enchantment to the mean details which mar
+any English town upon a close sight, the place looks like the “dim rich
+city” in Elaine. There might be a warder looking out from the castle
+keep, a knight might be riding up to the walls in the twilight. Not
+many years ago owls did hoot about that tower, but they died and were
+stuffed. The peacefulness of the flat lowlands too, the richness of the
+level pastures, in which the dark brown cattle stand knee-deep, the
+softening haze of lowland mist, and the general prosperity of things,
+all have something of the flavour of the same poetry. It is otherwise
+when the hills are climbed, and the free breezy uplands of the park,
+with the moory, dry, gay country towards Petworth, opens out. There we
+have a beauty which suggests a less mild and meditative muse.</p>
+
+<p>Arundel dates back to the most respectable antiquity, for King Alfred
+bequeathed the Castle in his will, with the neighbouring lordships to
+his nephew Athelm. It afterwards passed into the hands of the great
+Earl Godwin and to his son, King Harold. And when William the Conqueror
+was minded to reward his Normans for their services in his wars, the
+Earldoms of Shrewsbury and of Arundel fell to the share of one Roger
+de Montgomery, who rebuilt and enlarged the fortalice of Arundel. The
+fair stronghold then went on changing hands, passing now to the kings
+of England, and now forming the marriage dower of a princess. Among
+its towers the Empress Maud<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> found refuge from her enemy Stephen, and
+was besieged; but as she was the guest of Adeliza, widow of Henry I.,
+he courteously permitted her at last to depart in peace, for the love
+of hospitality. The place was now the permanent property of Adeliza’s
+second husband and of his heirs, and so, roughly speaking, it has
+remained, the fifth in succession from him being the first who bore the
+name of Fitzalan. The only interruptions of their tenure were temporary
+ones, and consisted of two short forfeitures to the Crown, besides a
+seizure by the capacious and rapacious hands of good Queen Bess, who
+kept it until her death, when her successor restored it to its rightful
+lord.</p>
+
+<p>One Earl of Arundel lost his head for high treason against Richard
+II. During the Civil Wars the Castle was besieged and besieged, being
+first seized by the Parliamentarians in the absence of the owner, then
+captured by the Royalists after three days’ fighting, and subsequently
+retaken by the Parliamentarians under Waller, who laid siege on the
+19th of December, 1643, and entered the Castle on the 6th of January,
+1644. Upon this an order in Council commanded that the walls of the
+town of Arundel and those of Chichester should be destroyed. Since more
+peaceful times have reigned, within England at least, restoration has
+been at work somewhat busily, and several Royal visits have wakened
+“our loyal passion for our temperate Kings,” in the steep high-street
+and in the public-houses of the borough. A borough, alas! it is no
+longer. Having enjoyed, in the good old times, the luxury of a couple
+of members, it was reduced to a pittance of one by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> the first Reform
+Bill, and entirely disfranchised by the second.</p>
+
+<p>The station lies in the valley at some little distance from the town;
+as you follow the road from the rail you have Arundel and the Castle
+before you, the principal object of the view being the great church
+of St. Philip Neri, built by the present Duke of Norfolk some years
+ago at a cost of £100,000. It is still new, inevitably new. That is a
+fault which time will cure; but in the meanwhile no little disharmony
+is created between the ancient ruddy colours of the old walls, of the
+Castle with its town and the somewhat harsh whiteness of the church.
+Its form, too, being upright, is not felicitous in its composition
+with the lower and longer lines of antique English masonry. It may
+not have been the Duke’s express purpose, when he built the “house
+of God,” to dwarf his own hereditary home and fortress, as we once
+heard a passenger in a railway-train passing the place declare; but if
+that symbolic and ascetic intention was ever entertained, it has been
+effectually fulfilled. The best consolation which we can offer to the
+lovers of the past for the intrusion of the modern Gothic church, is
+that the ruins which they admire were brand-new in the old times which
+they cherish—strong, sharp, neat, and finished, with no ivy anywhere,
+and no pleasing uncertainties of outline. As you draw near to the town
+you see the rich woods which clothe the hillside trending off to the
+right towards the Black Rabbit, where the winding lines of the lazy
+Arun pass inland. To the left stretch the fields towards a little place
+called Ford, and in front<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> climbs the High-street. At the top of the
+High-street is the Castle, and then the road turns to the left towards
+this great dominating church of St. Philip.</p>
+
+<p>The donjon is manifestly the most ancient part of the Castle. It dates
+from Saxon times, and is traditionally believed to have been part of
+the stronghold as it was in the days of Alfred the Great. It stands
+on an artificial eminence, and from its ramparts the view is wide and
+fair; westwards over the rich country, over the delicate distant spire
+of Chichester, to the farther downs of the Isle of Wight; southwards
+to the mouth of the little river Arun, and the port of Littlehampton
+lying with sea-side pastures around it, level with the sea; eastwards
+to the South Downs; and northwards over the home garden and the thick
+woods of the lower park to Burpham, where British antiquities of no
+small importance were at once discovered, amongst them a canoe with its
+anchor—the relic of a probably half-civilized and Christian people,
+compared to whom the invading English were savages of furious wildness.
+At the top of the keep bide those stuffed owls which some years ago
+flew about its battlements. The rest of the Castle is merely an antique
+fortress dwelling-place, much restored in a jumble of styles, but with
+a general picturesqueness of effect. The alterations which it is now
+undergoing will doubtless much modify its details, if not its mass.</p>
+
+<p>A little higher, and at some distance from the fortalice of Arundel,
+is the parish church, a venerable fane, some parts of it dating five
+hundred years back. Old and new are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> confused together in the place,
+a Fourteenth Century font, some frescoes of approximately the same
+date, and other precious antiquities being side by side with brilliant
+windows of modern glass and in modern taste, and a number of energetic
+“restorations.” From the tower the Parliamentarians poured shot and
+bullet into the Royalist-guarded ramparts of the Castle. The “Fitzalan
+Chapel,” properly the chancel of this church, has been the subject of
+a sufficiently celebrated law-suit. Built in the Fourteenth Century
+by an Earl of Arundel, it was turned to secular uses—to uses indeed
+of the <i>most</i> secular kind—at the time of the Reformation and
+thereafter, and is now, of course, a monument and no more. As, however,
+it contains the bones of their fathers, the Dukes of Norfolk have
+naturally maintained their proprietorship and their interest in the
+sometime sanctuary, and it was recently shut off from the body of
+the church by the bricking up of the connecting doorway. The Vicar
+thereupon committed the legal and formal trespass of removing a brick,
+in order that the proprietorship of the Fitzalan Chapel might come
+under the decision of the courts. That decision confirmed the Duke and
+his rights, therefore the division remains; but the church is complete
+and ample enough for all purposes as it now stands. The monuments in
+the Fitzalan Chapel are of great interest and beauty. The earliest of
+them are of the same period as the foundation; the most beautiful is
+the chantry of William Fitzalan, with its fine and elaborate tracery;
+and perhaps the most interesting is the tomb of John Fitzalan, which
+was for centuries believed to be a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> cenotaph. The hero to whose memory
+it was erected lost a leg at the battle of Gerberoy and died in France
+thirteen months later, in 1435. He was buried in the Church of the Grey
+Friars, at Beauvais, Normandy. Not very long ago a discovery was made,
+in the Prerogative Court at Canterbury, of the will of one Fooke Eiton,
+Esquire, which had been proved in 1454, and which stated that the
+testator had ransomed the body of the Earl “oute of the frenchemennys
+handes.” In 1857 search was made under the supposed cenotaph, and the
+bones of a human body which had lost one leg were discovered. How or
+when the pious and faithful “Fooke Eiton, Esquire,” had effected the
+reburial by means of which the brave Fitzalan slept with his fathers,
+there is no record to tell.</p>
+
+<p>Quite near the grey and mouldering parish church, with its cemetery
+and its yews, rises the great modern Roman Catholic church of which we
+have already spoken. Close by is the park, to which we hasten, as the
+glory of the country side. A narrow embowered road, entered by a little
+gate, leads to the fair space of sward and tree, with its deep valleys
+and sudden hills, one of the grandest parks in England; lacking, of
+course, the charm and pathos, the nobility and humility, which the most
+beautiful nature may gain from the signs of labour, agriculture, and
+the poor; and yet not oppressive with too heavy verdure or any blank,
+damp, over-green spaces of melancholy grass and sponge-like trees. The
+soil of Arundel Park is composed chiefly of that great flower-bearer
+chalk. It is so thin that it does not nourish gigantically heavy trees,
+but lighter and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> gayer beeches. The ground is high and abruptly broken,
+and the whole aspect of things needs only some sign of the peasant’s
+life to be eminently paintable. Hill beyond hill rises in distance
+behind distance. Under a fine sky the scene is so grand that, though
+fresh from contemplating that panorama of the junction of the great
+Rhine and the little Moselle among the hills at Coblentz—the landscape
+which the late Lord Lytton pronounced the most beautiful in Europe—we
+were constrained to think Arundel Park lovelier as we drove to Petworth
+over its open hills. The orthodox deer are here, in pretty and
+vivacious herds which number considerably over a thousand. A charming
+little solitary lake, haunt of that shrill bird, the dab-chick, lies in
+a hollow to the right; thence rises a thick beech wood, and the path
+that curves round the base of the beech-hill leads to one of the local
+lions, the dairy. The “tiled temple of cleanliness” is fascinating
+enough to the lover of cream and curds, but it is hard to forgive the
+demolition of a very ancient mill which stood on the same site. The
+air about the dairy is heavy with the luxurious scent of the magnolias
+which glow upon its walls.</p>
+
+<p>The road is leading us round again out of the park towards the town;
+and here is a relic of the past in the shape of a ruined Dominican
+priory, which was built in 1396, and which gave a home to twenty poor
+men living under the protection of a friar, until an end was put to the
+charity at the dissolution of monasteries; and at the time of Waller’s
+siege of the Castle, the priory was already in ruins. If instead of
+winding back into the lower town<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> of Arundel, whence we started, we
+take the road away to the left, we shall reach the “Black Rabbit,”
+already mentioned, where the dark, rich woods crowd the hillside, the
+little Arun sauntering at its feet. The Castle looks well from this
+side, where trees and not houses surround it.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p>
+
+<h2>PALAZZO VECCHIO<br>
+<span class="subhed">ALEXANDRE DUMAS</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Grand as was the idea I had formed in advance of the Palazzo Vecchio,
+I must confess that the realization was still grander. When I saw that
+mass of stone so strongly rooted in the ground, surmounted by its tower
+that threatens the heavens like the arm of a Titan, the whole of old
+Florence, with her Guelphs, her Ghibelines, her balie, her priors, her
+lords, her guilds, her <i>condottieri</i>, her turbulent mobs and her
+haughty aristocracy appeared to me as though I were about to take part
+in the exiling of Cosmo the Elder, or in the execution of Salviati. In
+fact, four centuries of history and art are there on the right, on the
+left, in front and behind, surrounding you on all sides and speaking at
+once with their stone, marble and bronze of Nicholas d’Uzzano, Orcagna,
+Rinaldo d’Albizzi, Donatello, Pazzi, Raphael, Lorenzo de’ Medici,
+Flaminius Vacca, Savonarola, John of Bologna, Cosmo I. and Michelangelo.</p>
+
+<p>The whole world may be searched in vain for a spot that brings such
+names together, without counting those I have omitted! and some of the
+omissions include Baccio Bandinelli, Ammanato, and Benvenuto Cellini.</p>
+
+<p>I should much like to reduce this magnificent chaos to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> some sort of
+order and chronologically classify the great men, the great works and
+the great memories, but that is impossible. When you arrive at this
+wonderful square, you must go where the eye carries you, or where
+instinct guides you.</p>
+
+<p>What first engrosses the attention of the artist, the poet, or the
+archæologist, is the sombre Palazzo Vecchio, still blazoned with the
+ancient arms of the republic, amid which glitter on the azure, like
+stars in the sky, those innumerable fleurs-de-lys sown along the road
+to Naples by Charles of Anjou.</p>
+
+<p>Florence was hardly free before she wanted to have a town hall as
+an abode for a chief magistrate and a belfry for calling the people
+together. When a community is constituted in the North, or a republic
+established in the South, the desire for a town-hall and a belfry is
+always the first operation of its will, and the satisfaction of that
+desire the first proof of its existence.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in 1298, that is to say only sixteen years after the Florentines
+had conquered their constitution, Arnolfo di Lapo received from the
+rulers the order to build a palace for them.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp41">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp41.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">PALAZZO VECCHIO, ITALY.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Arnolfo di Lapo had visited the site reserved for him and had prepared
+his plans accordingly. But at the moment of laying the foundations of
+his edifice, the people loudly forbade him to place a single stone upon
+the spot where the house of Farinata des Uberti had stood. Arnolfo di
+Lapo was forced to bow to this popular clamour; he pushed his edifice
+back into a corner and left the accursed <span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>spot unoccupied. Even to
+the present time neither stones nor trees have planted their roots
+there and nothing has intruded for more than six centuries where Guelph
+vengeance drove the plough and sowed with salt.</p>
+
+<p>This palace was the residence of a standard-bearer and eight priors,
+two for each quarter of the city; their charge lasted for sixty
+days and during that time they lived together, eating at the same
+table and not being able to leave their residence: that is to say,
+they were almost prisoners. Each had two domestics to serve him and
+there was always a notary at their orders ready to write down their
+deliberations: he ate with them and was a prisoner like themselves. As
+a recompense for the sacrifice of his time and liberty that each prior
+made for the republic, he received ten pounds a day, or nearly seven
+francs of our money. At that day, private parsimony ruled in public
+economy, and the government thus found itself in a position to execute
+great things in art and in war. Thence resulted its surname of the
+Magnificent Republic.</p>
+
+<p>You enter the Palazzo Vecchio by a door situated about a third
+of the way along the front and find yourself in a little square
+court, surrounded by a portico supported by nine columns of Lombard
+architecture embellished with applied ornaments. In the centre of this
+court is a fountain surmounted by a rococo Cupid holding a fish and
+reposing on a porphyry basin. At the time of Ferdinand’s marriage this
+portico was adorned with fresco paintings representing bird’s-eye views
+of the cities of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>On the first floor is the great Council Hall, executed by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> the orders
+of the Republic and at Savonarola’s suggestion. A thousand citizens
+could deliberate there at their ease. Cronaca was the architect, and he
+pushed the work so rapidly that Savonarola used to say that the angels
+served as his masons.</p>
+
+<p>Cronaca had need of haste, for three years later Savonarola was to die
+and thirty years afterwards the Republic was to fall.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore this immense hall has retained nothing of that period but
+its original form: all of its ornamentation belongs to the time of the
+principality; its frescoes and ceiling are by Vasari; its pictures by
+Cigoli, Ligozzi and Passegnano; and its statues by Michelangelo, Baccio
+Bandinelli and John of Bologna.</p>
+
+<p>All is to the great glory of Cosmo I.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, Cosmo I. is one of those gigantic statues that history raises
+like a pyramid to mark the limit where one era ends and another begins.
+Cosmo I. is at the same time the Augustus and the Tiberius of Tuscany,
+and this is so much the more true in that at the moment when Alexander
+fell beneath the poniard of Lorenzino, Florence found herself in the
+same situation as Rome was after Cæsar’s death: “There was no longer a
+tyrant, but there was no longer any liberty.”</p>
+
+<p>At fifteen years of age his character was already outlined and those
+who approached him could form an idea of what he would be later. His
+appearance was grave and even severe; he was slow to form familiar
+relations and would seldom allow any familiarities; but when he
+granted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> this double concession it was a proof of his friendship, and
+his friendship was sure; nevertheless, even with his friends he was
+discreet in all his actions and did not want any one to know what he
+intended to do until it was done. The result was that he always seemed
+to be seeking some end contrary to his real one, which always rendered
+his answers brief and sometimes obscure.</p>
+
+<p>This was Cosmo when he learnt the news of the assassination of
+Alexander and the flight of Lorenzino; this flight left him without a
+competitor for the princedom and therefore his measures were quickly
+taken. He gathered together a few friends on whom he could depend,
+mounted his horse, and set out for Florence.</p>
+
+<p>Cosmo was rewarded for his confidence by the welcome that he
+received: he entered the city amid the joyous acclamations of all the
+inhabitants. Two days after, he was named chief and governor of the
+republic on four conditions:</p>
+
+<p>To dispense justice indifferently to the rich and to the poor.</p>
+
+<p>Never to consent to restore the authority of Charles the Fifth.</p>
+
+<p>To avenge the death of Duke Alexander.</p>
+
+<p>To treat well Giulio and Giula, the natural children of the latter.</p>
+
+<p>Cosmo accepted this species of charter with humility and the people
+accepted Cosmo with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>But there happened to the new grand duke what happens to all men of
+genius who are raised to power by revolution.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> On the lowest step of
+the throne they receive laws, from the top step they impose them.</p>
+
+<p>The position was difficult, particularly for a youth of eighteen. It
+was necessary to fight external and internal foes at the same time; to
+substitute a firm government, a single power and a durable will for all
+those flabby or tyrannical governments, for all those powers that were
+opposed and consequently destructive to one another, and for all those
+wills which sometimes starting from above and sometimes from below
+caused a perpetual ebb and flow of aristocracy and democracy upon which
+it was impossible to establish anything solid and durable. And yet with
+all that it was necessary so to manage the liberties of this people
+that neither nobles, citizens, nor artisans might feel the master. In
+fact it was necessary to manage this horse, that was still rebellious
+under tyranny, with an iron hand beneath a silken glove.</p>
+
+<p>Cosmo was in every respect the man needed to carry through such a work.
+As dissimulating as Louis the Eleventh, passionate as Henry the Eighth,
+brave as Francis the First, persevering as Charles the Fifth and
+magnificent as Leo the Tenth, he had all the vices that make private
+life sombre and all the virtues that make public life brilliant.
+Therefore his family was unhappy and his people happy.</p>
+
+<p>Cosmo was one of the most learned men of his time. Among other things
+he knew a great number of plants and the places where they grew, where
+they lived the longest, where they had the strongest scent, where they
+produced the most beautiful flowers, or bore the finest fruits, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>
+what were their virtues for curing the diseases or wounds of men and
+animals; then, as he was an excellent chemist, with the plants he made
+waters, essences, oils, medicaments, and balms, and gave his remedies
+to all who asked for them whether they were rich or poor, Tuscan
+subjects or foreigners, inhabitants of Florence or any other part of
+Europe. Cosmo loved and protected letters. In 1541 he founded the
+Florentine Academy which he called his “very dear and happy Academy”:
+Plutarch and Dante were read and commented on there. The sessions were
+first held in the Via Larga Palace and afterwards, so that it might
+have more ease and freedom, he gave it the great council-room in the
+Palazzo Vecchio. After the fall of the republic this great hall had
+become useless.</p>
+
+<p>Cosmo was an artist and it was not his fault if he arrived at the
+moment when great men were departing. Of all that brilliant galaxy
+that had illuminated the reigns of Julius the Second and Leo the
+Tenth, Michelangelo alone remained. He did everything he could to get
+the latter: he sent a cardinal and an embassy offering him any sum of
+money he might name, the title of senator and any office he wished; but
+Paul the Third kept him and would not give him up. Then, in default
+of the Florentine giant, he gathered together the best he could find.
+Ammanato, his engineer, built for him the fine bridge of the Trinity
+after the plans of Michelangelo, and carved for him the marble Neptune
+in the Palazzo Vecchio Square. He made Baccio Bandinelli produce the
+statues of Pope Clement the Seventh, Duke Alexander, Giovanni de’
+Medici, his father,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> and his own statue; the Loggia of the Mercato
+Nuovo and the choir of the Cathedral. Benvenuto Cellini was recalled
+from France to cast his <i>Perseus</i> in bronze, to carve agate cups
+and to engrave gold medals for him. Then as there had been found in
+the environs of Arezzo a lot of little bronze figures, some of which
+lacked the head, others the hands, and others the feet, Cosmo cleaned
+them himself and carefully removed the rust so that they might not be
+damaged.</p>
+
+<p>By means of his chemical researches, Cosmo, with Francesco Ferruci of
+Fiesole, recovered the art of cutting porphyry, which had been lost
+since Roman times.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, he brought together in the Via Larga and Pitti Palaces all the
+pictures, statues and medals, whether ancient or modern, that had been
+painted, carved, engraved or discovered in excavations by Cosmo the
+Elder, Lorenzino, and Duke Alexander, and that had twice been pillaged
+and dispersed:—first, when Charles VIII. passed through, and again at
+the assassination of Duke Alexander by Lorenzino.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore the praise of his contemporaries outweighed the blame of
+posterity: the dark side of his life was lost in the brilliant side,
+and people forget that this protector of art, science and literature
+slew one son, poisoned one daughter and violated another.</p>
+
+<p>We see then that there was something of both Augustus and Tiberius in
+Cosmo I.</p>
+
+<p>Now let us return to the hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. The picture, not
+the most remarkable from an artistic point of view, but certainly the
+most extraordinary as a recorded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> fact, is one by Ligozzi representing
+the reception given by Boniface VIII. to twelve ambassadors of twelve
+powers, who were all found to be Florentines; so incontestable
+throughout the world was the political genius of the Magnificent
+Republic during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.</p>
+
+<p>These twelve ambassadors were:</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Muciato Franzizi for the King of France.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Ugolino di Vicchio for the King of England.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Raniere Langru for the King of Bohemia.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Vermiglio Alfani for the King of the Germans.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Simone Rossi for Rasca.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Bernardo Ervai for the Lord of Verona.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Guicardo Bastai for the Khan of Tartary.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Manno Fronte for the King of Naples.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Guido Tabanca for the King of Sicily.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Lapo Farinata des Uberti for Pisa.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Gino di Dietaselvi for the lord of Camerino.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">Bencivenni Folchi for the Grand Master of the Hospital of Jerusalem.</p>
+
+<p>It was this strange gathering that made Boniface VIII. say that a fifth
+element had come into the world, and that the Florentines constituted
+this element.</p>
+
+<p>The enormous frescoes that cover the walls, as well as all the pictures
+on the ceiling, are by Vasari. The frescoes represent the wars of
+the Florentines against Siena and Pisa. It was for the latter that
+Michelangelo prepared those beautiful cartoons that disappeared without
+any one knowing what had become of them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span></p>
+
+<p>In the other chambers of the palace, which are the living-rooms, there
+are also a considerable number of paintings of almost the same period.
+One exception is a charming little chapel by Rodolfo Guirlandaio, the
+restrained and religious execution of which forms a strange contrast to
+the facile and pagan painting of the beginning of the Decadence.</p>
+
+<p>Entirely upset as it was by the arrangements of Cosmo I., the Palazzo
+Vecchio yet materially preserves one memory of the Republic: this
+is the Barberia Tower in which Cosmo the Elder was confined, and
+at the door of which, later during the Pazzi conspiracy, the brave
+standard-bearer, Cesare Petrucci, mounted guard with a spit. In this
+tower, Cosmo the Elder spent what were certainly the four worst days of
+his long life, the fear of being poisoned by his enemies preventing him
+from taking any nourishment.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span></p>
+
+<h2>KENSINGTON PALACE<br>
+<span class="subhed">LEIGH HUNT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">It is not improbable that Kensington Palace and Gardens originated in
+the royal nursery established in this district, for the benefit of
+his children, by King Henry the Eighth. If so, here Queen Elizabeth
+grew up awhile, as well as Queen Victoria, and here health was in vain
+attempted to be given to the sicklier temperaments of Edward the Sixth,
+who died young, and his sister, Queen Mary, who lived only to be an
+unhappy bigot.</p>
+
+<p>As the circumstance, however, does not appear ascertainable,
+antiquaries must put up with the later and less illustrious origin
+which has been found for these distinguished premises, in the house and
+grounds belonging to the family of the Finches, Earls of Nottingham,
+whether the tenement which they occupied had once been royal or not,
+it seems to have been but a small mansion in their time; probably
+consisting of nothing more than the now least-visible portion of it
+north-west; and indeed, though it was subsequently enlarged under
+almost every one of the sovereigns by whom it was occupied, it was
+never, in one respect, anything but what it is still, namely, one of
+the plainest and least pretending of princely abodes.</p>
+
+<p>In vain we are told, that Wren is supposed to have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> built the south
+front, and Kent (a man famous in his time) the east front. We can no
+more get up any enthusiasm about it as a building, than if it were a
+box, or a piece of cheese. But it possesses a Dutch solidity; it can
+be imagined full of English comfort; it is quiet; it is a good air;
+and though it is a palace, no tragical history is connected with it;
+all which considerations give it a sort of homely, fireside character,
+which seems to represent the domestic side of royalty itself, and
+thus renders an interesting service to what is not always so well
+recommended by cost and splendour. Windsor Castle is a place to
+receive monarchs in; Buckingham Palace to see fashion in; Kensington
+Palace seems a place to drink tea in; and this is by no means a state
+of things, in which the idea of royalty comes least home to the good
+wishes of the subjects. The reigns that flourished here, appositely
+enough to this notion of the building, were all tea-drinking reigns—at
+least, on the part of the ladies; and if the present queen does not
+reign there, she was born and bred there, growing up quietly under the
+care of a domestic mother; during which time, the pedestrian, as he now
+goes quietly along the gardens, fancies no harsher sound to have been
+heard from the Palace windows, than the “tuning of the tea-things,” or
+the sound of a piano-forte.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp51">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp51.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">KENSINGTON PALACE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>We may thus, in imagination, see the house and the gardens growing
+larger with each successive proprietor. First, there is Heneage Finch,
+the Speaker of the House of Commons, at the accession of Charles the
+First; for he is the earliest occupant we can discover.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span></p>
+
+<p>This gentleman possessed but fifteen acres of ground; which his son,
+Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, increased by a grant
+that was made him out of Hyde Park. To the Earl’s son and heir, Daniel,
+succeeded King William the Third, who bought the house and grounds of
+Daniel, and enlarged them both, the latter to the extent of twenty-six
+acres. Anne added thirty acres; Queen Caroline, wife of George the
+Second, added three hundred; and the house, which had been growing all
+this time, was finally brought to its present size or appearance by the
+late Duke of Sussex, who added or rebuilt the rooms, with their still
+fresh-looking brick-work, that form the angle on the south-west.</p>
+
+<p>The house nominally possesses gardens that are miles in circumference;
+but these having become public every day in the week, which in the
+early times of the Georges was not the case, it has, in reality, to
+any sequestered purpose of enjoyment, no gardens at all, except at one
+corner.</p>
+
+<p>The gardens in the time of the Finches consisted of little but
+the ground squaring with the north side of the Palace, laid out
+in the first formal and sombre style of our native gardening, and
+originating the still existing circle of yew trees, a disposition of
+things congenial with the owners. Heneage Finch, the Speaker, and his
+sons, the first and second Earls of Nottingham, were all lawyers and
+statesmen; and though a clever, and upon the whole, a worthy, appear
+to have been a melancholy race. The first Earl suffered under a long
+depression of spirits before he died; the second was a man of so
+atrabilarious a complexion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> that he was nicknamed Dismal; and Dismal’s
+son, from a like swarthy appearance, and the way in which he neglected
+his dress, was called the chimney-sweep. Hanbury Williams, the reigning
+lampooner of the days of George the Second, designated the whole race
+as the “black funereal Finches.”</p>
+
+<p>These unusual “Finches of the Grove,” made way for a kind of Jupiter’s
+bird in the eagle-nosed, hawk-eyed, gaunt little William the Third;
+a personage as formal and melancholy as themselves, though not so
+noisy (for Dismal, notwithstanding his formality, was a great talker);
+and under William, the Gardens though they grew larger, did but
+exchange English formality for Dutch. The walks became longer and
+straighter, like canals; the yews were restrained and clipped; there
+was, perhaps, a less number of flowers, comparatively; for the English
+had always been fond of flowers, and the Dutch had not yet grown mad
+(commercially) for tulips; in short, William the Third with a natural
+love for his Dutch home, made the palace and gardens look as much like
+it as he could.</p>
+
+<p>And his Court, for the most part, was as gloomy as the gardens; for
+William was not fond of his new subjects; did not choose to converse
+with them; and was seldom visible but to his Dutch friends. Yet here
+were occasionally to be seen some of the liveliest wits and courtiers
+that have left a name in history, forsakers, indeed, of reserved and
+despotic King James, rather than enthusiasts for the equally reserved
+and hardly less power-loving King William, who had become, however, by
+the force of circumstances,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> the instrument for securing freedom. Here
+came the Earl of Dorset, Prior’s friend, who had been one of the wits
+of the Court of Charles the Second; Prior, himself, who had stirred
+William’s Dutch phlegm so agreeably as to be made one of the gentlemen
+of his bedchamber; Congreve, whose plays Queen Mary admired; Halifax,
+a minor wit, but no mean statesman; Sir William Temple, who combined
+public with private life to so high a degree of wisdom and elegance;
+Swift (probably) then a young man, whom Sir William made use of in
+his communications with the king; Burnet, the gossiping historian,
+sometimes wrong-headed, but generally right-hearted, whose officious
+zeal for the Revolution had made him a bishop; the Earl of Devonshire,
+whose nobler zeal had made him a duke, one of a family remarkable
+for their constant and happy combination of popular politics with
+all the graces of their rank; Lord Monmouth, afterwards the famous,
+restless Earl of Peterborough, friend of Swift and Pope, conqueror of
+Spain, and lover, at the age of seventy, of Lady Suffolk; Sheffield,
+afterwards Duke of Buckinghamshire, a minor wit and poet, in love with
+(the rank of) the Princess Anne; and last, not least in anything, but
+good-breeding, and a decent command over his passions, Peter the Great,
+semi-barbarian, the premature freer of Russian pseudo-civilization, who
+came to England in order to import the art of ship-building into his
+dominions, in his own proper mechanical person, and out of the five
+months which he spent here, passed a good many days out of one of them
+in interchanging visits with King William at Kensington.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> The only
+distinct personal anecdote recorded of William the Third in connection
+with Kensington will remind the reader of similar paternal stories of
+Agesilaus and others.</p>
+
+<p>A tap was heard one day, at his closet door, while his secretary was in
+attendance.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is there?” said the king.</p>
+
+<p>“Lord Buck,” answered the little voice of a child of four years of age.
+It was Lord Buckhurst, the son of his Majesty’s lord high chamberlain,
+the Earl of Dorset.</p>
+
+<p>“And what does Lord Buck want?” returned William, opening the door.</p>
+
+<p>“You to be a horse to my coach,” rejoined the little magnate. “I’ve
+wanted you a long time.”</p>
+
+<p>William smiled upon his little friend, with an amiableness which
+the secretary had never before thought his countenance capable of
+expressing, and taking the string of the toy in his hand, dragged it up
+and down the long gallery till his playfellow was satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>The Court and Gardens of Kensington were not livelier in Queen Anne’s
+time than in that of King William. Anne, as we have seen at Campden
+House, was a dull woman with a dull husband. They had little to say
+for themselves; their greatest pleasures were in eating and drinking;
+the Queen was absurdly found of etiquette; and as there was nothing to
+startle decorum in the court morals, the mistress in King William’s
+time had given something of a livelier stir to the gossip. Swift
+describes Anne in a circle of twenty visitors as sitting with her fan
+in her mouth, saying about three words once a minute to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> some that were
+near her, and then upon hearing that dinner was ready, going out. In
+the evening she played at cards; which, long before, and afterwards,
+was the usual court pastime at that hour.</p>
+
+<p>She does not appear to have been fond of music, or pictures, or
+books, or anything but what administered to the commonest animal
+satisfactions, or which delivered her mind at all other times from its
+tendency to irresolution and tedium.</p>
+
+<p>Addison and Steele might have been occasionally seen at her Kensington
+levees among the Whigs; and Swift, Prior, and Bolingbroke among the
+Tories. Marlborough would be there also; ever courtly and smiling,
+whether he was victorious as general and as the favourite Duchess’s
+husband, or only bowing the more obsequiously alas! for fear of losing
+his place and his perquisites.</p>
+
+<p>Anne enlarged the Gardens, but she did not improve the style of
+gardening. Addison in a paper of the <i>Spectator</i>, written during
+the last year but one of her reign, catching the last glimpse of
+a variation, speaks with rapture of the conversation of a disused
+gravel-pit, which had been left remaining, into a cultivated dell;
+but it would seem as if this exploit on the part of the gardeners was
+rather in the hope of making the best of what they considered a bad
+thing, than intended as an advance towards something better; for they
+laid out the Queen’s additional acres in the same formal style as King
+William’s.</p>
+
+<p>Long, straight gravel-walks, and clipped hedges, prevailed throughout,
+undiversified with the present mixture of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> freer growing wood. An
+alcove or two, still existing, were added; and Anne exerted herself
+to build a long kind of out-house, which still remains; and which
+she intended, it is said, for the balls and suppers which certainly
+took place in it; though we suspect, from the narrowness of its
+construction, it never was designed for anything but what it is, a
+green-house.</p>
+
+<p>These most probably constituted all those “elegancies of art,” with
+which a writer of the time gives her credit for improving the Gardens.
+Such, at any rate, was the case in the more public portions of them;
+and if the private ones enjoyed any others, we may guess what they
+were, from Pope’s banter of the horticultural fashions of the day, in a
+paper which he contributed to the <i>Guardian</i>, the year after the
+appearance of that of Addison’s in the <i>Spectator</i>. The following
+is a taste of them. The poet is giving a catalogue of plants that were
+to be disposed of by auction:</p>
+
+<p>“Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the Tree
+of Knowledge in the great storm; Eve and the Serpent very flourishing.</p>
+
+<p>“St. George in box; his arm scarce long enough, but will be in a
+condition to stick the Dragon by next April.</p>
+
+<p>“An old Maid of Honour in wormwood.</p>
+
+<p>“A topping Ben Jonson in laurel.</p>
+
+<p>“A quick-set hog, shot up into a porcupine, by its being forgot a week
+in rainy weather.”</p>
+
+<p>The Kensington Gardens were popular throughout the whole of the three
+Georges’ reign, but flourished most, as far as names and fashions
+are concerned, in those of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> first and second. The space of time
+includes half a century; and Walpole, Lady Suffolk, Beau Nash,
+and Colley Cibber, lived through it all; the two last from a much
+earlier period, and Walpole into a much later one, down to the French
+Revolution. At the beginning of it, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, with
+the wits of the Kit-Cat club about her, may be considered as having
+been the reigning belle of the promenaders; to her, succeeded the
+Bellendens and Lepells, with the same wits grown older; then came Lady
+Townshend, with the new wits, Horace Walpole, Selwyn, Hanbury Williams,
+and others; and then crowds were alternately drawn by the “Chudleigh”
+and the Miss Gunnings.</p>
+
+<p>With the decease of George the Second, glory departed from Kensington
+as far as Courts were concerned. No reigning sovereign has resided
+there since George the Third, who inheriting, perhaps, a dislike of
+the place from his father, the Prince of Wales, appears to have taken
+no notice of it, except in appointing the clever, but impudent quack,
+Sir John Hill, its gardener, at the recommendation of Sir John’s then
+omnipotent brother botanist, the Earl of Bute.</p>
+
+<p>George the Fourth probably regarded the place as a homely concern,
+quite out of his line. It might suit well enough the book-collecting
+inclinations of his brother, the Duke of Sussex, with which he had
+no sympathy; was not amiss as a means of affording a lodging to his
+brother, the Duke of Kent, with whose habits of regularity, and
+pardonable amount of debt, his sympathies were as little; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> lastly
+he was well content to think, that the staid-looking house and formal
+gardens rendered the spot a good out-of-the-way sort of place enough,
+for obscuring the growth and breeding of his niece, and probable
+heiress, the Princess Victoria, whose life, under the guidance of a
+wise mother, promised to furnish so estimable a contrast to his own. As
+to his brother, King William the Fourth, though he too was a brother,
+in most respects, very different from himself, we never heard his name
+mentioned in any way whatever in connection with Kensington.</p>
+
+<p>Adieu then, for the present, and for we know not how long a time
+hereafter, to Court-holdings in the Palace; to Court splendours,
+and Court scandals. Adieu Kings listening in closets, and Queens
+calumniated by ungrateful biographers. Adieu even Maids of Honour. They
+departed their life with George the Second, and went to live a terribly
+dull one with his grandson’s Queen, Charlotte, who nearly tired Miss
+Burney into a consumption.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE MIKADO’S PALACE<br>
+<span class="subhed">PIERRE LOTI</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">An enclosure of large walls. My <i>djin</i> stop in front of a first
+gateway in the ancient severe and religious style: massive columns with
+bases of bronze; a narrow frieze sculptured with strange ornaments; and
+a heavy and enormous roof.</p>
+
+<p>Then I walk into the vast deserted courtyards, planted with venerable
+trees, to the branches of which they have given props like crutches
+for old men. The immense buildings of the palace first appear to me in
+a kind of disorder wherein I can discern no plan of unity. Everywhere
+appear these high, monumental and heavy roofs, whose corners turn up in
+Chinese curves and bristle with black ornaments.</p>
+
+<p>Not seeing anyone, I walk on at random.</p>
+
+<p>Here is arrested absolutely the smile, inseparable from modern Japan. I
+have the impression of entering into the silence of an incomprehensible
+Past, into the dead splendour of a civilization, whose architecture,
+design, and æsthetic taste are to me strange and unknown.</p>
+
+<p>A bonze guard who sees me, advances, and, making a bow, asks me for my
+name and passport.</p>
+
+<p>It is satisfactory: he will take me himself to see the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> entire palace
+on condition that I will take off my shoes and remove my hat. He
+brings me even velvet sandals which are offered to visitors. Thanks,
+I prefer to walk with bare feet like himself and we begin our silent
+walk through an interminable series of halls all lacquered in gold and
+decorated with a rare and exquisite strangeness.</p>
+
+<p>On the floor there is always and everywhere that eternal spread of
+white matting, that one finds just as simple, as well kept, and as neat
+in the homes of the emperors, in the temples, and among the middle
+classes and the poor. No furniture anywhere, for this is something
+unknown in Japan, or slightly known at most; the palace is entirely
+empty. All the surprising magnificence is upon the walls and ceilings.
+The precious golden lacquer is displayed uniformly on all sides, and
+upon this background, Byzantine in effect, all the celebrated artists
+of the great Japanese century have painted inimitable objects. Each
+hall has been decorated by a different and illustrious painter, whose
+name the bonze cited to me with respect. In one there are all the
+known flowers; in another, all the birds of the air, and all the
+beasts of the earth; or perhaps hunting-scenes and combats, where you
+see warriors dressed in armour and terrifying helmets, on horseback
+pursuing monsters and chimæras. The most peculiar one, assuredly,
+is decorated entirely with fans,—fans of all forms and of all
+colours, open, shut, and half open, thrown with extreme grace upon
+the fine golden lacquer. The ceilings, also of golden lacquer are in
+compartments, painted with the same care and the same art. What is,
+perhaps, the most marvellous of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>all, is that series of high pierced
+friezes that extends around all the ceilings; you think of generations
+of patient workmen who have worn themselves out in chiselling such
+delicate, almost transparent, things, in such thicknesses of wood:
+sometimes there are rosebushes, sometimes entanglements of wistaria,
+or sheaves of rice; elsewhere flights of storks that seem to cleave
+the air with great velocity, forming with their thousands of claws,
+extended necks, and feathers, a crowd so beautifully combined that
+it is alive and scurrying away, nothing lags behind, nor falls into
+confusion.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp61">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp61.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE MIKADO’S PALACE, KIOTO.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>In this palace, which is windowless, it is dusky,—a half-darkness
+favourable to enchantments. The greater number of these halls receive a
+shimmering light from the outside verandas composed only of lacquered
+columns, to which they are entirely open on one side; it is the subdued
+light of deep sheds, or of markets. The more mysterious interior
+apartments open on the first by other similar columns, and receive from
+it a still more attenuated light; they can be shut at will by bamboo
+curtains of an extreme delicacy, whose tissue in its transparency
+imitates that of a wave, and which are raised to the ceiling by
+enormous tassels of red silk. Communication is had by species of
+doorways the forms of which are unusual and unexpected: sometimes
+they are perfect circles and sometimes they are more complicated
+figures, such as hexagons or stars. And all these secondary openings
+have frame-works of black lacquer which stand out with an elegant
+distinction upon the general background of the gold, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> which bear
+upon the corners ornaments of bronze marvellously chiselled by the
+metal-workers of the past.</p>
+
+<p>The centuries have embellished this palace, veiling a little the
+glitter of the objects by blending all these harmonies of gold in a
+kind of very gentle shadow; in its silence and solitude one might call
+it the enchanted dwelling of some <i>Sleeping Beauty</i>, of a princess
+of an unknown world, or of a planet that could not be our own.</p>
+
+<p>We pass before some little interior gardens, which are, according
+to the Japanese custom, miniature reductions of very wild
+places,—unlooked-for contrasts in the centre of this golden palace.
+Here also time has passed, throwing its emerald upon the little
+rocks, the tiny lakes, and the small abysses; sterilizing the little
+mountains, and giving an appearance of reality to all that is minute
+and artificial. The trees, dwarfed by I know not what Japanese process,
+have not grown larger; but they have taken on an air of extreme old
+age. The <i>cycas</i> have acquired many branches, because of their
+hundreds of years; one would call the little palms of multiple trunks,
+antidiluvian plants; or rather massive black candelabra, whose every
+arm carries at its extremity a fresh bouquet of green plumes.</p>
+
+<p>What also surprises us is the special apartment chosen by this
+Taïko-Sama, who was both a great conqueror and a great emperor. It is
+very small and very simple, and looks upon the tiniest and the most
+artificial of the little gardens.</p>
+
+<p>The Reception Hall, which they showed me last of all, is the largest
+and the most magnificent. It is about fifty metres long, and,
+naturally, all in golden lacquer, with a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> high and marvellous frieze.
+Always no furniture; nothing but the stages of lacquer upon which the
+handsome lords on arriving placed their arms. At the back, behind a
+colonnade, is the platform, where Taïko-Sama held his audiences, at the
+period of our Henri IV. Then it is that one dreams of these receptions,
+of these entrances of brilliant noblemen, whose helmets are surmounted
+by horns, snouts and grotesque figures; and all the unheard-of
+ceremonial of this court. One may dream of all this, but he will not
+clearly see it revive. Not only is the period too remote, but it is too
+far away in grade among the races of the earth; it is too far outside
+of our conceptions and the notions that we have inherited regarding
+these things. It is the same in the old temples of this country; we
+look at them without understanding, the symbols escape us. Between
+Japan and ourselves the difference of origin has made a deep abyss.</p>
+
+<p>“We shall cross another hall,” the bonze said to me, “and then a series
+of passages that will lead us to the temple of the palace.”</p>
+
+<p>In this last hall there are some people, which is a surprise, as all
+the former ones were empty; but silence dwells there just the same.
+The men squatting all around the walls seem very busy writing; they
+are priests copying prayers with tiny pencils on rice-paper to sell
+to the people. Here, upon the golden background of the walls, all the
+paintings represent royal tigers, a little larger than their natural
+size, in all attitudes of fury; of watching, of the hunt, of prowling,
+or of sleep. Above these motionless<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> bonzes they lift their great
+heads, so expressive and wicked, showing their sharp teeth.</p>
+
+<p>My guide bows on entering. As I am among the most polite people in the
+world, I feel obliged to bow also. Then the reverence that is accorded
+to me passes all along the hall, and we go through.</p>
+
+<p>Passages obstructed with manuscripts and bales of prayers are passed,
+and we are in the temple. It is, as I expected, of great magnificence.
+Walls, ceilings, columns, all is in golden lacquer, the high frieze
+representing leaves and bunches of enormous peonies very full-blown and
+sculptured with so much skill that they seem ready to drop their leaves
+at the least breath to fall in a golden shower upon the floor. Behind
+a colonnade, in the darkest place, are the idols and emblems, in the
+midst of all the rich collection of sacred vases, incense-burners, and
+torch-bearers.</p>
+
+<p>Just now it is the hour of Buddhist service. In one of the courts,
+a gong, with the deep tones of a double-bass, begins to strike with
+extreme deliberation. Some bonzes in robes of black gauze with green
+surplices make a ritualistic entrance, the passes of which are very
+complicated, and then they go and kneel in the centre of the sanctuary.
+There are very few of the faithful; scarcely two or three groups, which
+seem lost in this great temple. There are some women lying on the
+matting, having brought their little smoking-boxes and their little
+pipes; they are talking in very low voices and smothering the desire to
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>However, the gong begins to sound more rapidly and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> priests to make
+low bows to their gods. It sounds still faster, and the bows of the
+bonzes quicken, while the priests prostrate themselves upon their faces
+upon the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the mystic regions something happens that reminds me very much
+of the elevation of the host in the Roman cult. Outside, the gong,
+as if exasperated, sounds with rapid strokes, uninterruptedly and
+frantically.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that I have seen everything now in this palace; but I still
+do not understand the disposition of the halls, the plan of the whole.
+If alone, I should soon become lost in it, as if in a labyrinth.</p>
+
+<p>Happily, my guide comes to take me out, after having put my shoes on me
+himself. Across new halls of silence, passing by an old and gigantic
+tree, which has miraculous properties, it seems, having for several
+centuries protected this palace from fire, he conducts me through the
+same gate by which I entered and where my <i>djin</i> are waiting for
+me.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span></p>
+
+<h2>WARWICK CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">LADY WARWICK</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The character of ancient buildings, the various styles of architecture
+which they present to us, their beauties as well as their blemishes,
+enable any one whose darkness may be lightened by the diviner radiance
+of a happy power of imagination to recall the persons and the events
+with which these buildings have been associated. The gloomy feudal
+fortress carries the mind back to the Middle Ages; the abbey, with
+its cloisters and windows and all the surroundings of a dim religious
+light, reminds us of days when the Head of the Church was indeed
+Christ’s Vicar here upon earth; while the palace suggests, side by side
+with its stories of games played at that great game in which men are
+but as pawns, pictures of gallant gentlemen and fair ladies who, though
+being dead, yet live before us. England is not so rich in these varied
+combinations of palace, abbey, and tower as is France, for instance,
+and particularly Touraine. Many of our most famous mediæval castles
+have been suffered to fall into decay, or, worse still, have been
+improved into modern shape by the rash hand of idle innovators.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp68">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp68.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">WARWICK CASTLE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>There is one among our castles, however, which neither Time’s defacing
+fingers nor man’s innovating hand has despoiled—Warwick Castle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span></p>
+
+<p>Possibly there is no place of this sort so well known to the whole
+English world over, situated as it is within that Shakespeare country
+from which proceeded those melodious sounds that yet fill the world. It
+has always been the Mecca of the best and noblest of literary pilgrims
+from America. Nearly half a century ago Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote for
+an American magazine a series of sketches, in one of which, entitled
+“About Warwick,” he tells us how “through the vista of willows that
+droop on either side into the water we behold the grey magnificence
+of Warwick Castle uplifting itself among stately trees and rearing
+its turrets above their loftiest branches. We can scarcely think the
+scene real, so completely do the machicolated towers, the long line of
+battlements, the massive buttresses, the high-windowed walls, shape out
+our indistinct ideas of the antique time.”</p>
+
+<p>After all a castle, even so famous a one as Warwick, is not so
+interesting in itself as the scenes it has witnessed and the people
+who have lived in it or have visited it. The history of Warwick
+Castle, for the last three hundred and fifty years at least, has been
+no small part of the history of England. Personal and local history
+in England does not so much begin with the Reformation as it does
+in other countries; but this one thing is certain, that between the
+pre-Reformation world and ourselves there is a great gulf fixed which
+the historian has tried in vain to bridge. Not that the place before
+that could have been devoid of interest: no castle in the stormy times
+of the Wars of the Roses could have enjoyed the happiness of having
+no history;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> and, surely, if any did, Warwick was not one of them.
+Its very position, situated in the heart of England, must, from the
+time when the Great Alfred’s daughter built the keep (“the monument
+of the wisdom and energy of the mighty Ethelfleda”), have been such
+that, in all the numerous brawls and butcheries dignified by the name
+of civil war, the possession of it must have been a matter of supreme
+importance. And so it was nearly four centuries before the outbreak of
+the Wars of the Roses that William the Conqueror had made Warwick the
+base of his operations for his campaign in the North. The fortress he
+built there has gone—not one stone left upon another, and so utterly
+perished that the very site of it is pure guess-work. The legendary Guy
+and all his feats may be dismissed from any account which makes any
+pretence to be historical. There is a curious account of the garrison
+of Warwick Castle in the time of Henry II., when all his legitimate
+sons were in arms against him, and the two illegitimate sons of Fair
+Rosamond alone remained faithful. It was occupied for the King; and the
+sheriff’s account rendered for the victualling of the place was this:
+“xi. <i>li.</i> xiii. <i>d.</i> for 20 quarters of Bread Corn; xx.
+<i>s.</i> for 20 quarters of Malt; c. <i>s.</i> for 50 Biefs salted up;
+xxx. <i>s.</i> for 90 cheeses; and xx. <i>s.</i> for salt then laid in
+for the victualling thereof.”</p>
+
+<p>Of the importance of Warwick Castle in the Middle Ages we can well form
+an idea from Dugdale’s statement:—</p>
+
+<p>“Of what regard it was in those times may be discerned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> by the King’s
+precept to the Archbishop of York, for requiring good security of
+Margery, sister and heir to Thomas, then Earl of Warwick, that she
+should not take to husband any person whatsoever in whom the said King
+could not repose trust as in his own self: the chief reason being given
+in these words, ‘Because she has a Castle of immense strength, and
+situated towards the Marshes.’”</p>
+
+<p>No mention of Warwick Castle would be complete if it left out the
+famous Earl—“the King-Maker,” and the “Last of the Barons.” Never
+was the “Bear and Ragged Staff” held in such high esteem as between
+1455 and 1470. And when, a few years after the King-Maker’s death, the
+avaricious Henry VII. annexed his various manors to the Crown, he got
+possession of over a hundred of them, to say nothing of the whole of
+the Channel Islands. A contemporary tells us that “at the Earl’s house
+in London six oxen were usually eaten at breakfast, and every tavern
+was full of his meat, for he that had any acquaintance in his family
+should have as much sodden—<i>i. e.</i>, boiled—as he could carry on
+a long dagger.”</p>
+
+<p>The Castle had remained for a very considerable period in the
+possession of the successive earls. It next passed to the ill-starred
+George, Duke of Clarence, and upon his death, “being seized into the
+King’s hands, it continued in the Crown a great while.”</p>
+
+<p>When the famous John Dudley became Earl of Warwick, the Castle was
+granted to him, as well as divers lands which had belonged to former
+earls. Of his fate in connection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> with the unhappy Lady Jane Grey
+there is no need to speak here. The Castle and all his estates, upon
+his attainder, escheated to the Crown. Thanks to the favour with which
+Robert Dudley, better known as the Earl of Leicester, was regarded by
+Queen Elizabeth, his brother Ambrose received from that queen a grant
+of Warwick Castle, together with the dignities of Earl of Warwick and
+Baron de l’Isle, in 1561. Three years later his brother Robert became
+Earl of Leicester.</p>
+
+<p>There were other subjects beside Lord Burghley who groaned inwardly
+under “the extraordinary chardg in Enterteynment of the Queen.”
+Elizabeth had more than the ordinary passion of the time for “rich
+shews, pleasant devices and all manner of sports that could be
+devised.” Notwithstanding the extent of her various progresses east and
+west and north and south, there seemed to be always something freshly
+arranged for her entertainment. In 1572 on her way to Kenilworth,
+she stayed at Warwick, and visited the Earl of Warwick at the Castle
+she had granted him eleven years before. She came to Warwick “on the
+12th day of August, after dinner, about three of the clock, with the
+Countess in the same coach.”</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn, as the author of <i>Silva</i> well might do, did not think much
+of the gardens in 1654. To bring them to perfection was reserved for
+that luckless of the heads of the Grevilles, George, the second Baron,
+who “planned the park by his taste and planted the trees with his
+hand.” The second son, Robert, who became the fourth Lord Brooke, was
+one of the six lords sent by the House of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> Peers, together with twelve
+of the members of the House of Commons, to present to Charles II. at
+the Hague, “the humble invitation and supplication of the Parliament:
+That His Majesty would be pleased to return and take the government of
+the Kingdom into his own hands.” He was made Recorder of Warwick, and
+being a great traveller added much to the embellishment of the Castle.
+It was to him that the fitting up of the state apartments is due, and
+he worthily continued to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors
+in the title. His successors from one generation to another took pride
+above everything else in the adornment and beautification of their
+castle. In 1746 the eighth Baron was created Earl Brooke, and in the
+last year of the reign of George II. the Earldom of Warwick, which
+had been conferred in 1618 on the family of Rich, becoming extinct,
+devolved upon Lord Brooke. The son of this first Earl of Warwick was
+one of the most reckless of all connoisseurs, and Warwick Castle is
+indebted to him for many valuable gems which his uncle, Sir William
+Hamilton, collected. Many of the finest specimens of artistic work
+at Warwick bear testimony to his taste, but the enlargement and
+improvement of the grounds about the Castle are his special work, and
+he expended over £100,000 in beautifying the interior of his home.</p>
+
+<p>The entrance to the Castle consists of a plain embattled gateway,
+leading to a picturesque winding roadway, cut, for upwards of a hundred
+yards, through the solid rock, and overhung with shrubs, creepers, and
+trees. This roadway conducts to the outer court, where a grand view of
+the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> outer walls suddenly bursts upon the visitor, the main features
+of which are Guy’s Tower on the right, the Gateway in the middle, and
+Cæsar’s Tower on the left.</p>
+
+<p>Guy’s Tower, so named in honour of the legendary warrior, was built
+by the second Thomas de Beauchamp in the reign of Richard II., being
+completed in 1394. It is twelve-sided, thirty feet in diameter at the
+base, with walls ten feet thick, and rises to a height of a hundred and
+twenty-eight feet. This tower contains five floors, each floor having a
+groined roof and being subdivided into one large and two small rooms,
+the sides of which are pierced with numerous loopholes, commanding
+in various directions the curtains which the tower was intended to
+protect. A staircase of a hundred and thirty-three steps leads to the
+summit, which is crowned by a machicolated parapet. The vault beneath
+has been constructed of great strength, apparently for the purpose of
+supporting on the roof some ponderous and powerful engine, calculated
+to annihilate anything which could be brought against it. The details
+of the Castle can be best observed from this tower, and it commands a
+fine view of the surrounding country, extending for many miles. The
+second-floor chamber, now used as a muniment room, was the place of
+confinement of the Earl of Lindsey, who, with his father, was taken
+prisoner at the battle of Edge Hill.</p>
+
+<p>Cæsar’s Tower was erected between 1350 and 1370 by the first Thomas
+de Beauchamp, and it is a marvel of constructive skill. It is an
+irregular polygon, a hundred and forty-seven feet in height, containing
+four stories, each with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> a groined roof, and is crowned by a boldly
+projecting machicolation. The part facing outward forms three segments
+of a circle, the general construction being such as to constitute
+it a fortress of the most formidable character. It is built on the
+solid rock, and was therefore impervious to the miner. The loopholes
+throughout are most scientifically contrived, not being cut in the
+centre of the merlons in each instance, but being pierced in positions
+commanding the most advantageous situations, and being made available
+for the long or crossbow. The lower edges of the loopholes are also
+sloped at the exact angle requisite to clear the gallery below. The
+archers were securely protected by wooden screens, termed mantlets, and
+by leather curtains, as well as by the roofs above them. The sloping
+base of the tower constituted another formidable medium for launching
+missiles against the enemy, being so constructed that a stone or metal
+projectile, launched from the machicolation above, would rebound with a
+point blank aim into the breasts of the attacking force beneath.</p>
+
+<p>The Gateway was constructed in the Fourteenth Century, and was in
+ancient times approached by a drawbridge, which formerly spanned the
+moat, but is now replaced by a stone arch. On the inner side of this
+is the Barbican, projecting some fifty feet from the wall, and rising
+two stories in height above the archway. It is flanked by two octagonal
+turrets, loopholed for the purpose of defending the bridge and its
+approaches. Within the drawbridge is a portcullis, and behind the
+portcullis are four holes overhead, through which blazing pitch, hot
+lead, or other scarifying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> compounds could be poured on the heads of
+the assailants....</p>
+
+<p>The spacious Inner Court is nearly two acres in extent. In front
+stands the Mound or Keep, studded with trees and shrubs, and crossed
+by the fortifications, in which the Northern Tower forms a prominent
+object. On the right, connected by walls of enormous strength, are two
+incomplete towers, termed the Bear and Clarence Towers, the former
+begun by Richard III., and the latter probably by his brother, George,
+Duke of Clarence. On the left, extending to the Hill Tower at the base
+of the Mound, is the inhabited part of the Castle, altered and enlarged
+at various times since it was first built, but with so much skill as to
+be in perfect keeping with the general aspect of the whole.</p>
+
+<p>A fortress is said to have existed here in Roman times; and Ethelfleda,
+daughter of Alfred the Great, is stated to have erected a keep or
+dungeon on the Mound in the year 915, and this again is stated to have
+been enlarged in the time of the Conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>Warwick Castle still stands by itself amongst English castles. It not
+only brings before us the people whom it had witnessed itself, from
+William the Conqueror down to Queen Victoria, but it enables us to
+represent what the baronial castles—Kenilworth and a host of others,
+which have fallen into decay—once were: by it we can reconstruct their
+halls and their bowers, their chapels and their dungeons, and can
+reproduce them to ourselves as they were when great kings and dukes and
+lords, who have long since<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> crumbled into dust, filled them with their
+sound and fury, which now signifies nothing: we can see the Beauchamps
+and the Nevills and the Plantagenets, and those that went before them
+and those that came after them, pass through its galleries in knightly
+procession: we can be present there with Queen Elizabeth and Lord
+Leicester when all was revelry and mirth; or with the stout old Sir
+Edmund Peto, in that dark hour when he hung out a cross with a flag
+upon it in defiance of the Papists. As we walk from gallery to gallery,
+and from apartment to apartment, we can see, as in some splendid
+and stately museum, everything which has beautified and adorned the
+lives of seven centuries of English nobles. Over and above all this,
+we can see in Warwick Castle the continuity of English life, ever
+changing but yet ever the same; and as we view objects which illustrate
+the arts and fashions and tastes and fancies of a bygone world, we
+can feel conscious of the debt we owe to those who, mindful of the
+responsibility bequeathed to them, have not been backward in amassing
+treasures to be an “everlasting possession, not a sight to be seen and
+then forgotten.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE ALHAMBRA<br>
+<span class="subhed">EDMONDO DE AMICIS</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">We arrived before a great gateway that shut in the street; Gongora said
+to me, “Here we are!” I entered.</p>
+
+<p>I found myself in a great grove of trees of immeasurable height
+inclining towards each other on both sides of a wide avenue that
+ascends the hill and is lost in the shade; they are so close together
+that a man can pass between them with difficulty and wherever you look,
+you can see nothing but trunks so thickly set that they seem to shut
+in the road like a continuous wall. The trees interlace their branches
+above the avenue; not a ray of sunlight can penetrate the wood; the
+shade is dense, and from every side the rivulets murmur and the
+nightingales sing. You breathe here the freshness of spring.</p>
+
+<p>“We are already in the Alhambra,” Gongora said to me, “turn around and
+you will see the towers and the embattled walls of the enclosure.”</p>
+
+<p>“But where is the palace?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“That is a secret,” he answered, “let us walk on at random.”</p>
+
+<p>We advanced by an avenue parallel to the great central road, and one
+that wound towards the summit of the hill. The trees above our heads
+formed a roof of verdure that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>hid the sky; and the grass, the
+brushwood and the flowers made on both sides two charming espaliers of
+brightness.</p>
+
+<p>“Here is the gateway!” cried Gongora.</p>
+
+<p>I turned around as if I had been pushed, and I saw a few steps before
+me a large square tower, of a sombre red, crowned with embattlements,
+and its door surmounted by a horseshoe arch upon which you saw
+sculptured a key and a hand.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp78">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp78.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE ALHAMBRA, SPAIN.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>My guide told me that it was the principal entrance to the Alhambra,
+and that it was called the Gate of Justice, because the Arab Kings
+were accustomed to pronounce their sentences beneath that arch. The
+key means that this door is the key to the fortress, and the hand is
+the symbol of the five principal precepts of Islam: Prayer, Fasting,
+Benevolence, Holy War, and Pilgrimage to Mecca.</p>
+
+<p>We passed under the gate, and continued to ascend by an embanked road:
+finally we came to the top of the hill, in the middle of an esplanade
+surrounded by a parapet and set with bushes and flowers. I was standing
+before a great palace in the style of the Renaissance, half in ruins
+and flanked by some small and miserable-looking houses.</p>
+
+<p>We entered through a little doorway, crossed a corridor, and found
+ourselves in a court.</p>
+
+<p>We were in the <i>patio de los Arraynes</i> (Court of the Myrtles),
+which is the largest in the building, and which presents at once the
+appearance of a court, a hall, and a garden. A large rectangular
+basin, full of water, surrounded by a hedge of myrtle, extends from
+one side to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span> other of the <i>patio</i>, and mirrors the arches,
+the arabesques, and inscriptions of the walls. To the right of the
+entrance are two rows of Moorish arches, placed one upon the other, and
+upheld by light columns; and on the opposite side of the court rises
+a tower with a door, through which may be seen the half-dark interior
+halls and the tiny twin-windows, and beyond the windows the blue sky
+and the peaks of the distant mountains. The walls are ornamented up to
+a certain height with splendid mosaics, and from the mosaics upward to
+the ceiling with arabesques of the most delicate design, which seem
+to scintillate and change at every step; and here and there between
+the arabesques and along the arches, Arabic inscriptions comprising
+salutations, sentences, and proverbs wind about and interlace like
+garlands.</p>
+
+<p>Near the entrance one reads in Kufic characters: “Salvation
+eternal!—Benediction!—Prosperity!—Felicity!—Praise be to God for
+the welfare of Islam!”</p>
+
+<p>In another place you see written: “I seek my refuge in the God of the
+Dawn.” Elsewhere: “O God, to Thee we owe eternal thanks and undying
+praise!”</p>
+
+<p>In other places there are verses from the Koran, and entire poems in
+praise of the caliphs.</p>
+
+<p>We entered the tower called the Tower of Comares, or vulgarly, of the
+Ambassadors.</p>
+
+<p>The interior of the tower forms two halls; the first is called the
+Hall of the Boat: some persons say because it is shaped like a boat;
+others, because it was called by the Arabs Hall of the Baraka, or
+benediction, a word which the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span> ignorant have corrupted into that of
+boat (<i>barca</i>). This hall does not seem of human workmanship; it
+is nothing but a stupendous interlacing of embroideries in the form of
+garlands, rose-work, branches, and leaves that cover the ceiling, the
+arches, the walls, on all sides, and in every way, crowded together,
+twisted, in net-work, one upon another, and combined in such a manner
+that they are all seen in a single glance and present an astonishing
+magnificence and an enchanting grace. I went up to one of the walls, I
+fastened my gaze at the beginning of an arabesque and tried to follow
+its twistings and windings: impossible! the eye loses itself, the mind
+becomes confused, and all the arabesques from the pavement to the
+ceiling seem to move and commingle to make you lose the thread of their
+inextricable net-work. You may make an effort not to look around you,
+concentrate your attention upon one little place of the wall, put your
+very nose in it, and trace the design with your finger: it is useless;
+in one minute the patterns become involved, a veil spreads between the
+wall and yourself, and your arm falls. The wall seems to you to be
+woven like a textile, crinkled like brocade, of open-work like lace,
+and veined like a leaf; you cannot look at it closely, you cannot fix
+the design in your mind,—that would be like counting the ants in an
+ant-hill.</p>
+
+<p>After having looked around me a little, Gongora pushed me into the
+great Hall of the Ambassadors, which occupies the entire interior of
+the tower, for the Hall of the Barca in reality belongs to a little
+building, which although<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> joined to the tower, is not a part of it.
+The Hall is square, very spacious, and lighted by nine large arched
+windows, in the form of doors, which present almost the aspect of
+alcoves, so thick are the walls; and each one of them is divided in two
+by a little column of marble that supports two elegant little arches,
+surmounted in their turn by two little arched windows. The walls are
+covered with mosaics and arabesques of an indescribable delicacy and
+variety of form, and innumerable inscriptions that are spread out like
+broad, embroidered ribbons over the arches of the windows, in the
+corners, upon the friezes, and around the niches where they placed
+vases filled with flowers and perfumed waters. The ceiling, which is
+very high, is composed of pieces of cedar wood, white, gilt, and blue,
+united in the form of circles, stars, and crowns; it forms a number of
+little domes, cells, and tiny arched windows from which a soft light
+falls; and from the cornice that joins the ceiling to the walls hang
+bits of stucco cut in facets and worked like stalactites and bunches of
+flowers. The throne stood in the centre before the window and opposite
+the door of entrance. From the windows on this side, you enjoy a
+magnificent view of the valley of the Darro; so deep and silent that it
+seems as if it must be fascinated by the majestic Alhambra; from the
+windows of the two other sides you see the walls of the enclosure and
+the towers of the fortress; and from the side of the entrance, in the
+distance, the light arches of the Court of Myrtles, and the waters of
+the basin reflecting the azure of the sky.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span></p>
+
+<p>We left the tower with rapid steps, crossed the Court of Myrtles,
+and came in front of a little door opposite the entrance. We went
+about fifteen steps and stopped. We were in the Court of the Lions.
+If at this moment I had been forced to leave just as I had entered,
+I do not know if I could have described what I had seen. A forest
+of columns, a labyrinth of arches and embroideries, an indefinable
+elegance, an unimaginable delicacy, a prodigious richness, and I don’t
+know what that was aërial, transparent, and undulating, it was like a
+great pavilion of lace; the appearance of a building that would fall
+by a breath, a variety of lights, perspectives, mysterious shadows,
+confusion, a capricious disorder of little things, the majesty
+of a little palace, the gaiety of a kiosk, an amorous grace, an
+extravagance, a delight, a phantasy of a young and passionate maiden,
+an angel’s dream, a madness, a thing without a name; such is the first
+effect of the Court of Lions.</p>
+
+<p>This is a court larger than a great ball-room, rectangular in form,
+with walls as high as one of the little Andalusian houses of one story.
+A light portico runs around it supported by graceful little columns
+of white marble, grouped in symmetrical disorder, by twos and threes
+almost without a base so that they seem to be starting from the earth
+like the trunks of trees, and adorned with varied capitals, tall and
+delicate, in the form of little pillars upon which curve tiny arches
+of the most graceful form. These arches seem not leaning upon, but
+suspended over the columns: one might call them curtains arranged upon
+the columns like ribbons or floating garlands. From the centre of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>
+shortest sides, there advance two groups of columns that form two
+kinds of little square temples, each of nine arches, surmounted by a
+little cupola of many colours. The walls of these little temples and
+the outside wall of the portico are a veritable lace-work in stucco;
+they are ornamented, embroidered, bordered, cut and perforated from
+one side to the other, transparent as a web, and changing in design at
+your approach; here, flowers are nestling in the arabesques; there,
+stars; and farther away, bucklers, squares, and polygonal figures
+covered with ornaments of an infinite delicacy. All this ends in
+jagged points, in festoons, in ribbons fluttering around the arches,
+in species of stalactites, fringes, pear-shaped drops and acorns, that
+seem to undulate with the least breath of air. Long Arabic inscriptions
+run the entire length of the four walls, above the arches, upon the
+capitals, and upon the walls of the little temples. In the centre of
+the court there rises a great marble basin, upheld by twelve lions,
+and surrounded by a paved canal, from which gush four other small
+canals, that, describing a cross between the four sides of the court,
+cross the portico, dart into the neighbouring halls and unite with
+the other conduits cutting through the entire edifice. Behind the two
+little temples, and in the middle of the two other sides, there open
+suites of halls with immense open doorways, that allow you to see the
+dark background upon which the little white columns gleam as if they
+stood before the mouth of a grotto. At every step one takes into the
+court, this forest of columns seems to move and disarrange itself to
+arrange itself in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> new way; behind a column that seems to stand
+alone, two, three, or sometimes a file of them, will show themselves;
+others will disappear, others will approach each other, and others
+will separate; in looking into the depths of one of these halls, you
+see everything change: the arches on the opposite side seem to be far
+away; the columns seem out of place, the little temples assume another
+form; you see through the very walls, you discover new arches and new
+columns, here in the bright sunlight, there in the shadow, elsewhere
+half illuminated by the soft light that passes through the perforations
+of the carving, and farther away they are lost in the darkness. Here is
+a continual changing of perspectives, distances, deceptions, mysteries,
+and optical illusions made by the architecture and the sunlight and
+your own over-excited and burning imagination.</p>
+
+<p>“What must this <i>patio</i> have been,” said Gongora, “when the
+interior walls of the portico were glistening with mosaics, the
+capitals of the columns gleaming with gold, the ceilings and vaults
+painted in a thousand colours, the doorways closed by hangings of silk,
+and the niches filled with flowers; and when beneath the temples and
+in the halls perfumed waters flowed, and when from the nostrils of the
+lions dashed forth twelve jets of water that fell back into the basin,
+and when the air was impregnated with the most delicious perfumes of
+Arabia! You should come here at sunrise; you should also come here at
+sunset and at moonlight to see the marvels of colour, light and shade!
+It would turn your head!”</p>
+
+<p>We went to see the halls. On the eastern side there is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> one called the
+Hall of Justice, which you reach by passing under three large arches,
+each one taking the place of a door opening into the court. It is a
+long and narrow hall, of rich and bold architecture, the walls of
+which are covered with very intricate arabesques and precious mosaics,
+with points, bunches, and protuberances of stucco hanging from the
+arches, which crowd together, drop, spring from, press upon, and are
+superimposed upon each other, as if they disputed the very space, and
+showing even now traces of ancient colours which must have given to
+this ceiling the semblance of suspended fruits and flowers.</p>
+
+<p>On the northern side of the court there is another hall called <i>de
+las Hermanas</i> (the Two Sisters) from two large slabs of marble
+that are found in the pavement. It is the most gracious hall of the
+Alhambra. It is small, square, and domed with one of those vaults in
+the form of a cupola which the Spaniards call half-oranges, sustained
+by little columns and arches arranged in a circle, all cut to resemble
+a grotto of stalactites with an infinity of points and holes, coloured
+and gilded and so light that they seem to the eye as if hanging in
+the air: you would think that they would tremble like a curtain, at a
+touch, or evaporate like a cloud, or vanish like a lot of soap-bubbles.
+The walls of stucco, like those of the other halls, and covered with
+arabesques, of an incredible delicacy, are among the most astonishing
+productions of human fancy and patience.</p>
+
+<p>We returned to the Court of the Myrtles, and visited the halls on the
+other side of the Tower of Comares, most of them half ruined, others
+transformed, some of them half<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> bare, without either pavement or roof,
+but all worthy of being seen because of the memories they awaken, and
+also in order to understand the construction of the building. The old
+mosque was converted into a chapel by Charles V. and a large Arabian
+hall into an oratory; here and there you noticed the <i>débris</i> of
+arabesques and ceilings of carved cedar; the galleries, the courts, and
+the vestibules seemed the remains of a palace devoured by fire.</p>
+
+<p>At this point I truly thought that there was nothing more to be seen,
+and I committed the fresh imprudence of saying so to Gongora. At this
+blow he could no longer contain himself, and, leading me into the
+vestibule of the Court of Myrtles, before a plan of the building that
+hung upon the wall, he said:</p>
+
+<p>“Look around you, and you will see that all the halls, all the courts,
+and all the towers that we have visited up to now, only occupy the
+twentieth part of the space enclosed by the walls of the Alhambra; you
+see that we have not yet visited the remains of three other mosques,
+the ruins of the Hall of the Cadi, the Water-Tower, the Tower of the
+Infantas, the Tower of the Prisoner, the Tower of Candil, the Tower
+of the Pico, the Tower of the Poignards, the Tower of the <i>Siete
+Melos</i>, the Tower of the Captain, the Tower of the Sorcerer,
+the Tower of the Heads, the Tower of the Weapons, the Tower of the
+Hidalgos, the Tower of the Chickens, the Tower of the Dice, the Tower
+of Homage, the Tower of the Vela, the Tower of the Powder, the ruins
+of the house of Mondejar, the military quarters, the Iron Gate, the
+interior<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> walls, the cisterns, and the promenades; for you must know
+that the Alhambra is not solely a palace, but a town, and that it would
+take a lifetime to search for arabesques, to read inscriptions and to
+discover each day some new view of the hills and mountains, falling
+into an ecstasy once at least during the twenty-four hours!”</p>
+
+<p>And I thought I had seen the Alhambra.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span></p>
+
+<h2>LAMBETH PALACE<br>
+<span class="subhed">JOHN RICHARD GREEN</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">A little higher up the river, but almost opposite to the huge mass of
+the Houses of Parliament, lies a broken, irregular pile of buildings,
+at whose angle, looking out over the Thames, is one grey weather-beaten
+tower. The broken pile is the archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth; the
+grey, weather-beaten building is its Lollards’ Tower. From this tower
+the mansion itself stretches in a varied line; chapel and guard-room,
+and gallery, and the stately buildings of the new house looking out
+on the terrace and garden; while the Great Hall, in which the library
+has now found a home, is the low picturesque building which reaches
+southward along the river to the gate.</p>
+
+<p>The story of each of these spots will interweave itself with the
+thread of our narrative as we proceed; but I would warn my readers at
+the outset that I do not propose to trace the history of Lambeth in
+itself, or to attempt any architectural or picturesque description of
+the place. What I attempt is simply to mark, in incident after incident
+which has occurred within its walls, the relation of the house to the
+primates whom it has sheltered for seven hundred years, and through
+them to the literary, ecclesiastical, the political history of the
+realm.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing illustrates the last of these relations better than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> the
+site of the house itself. It is doubtful whether we can date the
+residence of the archbishops of Canterbury at Lambeth, which was then a
+manor-house of the see of Rochester, earlier than the reign of Eadward
+the Confessor. But there was a significance in the choice of the spot,
+as there was a significance in the date at which the choice was made.
+So long as the political head of the English people ruled, like Ælfred,
+or Æthelstan, or Eadgar, from Winchester, the spiritual head of the
+English people was content to rule from Canterbury. It was when the
+piety of the Confessor and the political prescience of his successors
+brought the kings finally to Westminster that the archbishops were
+permanently drawn to their suffragan’s manor-house at Lambeth. The
+Norman rule gave a fresh meaning to their position. In the new course
+of national history which opened with the Conquest, the Church
+was called to play a part greater than she had ever known before.
+Hitherto the archbishop had been simply the head of the ecclesiastical
+order—a representative of the moral and spiritual forces on which
+the government was based. The Conquest, the cessation of the great
+Witenagemotes in which the nation, however imperfectly, had till then
+found a voice, turned him into a tribune of the people.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp89">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp89.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">LAMBETH PALACE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Foreigner though he might be, it was the primate’s part to speak for
+the conquered race the words it could no longer utter. He was, in fact,
+the permanent leader (to borrow a modern phrase) of a constitutional
+opposition; and, in addition to the older religious forces which he
+wielded, he wielded a popular and democratic force which <span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>held the
+new king and the new baronage in check. It was he who received from
+the sovereign whom he crowned the solemn oath that he would rule not
+by his own will, but according to the customs, or, as we should say
+now, the traditional constitution, of the realm. It was his to call
+on the people to declare whether they chose him for their king; to
+receive the thundered “Ay, ay,” of the crowd; to place the priestly
+unction on shoulder and breast, the royal crown on brow. To watch over
+the observance and order into religious duties; to uphold the custom
+and law of the realm against personal tyranny; to guard, amidst the
+darkness and brutality of the age, those interests of religion, of
+morality, of intellectual life, which as yet lay peacefully together
+beneath the wing of the Church—this was the political office of the
+primate in the new order which the Conquest created; and it was this
+office which expressed itself in the site of the house that fronted the
+king’s house over Thames.</p>
+
+<p>From the days of Archbishop Anselm, therefore, to the days of Stephen
+Langton, Lambeth only fronted Westminster as the archbishop fronted the
+king. Synod met over against council; the clerical court of the one
+ruler rivaled in splendour, in actual influence, the baronial court
+of the other. For more than a century of our history the great powers
+which together were to make up the England of the future lay marshalled
+over against each other on either side the water.</p>
+
+<p>With the union of the English people, and the sudden arising of English
+freedom, which followed the Great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> Charter, this peculiar attitude
+of the archbishops passed necessarily away. When the people itself
+spoke again, its voice was heard, not in the hall of Lambeth, but in
+the Chapter-house which gave a home to the House of Commons in its
+earlier sessions at Westminster. From the day of Stephen Langton the
+nation has towered higher and higher above its mere ecclesiastical
+organization, till the one stands dwarfed beside the other as Lambeth
+now stands dwarfed before the mass of the Houses of Parliament. Nor
+was the religious change less than the political. In the Church as
+in the State, the archbishops suddenly fell into the rear. From the
+days of the first English Parliament to the days of the Reformation,
+they not only ceased to be representatives of the moral and religious
+forces of the nation, but stand actually opposed to them. Nowhere is
+this better brought out than in their house beside the Thames. The
+political history of Lambeth lies spread over the whole of its site,
+from the gateway of Morton to the garden where we shall see Cranmer
+musing on the fate of Anne Boleyn. Its ecclesiastical interest, on
+the other hand, is concentrated in a single spot. We must ask our
+readers, therefore, to follow us beneath the groining of the Gate-house
+into the quiet little court that lies on the river-side of the hall.
+Passing over its trim grass-plot to a doorway at the angle of Lollards’
+Tower, and mounting a few steps, they will find themselves in a
+square antechamber, paved roughly with tiles, and with a single small
+window looking out towards the Thames. The chamber is at the base of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>
+Lollards’ Tower; in the centre stands a huge oaken pillar, to which the
+room owes its name of the “Post-room,” and to which somewhat mythical
+tradition asserts Lollards to have been tied when they were “examined”
+by the whip. On its western side a doorway of the purest early English
+work leads us directly into the palace chapel.</p>
+
+<p>It is strange to stand at a single step in the very heart of the
+ecclesiastical life of so many ages, within walls beneath which the
+men in whose hands the fortunes of English religion have been placed
+from the age of the Great Charter till to-day have come and gone; to
+see the light falling through the tall windows with their marble shafts
+on the spot where Wyclif fronted Sudbury, on the lowly tomb of Parker,
+on the stately screen-work of Laud, on the altar where the last sad
+communion of Sancroft originated the Non-jurors. It is strange to note
+the very characteristics of the building itself, marred as it is by
+modern restoration, and to feel how simply its stern, unadorned beauty,
+the beauty of Salisbury and of Lincoln, expressed the very tone of the
+Church that finds its centre there.</p>
+
+<p>And hardly less strange it is to recall the odd, roistering figure
+of the primate, to whom, if tradition be true, it owes this beauty.
+Boniface of Savoy was the youngest of three brothers out of whom their
+niece, Eleanor, the queen of Henry the Third, was striving to build up
+a foreign party in the realm. Her uncle Amadeus was richly enfeossed
+with English lands; the Savoy Palace in the Strand still recalls the
+sentiment and the magnificence of her uncle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> Peter. For this third
+and younger uncle she grasped at the highest post in the state save
+the crown itself. “The handsome archbishop,” as his knights loved to
+call him, was not merely a foreigner as Lanfranc and Anselm had been
+foreigners—strange in manner or in speech to the flock whom they
+ruled—he was foreign in the worst sense: strange to their freedom,
+their sense of law, their reverence for piety. His first visit set
+everything on fire. He retreated to Lyons to hold a commission in the
+Pope’s bodyguard, but even Innocent was soon weary of his tyranny. When
+the threat of sequestration recalled him after four years of absence
+to his see, his hatred of England, his purpose soon to withdraw again
+to his own sunny South, were seen in his refusal to furnish Lambeth.
+Certainly he went the wrong way to stay here. The young primate brought
+with him Savoyard fashions, strange enough to English folk. His armed
+retainers, foreigners to a man, plundered the City markets. His own
+archiepiscopal fist felled to the ground a prior who opposed his
+visitation. It was the prior of St. Bartholomew’s by Smithfield; and
+London, on the king’s refusal to grant redress, took the matter into
+her own hands. The City bells swung out, and a noisy crowd of citizens
+were soon swarming beneath the walls of the palace, shouting threats of
+vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>For shouts Boniface cared little. In the midst of the tumult he caused
+the sentences of excommunication which he had fulminated to be legally
+executed in the chapel of his house. But, bravado-like, this soon died
+before the universal resentment, and “the handsome archbishop” fled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>
+again to Lyons. How helpless the successor of Augustine really was, was
+shown by a daring outrage perpetrated in his absence. Master Eustace,
+his official, had thrown into prison the prior of St. Thomas’s Hospital
+for some contempt of court; and the prior’s diocesan, the Bishop of
+Winchester, a prelate as foreign and lawless as Boniface himself,
+took up the injury as his own. A party of his knights appeared before
+the house at Lambeth, tore the gates from their hinges, set Master
+Eustace on horseback, and carried him off to the episcopal prison at
+Farnham. At last Boniface bowed to submission, surrendered the points
+at issue, recalled his excommunication, and was suffered to return. He
+had learned his lesson well enough to remain from that time a quiet,
+inactive man, with a dash of Continental frugality and wit about him.
+Whether he built the chapel or not, he would probably have said of it
+as he said of the Great Hall at Canterbury, “My predecessors built, and
+I discharge the debt for their building. It seems to me that the true
+builder is the man that pays the bill.”</p>
+
+<p>From the moment when Wyclif stood in Lambeth Chapel the Church sunk,
+ecclesiastically as well as politically, into non-existence. It
+survived merely as a vast land-owner; while its primates, after a short
+effort to resume their older position as real heads of their order,
+dwindled into ministers and tools of the crown. The gate-tower of the
+house, the grand mass of brick-work, whose dark-red tones are (or,
+alas! were, till a year or two since) so exquisitely brought out by the
+grey stone of its angles and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> the mullions of its broad arch-window,
+recalls an age—that of its builder, Archbishop Morton—when Lambeth,
+though the residence of the first minister of the crown, had really
+lost all hold on the nobler elements of political life. It was raised
+from this degradation by the efforts of a primate to whose merits
+justice has hardly as yet been done. First in date among the genuine
+portraits of the Archbishops of Canterbury which hang round the walls
+of the Guard-room at Lambeth is the portrait of Archbishop Warham. The
+plain, homely old man’s face still looks down on us, line for line,
+as the “seeing eye” of Holbein gazed on it three centuries ago. “I
+instance this picture,” says Mr. Wornum, in his life of the painter,
+“as an illustration that Holbein had the power of seeing what he
+looked on, and of perfectly transferring to his picture what he saw.”
+Memorable in the annals of art as the first of that historic series
+which brings home to us, as no age has ever been brought home to eyes
+of after-time, the age of the English Reformation, it is even more
+memorable as marking the close of the great intellectual movement which
+the Reformation swept away.</p>
+
+<p>With the Reformation, in its nobler and purer aspects, Lambeth, as we
+have said, had little to do. Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Alasco gathered
+there for a moment round Cranmer; but it was simply as a resting-place,
+on their way to Cambridge, to Oxford, and to Austin Friars. Only one
+of the symbols of the new Protestantism has any connection with it;
+the Prayer-book was drawn up in the peaceful seclusion of Oxford. The
+party conferences,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span> the rival martyrdoms of the jarring creeds, took
+place elsewhere. The memories of Cranmer which linger round Lambeth
+are simply memories of degradation; and that the deepest degradation
+of all, the degradation of those solemn influences which the primacy
+embodies to the sanction of political infamy. It is fair, indeed, to
+remember the bitterness of Cranmer’s suffering. Impassive as he seemed,
+with a face that never changed, and sleep seldom known to be broken,
+men saw little of the inner anguish with which the tool of Henry’s
+injustice bent before that overmastering will.</p>
+
+<p>None of the great theological impulses of this age or the last, it
+is sometimes urged, came out of Lambeth. Little of the theological
+bitterness, of the controversial narrowness of this age or the last, it
+may fairly be answered, has ever entered its gates. Of Lambeth we may
+say what Matthew Arnold says of Oxford, that many as are its faults,
+it has never surrendered itself to ecclesiastical Philistines. In the
+calm, genial silence of its courts, its library, its galleries, in
+the presence of its venerable past, the virulence, the petty strife,
+the tumult of religious fanaticism finds itself hushed. Among the
+storms of the Wesleyan revival, of the Evangelical revival, of the
+Puseyite revival, the voice of Lambeth has ever pleaded for a truth,
+simpler, larger, more human than theirs. Amidst the deafening clamour
+of Tractarian and Anti-Tractarian disputants, both sides united
+in condemning the silence of Lambeth. Yet the one word that came
+from Lambeth will still speak to men’s hearts when all their noisy
+disputations are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> forgotten. “How,” a prelate, whose nearest relative
+had joined the Church of Rome, asked Archbishop Howley, “how shall I
+treat my brother?” “As a brother,” was the archbishop’s reply.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS<br>
+<span class="subhed">JULES LOISELEUR</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The castle of Blois would be without a rival in France if Fontainebleau
+did not exist. The first time we enter that interior court, the
+four sides of which each tell the history of a great period of
+architecture, we are dazzled by the throng of memories and ideas that
+start from these four great pages. The obedient stone, in accordance
+with the epoch, has recorded the suspicious precautions, the paternal
+confidence, the chivalric enthusiasm and the majestic isolation of the
+masters of this royal dwelling. Pure feudalism is written in the mighty
+walls of the fortress of the Counts of Blois. The transitional style,
+one of the most important examples of which is offered by this castle
+of Louis XII., marks the change from the feudal system to the unitary
+monarchy prepared by Louis XI. This youthful monarchy, already absolute
+though tempered by the great aristocratic individualities, already
+glitters and triumphs in this brilliant façade built by the young
+victor of Marignan. By the side of this splendid façade, like a severe
+master beside a turbulent pupil, the severe profile of the castle,
+built by Mansart, suggests the absolute and uncounterpoised monarchy of
+Louis XVI.;—unity without diversity, force without grace.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the unknown architect who cut the walls of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> mighty fortress
+out of the rock for Thibault le Tricheur; and the artists, native in
+all probability and therefore unknown, who drew the arabesques of
+Francis the First’s stairway; and Joconde, the architect of Louis XII.;
+and Mansart, the architect of Gaston of Orleans; and all those bold
+stone-workers, unknown to themselves, doubtless, in those four façades
+have shown the four chief phases of royal authority. “Monuments are the
+true writings of the nations.”</p>
+
+<p>Above the city of Blois, upon a triangular plateau, whence the view
+embraces the vast panorama of the left bank of the Loire, formerly
+stood a fortress, the origin of which is lost in the obscurity of ages.
+It was one of those redoubtable holds in which the great feudal barons
+watched for their prey and kept what they captured. It was one of the
+most formidable of all, and it is stated that it was never reduced, nor
+even besieged. Three narrow ascents, shadowed on either side by high
+walls, gave access to it. A double ring of fortifications was in front
+of the donjon, which, in case of siege, was the last resort of the
+master of this formidable abode. The first enclosure, called the lower
+court, or fore-court, to-day forms a courtyard of considerable size, at
+the end of which rises the front built by Louis XII. Ruined towers with
+thick walls still testify of the precautions taken to defend this first
+circuit.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp99">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp99.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS, FRANCE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Immense offices, a church the foundation of which dates back from the
+Eleventh Century, and which must not be confounded with the chapel that
+is to be seen in the present castle-yard, and lodgings for the canons
+and servants of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>this church formed a vast circle of buildings around
+this first courtyard where also were to be seen the habitations of the
+count’s principal officers. There, in succession, afterwards arose the
+house from the window of which Georges d’Amboise, counsellor to Louis
+XII., conversed with his master; the house of the Duc d’Epernon, who
+favoured the flight of Marie de’Medicis; and that other mansion where,
+on June 13th, 1626, Louis XIII. caused the arrest of the Prince de
+Vendôme, accused of being concerned in the Chalais conspiracy.</p>
+
+<p>The castle built by Louis XII. now stands on the spot where the second
+enclosure began. Access to the latter was gained by a drawbridge thrown
+across a moat between two strong towers. Close to this bridge was a
+narrow passage communicating with the covered way called the Vault of
+the Castle, which has lately disappeared and which led to the <i>Place
+des Jésuites</i>. It would be rash to pretend exactly to reconstruct
+the physiognomy which this second enclosure presented in the Twelfth
+or Thirteenth Century. The buildings of the background, vast edifices
+raised by the Counts of Blois, of the house of Châtillon, have
+completely disappeared and are only visible to-day in the drawings of
+de Cerceau. It is on the site of these buildings that Gaston d’Orléans
+raised, about 1635, the cold and regular building that bears his name.</p>
+
+<p>It was between the thick walls of this hall and the no less thick
+walls of the <i>Tour des Moulins</i> that Francis the First wedged
+his <i>château</i> in. If we leave the Hall of the Estates, deferring
+till a little later a visit to the elegant edifice<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> of that prince,
+and go immediately to the tower that terminates it and connects the
+<i>château</i> of Francis the First with that of Gaston of Orleans,
+we shall have traversed all that now remains standing of the ancient
+strong castle of the Counts of Blois.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>château</i> built by Francis the First, by the abundance and
+variety of its ornamentation, crushes the simple abode of Louis XII.
+Beside this strong and severe building it produces the effect of a
+young bride covered with laces beside the rich but serious and durable
+robe of her grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>It was Louis XII., however, who laid the foundations of Francis the
+First’s wing. But these foundations had scarcely risen above the
+ground when he died. The plan adopted at that time only required one
+façade,—that of the courtyard. Francis the First had another building
+joined to the original one. When the addition was made, the strong
+partition-wall that terminated the first building and to-day separates
+the two sides of the edifice was already far advanced, so that it was
+necessary to pierce it with doorways that now allow us to appreciate
+its thickness. We are told that three years sufficed for the young
+victor of Marignan to carry this enterprise to the point at which we
+see it to-day. The king’s plan was to add two other wings to the castle
+that would thus have formed a perfect square. But Francis the First
+lacked the money necessary for the execution of this colossal plan, as
+Louis XIV. did afterwards for Versailles. The Field of the Cloth of
+Gold and the Italian war had exhausted his resources. During the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> years
+that followed, the many catastrophes that overwhelmed France—the loss
+of Milan, the death of Bayard, the battle of Pavia, and finally the
+captivity in Madrid,—destroyed Francis’s passion for building,—that
+love of the square and trowel that was common to him and all the great
+sovereigns of our country. When he returned from captivity, in 1526,
+with his head full of fairy-like Arab and Moorish constructions, he
+was already dreaming of Chambord, and neglected Blois, in which,
+however, had been gathered the money for his ransom. The grand project,
+conceived in 1516, was therefore abandoned, and the unfinished castle
+of Blois remained as we see it to-day,—a curious and incoherent
+assemblage of monuments of divers styles and periods.</p>
+
+<p>We have heard nothing about the <i>château</i> built by Gaston
+of Orleans, not that that edifice is without merit, but its cold
+regularity disagreeably contrasts with the Renaissance architecture,
+so sparkling and prodigal of caprice. It was for the purpose of
+completing that correct and wearisome monument that Gaston wanted to
+destroy what remains of Francis the First’s wing. He would gladly
+have said, like Louis XIV.: “Remove those grotesque piles.” For it
+is a singular fact that at that time good taste joined in the same
+condemnation the Middle Ages, whose wonders were considered barbarous,
+and the Renaissance which had led the arts back to the purer forms of
+antiquity. With bare stones and straight lines throughout, yet there
+was something of the majestic gravity of Louis XIV. in the work of
+his uncle Gaston.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> In order that the straight line may produce great
+effects it must be developed over the immense surface of a Louvre or
+a Versailles. At Blois it is only insignificant. This château would
+serve for anything,—a museum, a library, or a tribunal, just as well
+as the abode of a prince. In 1823, it had a narrow escape of becoming a
+prefecture. They were going to pull down what they called the shanties
+of Louis XII. and substitute a fine iron grille for them. Francis the
+First’s wing found grace in the eyes of the destroyers on condition of
+sheltering the household: the kitchens had to be placed somewhere! It
+is true that this happened in 1823, only a few years after the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>The work of a period of transition, when tranquillity was succeeding
+agitation, this palace of the chief of the Fronde does not possess the
+serene power and self-confidence that came afterwards, but we already
+feel something in it of the imposing unity and the majestic ennui of
+the great reign.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span></p>
+
+<h2>FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI<br>
+<span class="subhed">LOUIS ROUSSELET</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The ruins of Futtehpore, the Versailles of the great Akbar, cover the
+summit of a hill twelve miles from Bhurtpore. On leaving that town, we
+travelled across a succession of monotonous plains alternately composed
+of marshes and rocky deserts. The horizon was unbounded, except on the
+east, where lay the hill of Futtehpore, the fantastic outline of which
+caught the rays of the rising sun. Even from afar, the eye is struck by
+the number and size of the buildings, which a royal caprice has erected
+in the midst of this desert: one would take it for a large and populous
+city. Those long lines of palaces with their gilded domes and pinnacles
+could never have been built to be so soon abandoned to solitude. The
+scene becomes grander the nearer you approach. On arriving at the foot
+of the hill, the road passes under a majestic gateway, beyond which are
+the long, silent streets; the palaces still standing perfect and entire
+amidst the ruined dwellings of the people; with the fountains and the
+magnificent gardens, wherein the pomegranates and the jessamine have
+grown for centuries. The whole scene is of imposing grandeur; and the
+hand of time has fallen so lightly upon it that one might take it for a
+town very recently deserted by its inhabitants, or one of the enchanted
+cities of Sinbad the Sailor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span></p>
+
+<p>The <i>bigarri</i>,<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> whom we had taken with us from the village of
+Sikri, conducted us to a bungalow which is maintained by the English
+Government for the accommodation of travellers. This bungalow, which
+was once the ancient <i>kutchery</i><a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> of Akbar, is built of red
+sandstone, and surrounded by a beautiful verandah supported by columns.
+It is situated on the northern extremity of the plateau, and overlooks
+the town on one side and the front of the zenanah on the other. An
+old Sepoy is placed in charge of the edifice, which contains two
+comfortably furnished apartments.</p>
+
+<p>The foundations of Futtehpore, “the Town of Victory,” were laid by
+Akbar in 1571, and the ramparts, city, and palace were all completed
+with extraordinary rapidity. Akbar was attracted to this desert by the
+sanctity of a Mussulman Anchorite, Selim Shisti, who inhabited one of
+the caverns on the hill. Attracted by the situation, he built himself
+a palace, and finally, being unwilling to give up the society of the
+holy man, he resolved to establish there the capital of his empire. In
+a few years this desert spot was transformed into a large and populous
+city; but the death of Selim soon put an end to this prosperity. Akbar
+then saw the folly of trying to place his capital in the midst of
+these sterile plains, unapproached by any of the great rivers, more
+especially as he possessed the unusually favourable situation of Agra.
+His resolution was promptly taken. In 1584, he abandoned Futtehpore
+with all its <span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>grandeur, and carried off the whole population to
+people his new capital of Agra. The evacuation was complete; none of
+the successors of Akbar cared to carry out his foolish project, and
+very soon the only inhabitants of Futtehpore were wild animals and
+a few anchorites. One is almost tempted to think that Akbar built
+Futtehpore for the sole purpose of giving posterity some idea of his
+greatness in leaving this monument of his capricious fancy.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp105">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp105.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI, INDIA.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The fame of Selim still attracts thousands of pilgrims to his tomb,
+where they assemble at certain seasons of the year; and, to supply
+the wants of these devotees, two villages have sprung up on the site
+of the deserted town, one called Futtehpore, and the other Sikri; and
+it is by this double appellation of Futtehpore-Sikri that the ruins
+are generally known. Apart from their beauty, which all must admire,
+they are of special interest to the archæologist as being the work of
+a single individual, and therefore a perfect specimen of the style of
+architecture of his epoch. From their marvellous state of preservation,
+you can trace, step by step, the mode of life of the great Akbar, and
+can form a just idea of Indian manners and customs in the Sixteenth
+Century. Everything still breathes of the magnificence of that
+Eastern Court the fame of which was carried to Europe by contemporary
+travellers, whose tales were looked upon as fables, and the wealth
+and splendour of which excited later the avarice and cupidity of the
+Western nations.</p>
+
+<p>The tomb of Selim, the imperial palace, and some of the dwellings of
+the Mogul grandees are almost entire.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> They form a compact group, one
+mile in length, which occupies the summit of a hill 180 feet high. This
+hill furnished the whole of the material of which they are built, which
+is a fine sandstone, varying from purple to rose colour. The stone has
+been left unornamented throughout; but the architects have avoided the
+monotony of the colour by artistically arranging its various tints. The
+mass is now softened by time; and one of its chief beauties is this
+mellow colouring, which blends ground and building in one, making the
+latter appear as though carved out of the peaks of the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>The imperial palace lies to the east of the tomb. It is a vast
+collection of separate buildings connected by galleries and courtyards,
+and covering an area at least equal to that occupied by the Louvre and
+the Tuileries.</p>
+
+<p>The first building you come to on leaving the tomb used to contain
+the private apartments of the emperor. It now goes by the name of
+<i>tapili</i>, or guard-house, from the fact of its being inhabited by
+the handful of soldiers who are employed to keep off marauders from
+the ruins. The palace is built with great simplicity, its exterior
+being nothing but a blank wall, with a small court in its centre, into
+which the galleries on the different stories open. On one side is a
+colonnade, profusely ornamented in the Hindoo style; this was the
+verandah of the apartment of Akbar’s favourite wife, and the mother of
+Jehanghir: and at the end of an open space which extends in front of
+the palace is the <i>kutchery</i>, now converted into a bungalow for
+travellers.</p>
+
+<p>A ruined gallery leads from the <i>tapili</i> to the Imperial<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> zenanah,
+which is surrounded by a high wall. Each princess was allotted a
+separate palace in this enclosure, with its own gardens, etc.,
+constructed according to her own taste and wishes. The first of these
+was the palace of the Queen Mary, a Portuguese lady whom Akbar had
+espoused; in the apartments of which are numerous frescoes, amongst
+others one representing the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. It is
+a matter of surprise to find a Mussulman prince, in the Sixteenth
+Century, with such tolerant views as to allow in his palace a thing so
+opposed to the principles of his religion; but it does not astonish
+one in such an enlightened man as the great Akbar. Wishing to put
+an end forever to the subjects of discord which divided the nations
+of his empire, he devised the plan of creating a new religion which
+should unite the sympathies of all. For this purpose he assembled a
+general council which was attended by the priests of all the religious
+denominations of India, and even by some of the Christian missionaries
+from Goa; and to them he submitted his project: but nothing resulted
+from the discussion. In spite of this the emperor compiled a voluminous
+work on the different religions of the world, viz., Christianity,
+Judaism, Islamism, and the various Hindoo sects, in which he displayed
+very liberal and enlightened views.</p>
+
+<p>From the palace of Queen Mary you enter a court, surrounded by
+apartments, and almost entirely occupied by a basin of vast dimensions,
+in the centre of which is an island built on a terrace, and reached
+by four stone foot-bridges. At the extremity of this court, there is
+a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> pavilion, the walls and pillars of which are enriched with fine
+sculptures; its rooms overlooking on one side the ornamental tank, and
+on the other a garden still ornamented with shrubberies and fine trees.
+This was the abode of one of Akbar’s wives, the Roumi Sultani, daughter
+of one of the Sultans of Constantinople.</p>
+
+<p>On a high terrace, to the right of this palace, is the emperor’s
+sleeping-apartment; the ground-floor containing a spacious hall with
+sculptured columns, which is half filled up with rubbish.</p>
+
+<p>On the west of the zenanah, rises a fanciful construction, called
+<i>Pânch Mahal</i>—“the Five Palaces,”—which consists of four
+terraces, supported by galleries rising one above another, and
+gradually diminishing in size towards the top, where they terminate in
+a dome sustained by four columns. It resembles the half of a pyramid,
+and has a very curious effect. The thirty-five pillars which support
+the second terrace are all different, comprising almost every style
+and some very remarkable specimens of original architecture. It is a
+valuable architectural collection. There has been much discussion as to
+the design of the building, since the open galleries could not possibly
+have been intended for habitation. Its position against the walls of
+the zenanah, the interior of which it overlooks and communicates with,
+leads to the supposition that it was assigned to the eunuchs; but in
+any case it was a fanciful idea of the architect. In the little court
+which surrounds the <i>Pânch Mahal</i> are some very curious detached
+buildings for the accommodation of the servants of the harem. The
+architect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> evidently wished to give them an appearance most befitting
+their use; and, as there was no wood at his disposal, he minutely
+copied in stone those light constructions which serve in the palaces
+of India as a shelter for the lower servants. The roof, formed of
+slabs of stone, is carved to imitate thatch, and is supported by the
+same net-work of beams which would be used for a lighter material than
+sandstone. In a word, they are sheds built of sculptured stone.</p>
+
+<p>After passing through the galleries of the <i>Pânch Mahal</i>, you come
+out upon the principal court of the palace, called the Court of the
+Pucheesee; on one side of which are the walls of the zenanah, and on
+the other the apartments of the ministers and the audience-chambers.</p>
+
+<p>Pucheesee is a game of great antiquity, which the Indians have always
+been passionately fond of; and it is played with pawns on chess-boards
+greatly resembling those used in Europe. There are four players, with
+four pawns apiece; and the moves are regulated by throwing the dice,
+the object being to get your four pawns into the centre of the board.
+The game of pucheesee was played by Akbar in a truly regal manner; the
+court itself, divided into red and white squares, being the board, and
+an enormous stone, raised on four feet, representing the central point.
+It was here that Akbar and his courtiers played this game; sixteen
+young slaves from the harem, wearing the players’ colours, themselves
+represented the pieces, and moved to the squares according to the
+throw of the dice. It is said that the emperor took such a fancy to
+playing the game on this grand scale that he had a court for pucheesee
+constructed in all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> his palaces; and traces of such are still visible
+at Agra<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> and Allahabad.</p>
+
+<p>To the north of this court and on the same side as the <i>Pânch
+Mahal</i> is a palace, built with great simplicity, and in such a
+good state of preservation that you might mistake it for a modern
+building. One wing is a perfect labyrinth of corridors and passages, in
+which the ladies of the Court amused themselves with their favourite
+games of “aukh-matchorli,” or blind-man’s-buff, and hide-and-seek;
+and before it rises a kiosk of Hindoo architecture, called the
+<i>Gooroo-ka-Mundil</i>, “Temple of the Mendicant.” The emperor, in
+order to show his regard for the religion of the majority of his
+subjects, entertained at his Court a Gooroo, or religious mendicant
+of the Saïva sect, and even had this temple built for him and his
+co-religionists.</p>
+
+<p>A little farther on and facing the zenanah is one of the most
+beautiful buildings of Futtehpore, consisting of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span> graceful
+pavilion of one story, surmounted by four light cupolas. This is the
+<i>Dewani-Khas</i>, or Palace of the Council of State. The simplicity
+of its outline, its square windows and handsome balcony, remind one
+of our modern buildings. It is, however, quite in accordance with
+the character of Akbar, who, as well in architecture as in religion
+and government, never copied his predecessors. The interior of the
+<i>Dewani-Khas</i> is a large hall the whole height of the edifice,
+in the centre of which is an enormous column of red sandstone, which
+terminates at some distance from the ceiling in a large capital
+magnificently sculptured. This capital forms a platform, encircled by
+a light balustrade, from which diverge four stone bridges, leading to
+four niches in the corners of the building; and a staircase hidden in
+the wall leads to a secret corridor, which communicates with the niche.
+It is one of the strangest fancies of the architect of Futtehpore.</p>
+
+<p>On the occasion of a council being assembled, the emperor took his
+place on the platform, his ministers occupying the niches; while the
+ambassadors and other personages who were called into their presence
+remained in the hall at the foot of the column, and were unable to
+judge of the impression which their communication produced on the
+council.</p>
+
+<p>A long gallery, partly in ruins, leads from the <i>Dewani-Khas</i> to
+the <i>Dewani-Am</i>, or Palace of the Public Audiences. It is a small
+building, one side of which overlooks the Court of the Pucheesee, and
+the other a large court surrounded by colonnades.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span></p>
+
+<p>The chronicler Aboul Fazel says that at certain hours the people were
+admitted into this court. After the council the emperor repaired to the
+<i>Dewani-Am</i>, where, after having put on his robes of state, he
+seated himself on a tribune overlooking the court. Here he remained for
+some time, inquiring into and redressing the grievances of the people,
+and receiving the strangers who flocked to his court. According to
+tradition, it was here that he received the Jesuits of Goa, who brought
+him the leaves and seeds of tobacco; and it was at Futtehpore that
+Hakim Aboul Futteh Ghilani, one of Akbar’s physicians, is supposed to
+have invented the hookah, the pipe of India.</p>
+
+<p>It would take too long to describe every part of this vast palace in
+detail, for, besides what I have already noticed, there are the baths,
+the mint, the barracks, and numerous other buildings, all in ruins.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CAERNAVON CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">WILLIAM HOWITT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The castles of Caernavon, Beaumaris, and Conway, all on this north-west
+coast of Wales, are monuments of the subjection of the Principality by
+Edward I. Other castles on this coast he took and strengthened, for
+instance those of Flint and Rhuddlan, as yokes on the necks of the
+North Welsh; these three he built expressly for that purpose, and,
+though all now more or less in ruin, they remain splendid evidences
+of his power, and of the architectural taste of the age. We have no
+finer specimens of castellated buildings than in the fortresses of
+Caernavon and Conway, and what remains of the extensive castle of
+Beaumaris shows what it once was. Even the Welsh, who do not forget
+the object of their erection, yet regard them with pride. Edward I.,
+a warrior and statesman of the first rank, cherished, as the great
+purpose of his life, the reduction of the whole of the magnificent
+island of Great Britain into one compact and noble kingdom. This could
+not be done without invading the country and constitutions of Wales and
+Scotland, which had as much right to maintain their own independence,
+their own laws and customs as England had. But warriors by nature and
+possession think little of such rights, and readily persuade themselves
+that the project which aggrandizes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> their own country sanctifies the
+most flagrant usurpations, and renders innocent all the bloodshed and
+the crimes which irresistibly attend such enterprises. At the present
+day, the general sense of both England and Scotland, if not of Wales,
+would refuse to pronounce on Edward I. any other verdict than that of
+a great benefactor to his nation for what he did, and even for what he
+attempted yet failed in, towards the consolidation of Great Britain
+under one crown.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst, however, he endeavored to mollify the spirit of the Welsh by
+the extension to them of civil, social, and commercial advantages, he
+did not trust by any means to these, but planned the erection of a
+chain of strong fortresses which should command the north as completely
+as the south was commanded by the same means. And thus arose, with
+others, the three princely strongholds of Conway, Beaumaris, and
+Caernavon.</p>
+
+<p>The Castle of Conway seems to have been commenced a couple of years
+later than Caernavon Castle,—Caernavon being begun immediately on the
+defeat and death of Llewellyn, that is, in 1282, or in the spring of
+1283. Conway was not commenced till the following year, 1284, when,
+finding that these two castles were not sufficient to keep the Welsh
+in check, Edward erected the Castle of Beaumaris in 1295. There is
+a great resemblance in the style of the two castles of Conway and
+Beaumaris—they have round towers; whilst Caernavon has octagonal,
+hexagonal, and pentagonal ones.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp115">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp115.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">CAERNAVON CASTLE, WALES.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The Castle of Caernavon, which is the one now engaging<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> our
+attention, differs greatly from these other two; and if not more
+striking in appearance than that of Conway,—than which Pennant says
+“one more beautiful never arose,”—it is equal in grandeur, and has,
+in truth, a royal and more stately air. Its situation is very fine;
+for, though it stands in the not very splendid town of Caernavon, it
+is placed on the shore of the Menai Straits; and, looked down upon
+from a rocky eminence called Fort Hill, a good view is obtained of it
+and the town, of Menai Straits, the opposite shore of Anglesea, with
+the distant summits of the Holyhead and Parys hills, the blue peaks
+of the Eiflridge, in the promontory of Lleyn, the group of mountains
+surrounding Snowdon, and on a clear day the far off heights of Wicklow
+in Ireland. The architect employed by Edward I., in its erection, was
+Henry Ellerton, or de Elreton; and, according to tradition, many of the
+materials were brought from Segontium, or the old Caernavon, and much
+of the limestone of which it is built came from Twr-Celyn, in Anglesea;
+and of the gritstone from Vaenol, in the county of Caernavon; the Menai
+facilitating the carriage from both places.</p>
+
+<p>The foundations of this castle are surrounded on three sides by water.
+It is bounded on one side by the Menai Straits, on another by the
+estuary of the Seoint, the river which runs hither from the Lake of
+Llanberis. As you approach the castle, its walls and towers have an
+air of lightness, which deceives you completely as to its strength,
+for these walls are immensely thick and strong. The doorways in the
+gateway towers and the windows are more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> lofty and graceful than
+the doors and windows generally in castles of that age. The walls
+enclose an area of about three acres, and are themselves from seven
+to nine feet thick. They have within them each a gallery, with slips
+for the discharge of arrows, and are flanked by thirteen towers, all
+angular, but differing in the number of their angles. The very massive
+pentagonal tower, called the Eagle Tower, guards the south of the
+Seoint, and is so called from a now shapeless figure of that bird, said
+to have been brought from the ruins of the neighbouring Roman station
+of Segontium, but probably placed there simply as being one of Edward
+I.’s crests. This majestic tower has three turrets, and its battlements
+display a mutilated series of armour heads of the time of Edward II.
+This tower is the only one of which the staircase remains perfect,
+and by 158 stone steps you may ascend to the summit, and obtain a
+splendid view thence over the straits, the town, and the surrounding
+country. In the lower part of this tower is shown a small, dark room,
+measuring twelve feet by eight feet, in which Edward II. was born.
+That unfortunate prince was most probably born in the castle; but it
+has been endeavoured to be shown that it could not possibly be in
+this tower, as it would appear not to have been built for some years
+afterwards, and, indeed, only to have been finished by Edward II. after
+he became king of England. The Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, of Cogenhoe,
+in Northamptonshire, asserted at the annual meeting of the Cambrian
+Archæological Society, held in Caernavon in September, 1848, that this
+castle, instead of being built, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> Pennant and others represent,
+in about two years, was not completed in less than thirty-eight
+years—that it was begun in 1284, and only completed in 1322.</p>
+
+<p>As Edward first entered the town of Caernavon on the 1st of April,
+1284, and his son was born on the 25th of the same month, twenty-four
+days only are left for the building of the Eagle Tower, which would
+be work, not for English or Welsh builders, but for the Afrits of
+the <i>Arabian Nights</i>, and would seem to put an end to the whole
+tradition of Edward of Caernavon having been born in the room assigned
+him by popular affection. And yet tradition so often maintains itself
+against statistics, and against theories started long afterwards, that
+we should not be surprised if, after all, the first Prince of Wales
+was actually born in that little, dismal room. In the then disturbed
+condition of North Wales; amid the intense indignation of the Welsh
+at the murder of their beloved prince, and the barbarous execution
+of his brother David; under the well-known spirit of revolt and
+revenge which was fiercely fermenting in the minds of the natives,
+it is not likely that Edward would risk the safety of his wife and
+his infant in the open town. No doubt he had ordered the erection of
+a stronghold here immediately on the fall of Llewellyn. This was in
+the autumn of 1282, and Edward was born, it is said, in the Castle of
+Caernavon, on the 25th of April, 1284. Here was a good part of two
+years in which a strong building might have been raised sufficient
+for a stout defence: and this is probably what is meant when it is
+said by the historians that Edward commenced this castle in <span class="allsmcap">A.
+D.</span> 1282–3,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> and completed it in two or three years. It is most
+probable that he did commence and complete such a castle as answered
+his immediate purpose, and that in this Castle his son Edward was born;
+that Edward I., however, contemplated and erected a much larger and
+more imposing castle on the spot—the present structure; and that he
+caused the part in which his son’s birth took place to be incased in
+the larger building, and that it forms an internal part of the present
+Eagle Tower, just as the poet Thomson’s cottage at Richmond now forms
+a portion of the larger villa of the Earl of Shaftesbury. It may be
+remarked that there is no appearance of any different masonry on the
+exterior of this part of the Eagle Tower. Of course not. The architect
+would new-front that part in uniformity with the rest; but that need
+not in the least disturb the existence of this room.</p>
+
+<p>That is our opinion of the real fact; and it is the one which at once
+reconciles the tradition and the proofs that the present splendid
+fabric was not completed in two years, but in two reigns. All Mr.
+Hartshorne’s statistical facts may be fully admitted, and the tradition
+of the place remain untouched. We ourselves have just as much, or
+rather more, faith in tradition, than in statistics; for, in scores
+of cases, tradition has asserted itself successfully against apparent
+facts, and, in scores of cases, statistics have proved very delusive.
+That Edward I. would be very sure to preserve the <i>locale</i> of his
+son’s birth, and that the Welsh would vividly retain a knowledge of
+it, may be inferred from the part which Edward meant to play with his
+son, and the delusive hope which his plan excited in the minds of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>
+Welsh. He presented this infant son to them, and told them that they
+should have a native Welshman for their prince. As Alphonso, Edward’s
+eldest son, was still living, the Welsh, in their ardent patriotism,
+fondly jumped to the idea that they would have their own principality
+under a prince of their own. Alphonso died, Edward of Caernavon became
+King of England, and that hope was at once sternly quenched. Under
+such circumstances, the Welsh were not likely to forget the spot where
+the prince on whom such hopes were hinged first saw the light. We may,
+therefore, without much chance of mistake, accept at once the facts
+that Edward II. was born in this very tower, and yet that the Eagle
+Tower was not completed till the tenth year of the second Edward’s
+reign.</p>
+
+<p>The main gateway of the Castle is flanked by lofty towers of vast
+strength. Over the grand entrance arch stands, in a niche, a mutilated
+statue of Edward I., with his hand upon a half-drawn sword, as if to
+intimate that he was equally prepared to pluck it forth on any menace
+of resistance, or to sheathe it at the desire for peace. In the archway
+beneath are grooves for four portcullises. The entrance on the east
+side is called the Queen’s Gate, because Eleanor is said by tradition
+to have entered the Castle by it. On passing into the interior you
+observe the traces, on the two opposite buildings, of a partition wall
+having formerly divided it into two courts. Much of the interior is
+cleared away, leaving exposed one of the fine corridors, which led
+from one part of the castle to another. On the south-east side is some
+modern building, which has been raised within<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> the old walls. Several
+of the dungeons are yet visible; and in one of these was confined, in
+the reign of Charles I., the celebrated William Prynne.</p>
+
+<p>No more zealous, fiery, and yet honest spirit, certainly was ever
+confined here than Prynne. He was at once a lawyer of Lincoln’s Inn,
+and a determined Puritan. His famous <i>Histriomastix, or a Scourge
+for Stage Players</i>, being supposed to reflect on Henrietta, the
+Queen of Charles I., who had herself acted in a pastoral at Somerset
+House, Prynne was prosecuted in the Star Chamber; and his sentence and
+its rigid execution are a striking proof of the savage spirit of the
+age, though it was already in the middle of the Seventeenth Century,
+namely, in 1634. He was fined £3,000, expelled from the University of
+Oxford, and the Society of Lincoln’s Inn, degraded from the bar, set
+in the pillory, both his ears cut off, his book burnt publicly by the
+hangman, and himself condemned to perpetual imprisonment. But no amount
+of cruelty could tame that daring soul. Whilst still imprisoned in the
+Tower, and after three years’ durance, he launched forth another book,
+reflecting severely on the hierarchy generally, and particularly on the
+popish follies and political despotism of Archbishop Laud. For this he
+was further sentenced by the infamous Star Chamber to be fined £5,000,
+to be again set in the pillory, to be branded on both cheeks with the
+letters S and L, for Seditious Libeller, to have the very roots of his
+ears dug out by the hangman, and to be imprisoned in this Castle of
+Caernavon.</p>
+
+<p>But the event showed that there was a spirit afloat which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> these
+fierce barbarities of regal tyranny were only rousing into a degree
+of fury which would sweep both church and throne from the land. The
+Puritan friends of Prynne flocked to Caernavon Castle in such numbers,
+that the poor mutilated prisoner sate more like a monarch holding a
+perpetual levee than a convict who had endured the vilest insults and
+the savagest brutalities of the law. Only ten weeks had elapsed since
+Prynne was brought to this royal stronghold when he was illegally
+removed by a warrant from the Lords of the Council, and removed to the
+Castle of Mount Orgueil, in the island of Jersey.</p>
+
+<p>There is no reminiscence more lively than that of the short
+incarceration of Prynne in this castle. One of its earliest historical
+events was the surprise of it by Madoc, a natural son of Llewellyn,
+in 1295, and his retention of it till Edward I. expelled him from it.
+In 1402, Owen Glendower made a successful attempt to seize several of
+the Welsh castles, but was repulsed from the gates of this stronghold.
+In the Wars of the Roses it repeatedly changed masters, and, in 1644,
+Cromwell’s forces obtained possession of it, made 400 of the garrison
+prisoners, and enriched themselves with much spoil. Lord Byron soon
+after retook it for the king; but in 1646 the Parliament regained it.
+In 1660, the first year of Charles II., an order was issued for the
+demolition of the Castle; but, fortunately, it was not completely
+carried out. The property still continues in the possession of the
+Crown; and the Marquis of Anglesea holds the office of constable of it,
+as well as that of Mayor of the town and ranger of Snowdon Forest.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span></p>
+
+<h2>A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE<br>
+<span class="subhed">THÉOPHILE GAUTIER</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">I am going to tell you about a <i>fête</i> at which I was present
+without being there, from which my body was absent but to which my eye
+was invited—a court ball! Invisible, I saw everything, and, moreover,
+I did not have upon my finger the Ring of Gyges, nor upon my head the
+green felt cap of a Kobold, nor any other talisman.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the Alexander Square, covered with its carpet of snow, numerous
+carriages were stationed although the cold would freeze Parisian
+coachmen and horses, but which did not seem sufficiently rigorous
+for the Russians to have the braziers lighted under the iron kiosks
+with Chinese roofs in the vicinity of the Winter Palace. The trees
+of the Admiralty, diamonded with hoar-frost, looked like great white
+plumes planted in the earth, and the Triumphal Column had candied its
+rose granite with a layer of ice resembling sugar; the moon, that
+rose pure and bright, poured its dead light upon all this nocturnal
+whiteness, turned the shadows to blue, and gave a fantastic appearance
+to the motionless silhouettes of the equipages whose frosted lanterns
+punctuated the immense expanse with yellowish points like polar stars.
+In the background, the colossal Winter Palace flamed at all its
+windows, like a mountain pierced with holes and lighted by an internal
+fire.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp124">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp124.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE WINTER PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span></p>
+
+<p>Absolute silence reigned over the square; the rigour of the temperature
+kept away the curious, who in Paris would not have neglected flocking
+together for the spectacle of such a <i>fête</i>, although watched from
+a distance and from the outside; and if there had been a crowd, the
+approaches to the palace are so vast that it would have been scattered
+and lost in that enormous space which only an army could fill.</p>
+
+<p>A sleigh crossed diagonally the great white cloth upon which was
+extended the shadow of the Alexandrine Column and lost itself in the
+dark street that separates the Winter Palace from the Hermitage, and
+that gains from its aërial bridge some resemblance to the Canal della
+Paglia at Venice.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, an eye, which you may consider as separated from
+the body, sped along a cornice supported by the portico of a gallery
+of the palace; rows of wax-candles planted in the mouldings of the
+entablature hid it behind a hedge of fire and allowed no one from below
+to perceive its feeble gleam. The light hid it better than shadow could
+have done; it was lost in the dazzling brilliancy.</p>
+
+<p>The gallery seen from there extended long and deep with its polished
+columns, its mirror-like inlaid floor full of gliding reflections
+of gold candlelight, its pictures filling the spaces between the
+columns, the foreshortening of which prevented the subjects from being
+discerned. Already brilliant uniforms were promenading and ample court
+robes were trailing their waves of material there. Little by little,
+the crowd increased and, like a river, variegated and shining, filled
+the bed of the gallery which, notwithstanding its great width, had
+already become too narrow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span></p>
+
+<p>Every eye of this crowd was turned towards the door through which the
+emperor must enter. The folding doors opened: the emperor, the empress,
+and the grand-dukes traversed the gallery between two suddenly-formed
+hedges of the invited guests, addressing a few words with gracious and
+noble familiarity to personages of distinction stationed along their
+way. Then the imperial group disappeared through the door directly
+opposite, followed at a respectful distance by the grand dignitaries of
+State, the diplomatic body, the generals, and the courtiers.</p>
+
+<p>The procession had scarcely entered the ball-room before the eye was
+installed there, equipped this time with a good opera-glass. It was
+like a furnace of light and heat, a blaze so intense as to seem almost
+like a conflagration. Cordons of fire ran along the cornices; in the
+spaces between the windows high stands, with a thousand arms each,
+blazed like burning bushes; hundreds of chandeliers hung from the
+ceilings, like fiery constellations in the midst of a phosphorescent
+fog. And all these lights, interlacing their rays, made a most dazzling
+illumination.</p>
+
+<p>The first impression, especially at this height on leaning over this
+gulf of light, is a sort of vertigo; at first, across the waves of
+light from the mirrors, the glitter of the gold, the sparkle of the
+diamonds, the flash of the jewels, and the sheen of rich material,
+nothing can be distinguished. A swarmlike scintillation prevents
+you from seizing any forms; then soon the pupil grows accustomed to
+the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> dazzle and chases the black butterflies that flutter before it
+as after looking at the sun; from one end to the other, it embraces
+this gigantic hall all in marble and white stucco, the polished walls
+of which shine like the jaspers and porphyries in the Babylonian
+architecture of Martin’s engravings, vaguely reflecting lights and
+objects.</p>
+
+<p>The kaleidoscope, with its falling apart of coloured particles that
+ceaselessly re-form in new figures; or the chromatrope, with its
+expansions and contractions, where a painting becomes a flower, then
+changes its petals for the points of a crown, and ends by whirling into
+a sun, passing from a ruby to an emerald, from a topaz to an amethyst
+around a diamond centre, can alone, thousands of times enlarged, give
+an idea of this moving parterre of gold, precious stones, and flowers,
+changing its glittering arabesques by means of its perpetual agitation.</p>
+
+<p>At the entrance of the imperial family, this moving effulgence came to
+rest, and you could distinguish faces and persons across the subdued
+scintillation.</p>
+
+<p>In Russia, the court balls open with what is called a polonaise:
+this is not a dance, but a sort of a parade, a procession, a
+<i>torch-march</i>. Those who take part in it divide in such a way as
+to leave in the centre of the ball-room a sort of avenue of which they
+form the hedges. When everybody is in place, the orchestra plays an air
+in a majestic and slow rhythm, and the promenade begins; it is led by
+the Emperor, who gives his hand to a princess, or a lady whom he wishes
+to honour.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the imperial family, come the high officers of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span> army and
+palace, the grand dignitaries each giving a hand to a lady.</p>
+
+<p>The procession continues to march and is recruited on the way: a
+gentleman leaves the hedge and offers his hand to a lady placed
+opposite to him, and this new couple joins the others and takes its
+place in the line, with rhythmic steps slowing up or accelerating
+according to the movement of the head. It cannot be an easy thing
+to march thus, holding merely by the finger-tips under the fire of
+a thousand readily ironical glances: the least <i>gaucherie</i> of
+countenance, the slightest awkwardness with the feet, an almost
+imperceptible fault in the time would be noticed. Military habits help
+many of the men, but how difficult for the women! The majority of them
+acquit themselves admirably, and of more than one of them you could
+say: <i>Et vera incessu patuit dea!</i> They pass along lightly beneath
+their plumes, their flowers, and their diamonds, modestly lowering
+their eyes or letting them wander with an air of perfect innocence,
+manœuvring their waves of silk and lace with a movement of the body or
+a little stroke of the heel, refreshing themselves with a flutter of
+the fan, as much at ease as if they were walking in the solitary avenue
+of a park.</p>
+
+<p>More than one great actress has never learnt how to move in so noble,
+graceful and simple a manner while the world is gazing at her.</p>
+
+<p>When the polonaise has traversed the salon and the gallery, the ball
+begins. The dances have nothing characteristic in them; they are
+quadrilles, waltzes, and redowas<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> as in Paris, London, Madrid, Vienna,
+and everywhere else in the fashionable world; except, however, the
+mazourka which is danced at St. Petersburg with a perfection and
+elegance unknown elsewhere. Local customs are everywhere disappearing
+and first of all they desert the upper ranks of society. To find them
+anew, one must withdraw from the centres of civilization and descend to
+the depths of the people!</p>
+
+<p>The general effect, however, was charming: the dance formed amid the
+splendid crowd which arranged itself symmetrically to make room for it;
+the whirl of the waltz distended the robes like the skirts of whirling
+dervishes, and the rapid motion lengthened out the strings of diamonds
+and the swords of gold and silver in serpentine gleams like flashes of
+lightning; and the little gloved hands resting on the epaulettes of the
+waltzers looked like white camellias in vases of massive gold.</p>
+
+<p>After an hour or two of bird’s eye observation, the eye transported
+itself beneath the arches of another hall through mysterious and
+labyrinth-like passages, where the distant sounds of the orchestra
+and the <i>fête</i> died away in indistinct murmurings. A comparative
+darkness reigned in this enormous hall: it was here that the supper
+was to take place. Many cathedrals are less vast. In the background,
+through the shadows, the white lines of the tables were outlined;
+in the corners vaguely glimmered gigantic blocks of indistinct
+<i>orfévrerie</i> sharply spangled flashing back a ray coming I know
+not whence: these were the sideboards. A velvet platform revealed
+steps leading to a table formed like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> a horseshoe. In silent activity
+came and went lackeys in full livery, major-domos, and gastronomic
+officials, putting the last touch to the viands. A few stray lights
+spotted this dark background, like sparks upon burning paper.</p>
+
+<p>However, innumerable candles filled the chandeliers and followed the
+cordons of the friezes and the outlines of the arcades. They sprang
+up white from their bunched candelabra like pistils in the calixes
+of flowers, but not the slightest luminous star trembled at their
+tips. One might have called them frozen stalactites; and already was
+heard, like the rush of overflowing waters, the heavy sound of the
+approaching throng.—The Emperor appeared at the threshold: it was like
+a <i>fiat lux</i>. A subtle flame ran from one candle to another, as
+quick as lightning: everything became illuminated at a single stroke
+and a flood of light suddenly filled the immense hall, aglow as if
+by magic. This sudden transition from penumbra to the most brilliant
+light was truly fairy-like. In our prosaic century every wonder must be
+explained: threads of gun-cotton connected all the wicks soaked with
+an inflammable essence, and a light applied in seven or eight places,
+propagated itself instantly. With gas-lights lowered and raised one
+could produce an analogous effect; but gas, as we know, is not used at
+the Winter Palace. They burn nothing but candles of the purest wax. It
+is in Russia only that the bees now contribute to illumination. The
+Empress took her place with several personages of high distinction upon
+the platform where stood the horseshoe table. Behind her gilt arm-chair
+unfolded, like a gigantic floral firework, an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> immense sheaf of white
+and pink camellias piled against the marble wall. Twelve negroes of
+large size chosen from among the best specimens of the African race,
+dressed <i>à la mameluk</i>,—a white turban twisted and rolled, a
+green round jacket with golden coins, full trousers of red held by a
+belt of cashmire, the whole braided and embroidered on all the seams,
+descended and mounted the steps of the platform, handing the plates to
+the lackeys or taking them from their hands with movements full of the
+grace and dignity peculiar to Eastern races, although their employment
+was servile. These Orientals having forgotten Desdemona, did their
+duties with a majestic air and gave to this European <i>fête</i> an
+Asiatic <i>cachet</i> in the best taste.</p>
+
+<p>Without being shown to their places, the invited guests placed
+themselves at the tables intended for them. Rich <i>épergnes</i>,
+silvered and gilt, representing groups of figures, or flowers, or
+mythological or fantastical ornaments, garnished the centres; and
+candelabra alternated with pyramids of fruits and set pieces. Regarded
+from a height, the brilliant symmetry of the crystals and porcelains,
+the silver and the flowers, was understood better than from below. A
+double row of women’s necks glittering with diamonds, and framed in
+lace, ranged the whole length of the tablecloths, disclosing their
+beauties to the invisible eye, whose glance could also wander among the
+flowers, the leaves, the feathers, and the jewels.</p>
+
+<p>The Emperor visited the tables, addressing a few words to those he
+wished to distinguish, sitting down sometimes and moistening his lips
+with a glass of champagne, then<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> withdrawing to do the same elsewhere.
+These stops of a few moments are considered a great mark of favour.</p>
+
+<p>After supper, the dances were resumed; but the night was drawing on.
+It was time to leave; the <i>fête</i> could only repeat itself, and
+for a purely ocular enjoyment it no longer offered the same interest.
+The sleigh that had crossed the square to stop at a little door in the
+alley separating the Winter Palace from the Hermitage, reappeared,
+making its way to the side of St. Isaac’s Church, and bringing a
+<i>pelisse</i> and a fur cap which completely covered the face. As if
+the sky wished to rival the splendours of the earth, an aurora borealis
+threw into the night its polar fireworks with rockets of silver,
+gold, purple, and mother-of-pearl, extinguishing the stars with its
+phosphorescent irradiations.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p>
+
+<h2>FONTAINEBLEAU<br>
+<span class="subhed">GRANT ALLEN</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">What Versailles is to the Augustan age of Louis Quatorze, that and more
+is Fontainebleau to the French Renaissance. As the Palace in the Marsh
+reflects and preserves for us the glories of the Grand Monarch, so the
+Palace in the Forest reflects and preserves for us the glories of the
+gay and splendour-loving kings from François Premier to Henri Quatre.
+It embodies in itself at a single glance what may fairly be called the
+age of the Médici in France, and shows us at one <i>coup d’œil</i> the
+entire history and development of Renaissance architecture among the
+French people. Its great halls and long galleries are replete to this
+day with memories of the giddy butterfly throng which crowded the court
+of “the kings who amused themselves.”</p>
+
+<p>From a very early period, a Château of the French kings occupied the
+site of the existing palace. But of this building not a single relic
+now shows externally in any part of the façade, with the solitary
+exception of one mediæval turret, assigned to Saint Louis, and still
+adjoining the Cour Ovale of the modern palace. The origin of the first
+Château was simple and natural enough. It existed as a hunting tower in
+the midst of a royal forest. In our own day, that wild woodland region
+with its strange sandstone rocks and deep parallel valleys envisages
+itself to most of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> us as a mere appanage of the great mansion which
+skirts its fringe. But, in reality, it is the forest, of course, which
+created the palace, and not the palace which created the forest. Some
+thirty and five miles south-east of Paris, the Seine bends round and
+partly traverses a remarkable district of long sandy ridges, tilted
+up at an angle as the last subsiding ripple of that great secular
+earth-wave which produced through slow ages the elevation of the
+central European axis in the Alpine region. From time immemorial, this
+light and somewhat sterile soil has been covered by a thick growth of
+native oaks and beeches. The maritime pines and Riga spruces, indeed,
+which add so greatly to the picturesque effect of the woodland at the
+present day, are but recent introductions from the Mediterranean and
+Baltic shore; and the whole forest as we now know it, has been trimmed
+and dressed by the obtrusive art of the modern planter, out of all
+similitude to its antique self. But the deciduous trees are for the
+most part indigenous; and the few stags and wild boars still carefully
+preserved by the game-keepers of the Republic represent the descendants
+of a far wilder fauna which Merwing and Carling may well have hunted a
+dozen centuries since under the spreading boughs of those ancient oaks
+that bear to-day the quaint names of Pharamond and of Charlemagne.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp133">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp133.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">FONTAINEBLEAU, FRANCE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The original Château, of which St. Louis’s bedchamber forms the chief
+remaining portion, was probably founded under Louis VII. in the Twelfth
+Century. The Chapel of Saint Saturnin, the first predecessor of the
+existing church, has for Englishmen indeed a special interest from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>the fact that it was consecrated by Thomas à Becket during his period
+of exile from the anger of Henry at the French Court. The Château was a
+favourite residence of the saintly Louis IX. whose name still clings to
+the arcade of the Cour Ovale, though scarcely a trace of his buildings
+has survived the complete reconstruction of the exterior front under
+François Premier. The Fontainebleau of those days, in fact, was a
+feudal castle of the frowning type with which we are all so familiar
+along the banks of the Loire or among the dales of Normandy. Nothing
+could be more different than its gloomy turrets, its narrow windows,
+its airless halls, and its mediæval tortuousness, from the light, the
+space, the air, the brightness of its Renaissance successor.</p>
+
+<p>At last, however, François I. came. By his time, the character of the
+French monarchy—the character of the French nation—had undergone
+a complete and lasting change. Louis Onze had done his cruel work
+both wisely and well. The feudal spirit was half broken; the task of
+Richelieu was more than half begun. Unification and absolutism were the
+order of the day all over Europe. Artillery had destroyed the power
+of the great nobles in their massive castles. The introduction of
+gunpowder, it has been well said, ruined feudalism. Fortresses which
+had been impregnable against the attacks of the Middle Ages, crumbled
+to pieces before one volley of the royal cannon. Throughout Europe, the
+crown became everywhere irresistible. As a natural result of this great
+social revolution, a Renaissance in architecture became inevitable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>
+in the west, the kings and rulers of France and England exchanged the
+gloomy darkness of the mediæval stronghold for the light and air and
+spaciousness of the Italian mansion. The merchant republics of Italy
+were already familiar with great princely palaces like the Pitti, and
+the Strozzi, or the magnificent mansions which line the long curve of
+the Grand Canal. Peace under the strong hand of the royal despot, were
+he Valois or Tudor, made the imitation of these great houses possible
+in the north and west. Threatening walls and serried battlements gave
+way as if by magic to the pomp and grace of the Italianate mansion.
+Knowle and Longleat, Burleigh and Hatfield, Hardwick and Audley End,
+are familiar instances in England of the newer style. The high roofed
+gables, the long lines of wide windows, the jutting oriels that look
+down on the terraced Italian gardens, the vases and fountains, the
+formal walks and parterres, all mark the arrival of a new epoch. The
+mediæval castle was in essence a fortress adapted mainly for defence;
+the Italian mansion is in essence a residence, adapted mainly for the
+display of magnificence and wealth.</p>
+
+<p>In France, this great revolution goes directly back to the influence
+of the Medici. François Premier began the Louvre and began
+Fontainebleau. With Louis XIII., the son of a Medici mother, both were
+practically complete. The long succession of high Mansard roofs and
+connecting galleries marks the very spirit and ideal of the French
+Renaissance—its splendour, its grandeur, its vastness of aim, its want
+of picturesque feeling, its love of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> magnificent, its contempt of
+the simple, the natural, the merely beautiful. Imposing Fontainebleau
+extorts one’s admiration, it never attracts one’s love.</p>
+
+<p>The nucleus of the existing building thus dates back practically to the
+gay days of François Premier. It was he who rebuilt the chapel of Saint
+Saturnin, and erected that magnificent pile of the Porte Dorée, whose
+lavish display of glass in its broad-bayed windows looks like a modern
+protest against the loopholes and embrasures of the Middle Ages. It was
+he, too, who began the great Galerie des Fêtes, afterwards completed by
+Henri II., whose name it now bears, as well as the Galerie d’Ulysse,
+pulled down at a later date by Louis XV., to make room for the too
+numerous ladies of his Sybaritic court. It is to François equally that
+we owe the Cour Ovale, and the splendid Porte Dauphine or Baptistery,
+which serves as its gateway. The initial <i>F</i>, so familiar to all
+of us on the exquisite façade of the oldest portion of the Louvre,
+reappears in many places on the gallery of the Cour de la Fontaine.
+The only part of the gardens, recalling the Boboli or the villas of
+Florence, which can with certainty be ascribed to this earliest date,
+is that known as the Orangerie and the Parterre du Tibre. But the
+grotto of what is now the Jardin Anglais was built by François as a
+Salle de Bain for his favourite, the Duchesse d’Étampes. Nothing now
+remains of that voluptuous retreat except the satyrs of the doorway and
+some torsos of rough sandstone worn out of all semblance of human limbs
+and muscles, and relegated to a place in the existing stables.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span></p>
+
+<p>As yet, however, the artistic impulse came entirely from Italy. Serlio,
+the architect, superintended the design; painters and sculptors from
+beyond the Alps contributed the decorations. French art in those days
+was still feeble and nascent. Florence sent Leonardo da Vinci and
+Andrea del Sarto to the new palace at Fontainebleau; the rising school
+of Primaticcio and Niccolo dell’ Abbate, whose artistic existence
+almost sums itself up in the work they performed here. Indeed, it is
+not too much to say that the pupils of Giulio Romano produced the
+profoundest effects upon the French Renaissance, and influenced every
+work of art of the entire period from the gallery of François Premier
+to the Rubens’s in the Louvre.</p>
+
+<p>The F. and the Salamander of the founder of the palace are to be found
+abundantly on many portions of his magnificent erection. But the finest
+hall of all, the Salle des Fêtes, bears now the name of Galerie de
+Henri II., though built by François, because Henri decorated it in the
+garish taste of the time to meet the wishes of his mistress, Diane de
+Poitiers. This hall still remains the glory of Fontainebleau. Ninety
+feet long by thirty broad, and profusely decorated, it speaks in every
+part the taste of that gay and fantastic epoch. Ten colossal round
+arches form the bays of the windows; five give upon the parterre, and
+five on the Cour Ovale. The ornate ceiling is divided into octagonal
+panels, richly wrought in architrave, frieze, and cornice, and bearing
+in relief the intertwined initials of Henri himself and of the frail
+Diane. Primaticcio and Niccolo supplied the frescoes; nameless Italian
+artists moulded the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> stucco fretwork. The parquetry of the floor vies
+with the roof in magnificence. This gorgeous apartment may well recall
+the rooms of the gods in the Pitti Palace, and is only surpassed in
+elaborate over-ornamentation and profuseness of handicraft by the gaudy
+Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre.</p>
+
+<p>When Henri II. died, mortally wounded in a tournament in the Palace
+Courts, many things fell with him—tournaments themselves amongst
+others, and mediævalism in France, and Diane de Poitiers. Catherine
+de’ Medici sent the favourite packing to her Château d’Anet, and bore
+rule herself in her stead in the half completed palace. The new king,
+François II., was a true son of Fontainebleau. Here he was born in
+1543, and here, a boy of seventeen, he married Mary Stuart, whom he
+left a girl-widow so shortly after, to exchange the luxurious joys of
+Fontainebleau for the cramped closets of Holyrood and the austerities
+of John Knox and his brother Calvinists. Under Charles IX., the work
+still went forward as before, and Primaticcio in his old age painted
+the frescoes of the Galerie d’Ulysse, afterwards ruthlessly destroyed
+under Louis XV.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond being born in the palace, Henri III. contributed as little to
+the history of Fontainebleau as to that of his dominions generally.
+But Henri IV. left no small mark of his masterful hand on the great
+growing pile whose overgrown area he well-nigh doubled. The Cour des
+Offices, the Cour des Princes, the Galerie de Diane, the balustrades in
+the Fountain Court, the decorations in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity,
+the park with its grand canal and its ornamental<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> waters, all date from
+the days of the greatest of the Bourbons. But the French Renaissance
+was not at its zenith. Married though he was to an Italian princess,
+Henri entrusted his work for the most part to native workmen. Paul Bril
+and Ambroise Dubois painted and decorated the greater part of the new
+halls; the heads of Mercury, in the courtyard which still bears the
+name of Henri Quatre are from the chisel of a later French sculptor,
+Gilles Guérin; while the simple but noble doorway which opens upon the
+Place d’Armes is the work of a local architect, François Jamin of Avon.</p>
+
+<p>It was at Fontainebleau that Marie de’ Medici gave birth to Louis
+XIII., who was baptized with his sisters under the quaint and ornate
+cupola of the Porte Dauphine, known ever since from that cause by the
+name of the Baptistery. To this one of its sons the palace owes its
+latest main additions. He it was who built the handsome horseshoe
+staircase in the Cour des Adieux, the masterpiece of Lemercier. With
+that addition, the history of Fontainebleau practically ends. Events of
+importance in the annals of France took place there later; but they are
+not events in the annals of Fontainebleau. The great pile as we know it
+was then really complete; it remains to us a vast museum of Renaissance
+art and Renaissance feeling. Subsequent ages have destroyed, or
+restored, or renovated, or tampered with it, but they have not added to
+it, and the reason is clear. Louis Quatorze created Versailles; and the
+rise of Versailles was the downfall of Fontainebleau.</p>
+
+<p>Some few landmarks of its subsequent vicissitudes, however,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> are well
+known to most of us. Louis Quatorze gilded it up, of course—what did
+not Louis gild? Le Notre laid out the gardens—where did not Le Notre
+spread his devastating gravel? Henrietta Maria of England took refuge
+here among her own people when Charles had lost his head; Christina
+of Sweden had made use of its hospitality as a capital opportunity to
+murder Monaldeschi. Few buildings, indeed, have seen so many historic
+events; for here Louis Quatorze signed the Revocation of the Edict of
+Nantes which deprived France at one blow of a million of citizens;
+here Condé died; here James II. consoled himself with the consolations
+of a heavenly crown for the loss of an earthly one; and here Peter
+of Muscovy got royally drunk after his wont with all his suite, and
+indulged in Russian horse-play in the ponds and gardens. Under Louis
+Quinze, of funest memory, the decadence began; but still, as of old,
+princes feasted and drank, married and were given in marriage, under
+the high roofs of the palace. The king himself was united here to
+Maria Leczinska. But the earthquake was at hand, for Voltaire came to
+stay, and Jean Jacques Rousseau heard the court applaud his <i>Devin
+du Village</i>. Louis Seize, good honest man, came often to hunt, but
+the Revolution came too and gutted the Palace. During Napoleon’s wars,
+it served as a barrack for prisoners. When Monarchy revived, Napoleon
+spent ten millions of francs in restoring and refurnishing it. Later on
+he used it as a prison for his spiritual father, Pius the Seventh; here
+he divorced Josephine, and here he lived with Marie Louise of Austria.
+Here too he signed his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> famous abdication, and reviewed a year later,
+in the self-same court, the grenadiers of the Hundred Days who bore him
+back to the Tuileries. There its memories end. What need to speak of
+lesser things that have happened since, and obscure the recollection of
+those great days in its history?</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE RICCARDI PALACE<br>
+<span class="subhed">ALEXANDRE DUMAS</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The Riccardi Palace was built by Cosmo the Elder, whom his country
+turned out twice as a beginning and ended by calling him its father.</p>
+
+<p>Cosmo arrived at one of those happy epochs at which everything in
+a nation tends to expand at once, and a man of genius has every
+facility for being great. In fact, the brilliant era of the republic
+had arrived with him: the arts were making their appearance on every
+side. Brunelleschi was building his churches, Donatello was carving
+his statues and Orcagna his porticos, Masaccio was covering the walls
+with his frescoes, and finally public prosperity, keeping pace with
+the progress of the arts, rendered Tuscany, situated between Lombardy,
+the States of the Church and the Venetian Republic, not only the most
+powerful but also the happiest in Italy.</p>
+
+<p>Cosmo was born to immense wealth which he had almost doubled, and
+without being anything more than a citizen he had acquired a strange
+influence. Being outside the government, he made no attacks upon it,
+but neither did he flatter it. If the government followed the right
+path it was sure of his praise; if it departed from the right way it
+did not escape his blame; and the praise or blame of Cosmo the Elder
+was of supreme importance, for his weight, his wealth and his clients
+gave to Cosmo the rank of a public<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span> man. He was not yet the head of the
+government, but he was already more than that;—he was its censor.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we can understand what a tempest must be secretly brewing for
+such a man. Cosmo heard it muttering and saw it coming; but, entirely
+occupied with the vast works that concealed his great projects, he
+did not even turn his head towards the rising storm, but finished the
+chapel of St. Lorenzo, built the church of the Dominican convent of
+St. Mark, erected the monastery of S. Frediano, and, finally, laid the
+foundations of the beautiful Palace of the Via Larga, now called the
+Riccardi Palace. Only, when his enemies threatened him too openly,
+since the time for struggle had not yet arrived for him, he left
+Florence and went to Bugallo, the cradle of his race, to build the
+convents of Bosco and St. Francis; returned under the pretext of having
+a look at his novitiate chapel of the Fathers of the Holy Cross and
+of the Camandule Convent of the Angels; then again departed to press
+forward the work on his villas of Careggi, Caffaggio, Fiesole and
+Tribbio; and founded a hospital for poor pilgrims at Jerusalem. This
+being done, he returned to see in what condition the affairs of the
+republic were, and to look after his palace of the Via Larga.</p>
+
+<p>And all these immense buildings arose from the ground at once,
+occupying a whole world of labourers, workmen and architects; and five
+million crowns were spent upon them without the luxurious citizen’s
+appearing in the slightest degree impoverished by this constant and
+royal expenditure.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp143">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp143.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE RICCARDI PALACE, ITALY.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span></p>
+
+<p>This was because Cosmo was, in fact, wealthier than many of the kings
+of the day, his father Giovanni had possessed nearly four millions in
+cash and eight or ten in paper, and by banking operations he had more
+than quintupled that sum. In various parts of Europe, he had sixteen
+active banking-houses either in his own name or in those of his agents.
+In Florence, everybody was in his debt, for his purse was open to all,
+and this generosity was in some people’s eyes so clearly the result of
+calculation that it was asserted that it was his custom to advise war
+so as to force the ruined citizens to have recourse to him.</p>
+
+<p>But it was a protracted struggle: Cosmo, driven from Florence, left as
+a prescribed man and returned a triumpher. Thenceforward Cosmo adopted
+that policy that his grandson Lorenzo followed afterwards: he devoted
+himself to his commerce, his exchanges and his monuments, leaving his
+vengeance to the care of his partisans who were then in power. The
+proscriptions were so long and the executions so numerous that one of
+his most intimate and faithful friends thought he ought to go and tell
+him that he was depopulating the city. Cosmo raised his eyes from an
+exchange calculation on which he was engaged, laid his hand on the
+shoulder of the messenger of mercy, gazed at him fixedly and said with
+an imperceptible smile: “I would rather depopulate than lose it.” And
+then the inflexible arithmetician returned to his work.</p>
+
+<p>Thus he grew old; rich and honoured, but struck by the hand of God
+within his own family. By his wife he had had several children, only
+one of whom survived him.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> Therefore, broken down and impotent, when
+he had himself carried through the vast halls of his immense palace
+to inspect the sculptures, gilding, and frescoes, he sadly shook his
+head and said: “Alas! alas! this is a very large house for such a small
+family!”</p>
+
+<p>In fact, he left, as sole heir to his name, his possessions, and his
+power, Pietro de’Medici, who, coming between Cosmo the Father of his
+Country and Lorenzo the Magnificent, obtained as his only surname that
+of Pietro the Gouty.</p>
+
+<p>The refuge of the Greek savants driven from Constantinople, the
+cradle of the renaissance of the arts during the Fourteenth and the
+Fifteenth Century, and now the seat of the meetings of the Della Crusca
+Academy, the Riccardi Palace was successively occupied by Pietro the
+Gouty and by Lorenzo the Magnificent who retired thither after the
+Pazzi conspiracy as his grandfather had done after his exile. Lorenzo
+bequeathed the palace with his immense collection of precious stones,
+antique cameos, splendid armour and original manuscripts to his son
+Pietro who deserved the title not of Pietro the Gouty, but Pietro the
+Mad.</p>
+
+<p>It was the latter who opened the gates of Florence to Charles VIII. and
+delivered to him the keys of Sarzane, Pietra-Santa, Pisa, Libra-Fatta,
+and Livorno, and who undertook to make the Republic pay him as a
+subsidy the sum of two hundred thousand florins.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this, in his palace of Via Larga he offered a hospitality that
+the King of France was quite disposed to take even if it had not been
+offered. In fact, as everybody knows, Charles VIII. entered Florence
+as a conqueror and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> not as an ally, mounted on his battle-horse, with
+lance in rest and visor lowered: thus he traversed the whole city from
+the San Friano gate to Pietro’s palace, the latter and his followers
+having been driven from the city by the Florentine lords the day before.</p>
+
+<p>The Riccardi Palace was the scene of the discussion of the treaty
+concluded by Charles VIII. and Pietro in the name of the republic,—a
+treaty that the republic was unwilling to recognize. Matters went to
+extremes and the parties were on the verge of taking up arms, for the
+deputies having been introduced into this great hall in the presence of
+Charles VIII. who received them seated and without removing his hat,
+the royal secretary, standing beside the throne, began to read the
+conditions of this treaty article by article, and as each new article
+created fresh discussion, Charles VIII. impatiently exclaimed: “It
+shall be so, however, or I will have my trumpets sounded!” “Very well,”
+replied Pietro Capponi, the Secretary of the Republic, snatching the
+parchment from the hands of the reader and tearing it to pieces, “very
+well, Sire, have your trumpets sounded and we will have our bells rung!”</p>
+
+<p>That rejoinder saved Florence. The King of France believed that the
+Republic was as powerful as she was proud. Pietro Capponi had already
+dashed out of the room: Charles had him called back and then presented
+other conditions that were accepted.</p>
+
+<p>Eleven days later, the King left Florence for Naples, letting his
+soldiers devastate treasures, galleries, collections and libraries.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Riccardi Palace remained empty for eighteen years, while the exile
+of the Medicis lasted; at length, at the end of that period, they
+returned, brought back by the Spaniards, and notwithstanding this
+powerful aid, they reentered, said the capitulation, not as princes,
+but as simple citizens.</p>
+
+<p>But at length the gigantic trunk had put forth such mighty branches
+that its sap began to dry up and the tree gradually to wither. In fact,
+when Lorenzo II. was dead and laid in his tomb that was sculptured by
+Michelangelo, only three bastards remained of all the race of Cosmo the
+Elder: Hippolyte, bastard of Julian II., a cardinal; Julio, bastard of
+Julio the Elder who had been assassinated by the Pazzi, who became Pope
+under the name of Clement VII.; and finally Alexander, Duke of Tuscany,
+bastard of Julian II., or Clement VII., it is not clear which. As they
+stayed all once for an instant in Florence, lodging on the same square,
+it received the mocking name of the Square of the Three Mules.</p>
+
+<p>To the same degree that the Medicis of the elder branch had at first
+been held in honour, so it had become execrated and fallen into
+contempt at this period. Therefore the Florentines only awaited an
+opportunity to drive Alexander and Hippolyte out of Florence; but their
+uncle Clement VII. on the pontifical throne afforded them too potent
+a support for the last remnants of the republican party to dare to
+undertake anything against them.</p>
+
+<p>The sack of Rome by the soldiers of the Constable of Bourbon, and the
+imprisonment of the Pope in the Castle<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span> of St. Angelo afforded the
+Florentines the opportunity they awaited. They immediately seized
+it, and the Medicis went into exile for the third time. Clement VII.
+who was a man of much resource, extricated himself from the affair
+by selling seven cardinals’ hats, with the proceeds of which he paid
+part of his ransom, and by pledging five more as guarantee for the
+remainder. Then, as on account of this guarantee he was allowed a
+little more liberty, he took advantage of it to escape from Rome
+disguised as a valet, and gained Orvieto. The Florentines were
+therefore quite tranquil as to the future on seeing Charles the Fifth a
+conqueror and the Pope a fugitive.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, Charles the Fifth had been elected Emperor in 1519, and
+he needed to be crowned. Interest thus brought together those whom it
+had separated. Clement VII. undertook to crown Charles the Fifth; and
+the latter promised to capture Florence and to make it the dowry of his
+natural daughter, Margaret of Austria, who was affianced to Alexander.</p>
+
+<p>The two promises were religiously kept. Charles the Fifth was crowned
+at Bologna, for in his new tenderness for the Pope he did not want
+to see the ravage done by his troops in the holy city; and after a
+terrible siege in which Florence was defended by Michelangelo and
+capitulated by Malatesta, July 30, 1531, Alexander made his solemn
+entry into the future capital of his duchy.</p>
+
+<p>Alexander had almost all the vices of his epoch and very few of the
+virtues of his race. The son of a Moorish woman, he had inherited
+ardent passions. Constant in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> hatred and inconstant in love, he tried
+to have Pietro Strozzi assassinated and caused his cousin, Cardinal
+Hippolyte to be poisoned.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, there were numerous conspiracies against him during his
+reign of six years.</p>
+
+<p>Pietro Strozzi placed an immense sum in the hands of a Dominican friar
+of Naples, who was said to have great influence with Charles the Fifth,
+to induce him to get Charles the Fifth to restore liberty to Florence.
+Jean Baptiste Cibo, Archbishop of Marseilles, tried to profit from
+Alexander’s amour with his brother’s wife, who was separated from
+her husband and lived in the Pazzi palace, by having him slain one
+day when he should come to see her in that palace; and since he knew
+that Alexander usually wore beneath his clothes a coat of mail so
+marvellously made that it was proof against sword and dagger, he had a
+chest, upon which the duke was accustomed to sit when he came to visit
+the marquise, filled with powder, and this was to be exploded. But this
+conspiracy was discovered, as well as all others that followed with one
+exception. In the latter case, success was due to the fact that there
+was only one conspirator who accomplished everything for himself. That
+conspirator was Lorenzo de’Medici, the eldest scion of that younger
+branch that sprang from the paternal trunk with Lorenzo, the next
+brother of Cosmo the Father of his country.</p>
+
+<p>Lorenzo was born in Florence, March 25, 1514, of Pietro Francisco
+de’Medici, a double nephew of Lorenzo, Cosmo’s brother, and Maria
+Soderini, a woman of exemplary goodness and recognized prudence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span></p>
+
+<p>Lorenzo lost his father early, and, as he was scarcely nine years of
+age, his first instruction was given under his mother’s supervision.
+But as the child learned with great facility, this education was very
+soon ended, and he left this female tutelage for that of Philippe
+Strozzi, where his strange character developed. He was a strange medley
+of mockery, restlessness, desire, suspicion, impiety, humility and
+pride; whence it resulted that, unless he had motives to conceal, his
+most intimate friends never saw him twice in the same mood. He was one
+of those hermaphrodite beings that capricious Nature produces in her
+periods of dissolution.</p>
+
+<p>It was in a house adjoining the Riccardi Palace that Lorenzo, aided
+by the Spadassin Scoronconcolo, poniarded Duke Alexander, the natural
+brother of Catherine de’Medici, first Duke of Florence and last
+descendant of Cosmo the Father of the Country, for Pope Clement
+VII. had died in 1534 and Cardinal Hippolyte in 1535; and on his
+assassination a singular thing was noticed, namely the six-fold
+combination of the number six. Alexander was assassinated in the year
+1536, at the age of twenty-six, on the 6th day of January, at six
+o’clock at night, with six wounds, after having reigned six years.</p>
+
+<p>The house in which he was assassinated was situated on the spot where
+the stables now stand.</p>
+
+<p>The proverb of the evangelist: “They that take the sword shall perish
+with the sword” was applied to Lorenzo in its rigorous exactitude.
+Lorenzo, who had slain with the poignard, died by the poignard in
+Venice about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> the year 1557 without any one knowing for certain what
+hand struck the blow; it was only remembered that when Cosmo the First
+mounted the throne he swore not to leave the murder of Duke Alexander
+unpunished.</p>
+
+<p>The murder of Alexander was the last important event that happened in
+this beautiful palace. Abandoned by Cosmo I. in 1540, when he resolved
+to live in the Palazzo Vecchio, it was sold to the Riccardi family,
+whose name it has kept, although I believe it came again into the
+possession of the Medicis under the reign of Ferdinand II.</p>
+
+<p>To-day the famous Della Crusca Academy holds its sessions there: there
+they sift adverbs and shell participles, as our good and witty Charles
+Nodier says.</p>
+
+<p>It is not so poetic, but it is more moral.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span></p>
+
+<h2>RABY CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">WILLIAM HOWITT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">As we proceed towards Barnard Castle, we suddenly come into view of the
+Castle of Raby. The road brings us within a few hundred yards of it.
+Its grey extent of towers rises before us, with its park, well peopled
+with herds of deer, stretching around it. Comparatively flat again as
+is the situation, and which would seem to have been better liked by
+the Nevilles than more hilly and romantic ones, there is nothing that
+we recollect to have seen anywhere which impresses us at the first
+view with a stronger feeling of the old feudal grandeur. It stands in
+its antiquity and vastness, the fitting abode of the mighty Nevilles.
+We can almost imagine that we shall find them still inhabiting it.
+The royal Joan, walking with her maidens on the green terrace that
+surrounds it, or the first great Earl of Westmoreland setting out with
+all his train, to scour its wide chases and dales for the deer, or
+to proceed to the Marches to chastise the boldness of the Scots. The
+exterior of the whole place has been well preserved in its true ancient
+character; it is the great, grey, and stately feudal castle,</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div>“With all its lands and towers.”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Pennant, when he visited it, had a proper feeling of its exterior.
+“It is a noble massy building of its kind, uninjured<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> by any modern
+strokes inconsistent with the general taste of the edifice; but, simply
+magnificent, it strikes by its magnitude, and that idea of strength
+and command naturally annexed to the view of vast walls, lofty towers,
+battlements, and the surrounding outworks of an old baron’s residence.
+The building itself, besides the courts, covers an acre of land; the
+size may from this be concluded. The south front is very beautiful; the
+centre is from a design of Inigo Jones; nothing in the Gothic taste can
+be more elegant than the style and proportion of the windows. The rooms
+are very numerous, and more modern in their proportion and distribution
+than one would easily conceive to be possible within the walls of so
+ancient a building; but by means of numerous passages and closets,
+many of which have been scooped out of the walls, and back-stairs, the
+apartments are extremely convenient, well connected, and at the same
+time perfectly distinct. Several improvements have been lately made,
+which add greatly to the spaciousness and convenience of the apartments
+in general. The bed-chambers and dressing-rooms are of a good size
+and proportion, and some of the lower apartments large, and elegantly
+fitted up. One of the drawing-rooms is thirty feet by twenty, and the
+adjoining dining-room is fifty-one by twenty-one; the windows of both
+of plate glass, and in the smallest and lightest of brass frames,” etc.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp153">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp153.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">RABY CASTLE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>It is, in fact, this complete adaptation to modern uses and splendour,
+which disappoints one in the interior of Raby. The exterior is so
+fine, so feudal, so antiquely great, that when we step in and find
+ourselves at once in modern <span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>drawing-rooms, with silken couches and
+gilt cornices, the Nevilles and their times vanish. We forget again
+that we are at Raby, the Castle of the victims of Neville’s Cross, and
+of Joan, the daughter of John of Gaunt, and feel that we are only in
+the saloons of the modern Duke of Cleveland. We revert to the quaint
+description of Leland, and wish that we could see it as he did. “Raby
+is the largest castel of logginges in all the north countery, and is of
+a strong building; but not set either on hill, or very strong ground.
+As I enterid by a causey into it, there was a litle stayre on the right
+honde; and in the first area, were but two towers on a ech ende as
+entres, and no other buildid. In the 2 area, as in entring was a great
+gate of iren, with a tour, and 2 or 3 mo on the right hond. These were
+all the three toures of the 3 court, as in the hart of the castel.
+The haul and al the houses of office be large and stately, and in the
+haul I saw an incredible great leame of an hart. The great chambre was
+exceeding large, but now it is fals rofid, and divided into 2 or 3
+partes. I saw ther a litle chambre wherein was in windowes of colorid
+glasse al the petigre of the Nevilles; but it is now taken down and
+glasid with clere glasse. Ther is a tour in the castel having the mark
+of 2 capital Bs for Bertram Bulmer. Ther is another towr bering the
+name of Jane, bastard sister to Henry IV., and wife to Rafe Neville,
+the first Erl of Westmerland. Ther ’long 3 parkes to Raby, whereof 2 be
+plenished with dere. The midle park hath a lodge in it; and thereby is
+a chace, bering the name of Langeley, and hath fallowe dere. It is a 3
+miles in length.”</p>
+
+<p>It is, in fact, these old towers; these old courts; this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> great
+baronial hall, and the kitchen, that are objects of real interest
+in Raby; remnants of its antiquity, the co-temporaries of those who
+stamped them with the feeling of belonging to them and their fortunes.
+The Cliffords’ tower, and the tower of Bertram Bulmer, let us ascend to
+them, and gaze over the parks and glades of Raby, to the far distant
+scenes that once formed the princely possessions of the Nevilles. Near
+the top of this tower, which stands separated from the rest of the
+building, and to which you ascend by eighty-nine steps, are raised
+those old letters, the initials of Bertram Bulmer, mentioned by Leland,
+and a splendid prospect south eastward lies before you. Conscliff,
+Darlington, Sadberge, Long-Newton, Stockton, with the Cleveland Hills
+and “Black” Hamilton. From other points of the castle you catch equally
+noble and far views—the distant mountains of Hope and Arkendale, and
+westward the vale filled with the woods of Streatlam and Lady Close.</p>
+
+<p>Carriages can pass through the large Gothic saloon, or entrance hall
+into the interior court. Above the saloon is the old baronial hall,
+which forms one side of the square of the inner area. It is of the
+most magnificent proportions—ninety feet in length, thirty-six in
+breadth, and thirty-four in height. The roof is flat and made of
+wood; the joints ornamented with shields of arms of the family of the
+Nevilles. Here, it is said, assembled in their time, 700 knights who
+held of that family. A gallery of stone crosses the west end of this
+room used in ancient times for music, and that mimicry with which our
+ancestors were so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> much pleased. Unfortunately, here again our notions
+of the old times are completely disturbed. This roof, which no doubt is
+of real oak, is now smartly painted oak; and this hall, which should
+only display massy furniture, suits of armour, and arms and banners
+properly disposed, is converted into a museum of stuffed birds, Indian
+dresses, and a heap of things which may be better and more numerously
+seen elsewhere. In fact, any ordinary room of this many-roomed castle
+might have served this need. The kitchen, however, remains in all its
+huge and unalloyed antiquity. “It is,” says Pennant, “a magnificent
+and lofty square; has three chimneys—one for the grate, a second for
+stoves, the third for the great cauldrons. The top is arched, and
+a small cupola lights it in the centre; but on the sides are five
+windows, with a gallery passing all round before them, and four steps
+from each pointing down into the kitchen, but ending a great height
+above the floor. There have been many conjectures respecting their use,
+but they certainly must have been in some manner for the conveying away
+of viands. From the floor is another staircase, that conducts to the
+great hall, but the passage is now stopped. What hecatombs must have
+been carried that way!” To this account must be added, that the kitchen
+is a square of thirty feet; the side where no chimney is, opens into
+the larders; opposite to the grate, the steps descend to the floor,
+and are wide enough for three persons abreast. On each of the other
+sides, to the right and left of the grate, are two windows, with five
+steps descending, but not low enough to enable the persons who should
+stand thereon to receive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> anything from those in the kitchen. There are
+narrow passages channeled in the walls, but not capacious enough, we
+conceive, to allow a person to bear a dish of provisions for the 700
+knights and retainers of the Nevilles. Yet we may very well imagine,
+that in the hurry and confusion of such a dining, those windows and
+descending steps might be very serviceable for the delivery of orders,
+and the passages in the walls for enabling one bustling person to avoid
+another. Besides, they might have some contrivance by a pulley or so,
+to raise the dishes to the person on the steps. Be that as it may, the
+kitchen is a right ancient and singular relic of the genuine baronial
+time.</p>
+
+<p>The park has many fine woods, glades, and lawns, and gives prospects of
+far beauty, but its aspect partakes of the character of the interior of
+the castle—newness. We are surprised to see so little timber bearing
+a relative antiquity to the castle. The trees are comparatively young.
+You see groups and plantations of a very modern date. The whole has
+the air rather of a place new made, than of one old as the days of
+Canute, who is said to have built some part of the original house.
+You do not see those old, grey, and gnarled oaks around you that you
+see in the forests of Sherwood, Needwood—Chartley and other parks.
+It seems as if some great revolution, as is the fact, has passed over
+it; and that in its days of change, the axe of the spoiler has laid
+low its ancient forests. The castle looks like a grey patriarch left
+amid a more juvenile race. Let us rejoice that the strong wall of the
+stout old Nevilles have defied the ravages of politics as well as of
+time, and that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> future generations may see in them a fine example of
+what the habitation of the great old English noble was. For my part,
+I looked on the old house with eyes of affection. It had, through the
+beautiful ballad of the <i>Hermit of Warkworth</i>, been to me a dream
+of youthful poetry. I was carried back into the days when at school we
+chanted that lovely poem over, day by day, under sunny walls and in our
+walks, and even at night when we should have been asleep. There was
+in it a spirit so pure, so refined, so delicate, so full of beauty,
+of love, and of heroic magnanimity, that it mingled itself entirely
+with the pulses of our hearts, because our hearts were then like it
+in soul, in temperament, and in imaginative freedom. What dales of
+Northumberland—what mountains, and glens, and chieftains’ towers of
+Scotland, did it not bring to our spirits’ vision! With what eagerness
+did we follow the forlorn Sir Bertram and his brother, in their
+northern quest for the lost fair Isabel of Widrington. How did we weep
+over the catastrophe!—and when the young Earl Percy and his lovely
+bride, of the house of Neville, appeared for our comfort, how earnestly
+did we follow the venerable prior who, to propitiate the princely
+parents of Eleanor,</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="ileft">“Then straight to Raby’s distant walls</div>
+        <div class="i1">Did kindly wend his way.”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="p-left">And how many times did we clap our hands as we learnt that</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="ileft">“Meantime their suit such favour found</div>
+        <div class="i1">At Raby’s stately hall;</div>
+        <div>Earl Neville and his princely spouse</div>
+        <div class="i1">Now gladly pardon all.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span></div>
+      </div>
+
+     <div class="stanza">
+        <div>She, suppliant at her nephew’s throne,</div>
+        <div class="i1">The royal grace implored;</div>
+        <div>To all the honours of his race</div>
+        <div class="i1">The Percy was restored!”</div>
+     </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Mr. Surtees has written a ballad full of the true spirit of that
+composition, suggested by a scene in Raby Park—Langley Dale; a
+beautiful dale and ancient chase, belonging to Raby Castle. An old
+tower, close by the park, is said to have been the residence of a
+mistress of the last Earl of Westmoreland. Mr. Surtees’s ballad,
+however, rather connects itself with the general circumstances of “The
+Rising of the North” than with this particular incident, and, like “The
+Flowers of the Forest,” perpetuates a natural and beautiful sentiment,
+which must have been deeply and long felt, on beholding Raby after that
+fatal event. With this poem we will close our visit to Raby.</p>
+
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <h3>LANGLEY DALE.</h3>
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div>As I down Raby Park did pass,</div>
+        <div class="i1">I heard a fair maid weep and wail,</div>
+        <div>The chiefest of her song it was,</div>
+        <div class="i1">Farewell the sweets of Langley Dale.</div>
+      </div>
+
+     <div class="stanza">
+        <div>The bonny mavis cheers his love,</div>
+        <div class="i1">The throstlecock sings in the glen;</div>
+        <div>But I must never hope to rove</div>
+        <div class="i1">Within the sweet Langley Dale again.</div>
+     </div>
+
+     <div class="stanza">
+        <div>The wild-rose blushes in the brae,</div>
+        <div class="i1">The primrose shows its blossom pale;</div>
+        <div>But I must bid adieu for aye,</div>
+        <div class="i1">To all the joys of Langley Dale.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span></div>
+     </div>
+
+     <div class="stanza">
+        <div>The days of mirth and peace are fled,</div>
+        <div class="i1">Youth’s golden locks to silver turn;</div>
+        <div>Each northern flowret droops its head</div>
+        <div class="i1">By Marwood Chase and Langley Burn.</div>
+     </div>
+
+     <div class="stanza">
+        <div>False Southrons crop each lovely flower,</div>
+        <div class="i1">And throw their blossoms to the gale;</div>
+        <div>Our foes have spoilt the sweetest bower—</div>
+        <div class="i1">Alas! for bonny Langley Dale.</div>
+     </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CASTEL DEL MONTE<br>
+<span class="subhed">EDWARD LEAR</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">To the south, on a spur of the hills overlooking the maritime part
+of the province of Basilicata and Capitanata, stands Minervino, and
+thither we directed our course, over undulating green meadows which
+descend to the plain, and we arrived about an hour before sunset at
+the foot of the height on which the town is situated. Minervino enjoys
+a noble prospect northward, over the level of Cannæ to the bay and
+mountain of Gargano, at which distance the outspread breadth of plain
+is so beautifully delicate in its infinity of clear lines, as to
+resemble sea more than earth. The town is a large clean and thriving
+place, with several streets flanked by loggie, and altogether different
+in its appearance and in its population from Abruzzese or Calabrese
+towns. The repose, or to speak more plainly, the stagnation of the
+latter, contrasts very decidedly with these communities of Apulia—all
+bustle and animation—where well-paved streets, good houses, and
+strings of laden mules, proclaim an advance in commercial civilization.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp162">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp162.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">CASTLE DEL MONTE, SICILY.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>We encountered in the street Don Vincenzino Todeschi, who on reading a
+letter of introduction, given to us for him by Signor Manassei, seemed
+to consider our dwelling with him as a matter of course, and shaking
+hands with us heartily, begged us to go to his house and use it as our
+own; he was busy then, but would join us at supper....</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span></p>
+
+<p>P—— and I are not a little perplexed as to what we shall do
+to-morrow, for, owing to time running short, we have but one day left
+ere we return towards Naples. Canosa (ancient Cannæ) and Castel del
+Monte, are the two points, either of which we could be content to
+reach, but as each demands a hard day’s work, we finally resolve to
+divide them, P—— choosing Canosa, and I the old castle of Frederick
+Barbarossa, of which I had heard so much as one of the wonders of
+Apulia.</p>
+
+<p><i>September 23.</i>—Before daylight each of us set off on his
+separate journey on horseback,—P—— with the bulky Don Sebastiano to
+Canosa, I to the Castel del Monte, with a guardiano of Don Vincenzino’s
+family. Oh me! what a day of fatigue and tiresome labour! Almost
+immediately on leaving Minervino we came to the dullest possible
+country,—elevated stony plains—weariest of barren undulations
+stretching in unbroken ugliness towards Altamura and Gravina. Much of
+this hideous tract is ploughed earth, and here and there we encountered
+a farm house with its fountain: no distant prospect ever relieves these
+dismal shrubless Murgie (for so is this part of the province of Bari
+called), and flights of “calendroni,” with a few skylarks above, and
+scattered crocuses below, alone vary the sameness of the journey. At
+length, after nearly five hours of slow riding, we came in sight of the
+castle, which was the object of my journey; it is built at the edge of
+these plains on one of the highest, but gradually rising eminences,
+and looks over a prospect perfectly amazing as to its immense extent
+and singular character. One vast pale<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> pink map, stretching to
+Monte Gargano, and the plains of Foggia, northward is at your feet;
+southward, Terra di Bari, and Terra di Otranto, fade into the horizon;
+and eastward, the boundary of this extensive level is always the blue
+Adriatic, along which, or near its shore, you see, as in a chart, all
+the maritime towns of Puglia in succession, from Barletta southward
+towards Brindisi.</p>
+
+<p>The barren stony hill from which you behold all this extraordinary
+outspread of plain, has upon it one solitary and remarkable building,
+the great hunting palace, called Castel del Monte, erected in the
+Twelfth Century by the Emperor Barbarossa, or Frederick II. Its
+attractions at first sight are those of position and singularity of
+form, which is that of an octagon, with a tower on each of the eight
+corners. But to an architect, the beautiful masonry and exquisite
+detail of the edifice (although it was never completed, and has been
+robbed of its fine carved-work for the purpose of ornamenting churches
+on the plain), render it an object of the highest curiosity and
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>The interior of this ancient building is also extremely striking;
+the inner courtyard and great Gothic Hall, invested with the sombre
+mystery of partial decay, the eight rooms above, the numerous windows,
+all would repay a long visit from any one to whom the details of such
+architecture are desiderata.</p>
+
+<p>Confining myself to making drawings of the general appearance of this
+celebrated castle, I had hardly time to complete two careful sketches
+of it, when the day was so far advanced that my guardiano recommended a
+speedy return,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> and by the time I had overcome the five hours of stony
+“murgie” I confess to having thought that any thing less interesting
+than Castel del Monte would hardly have compensated for the day’s
+labour. I reached Minervino at one hour of the night, and found P——
+just arrived from his giro to Canosa.</p>
+
+<p>While riding over the Murgie, slowly pacing over those stony hills,
+my guide indulged me with a legend of the old castle, which is worth
+recording, be it authentic or imaginary. The Emperor Frederick II.,
+having resolved to build the magnificent residence on the site it now
+occupies, employed one of the first architects of the day to erect it;
+and during its progress despatched one of his courtiers to inspect the
+work, and to bring him a report of its character and appearance. The
+courtier set out; but on passing through Melfi, halted to rest at the
+house of a friend, where he became enamoured of a beautiful damesel,
+whose eyes caused him to forget Castel del Monte and his sovereign,
+and induced him to linger in the Norman city until a messenger arrived
+there charged by the Emperor to bring him immediately to the Court,
+then at Naples. At that period it was by no means probable that
+Barbarossa, engaged in different warlike schemes, would ever have
+leisure to visit his new castle, and the courtier, fearful of delay,
+resolved to hurry into the presence and risk a description of the
+building which he had not seen, rather than confess his neglect of
+duty. Accordingly he denounced the commencement of the Castel del Monte
+as a total failure, both as to beauty and utility, and the architect
+as an impostor; on hearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> which the Emperor sent immediately to the
+unfortunate builder, the messenger carrying an order for his disgrace,
+and a requisition for his instant appearance in the capital. “Suffer me
+to take leave of my wife and children,” said the despairing architect,
+and shutting himself in one of the upper rooms, he forthwith destroyed
+his whole family and himself, rather than fall into the hands of a
+monarch notorious for his severity.</p>
+
+<p>The tidings of this event was, however, brought to the Emperor’s ears,
+and with characteristic impetuosity, he set off for Apulia directly,
+taking with him the first courtier-messenger, doubtless sufficiently
+ill at ease, from anticipations of the results about to follow his
+duplicity. What was Barbarossa’s indignation at beholding one of
+the most beautiful buildings doomed, through the falsehood of his
+messenger, to remain incomplete, and polluted by the blood of his most
+skilful subject, and that of his innocent family!</p>
+
+<p>Foaming with rage, he dragged the offender by the hair of his head to
+the top of the highest tower, and with his own hands threw him down as
+a sacrifice to the memory of the architect and his family, so cruelly
+and wantonly destroyed.</p>
+
+<p><i>September 24.</i>—Having risen before sunrise, the energetic
+and practical Don Vincenzino gave us coffee by the aid of a spirit
+lamp, and we passed some hours in drawing the town of Minervino, the
+sparkling lights and delicate grey tints of whose buildings blended
+charmingly with the vast pale rosy plains of Apulia in the far
+distance. At nine we returned to a substantial <i>déjeûner</i>, and at
+half-past ten took leave of our thoroughly hospitable and good-natured
+host.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CASTEL DEL MONTE<br>
+<span class="subhed">HENRY SWINBURNE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">A most disagreeable stony road brought us to Ruvo, through a vine
+country. The pomegranate hedges in flower, and the holme oak loaded
+with kermes, enlivened the prospect, which otherwise would have
+been very dull.... I here quitted the Roman way, and rode fifteen
+miles westward to Castel del Monte. The country I traversed is open,
+uneven and dry. The castle is a landmark, and stands on the brow of a
+very high hill, the extremity of a ridge that branches out from the
+Apennine. The ascent to it is near half a mile long, and very steep;
+the view from its terrace most extensive. A vast reach of sea and plain
+on one side, and mountains on the other; not a city in the province but
+is distinguishable; yet the barrenness of the foreground takes off a
+great deal of the beauty of the picture. The building is octangular,
+in a plain solid style; the walls are raised with reddish and white
+stones, ten feet six inches thick; the great gate is of marble, cut
+into very intricate ornaments, after the manner of the Arabians; on
+the balustrade of the steps lie two enormous lions of marble, their
+bushy manes nicely, though barbarously, expressed; the court, which is
+in the centre of the edifice, contains an octangular marble bason of
+a surprising diameter. To carry it to the summit of such a hill must
+have cost an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> infinite deal of labour. Two hundred steps lead up to
+the top of the castle, which consists of two stories. In each of them
+are fifteen saloons of great dimensions, cased throughout with various
+and valuable marbles; the ceilings are supported by triple clustered
+columns of a single block of white marble, the capitals extremely
+simple. Various have been the opinions concerning the founder of this
+castle; but the best grounded ascribe it to Frederick of Swabia. I
+dined and spent the hot hours with great comfort under the porch, which
+commands a noble view of the Adriatic.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I descended the mountain, and rode nine miles to Andria,
+a large feudal city, east of the Roman road.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE GENERALIFE<br>
+<span class="subhed">THÉOPHILE GAUTIER</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The Generalife is situated not far from the Alhambra on a spur of the
+same mountain. You get to it by a kind of dug out road that traverses
+the ravine of Los Molinos, which is bordered all the way with fig-trees
+of enormous glistening leaves, green oaks, pistachio-trees, laurels,
+and rock roses of a remarkably exuberant vegetation. The ground on
+which you walk is composed of yellow sand oozing with water, wonderful
+in its fecundity. Nothing is more delightful than to follow this
+road, which has the appearance of running through a virgin forest of
+America, so thickly is it choked with foliage and flowers, and so great
+is the overwhelming scent of the aromatic plants you inhale there.
+Vines spring through the cracks of the broken walls, and hang from all
+their branches fantastic tendrils and leaves resembling the tracery
+of Arabian ornaments; the aloe opens its fan of bluish blades and the
+orange trees twist their knotty trunks and cling with fang-like roots
+to the rents in the steep slopes. Everything flourishes and blooms
+in a tangled disorder full of the most charming effects of chance. A
+straying branch of jasmin mingles its white stars with the scarlet
+flowers of the pomegranate, and a laurel leaps from one side of the
+road to the other to embrace a cactus, notwithstanding its thorns.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>
+Nature, left to herself, seems to take pride in her coquetry, and
+wishes to show how far she surpasses even the most exquisite and
+finished art.</p>
+
+<p>After a quarter of an hour’s walk, you come to the Generalife, which
+is, in some sense, nothing but the <i>casa de campo</i>, the country
+house, of the Alhambra. The exterior, like that of all oriental
+buildings, is very simple: it consists of large walls without windows
+and surmounted by a terrace with a gallery divided into arcades,
+the whole being crowned with a little modern belvedere. Of the
+Generalife nothing now remains but some arcades and some large panels
+of arabesques, unfortunately plastered over with layers of whitewash
+that have been applied again and again with all the obstinacy of a
+dispiriting cleanliness. Little by little the delicate sculptures and
+the marvellous guilloches of this fairy-like architecture have been
+obliterated, filled up, and engulfed. What is at present nothing more
+than a faintly-vermiculated wall, was formerly open lace-work as fine
+as those ivory leaves which the patience of the Chinese carves for
+fans. The brush of the whitewasher has caused more <i>chefs d’œuvre</i>
+to disappear than the scythe of Time, if I may be allowed to use that
+superannuated, mythological expression. In a fairly well preserved
+hall, you notice a series of smoky portraits of the kings of Spain, but
+these have only a chronological value.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp169">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp169.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE GENERALIFE, SPAIN.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The real charm of the Generalife consists in its gardens and waters. A
+canal paved with marble runs through the whole length of the enclosure,
+and rolls its abundant and rapid waves under a series of leafy arches,
+formed by yews <span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>curiously bent and clipped. Orange-trees and
+cypresses are planted on each border; it was at the foot of one of
+these cypresses, of a prodigious size, and which dates from the time of
+the Moors, that the favourite of Boabdil, if we may believe the legend,
+often proved that bolts and grilles are but slight protectors of the
+virtue of sultanas. One thing, at least, is certain,—that the yew is
+very large and very old.</p>
+
+<p>The perspective is terminated by a porticoed gallery, ornamented
+with fountains and marble columns, like the Patio of Myrtles in the
+Alhambra. The canal turns sharply and you then enter other enclosures
+ornamented with water-works and whose walls still retain traces of the
+frescoes of the Sixteenth Century representing rustic architecture
+and distant views. In the centre of one of these basins of water, a
+gigantic oleander of a singular brilliancy and incomparable beauty
+rises like an immense basket of flowers. At the time that I saw it,
+it seemed like an explosion of blossoms, or a bouquet of vegetable
+fireworks; its ruddy hue was so splendid and vigorous,—indeed almost
+clamorous, if one may apply that word to colours,—as to dim the hue of
+the most vermilion rose. Its lovely flowers leaped with all the ardour
+of desire towards the pure light of the sky; and its noble leaves,
+shaped expressly by nature for a crown of glory and sprinkled by the
+spray of the fountain, sparkled in the sunshine like emeralds. Never
+did anything inspire me with a higher sentiment of the beautiful than
+this rose-bay of the Generalife.</p>
+
+<p>The water is brought to the gardens down a very steep<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> inclined plane,
+bordered by little walls, forming on each side a kind of parapet,
+supporting canals hollowed out and lined with large tiles through which
+the water runs beneath the open sky with the gayest and liveliest
+chatter in the world. At yard intervals, well-supplied water-jets
+burst forth from the centre of little basins and shoot their crystal
+aigrettes into the thick foliage of the groves of laurels whose
+branches interlace above them. The mountain gushes with water on every
+side; at each step a spring starts out, and you continually hear at
+your side the murmuring of some rivulet turned from its course, and
+going to supply a fountain, or to carry refreshment to the foot of
+some tree. The Arabs have carried the art of irrigation to the highest
+degree; their hydraulic-works attest the most advanced state of
+civilization; these works still exist to-day, and it is to them that
+Grenada owes the reputation it has of being the Paradise of Spain, and
+of enjoying eternal spring in an African climate. An arm of the Darro
+has been turned out of its course by the Arabs and carried for more
+than two leagues along the hill of the Alhambra.</p>
+
+<p>From the Belvedere of the Generalife you can clearly see the outline
+of the Alhambra with its enclosure of reddish, half-ruined towers, and
+its pieces of wall which rise and fall with the undulations of the
+mountain. The Palace of Charles V., which is not visible from the side
+of the city, stands out with its square and heavy mass, gilded with a
+pale reflection of sunlight, upon the damask-like slopes of the Sierra
+Nevada, whose white ridges are strongly notched against the sky. The
+bell-tower of Saint-Marie lifts its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> Christian silhouette above the
+Moorish battlements. A few cypresses thrust their sorrowful leaves
+through the crevices in the walls, in the midst of all this light and
+azure sky, like a melancholy thought at a joyous festival. The slopes
+of the hill running down towards the Darro and the ravine of Los
+Molinos disappear beneath an ocean of verdure. It is one of the most
+beautiful views that can be imagined.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side, as if to form a contrast with so much verdure, there
+rises an uncultivated, scorched, tawny mountain with patches of ocre
+and burnt Sienna which is called La Silla del Moro, on account of some
+ruins of buildings upon its summit. It was from here that King Boabdil
+used to view the Arabian horsemen jousting in the Vega with Christian
+knights. The memory of the Moors is still vivid in Grenada. You would
+think that they left the city only yesterday, and, if we should judge
+of them by their traces, it is a pity that they ever left it at all.
+What southern Spain requires is African civilization and not the
+civilization of Europe, which is not in sympathy with the heat of the
+climate, or the passions it inspires.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX<br>
+<span class="subhed">JULES LOISELEUR</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Unlike so many other <i>châteaux</i> of Blaissons and Touraine,
+Chenonceaux awakens only gay and happy thoughts. Chambord possesses the
+calm gravity of a monastery; Ambroise is a prison; Blois bears upon
+its face its blot of blood. All the other retreats of the royal Valois
+and all the <i>châteaux</i> of their courtiers, grouped in such number
+upon the banks of the Cher, the Vienne, and the Loire—Loches, Chinon,
+Plessis-lez-Tours, Luynes, Saumur, Brissac,—speak of treachery,
+perfidy, revenge, conspiracy and all the wicked tendencies of human
+nature. Chenonceaux alone recalls only memories of youth, elegance,
+poetry, and love. There is no blood upon its stones. The gentlest and
+the most charming figures of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century,
+Diane de Poitiers, Mary Stuart, Gabrielle and Françoise de’Mercœur come
+in succession to animate that smiling nature and to reflect their fair
+faces in its clear waters. Catherine de Medicis, in passing through
+this beautiful place, here dropped a little of her cold and imperious
+gravity: she has left only the memory of that orgy-like and splendid
+banquet that cost more than a million of our money, and where Madame de
+Sauve, half naked, was the stewardess.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp174">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp174.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX, FRANCE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span></p>
+
+<p>The widow of Henri III., promenading in her long robes of mourning,
+lent it another charm,—that of melancholy; and when Rousseau, at last
+raised that voice there which could gather together tempests, it was
+not philosophy, nor social conditions, nor the rights of man of which
+he spoke: it was still love and poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Chenonceaux, by means of its position, its architecture, and its
+history, is so near the other <i>châteaux</i> on the banks of the
+Loire, neighbouring and contemporary pearls, that it is impossible to
+detach it from that jewel-case. However, it is not on the Loire, the
+river of severe horizons and majestic wearisomeness; it is on a less
+proud and more smiling little river, the Cher, three leagues from
+Amboise, that this palace of Armida was built. It rears itself upon the
+bosom of this charming stream which stops here in a lazy curve as if
+to linger and bathe its walls, delighting in reflecting those graceful
+towers and enchanted gardens in its liquid depths. No other palace that
+I know rises thus, like Venus from the breast of the waves, without any
+link to the earth save a single bridge at one of its extremities. It
+was a woman who had this charming idea that gives to the <i>château</i>
+a somewhat fairy-like and supernatural effect: for Chenonceaux is not,
+as is too often believed, the work of Thomas Bohier, but of his wife,
+who consecrated to this work, conceived in love, the treasures that
+her husband sent her from Italy. There are two other women, Diane de
+Poitiers and Catherine de’Medici who completed while enlarging the
+thought of Catherine Briçonnet. It seems that women only could possess
+a sufficiently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> light hand to touch such a delicate work and to design
+the plan.</p>
+
+<p>It was at the north-east corner of the court of honour, between the
+stream and the gardener’s house, that MM. Sechan and Déplechein placed
+themselves to paint the picture used for the scenery in the second act
+of <i>Les Huguenots</i>. This choice proved a familiar general view. No
+other spot shows Chenonceaux in a more complete and picturesque aspect.
+Seen from this point, the <i>château</i> presents itself obliquely,
+which enables the eye to embrace at the same time the principal façade
+and the entire construction of the western side, from the apsis of the
+chapel to the end of the gallery that crosses the Cher.</p>
+
+<p>The foreground of the picture is charming.</p>
+
+<p>At the right and in the corner, the court of honour precedes its royal
+avenue of plantains and ends with its stone balustrades. Behind this
+balustrade, stands the beautiful tower with a roof like a pepper box,
+which is used as the porter’s lodge, and which, built upon the firm
+ground, seems like a timid sister watching her big sisters bathing
+their feet in the river without daring to follow them.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle distance, is the bridge with its three unequal arches
+and its heavy buttresses alongside of their half moons in brackets.
+Beyond the bridge, is the principal façade, flanked with two corbelled
+towers presenting under a flying buttress its large caryatides, its
+two balconies in hemicycle, and three charming dormer windows that
+crown it. Farther along in the centre of the picture, is the apsis of
+the chapel with its long lancets flaming in the sun, supported,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> like
+the principal front, by those heavy courses of stone in which are the
+kitchen offices of the castle; then comes the beautiful eastern front
+that surmounts the great arch and occupies the centre of the stream
+which, as well as the whole corresponding western front, must certainly
+be attributed to Diane de Poitiers, for its windows, its architrave and
+all the details of its entablature bear the mark of the reign of Henri
+II.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, to the left of the picture, are the five arches of the
+bridge built for Diane to connect the left bank of the Cher with the
+great pavilion and, above this bridge, the two stages of galleries
+constructed by Androuet du Cerceau for Catherine de’Medici, with their
+little turrets with arched windows corresponding to the peers, and
+forming so many terraces for the second gallery.</p>
+
+<p>All this, with the river for the foreground and with the large trees on
+both banks for a frame, and the trees of the gardens for perspective,
+and the tops, formerly gilded, of the gallery and the large pavilion,
+the ornamented chimneys, the peaked roofs and the vanes of the
+turrets, peaks, dormer windows, chimneys and weather-vanes, vaporously
+melting into the beautiful sky of Touraine; all this, I say, forms a
+complete whole that would ravish any painter and one that in truth is
+worthy of the honour paid to it by M. Scribe at the Opéra. No false
+tone and no ungraceful nor violent line disturbs the harmony of this
+beautiful picture. Minds that love parallelism and symmetry may regret
+undoubtedly that the enthusiasm of political life did not permit
+Catherine de’Medici to complete that beautiful conception and build<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>
+upon the left bank of the Cher a large pavilion similar to that on the
+right bank: the gallery, which does not come to-day any further than
+the steep bank of the river, would then have occupied the centre of the
+building. But, perhaps, there is in this incompleteness of Chenonceaux,
+which permits everybody to finish it in dreams according to his
+pleasure, something that saves it from banality; perhaps it gains,
+instead of losing, by exciting that admiration mingled with regrets and
+also with criticism which the greater number of men, by an inherent
+weakness of nature, prefer to the enthusiasm without reservation that
+is the right of a perfect work.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span></p>
+
+<h2>DUBLIN CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">LADY WILDE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Few amongst us who tread the Dublin of the present in all its beauty,
+think of the Dublin of the past in all its contrasted insignificance.
+True, the eternal features are the same; the landscape setting of the
+city is coeval with creation. Tyrian, Dane, and Norman have looked as
+we look, and with hearts as responsive to Nature’s loveliness, upon the
+emerald plains, the winding rivers, the hills draperied in violet and
+gold, the mountain gorges, thunder-riven, half veiled by the foam of
+the waterfall, and the eternal ocean encircling all; scenes where God
+said a city should arise, and the mountain and the ocean are still, as
+of old, the magnificent heritage of beauty conferred on our metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>But the early races, whether from the southern sea or northern
+plain, did little to aid the beauty of nature with the products of
+human intellect. Dublin, under the Danish rule, consisted only of
+a fortress, a church, and one rude street. Under the rule of the
+Normans, those great civilizers of the western world, those grand
+energetic organizers, temple and tower builders, it rose gradually
+into a beautiful capital, the chief city of Ireland, the second city
+of the empire. At first the rudimental metropolis gathered round the
+castle, as nebulæ round a central sun, and from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> this point it radiated
+westward and southward; the O’Briens on the south, the O’Connors on the
+west, the O’Neils on the north, perpetually hovering on the borders,
+but never able to regain the city, never able to dislodge the brave
+Norman garrison who had planted their banners on the castle walls.
+In that castle, during the seven hundred years of its existence, no
+Irishman of the old race has ever held rule for a single hour.</p>
+
+<p>And what a history it has of tragedies and splendours; crowned and
+discrowned monarchs flit across the scene, and tragic destinies,
+likewise, may be recorded of many a viceroy! Piers Gaveston, Lord
+Lieutenant of King Edward, murdered; Roger Mortimer—“The Gentle
+Mortimer”—hanged at Tyburn; the Lord Deputy of King Richard II.
+murdered by the O’Briens; whereupon the King came over to avenge his
+death, just a year before he himself was so ruthlessly murdered at
+Pomfret Castle. Two viceroys died of the plague; how many more were
+plagued to death, history leaves unrecorded; one was beheaded at
+Drogheda; three were beheaded on Tower Hill. Amongst the names of
+illustrious Dublin rulers may be found those of Prince John, the boy
+Deputy of thirteen; Prince Lionel, son of Edward III., who claimed
+Clare in right of his wife, and assumed the title of Clarence from
+having conquered it from the O’Briens.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp179">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp179.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">DUBLIN CASTLE, IRELAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The great Oliver Cromwell was the Lord-Lieutenant of the Parliament,
+and he in turn appointed his son Henry to succeed him. Dire are
+the memories connected with Cromwell’s reign here, both to his own
+party and to Ireland. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>Ireton died of the plague after the siege
+of Limerick; General Jones died of the plague after the surrender of
+Dungarvon; a thousand of Cromwell’s men died of the plague before
+Waterford. The climate, in its effect upon English constitutions, seems
+to be the great Nemesis of Ireland’s wrongs.</p>
+
+<p>Strange scenes, dark, secret, and cruel, have been enacted in that
+gloomy pile. No one has told the full story yet. It will be a Ratcliffe
+romance of dungeons and treacheries, of swift death or slow murder.
+God and St. Mary were invoked in vain for the luckless Irish prince
+or chieftain that was caught in that Norman stronghold; but that was
+in the old time—long, long ago. Now the castle courts are crowded
+only with loyal and courtly crowds, gathered to pay homage to the
+illustrious successor of a hundred viceroys.</p>
+
+<p>The strangest scene, perhaps, in the annals of viceroyalty, was
+when Thomas Fitzgerald (Silken Thomas), son of the Earl of Kildare,
+and Lord-Lieutenant in his father’s absence, took up arms for Irish
+independence. He rode through the city with seven score horsemen, in
+shirts of mail and silken fringe on their head-pieces (hence the name
+Silken Thomas), to St. Mary’s Abbey, and there entering the council
+chamber, he flung down the sword of state upon the table, and bade
+defiance to the king and his ministers; then hastening to raise an
+army, he laid siege to Dublin Castle, but with no success. Silken
+Thomas and five uncles were sent to London, and there executed; and
+sixteen Fitzgeralds were hanged and quartered at Dublin. By<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> a singular
+fatality, no plot laid against Dublin Castle ever succeeded; though to
+obtain possession of this foreign fortress was the paramount wish of
+all Irish rebel leaders. This was the object with Lord Maguire and his
+papists, with Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his republicans, with Emmet
+and his enthusiasts, with Smith O’Brien and his nationalists—yet they
+all failed. Once only, during seven centuries, the green flag waved
+over Dublin Castle, with the motto—“Now or Never! Now and for Ever!”
+It was when Tyrconnel held it for King James.</p>
+
+<p>In the ancient stormy times of Norman rule, the nobility naturally
+gathered round the Castle. Skinner’s Row was the “May Fair” of mediæval
+Dublin, Hoey’s Court, Castle Street, Cook Street, Fishamble Street,
+Bridge Street, Werburgh Street, High Street, Golden Lane, Back Lane,
+etc., were the fashionable localities inhabited by lords and bishops,
+chancellors and judges; and Thomas Street was the grand prado where
+viceregal pomp and Norman pride were oftenest exhibited.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span></p>
+
+<h2>SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES<br>
+<span class="subhed">WILLIAM HOWITT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Berlin has its public gardens, and its popular music and dances, as
+well as any other German city; but they who do not care to visit these
+will find pleasure in walking as far as the Kreutzberg, a little
+eminence, a novelty here, at a little distance from the city, on which
+is erected a Gothic cross or monument of metal, in memory of those who
+died in the war; and figures of the chief leaders in it occupy niches,
+and the names of all the great battles in which the Prussians were
+engaged, are exhibited on the different sides. Charlottenburg, a few
+miles from Berlin, is also not only a charming palace in extensive and
+pleasant gardens, but of great interest from the reposing statue of
+the amiable Queen Louise, by Rauch, which is in a little temple in the
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>But Potsdam is the great paradise of this neighbourhood, as we may be
+allowed to call it, for though nearly twenty English miles distant, a
+railway conveys you there in forty minutes. Here the scene is indeed
+changed! Here, instead of sand and monotony, you have hills, water,
+woods, every thing which is attractive in nature. What a splendid
+situation were this for a capital! The city on the plain, backed by
+these beautiful hills, with every possible variety of site for villas
+and pleasure gardens. What woods and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> hills, and the beautiful river
+Havell spreading itself broad and winding, like a succession of fine
+lakes! Why was not Berlin placed where Potsdam is? Possibly the Havell,
+broad as it looks, may not be so navigable as the Sprey, and there may
+lie the secret, or what a capital would it be here!</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp183">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp183.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">SANS SOUCI, GERMANY.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Frederick the Great, however, duly appreciated the beauty of this
+neighbourhood. Here he delighted to retire. Steam has now converted
+Potsdam into a suburb of Berlin, and pours on all holidays its
+thousands into it, without which Potsdam were a retirement and a
+solitude still, for grass grows in its streets. But who cares for
+Potsdam itself, as it lies in its hollow, with its great old palace,
+and great old public buildings and barracks, and avenues of great
+trees, except that its old church contains the tomb of Frederick the
+Great, on which Napoleon heaped the incense of his praise, and from
+which he stole the old warrior’s sword. But the hills on the Havell,
+and the views of the Havell from them, the rich meadows, the wild
+forest scenes—these are what justify Frederick’s fondness for this
+spot, and who can enough enjoy them? That Frederick enjoyed them, the
+palaces which he has scattered through them with an extraordinary
+prodigality, sufficiently testify: the Palace in Potsdam, the Palace
+of Sans Souci, the Marble Palace, the New Palaces. That the present
+race enjoy them, various lovely villas, as the Charlottenhof, Grünecke,
+and others shew. That the last king enjoyed them, the Pfauen-Insel is
+a charming proof. If any one wishes to find the lost fairy-land, he
+must steer his course along the Havell, through a wilderness of pine
+woods to the Pfauen-Insel, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>and there he will acknowledge that he
+has discovered it. Around amid hills shaggy with forests the Havell
+pours its deep and dark waters like an inland sea. The world is shut
+out by the bosky shores and deep pine woods of unknown regions, and
+in the embracing floods lies the most delicious region which a poet’s
+fancy could conjure up, or which nature and art, in mutual labour,
+can construct from the ordinary materials of the earth. Shores of
+softest green, most ravishing lawns, flowers of superbest dyes and in
+gorgeous masses, trees of stateliest growth and gracefullest beauty
+of pendant boughs, invite you ever to scenes where you may wander for
+hours, and every few moments encounter some new surprise. Here feudal
+towers rise above the flood, with heraldic banners flapping over the
+battlements; here stately barge and light shallop lie anchored in some
+lonely creek; here slope sunny uplands under scattered oaks, where the
+shepherd watches his flock. Here you come upon a noble conservatory,
+beautiful with the palms and dates and glorious blossoms of tropical
+regions, and aromatic with their odours. If you would have any illusion
+to persuade you, beyond the charms of nature and of summer, that you
+are in a region of enchantment, you have it. You hear the roar of the
+lion, the cry of the jackal, and the scream of birds unknown in these
+climates. You imagine that some scene in Tasso or Ariosto is about to
+be repeated, and find actually wild beasts of all sorts in different
+dens and cages in various parts of the island. Such were the amusements
+of a king here, after he had helped to bind the great wild beast of
+the age on the rocks<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> of St. Helena; and a more enchanting scene for a
+day’s excursion he could not have left for the pleasure of his subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the numerous royal palaces we must say a good word for the New
+Palace, as it is called, although it has been often and much abused. If
+not in the purest taste, it still possesses a certain grandeur in its
+enormous extent, and prodigality of colonnades, porticoes, and statues
+connected with it. It lies low, in the meadow below Potsdam, but has
+a fine solitude of woods and quaint gardens about it. It is itself a
+good and cheerful house, and contains many paintings of much merit and
+beauty. It has also a theatre, in which have recently been represented,
+before the court, some of the dramatic pieces of Tieck. If this palace
+were inhabited by the king, with a full and gay court, it would, with
+the necessary life and bustle about it, produce far from a despicable
+impression.</p>
+
+<p>Then there is, in the wood near, that little temple containing the
+second and most beautiful reposing figure of the late Queen by Rauch.
+We had heard this effigy much praised for its beauty; but the beauty
+is that of mind and heart. Representatives of far higher physical
+beauty we have often seen. The somewhat high cheek bones, the shape of
+the nose, and the general contour indeed of the countenance, depart
+from the pure ideal of personal beauty, but a still higher beauty
+distinguishes this charming statue. It is that perfect sweetness of
+disposition; that spirit baptized in heavenly affection; that wife-like
+devotion; that high and dauntless, and holy patriotism, dwelling in a
+meek and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> lowly nature, which made this excellent queen adored by the
+people when alive, and which glorify her image here in the cold stone.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from this palace is Charlottenhof, the beautiful little villa
+in the Herculaneum style built by the present king, when Crown-Prince,
+for himself. It is fitted up with a simplicity befitting a private
+gentleman, but with a classical purity of taste which makes all
+beautiful. But Sans Souci is the great attraction of the neighbourhood.
+It is a mere villa perched on a hill just above Potsdam, and surrounded
+by the most lovely views over the meadows and wild woody banks of
+the Havell. The hill on which it stands is crowned with gardens in
+successive terraces. As you approach through the fine meadows and
+beneath a noble avenue of trees, broad flights of steps, ascending from
+terrace to terrace up to the house, and the lower part of the house
+half concealed from view by the swell of the hill, give a very singular
+appearance to the whole. It seems as if the house was surrounded by a
+piazza, and that those flights of steps ascended to the top, instead
+of to the bottom of the building. As we ascended these long flights
+of steps, successive terraces of the garden shewed themselves right
+and left, with their vines and fig-trees loaded with fruit, and with
+quantities of golden gourds, each perfectly round, large enough to fill
+a wheelbarrow, lying about; and flowers, in richest autumnal hues,
+glowed around. Arrived on the summit, nothing can be conceived more
+delicious. The fine views over the lovely country; the gardens all
+below you; the space before the palace full of beds of gayest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> flowers,
+and orange trees standing everywhere in blossom, diffusing through
+the whole air their delicious aroma. Trees of splendid growth added
+their beauty to the spot; the mill of the sturdy old miller shewing
+itself amongst them; and from a circular colonnade, on the other side
+of the house, a brownish, wildish, burnt-up sort of a country, with
+wind-mills, and an artificial ruin of a Grecian temple on a woody hill
+opposite, constructed with better effect than such things generally
+are, presented a fit landscape for an old painter.</p>
+
+<p>Every part of this place abounds with recollections of the victorious
+old Fritz. At each end of the garden, in a green plot, are the graves
+of his horse and dogs, eleven in number, he having ordered himself to
+be laid there to complete the dozen; an order not complied with. In
+the house remain many memorials of him; ’mongst them the clock, which
+stopped exactly as he died, and his library, in which his own works are
+conspicuous. One volume of his poems stood open at this curious passage:</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div>Mais, quels sont ces cries d’ Alegresse!</div>
+        <div>Quels Chants! Quelles acclamations!</div>
+        <div>Les Français plein de son yvresse</div>
+        <div>Semble vainqueur des Nations.</div>
+        <div>Il l’ est; et voilà qui s’ avance</div>
+        <div>La Pompe du jeune Louis:</div>
+        <div>L’Anglais a perdu sa Balance,</div>
+        <div>L’Autricien, son insolence,</div>
+        <div>Et la Balave encore surpris</div>
+        <div>En grondant bénit La Clemence</div>
+        <div>De ce Héros, dont l’ indulgence——</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The wall of the room occupied here by Voltaire is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> painted all over
+monkeys and parrots. They tell you that Frederick, being desirous
+to have a portrait of the ugly old Frenchman, to which he would not
+consent, the king employed a painter to observe him by stealth from the
+next room whenever the door was opened, which Voltaire becoming aware
+of, clapped a screen before his table; and Frederick to mortify him,
+caused the whole of the walls of his room, the first opportunity, to be
+thus adorned with monkeys and parrots, as indicative of his person and
+loquacity. Poor Frederick paid dearly in his lifetime, in annoyance,
+for his propensity to French philosophy; and his country paid still
+more so for it after his death.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p>
+
+<h2>WHITEHALL PALACE<br>
+<span class="subhed">LEIGH HUNT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The whole district containing all that collection of streets and
+houses, which extends from Scotland Yard to Parliament Street, and
+from the river side, with its wharfs, to St. James’s Park, and which
+is still known by the general appellation of Whitehall, was formerly
+occupied by a sumptuous palace and its appurtenances, the only relics
+of which, perhaps the noblest specimen, is the beautiful edifice built
+by Inigo Jones, and retaining its old name of the Banqueting-House.</p>
+
+<p>As this palace was the abode of a series of English sovereigns,
+beginning with Henry the Eighth, who took it from Wolsey, and
+terminating with James the Second, on whose downfall it was destroyed
+by fire, we are now in the very thick of the air of royalty.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp190">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp190.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">WHITEHALL PALACE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The site of Whitehall was originally occupied by a mansion built by
+Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent and Chief Justice of England in the reign
+of Henry the Third, one of the ancestors of the present Marquess of
+Clanricarde. De Burgh bequeathed it to the brotherhood of the Black
+Friars, near “Oldborne,” in whose church he was buried; the Brotherhood
+sold it to Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, who left it to his
+successors in that see as the archiepiscopal residence, which procured
+it the name of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>York Place; and under that name, two centuries and a
+half afterwards, it became celebrated for the pomp and splendour of the
+“full-blown” priest, Wolsey, the magnificent butcher’s son. Wolsey, on
+highly probable evidence, is thought to have so improved and enlarged
+the mansion of his predecessors, as to have in a manner rebuilt it, and
+given it its first royalty of aspect: but, as we shall see by and by,
+it was not called Whitehall, nor occupied anything like the space it
+did afterwards, till its seizure by the Cardinal’s master.</p>
+
+<p>On the Cardinal’s downfall, Henry seized his house and goods, and
+converted York Place into a royal residence, under the title of
+Westminster Place, then, for the first time, called also Whitehall.</p>
+
+<p>“It is not impossible,” says Mr. Brayley (Londiniana Vol. II., p. 27),
+“that the Whitehall, properly so called, was erected by Wolsey, and
+obtained its name from the newness and freshness of its appearance,
+when compared with the ancient buildings of York Place. Shakespeare in
+his play of <i>King Henry VIII.</i>, makes one of the interlocutors
+say, in describing the coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn:—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="i6h">‘So she parted,</div>
+        <div>And with the same full state paced back again</div>
+        <div>To York Place, where the feast is held.’</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="p-left">To this is replied—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="i7h">‘Sir, you</div>
+        <div>Must no more call it York Place—that is past.</div>
+        <div>For since the Cardinal fell, that title’s lost.</div>
+        <div>’Tis now the King’s, and called Whitehall.’”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p>It was in Whitehall that Henry made his ill-assorted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> marriage with
+Anne Boleyn; Dr. Lingard says in a “garret”; Stowe says in the royal
+“closet.” It is likely enough that the ceremony was hurried and
+sudden;—a fit of will, perhaps, during his wine; and if the closet was
+not ready, the garret was. The clergyman who officiated was shortly
+afterwards made a bishop.</p>
+
+<p>Henry died in Whitehall; so fat, that he was lifted in and out his
+chamber and sitting-room by means of machinery.</p>
+
+<p>“He was “<i>somewhat</i> gross, or, as we tearme it, bourlie,” says
+time-serving Holinshed.</p>
+
+<p>He <i>laboured</i> under the burden of an extreme fit and unwieldy
+body,” says noble Herbert of Cherbury.</p>
+
+<p>It was under this Prince (as already noticed) that the palace of the
+Archbishop of York first became the “King’s Palace at Westminster,” and
+expanded into that mass of houses which stretched to St. James’s Park.
+He built a gate-house which stood across what is now the open street,
+and a gallery connecting the two places, and overlooking a tilt-yard;
+and on the park-side he built a cockpit, a tennis-court, and alleys
+for bowling; for although he put women to death, he was fond of manly
+sports. He was also a patron of the fine arts, and gave an annuity and
+rooms in the palace to the celebrated Holbein, who is said to have
+designed the gate, as well as decorated the interior.</p>
+
+<p>The reader is to bear in mind that the street in front of the
+modern Banqueting-House was always open, as it is now, from Charing
+Cross to King Street, narrowing opposite to the south end of the
+Banqueting-House, at which point the gate looked up it towards the
+Cross. Just opposite the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> Banqueting-House on the site of the present
+Horse-Guards, was the Tilt-yard. The whole mass of houses and gardens
+on the river side comprised the royal residence. Down this open street,
+then, just as people walk now, we may picture to ourselves Henry
+coming with his regal pomp, and Wolsey with his priestly; Sir Thomas
+More strolling thoughtfully, perhaps talking with quiet-faced Erasmus;
+Holbein, looking about him with an artist’s eyes; Surrey coming
+gallantly in his cloak and feather, as Holbein has painted him; and a
+succession of Henry’s wives, with their flitting groups on horseback or
+under canopy;—handsome, stately Catherine of Arragon; laughing Anne
+Boleyn; quiet Jane Seymour; gross-bodied but sensible Anne of Cleves;
+demure Catherine Howard, who played such pranks before marriage; and
+disputatious yet buxom Catherine Parr, who survived one tyrant to
+become the broken-hearted wife of a smaller one. Down this road, also
+came gallant companies of knights and squires, to the tilting-yard; but
+of them we shall have more to say in the time of Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>We see little of Edward the Sixth, and less of Lady Jane Grey and Queen
+Mary, in connection with Whitehall. Edward once held the Parliament
+there, on account of his sickly condition; and he used to hear Latimer
+preach in the Privy Garden (still so called), where a pulpit was
+erected for him on purpose. As there are gardens there still to the
+houses erected on the spot, one may stand by the rails, and fancy we
+hear the voice of the rustical but eloquent and honest prelate, rising
+through the trees.</p>
+
+<p>It was under Elizabeth that Whitehall shone out in all its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> romantic
+splendour. It was no longer the splendour of Wolsey alone, nor of Henry
+alone, or with a great name by his side now and then; but of a Queen,
+surrounded and worshipped through a long reign by a galaxy of the
+brightest minds and most chivalrous persons ever assembled in English
+history.</p>
+
+<p>Here she comes, turning the corner from the Strand, under a canopy of
+state, leaving the noisier, huzzaing multitude behind the barriers
+that mark the precincts of the palace, and bending her eyes hither
+and thither, in acknowledgment of the kneeling obeisances of the
+courtiers. Beside her are Cecil and Knolles, and Northampton, and
+Bacon’s father; or, later in life, Leicester, and Burleigh, and Sir
+Philip Sydney, and Greville, and Sir Francis Drake, (and Spenser is
+looking on); or, later still, Essex and Raleigh, and Bacon himself,
+and Southampton, Shakespeare’s friend, with Shakespeare among the
+spectators. We shall see her, by and by, at that period, as brought to
+life to us in the description of Hentzner the traveller. At present
+(as we have her at this moment in our eye) she is younger, of a large
+and tall, but well-made figure, with fine eyes, and finer hands, which
+she is fond of displaying. We are too apt to think of Elizabeth as
+thin and elderly, and patched up; but for a good period of her life
+she was plump and personable, warranting the history of the robust
+romps of the Lord Admiral, Seymour; and till her latter days (and even
+then, as far as her powers went), we are always to fancy her at once
+spirited and stately of carriage, impulsive (except on occasions of
+ordinary ceremony), and ready to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> manifest her emotions in look and
+voice, whether as woman or Queen; in a word, a sort of Henry the Eighth
+corrected by a female nature and a better understanding—or perhaps
+an Anne Boleyn, enlarged, and made less feminine by the father’s
+grossness. The Protestants have represented her as too staid, and
+the Catholics as too violent and sensual. According to the latter,
+Whitehall was a mere sink of iniquity. It was not likely to be so,
+for many reasons; but neither, on the other hand, do we take it to
+have been anything like the pattern of self-denial which some fond
+writers have supposed. Where there is power, and leisure, and luxury,
+though of the most legitimate kind, and refinement, though of the most
+intellectual, self-denial on the side of enjoyment is not apt to be
+the reigning philosophy; nor would it reasonably be looked for in any
+court, at all living in wealth and splendour.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine the sensations of Elizabeth, when she first set down in the
+palace at Whitehall, after escaping the perils of imputed illegitimacy,
+of confinement for party’s sake and for religion’s, and all the other
+terrors of her father’s reign and of Mary’s, danger of death itself not
+excepted. She was a young Queen of twenty-five years of age, healthy,
+sprightly, good-looking, with plenty of will, power, and imagination;
+and the gallantest spirits of the age were at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>The Court of James the First was a great falling off from that of
+Elizabeth, in point of decency. It was Sir Toby keeping house after the
+death of Olivia; or a fox-hunting squire succeeding to the estate of
+some courtly dame and mingling low life with high.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span></p>
+
+<p>We have seen court mummeries in the time of Henry the Eighth and
+pageants in that of Elizabeth. In the time of James, the masquings
+of the one, and the gorgeous shows of the other, combined to produce
+the Masque, in its latest and best acceptation; that is, a dramatic
+exhibition of some brief fable or allegory, uniting the most fanciful
+poetry and scenery, and generally heightened with a contrast of humour,
+or an anti-masque. Ben Jonson was their great poetical master in the
+court of James and Inigo Jones claimed to be their no less masterly
+and important setter-forth in scene and show. The poet and artist had
+a quarrel upon this issue, and Inigo’s’ memory suffers from divers
+biting libels in the works of his adversary. The noble Banqueting-House
+remains to show that the architect might have had some right to dispute
+pretensions, even with the author of the <i>Alchemist</i> and the
+<i>Sad Shepherd</i>; for it is a piece of the very music of his art
+(if we may so speak)—the harmony of proportion. Within these walls,
+as we now see them, rose, “like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,”
+the elegant lines of Ben Jonson, breathing court flowers,—the clouds
+and painted columns of Jones—and the fair faces, gorgeous dresses, and
+dances, of the beauties that dazzled the young eyesight of the Miltons
+and Wallers. Ben’s burly body would then break out, as it were, after
+his more refined soul, in some burlesque anti-masque, now and then not
+a little coarse; and the sovereign and the poet most probably concluded
+the night in the same manner, though not at the same table in filling
+their skins with wine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Court of Charles I. was decorum and virtue itself in comparison
+with that of James. Drunkenness disappeared; there were no scandalous
+favourites; Buckingham alone retained his ascendency as the friend and
+assistant; and the king manifested his notions of the royal dignity by
+a stately reserve. Little remained externally of the old Court but its
+splendour; and to this a new lustre was given by a taste for painting
+and the patronage of Rubens and Vandyke. Charles was a great collector
+of pictures. He was still fonder of poetry than his father, retained
+Ben Jonson as his laureate, encouraged Sandys, and May, and Carew, and
+was a fond reader of Spenser and Shakespeare. It was, upon the whole a
+grave and graceful court, not without an undercurrent of intrigue.</p>
+
+<p>It seems ridiculous to talk of the court of Oliver Cromwell, who had
+so many severe matters to attend to in order to keep himself on his
+throne; but he had a court, nevertheless; and however jealously it was
+watched by the most influential of his adherents, it grew more courtly
+as his protectorate advanced.</p>
+
+<p>But how shall we speak of the court of Charles II.? of that unblushing
+seminary for the misdirection of young ladies, which, occupying the
+ground now inhabited by all which is proper, rendered the mass of
+buildings by the water’s side, from Charing Cross to the Parliament,
+one vast—what are we to call it?—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="ileft">“Chi mi darà le voci e le parole</div>
+        <div>Convenienti a sì nobil soggetto?”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span></p>
+
+<p>Let Mr. Pepys explain. Let Clarendon explain. Let all the world
+explain, who equally reprobate the place and its master, and yet
+somehow are so willing to hear it reprobated, that they read endless
+accounts of it, old and new, from the not very bashful <i>exposé</i>
+of the Count de Grammont, down to the blushing deprecations of Mrs.
+Jameson.</p>
+
+<p>The Court of James II. is hardly worth mention. It lasted less
+than four years, and was as dull as himself. The most remarkable
+circumstance attending it was the sight of friars and confessors, and
+the brief restoration of Popery. Waller, too, was once seen there;
+the <i>fourth</i> court of his visiting. There was a poetess also,
+who appears to have been attached by regard as well as office to the
+Court of James—Anne Kingswill, better known by her subsequent title of
+Countess of Winchelsea. The attachment was most probably one of feeling
+only and good nature, for she had no bigotry of any sort. Dryden,
+furthermore, was laureate to King James; and in a fit of politic,
+perhaps real, regret, turned round upon the late court in his famous
+comparison of it with its predecessor.</p>
+
+<p>James fled from England in December, 1688, and the history of Whitehall
+terminates with its conflagration ten years afterwards.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG<br>
+<span class="subhed">HORACE MARRYAT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The walks in the neighbourhood of Elsinore are charming, particularly
+that along the Strandrei, by the shore of the Sound—a succession of
+country houses and fishing villages, and well-kept gardens bright with
+flowers: they have a well-to-do prosperous air, as everything has in
+Denmark. An hour’s walk brings you to a maisonette called Dahlsborg,
+beyond which you turn to enter the forest of Egebæksvang, a favourite
+summer drive of the Elsinorians.</p>
+
+<p>A ten minutes’ walk, avoiding all dusty roads across the common or
+waste land which runs down to the seashore—in England it would
+have been the paradise of geese, cricketers and donkeys, but
+here it is deserted, except by the sharpshooters, who keep up a
+cross-fire, practising their targets from eight o’clock till six of an
+evening—brings us to the Castle of Kronborg.</p>
+
+<p>The road lies between two dirty stagnant ponds, dignified by the
+appellation of Holger Dansk’s Spectacles: if they fitted his face,
+he must have had one eye considerably larger than the other. Instead
+of snoring away his time within the dungeons of Kronborg—his beard
+growing into the marble table—he had far better employ his leisure
+moments in cleaning out and sweetening his “brille”; but he only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>
+appears, they say, when Mr. Sorensen (the Danish John Bull or Brother
+Jonathan) really requires his services. Effectual drainage and sanitary
+reforms are sadly behind-hand, and looked upon as new-fangled vagaries
+by the inhabitants of the island of Zealand.</p>
+
+<p>If in your early youth you have devoured the <i>Fabliaux et Contes</i>,
+<i>King Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table</i>, and other
+legends of old Romaunce, you will recognize in Holger Dansk,<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> or
+rather Augier le Danois, an old and favourite acquaintance. Some few
+years since I brushed him up when I visited the ruins of <i>La Joyeuse
+Garde</i> and the classic sands of Avalon, on the coast of Brittany.
+The French romancers assert him to be still confined at Avalon,
+together with King Arthur, held in durance vile by the enchantments of
+the fay Morgana. Occasionally she removes from his brow the Lethæan
+crown, when his services are required to fight against the Paynim for
+the good and welfare of Christendom.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp199">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp199.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG, DENMARK.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Morgana, she of the Fata, was own sister to our good King Arthur. With
+other mighty fairies, she assisted at the birth of Holger the Dane;
+later she loved him. Seduced by her blandishments, he espoused her:
+no good ever comes of marrying an old woman, be she mortal or fairy.
+Holger the Dane slumbers in the dungeons of Kronborg, not at Avalon,
+as the French would have it, no more than King <span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>Arthur, who we all
+know received Christian burial at Glastonbury; but French romancers
+do tell such wicked stories. Endless are the traditions, numerous the
+ballads, of the exploits of this the favourite hero of Danish story:
+when invoked, after much pressing, and, I must own it, exacting first
+the promise of “a good dinner and plenty to drink,” he has frequently
+come to the assistance of fair maidens in their trouble and distress,
+and fought their battles with his enchanted sword, mounted on his good
+steed, “Papillon.” Morgana, the fay, has never deserted entirely the
+country of her beloved: she still sports and exercises her witcheries
+to favoured mortals, when least expected, among the barren heaths and
+wide-spreading moors of the ancient provinces of Jutland.</p>
+
+<p>I have no intention, however, of visiting his prison down below: the
+wind is cast, my limbs are rheumatic—let younger people be more
+adventurous. But we pass the drawbridge and enter the second gate
+of the castle. Verses in the Danish tongue by the Scotchman, Bishop
+Kingo, and the more illustrious pen of Tycho Brahe, adorn the portals
+and celebrate the erection of the buildings. There is one thing sure
+in this world—monarchs never allowed their good works to be hid
+in secret: on every side you see inscriptions, in letters of gold,
+announcing how Christian V. restored this, and Frederic IV. whitewashed
+that. But I must give you some account of the history of the castle.</p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt but, from the earliest period of history, a castle of
+some kind, built for the protection of the Sound, existed on the site
+or near where the Kronborg now stands.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> In the year 1238 the preceding
+fortress of Flynderborg—situated at the other end of the town, near
+the Strandvei, named after the flounders, of which quantities are
+taken in front of the batteries—was in a state of excellent repair.
+This fortress being found unsuited to the exigencies of the times,
+King Frederic II. determined to rebuild it on a scale of unprecedented
+grandeur: the whole of the expenses were to be discharged from his
+privy purse, and the building was to cost his subjects “not one penny.”
+This was more easy of execution to Frederic, first crowned Protestant
+sovereign of Denmark, than it would have proved to later monarchs. He
+had made a good haul of suppressed monasteries, church lands, plate,
+and treasure—was flush of money, and did not mind spending it. The
+existing castle was then commenced in the year 1577, and completed in
+the course of nine years. Bishop Kingo and Tycho Brahe both sung its
+praises, and the talents of Rubens were called into play—somewhat
+later I imagine—for the decoration of the chapel. The castle is
+strongly fortified with double-bastion, moat, and rampart, after the
+manner of preceding ages.</p>
+
+<p>Kronborg possesses one great advantage over the other Danish buildings
+of the Sixteenth Century: it is built of fine sandstone, the only
+specimen in the kingdom. Though quadrangular and four-towered, it
+is relieved from all appearance of formality by the quaint onion
+pagoda-like minarets by which its towers are surmounted. The lofty
+clock turret<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> too, rising from the centre, higher than those<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> which
+flank the corners, adds to the dignity of the building. Few castles in
+the space of three hundred years have suffered so little from modern
+additions and improvement: one tower has unfortunately been destroyed.
+In an old engraving from Puffendorf of 1688, I see the original had
+already been altered: it was an eyesore, but, in accordance with the
+style of the remainder, capped and ornamented. It, however, fell into
+decay during the reign of Frederic VI., at that unfortunate epoch
+when taste was bad taste, and art atrocity: it was repaired—square
+and hideous—a fearful monument of the age. Formerly it served as a
+telegraph, now as a powder magazine; and unless it be blown up, or
+the powder becomes damp, will, I fear, remain untouched. You enter
+the interior court through a richly ornamented gateway, guarded by
+statues and overhung by a beautiful oriel window, enriched with the
+arms and ciphers of the founder. Opposite to you stands the chapel
+(the works of Rubens have long since disappeared); the fittings of
+the time of Christian IV. have been lately restored, but not too
+carefully. It is curious to trace, as you can by the turret to the
+right of the clock, the gradual transition from the Gothic to the
+Renaissance. The whole of the ornaments<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> are of the latter period; but
+there is still occasionally a sort of feeling as if the architect was
+not quite decided in his views: whether he was or not, Kronborg is
+one of the most perfect specimens of its era—unspoiled, untouched,
+and unrepaired—to be met with in Europe. It has long ceased to be
+occupied as a royal residence. One side is alone retained for the use
+of His Majesty; the rest is occupied by the General Commandant, the
+officers, and the garrison. Above the entrance of the clock-tower,
+surmounting the ornaments, appears the head of a huge mastiff, holding
+in his fore-paws a heart-like shield, with the cipher of Frederic II.,
+and below the favourite device of the King, “T. I. W. B., <i>Treu ist
+Wiltbratt</i>.” The same Wildbratt, whose portrait is above, was the
+favourite of King Frederic, and bit everybody save his royal master.
+Over the other door appears the device of his good queen—good Queen
+Sophia of Mecklenburg—“<i>Meine Hoffnung zu Gott allein</i>” (My hope
+is in God alone). Within the dungeon of the corner tower, that of
+the restoration—adjoining the wine-cellars of Christian IV., where
+a jolly fat tun carved in stone above the entrance leaves no doubt
+of its identity—was situated the torture-chamber in days gone by:
+none of your papistical virgins, who enticed you to their arms, and
+larded like a fricandeau, then stuck you brimful of pen-knives, but
+good wholesome Protestant thumbscrews, boots, and wooden horses, and
+scavengers’ daughters, such as Queen Bess of glorious memory, and
+our earlier Tudor sovereigns, to say nothing of later Stuarts loved
+to employ on their rebellious subjects who refused to convict their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>
+masters, rightfully or wrongfully, and bring them to the block—and
+very persuasive implements they were, I doubt not. In the centre of
+the court once stood a fountain, tossing the water high in the air:
+judging from the old engravings, it must have been very ornamental.
+Some thirty or forty iron hooks, fastened into the wall, remain, once
+the larder of King Frederic, hung, when game abounded, with deer, hare,
+and capercailzie—like Bolton Abbey in the olden time—a pretty scene,
+only too near the torture-chamber. After the peace of 1659, when Skaane
+was lost to Denmark forever, the windows of Kronborg Castle, which
+commanded a view of the Swedish coast, were walled up, to exclude a
+sight which caused so many heart-burnings.</p>
+
+<p>In 1588 was celebrated in the Castle of Kronborg the marriage by
+procuration of King James VI. of Scotland with Anne, daughter of King
+Frederic II. of Denmark. Anne was then in her fifteenth year. Marshal
+Earl Keith acted as proxy. This marriage settled the vexed question of
+the Orkney and Shetland Islands, pawned to Scotland when the Princess
+Margaret married King James III. Christian III. meditated an expedition
+against Mary of Guise, then Regent of Scotland, for their recovery
+and later offered to repay the 50,000 florins for which they had been
+pawned; but Dantzay, by order of Catherine de’Medici, put a spoke
+into the arrangement, and they were never redeemed. We all know the
+history of King James’s adventures, and how the real marriage took
+place at Agershuus, in Norway. The royal couple then visited Denmark
+and passed a month in the Castle of Kronborg, where they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> assisted
+at the nuptials, 19th April, 1590, of the queen’s elder sister, the
+Princess Elizabeth, with Henry Duke of Brunswick. Which were the
+apartments occupied by King James and his bride during his residence
+no one can say—the interior of the building has been much altered
+since that period, the stories divided for the occupation of the
+garrison—but in all probability it was the suite called the apartments
+of Christian IV., now set apart for his present Majesty. They are not
+remarkable for their size, but contain fine chimney-pieces, with the
+cipher of the sovereign, and the doorways are ornamented with marble
+and richly-carved ebony. Tales are still current in Elsinore of the
+drinking-bouts held by King James and his brother-in-law, Prince
+Christian in the halls of Kronborg—how they fell intoxicated under the
+table, rolled into the ditch, etc.</p>
+
+<p>On the exterior of the castle, called Frederic III.’s battery, under
+the windows of the upper story, runs a cornice richly ornamented in the
+style of the earlier part of the Seventeenth Century, in the divisions
+of which are represented medallion portraits of certain personages of
+the royal family of Denmark. Among them that of King James himself,
+with his peaked beard side by side with the full features of his
+consort Queen Anne: in the divisions of each side are sculptured two
+Tudor roses, and in the ornamentation of the cornice is constantly
+introduced the portcullis of the same family. The date of this cornice
+is unknown; but it was in all probability put up to commemorate the
+nuptials of the King of Scots with the Princess Anne of Denmark.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span></p>
+
+<p>Luckily for James was it that the embassy of Lord Willoughby to
+Kronborg took place some few years before his marriage, and that this
+Scottish assumption of the English badge came not to the ears of the
+Virgin Queen. Tudor he was in all right by his ancestress Margaret, in
+the female line, and nearest heir to the English throne; but Elizabeth,
+when the succession was mooted, brooked no child’s-play. How she would
+have stormed had she known it, and sent a fleet perchance to intercept
+the return of James to his dominions! and the youthful Anne might
+have found a prison in Fotheringay, and a jailer in that exceedingly
+unpleasant individual Sir Amyas Paulet. Such are the souvenirs of King
+James I have met with in the chronicles of Kronborg.</p>
+
+<p>One day, when on an excursion to the back slums of the town of
+Elsinore, I came on a small narrow lane, dignified with the
+appellation—in honour, I suppose, of the royal marriage—of Anna Queen
+Street.</p>
+
+<p>Having finished with pompous pageants and royal nuptials, we come to
+a sadder period of Kronborg story. Scotland still mourns the fate,
+and proclaims the innocence of Mary Stuart, the murdered Queen;
+had she not been a Papist, England—yes, intolerant England—would
+have long since done her justice. France, who, in the last century,
+vented her venom, her calumny, against the Autrichienne, now exalts
+the memory of Marie Antoinette to that of a saint and martyr. So, in
+Denmark, all voices proclaim together the innocence, and deplore the
+fate, of the youthful Queen of Christian VII., our English princess
+Caroline<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span> Matilda. Here in Kronborg she was confined a prisoner, torn
+from her palace in Copenhagen, half-dressed, in the middle of the
+night, expecting daily to suffer the fate of Struensee and Brandt,
+until the arrival of a fleet from England effected her liberation.
+Accompanied by the Commandant one morning (General Lunding, the hero
+of Fredericia—military men will tell you all about it), I visited the
+apartments in which she was confined on her arrival—two small rooms on
+the ground-floor, one overshadowed by the bastion, the other looking on
+the courtyard of the castle. Later, I believe, the Commandant placed
+his own apartment at her disposal; and in the small octagon closet of
+the lighthouse turret, which terminates the apartments of Christian
+IV., it is related how the captive queen passed hours and days with
+anxious brow and straining eye, gazing at the waters of the Sound, in
+momentary expectation of the appearance of the fleet from England, she
+having received some secret tidings of its coming. No relics of her
+incarceration here remain: the ancient furniture of the palace was
+unluckily removed, destroyed, and neglected in Frederic VI.’s reign. He
+detested Kronborg, and never visited Elsinore; these recollections of
+his mother’s imprisonment were odious to him, and the royal apartments
+fell into decay.</p>
+
+<p>The ramparts of Kronborg are charming: before them the fishers
+everlastingly ply their trade—flounders, and a fish called
+“green-bone,” a horn-fish, are their prey. Had Shakespeare searched the
+world round he never could have selected so fitting a locality for the
+ghost-scene. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> can see the ghost myself—pale moon, clouds flitting
+o’er her, frowning castle, and the space necessary to follow him; but
+the romance of Kronborg is over; her bastions are redolent with deep
+purple violets, and the roseate buds of a statice—Krigskarl, or the
+Warrior, they here call it—which looks as if it should be something
+better, but will, I dare say, turn out common thrift after all. When
+the fishing-boats return at sunset, a little girl runs down to the
+shore side, and waits; as they pass by, a small flounder is thrown to
+her from each boat; she gathers them up in her apron, and then returns
+to the castle.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE<br>
+<span class="subhed">JULES LOISELEUR</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Those whose natures are sufficiently artistic to seek that intimate
+and sympathetic accord that exists between human monuments and their
+natural surroundings will do well to visit Chaumont on a fine summer’s
+day under the rays of a scorching sun. Those strong towers built
+to withstand a siege, and those towers still so white after four
+centuries, should stand out strongly against the deep blue of a July
+sky in order to produce their full effect. Then that gleaming mount
+from which the ancient castle took its name, those great trees that
+frame it, and that lazy stream sleeping at its feet attain their full
+value. There is no discordant tone, nor any noise of man or beast, to
+disturb the majestic unity of this beautiful spectacle.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp210">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp210.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">CHÂTEAU SUR LOIRE, FRANCE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Seated on the opposite bank, on that embankment of the Loire that
+goes back to the time of Louis le Débonnaire, at one glance the
+traveller sees a picture that would enchant a painter, from the Loire
+that ripples at his feet, the white houses of the little village of
+Chaumont extending like a boa at the foot of the castle, pressed in as
+it is between the hill and the river, and the stone stairway which by
+a hundred and sixty steps ascends the side of the hill that broadens
+towards its summit to give room for the little church of the bourg as
+well as for the giant elm planted by <span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>Catherine de’Medici, to the
+castle terrace hanging two hundred feet above the gorge, the carved
+buttresses of the chapel in which George Amboise dreamed of the papacy,
+and the vanes of the tower from which the widow of Henry II. questioned
+the stars. At this noon-day hour when all nature is silent, the sun
+that turns the sands of the stream into beds of gold, and picks out
+ruby aigrettes in the rose windows of the chapel, casts the silhouettes
+of pilasters that support it on the wall of the gallery that terminates
+the courtyard of the castle, giving an infinite charm to the semi-gloom
+of that gallery and to the beneficently shaded steps that must be
+mounted to arrive there.</p>
+
+<p>Those who love to arrange effects and not include an entire monument
+in a single glance but allow it time to some extent to present itself
+to the view and successively reveal the various features of its
+physiognomy, will do well to avoid the rude stone stairway cut in the
+rock and rather take the verdurous avenue that leaves the road and
+leads by a lessened though still steep slope to the platform on which
+the castle stands. By this means, they will see it rise progressively
+through the openings of a clump of ancient elms called the Queen’s Mall.</p>
+
+<p>Approached on this side, Chaumont presents itself at an angle and
+spreads out in the form of a fan. At the extremity of each of the two
+ribs of this fan rises a great tower, and the bottom of the fan which
+is cant-shaped is guarded by two somewhat smaller towers between which
+is the main entrance.</p>
+
+<p>From this disposition, it results that from the angle occupied<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> by this
+gateway the visitor may include the four towers of the castle in one
+field of vision: to the left is the Amboise tower, which is the highest
+and the best preserved; to the right is that of Catherine de’Medici,
+with its battlements still imprinted with cabalistic signs; and in
+front are the two towers of the gateway. On these towers and on the
+walls that connect them, about one-third of the way up, is a belt of
+carving alternately framing a mountain with flames issuing from its top
+and two C’s back to back, ϽC. These carvings present a
+somewhat curious archæological puzzle.</p>
+
+<p>The outer moat, at the present day largely filled up and replaced by a
+flowery sward, somewhat relieves the heavy character of the drawbridge
+that defends the entrance to the castle. We must halt upon this
+drawbridge to examine the details of the thick oaken door, on which are
+carved the Twelve Apostles, and the stone medallion that decorates the
+archway. This medallion, which has recently been restored, offers a
+remarkable exception to the rule generally followed in the Fourteenth
+and Fifteenth Century, when it was customary to carve above the
+principal gateway the arms of the family to whom the castle belonged,
+and sometimes the statue of its founder. Here, framed by delicate
+ornamentation, we see the initials of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany,
+his second wife: the L on a ground sewn with <i>fleurs de lis</i> and
+the A among the arms of Brittany. On a level with this medallion, arms
+are incrusted on the towers guarding the gateway: on that on the right
+are the arms of Georges d’Amboise surmounted by the cardinal’s hat; on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>
+the tower on the left are those of his nephew, Charles of Chaumont,
+Admiral and Grand Master of France. It is doubtless the latter to whom
+all these sculptures should be attributed. It is presumable that on his
+return from Nantes, where he had just espoused the widow of Charles
+VIII., Louis XII. stopped at Chaumont in company with his new wife and
+his minister, and that the Maréchal de Chaumont, to do honour to his
+uncle and the royal pair, had this medallion and these arms carved on
+the gateway and towers, and therefore they date from the year 1499.</p>
+
+<p>We pass the drawbridge and the gate, leaving on our left a painted
+gallery full of luminous shadow, and find ourselves in a vast
+quadrilateral court of honour surrounded on three sides by bodies of
+buildings and having the fourth open on immensity. Like the others,
+this fourth side was once enclosed by buildings and flanked by two
+towers commanding the Loire. These constructions were razed four
+hundred years ago by a counsellor of the Parliament of Paris, named
+Bertin de Vaugien, who at that time was the owner of the Castle. This
+man did an intelligent thing in this, but probably without suspecting
+it: by chance it happened that vandalism had good taste for once.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning on the iron railing that has taken the place of this fourth
+body of buildings, the visitor gazes over an immense horizon line and
+a landscape “made for the delight of the eyes.” In the foreground are
+terraces thick with flowers; a little lower down, through the stunted
+trees that have thrust themselves through the clefts in the rock, peep
+the sharp and symmetrical roofs of the little village of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> Chaumont;
+behind this village is the Loire; behind the Loire stands the hamlet of
+Escures; farther away is the railroad, the black and wearisome lines of
+which lengthen out on their gravel bed; in the background appear the
+church of the large town of Onzain and the ruins of the old castle in
+which Voltaire wrote <i>La Pucelle</i>. There is no monument, however
+fairy-like it might be imagined, that would not be crushed by such a
+frame. Therefore Chaumont suffers by being viewed close at hand, from
+the height of this magic balcony whence the work of divinity reveals
+itself with a splendour that effaces the finest conceptions of man.</p>
+
+<p>The great hall that comes after the anteroom contains nothing
+remarkable but a long chest of carved wood set against the wall, and a
+niche around which are reproduced the names or arms of all the lords of
+Chaumont from Eudes I., Count of Blois, who lived at the close of the
+Tenth Century and who consequently had no arms, to Vincent Walsh, whose
+arms are three lance-heads.</p>
+
+<p>A curtain over a door is raised and we are in the bedchamber of
+Catherine de’Medici. Here the work of restoration is happy and
+sufficiently complete. Here is the bed of the ambitious Florentine, a
+bed with torso columns the carved top of which supports a royal crown.
+On one side is the Queen’s <i>prie-dieu</i> with her Hours open; on the
+other is her toilette-table with her opiate boxes; the whole is framed
+in tapestries of high gloss which give to this chamber the sombre and
+somewhat sinister character that befits it. These curious tapestries
+were certainly made for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> Chaumont, since we see the Castle reproduced
+in one of their panels. We suppose that they date back to Charles
+d’Amboise who rebuilt Chaumont towards the end of the reign of Louis
+XI., or at least to his son, Marshal Chaumont, the friend and companion
+of Louis XII.</p>
+
+<p>Catherine was in possession of Chaumont for nine years, from 1550 to
+1559, that is to say, during almost the entire reign of her husband.
+This was the difficult and humiliating period of her life; that of her
+struggle with the Constable Montmorency and Diana of Poitiers. The
+curious <i>bahut</i> that is admired in this chamber must have had many
+state secrets concealed in its innumerable drawers, including many
+plots, baffled or prepared, and many formidable projects. This chamber,
+in which Catherine nursed her troubles as a queen and an outraged
+woman, possessed one great advantage for her. She had at hand her two
+guides, her two customary consolations,—Astrology and Religion. By
+that door she could penetrate into the tower where she cast horoscopes
+in company with Ruggieri; by the other one she could enter directly
+into the chapel.</p>
+
+<p>This pretty chapel forms a striking contrast with its neighbouring
+tower. Just in proportion as the chamber in the tower is deaf, cold and
+dumb, and admits a sinister light by its single window, pierced in a
+wall of more than three metres’ thickness, to the same degree is the
+chapel elegant, coquettish and smiling. Windows of bold contours pour a
+flood of rosy light upon the choir, tiled with white faïence sewn with
+blue crosses, producing a charming effect. Pretty bas-reliefs in oak
+upon a gold background form the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> base of the altar. A tall and fine oak
+chair, carved and emblazoned, which is said to have belonged to Georges
+d’Amboise, stands beside the sanctuary. A red cardinal’s hat, attached
+to the vault, hangs above this arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p>This chapel terminates the edifice most happily. The apartments that
+precede it have seen many masters pass through; they recall many
+perfidies, struggles, and illustrious and unfortunate existences.
+After all this tumult of glorious or withered memories, our mind, like
+our eyes, finds grateful repose in the smiling and calm sanctuary. It
+reaches God by an insensible and natural law of contrast as the sole
+master who has not changed in this abode, the sole guest who has never
+left behind him anything but good memories and consolation.</p>
+
+<p>The Castle of Chaumont, as it has come down to us, is a building of the
+Fifteenth Century. It was erected by Charles Amboise on the ruins of a
+more ancient fortress razed by order of Louis XI. and which itself had
+been built about 1159 on the remains of a strong castle destroyed by
+Thibault V., Count of Blois and Champagne. The first and most ancient
+of these constructions had been built about 908 by Eudes I., Count of
+Blois, the eldest son of the celebrated Thibault the Trickster.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span></p>
+
+<h2>WINDSOR CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">THE MARQUIS OF LORNE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">From out the dimness of England’s ancient story, Windsor and
+Winchester, and Camelot and Caerleon are raised aloft, lit with the
+light of the romance of Arthur. Warwick, Dover, and Belvoir, and
+Alnwick and Conway and Caernarvon, the tower of London and again
+Windsor, rise from the times of the Norman dominion. Edinburgh,
+Kenilworth, Penshurst, and Naworth; Carisbrooke, and again Windsor,
+remain in our sight to recall most forcibly the period when “our loyal
+passion for our temperate kings” began to make these castle-landmarks
+of our story scarcer in the land.</p>
+
+<p>Through all the long review of points of time that challenge
+observation, Windsor stands the most enduring and the most majestic of
+the places around which gather the memories of all ages of England’s
+greatness.</p>
+
+<p>In the valley of England’s famous river the Normans built two strong
+towers, that of London and that of Windsor. This stream nursed the
+cradle of Norman power, and saw the renewed birth of English liberty,
+when the stranger-barons, whose fathers subdued England, wrung from
+their king the great charter of the rights of the subject.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span></p>
+
+<p>No wonder William found the hill a good place, for there is no fairer
+view in England. That from Richmond is not so extensive; and at Windsor
+he possessed besides, a grand forest country for his sports. His men
+could put off their chain-mail and pointed helmets with the straight
+face-guards, and give chase to the red deer, which then abounded all
+over the country, the hunters having no metal about them except the
+sharp, plain Norman spur on their heels, and the iron on the tips of
+their arrows.</p>
+
+<p>Now the distant smoke of the mightiest city in the world can be
+descried on the horizon. In those days so rarely was smoke visible,
+that signals were transmitted by kindling fires at market-places,
+and the clear air knew not the fumes that make the white river-fogs
+dark-yellow in colour, and stifling to breathe. The chequered
+appearance of the nearer landscape, divided by hedgerow and field to
+the north and east, is modern; but to the south and west the woods of
+oak must present much their appearance of the olden days. No engineer
+has altered the river, or been able even to abate its occasional winter
+floods, which turn the banks above Windsor into a shallow lake. The
+further landscape is still what it was. It is still a wooded land.
+There are no sterile patches, no ugly intervals, no naked tracts of
+sand or earth. All is green, and better than in the early days in
+this—that the cheerfulness of peace is on it, and the “stately homes”
+are more frequent, and the villages need no rampart, but expand in
+security, and, it must be added, often with a system of architecture to
+which distance alone can lend enchantment.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp217">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp217.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">WINDSOR CASTLE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Castle was very strong. These keeps were built so that there was
+no chance of a surprise. Massive gates placed in security beyond deep
+ditches were let into the walls, well defended by battlement and
+flanking towers. Drawbridges and portcullises might be forced, but
+there the enemy only found himself at the beginning of his work.</p>
+
+<p>Narrow passages led to other defences, and the keep itself was reached
+by a stair so narrow that one man only could enter at a time.</p>
+
+<p>The walls of the lowest story showed only tiny shot- or loopholes. The
+second story showed more of these, but so narrow that no torch could be
+thrown in. The third story had windows so high in the wall that arrows
+or bolts shot from below could only hit the arch of the opening, to
+fall back harmless.</p>
+
+<p>The top stories were filled with weapons that could throw darts,
+stones, and heavy balls, so assailants could not easily take a Norman
+keep.</p>
+
+<p>The Normans had taste as well as strength, and gradually the whole
+neighbourhood was made more beautiful. During reign after reign the
+kings showered favours on their finest possession.</p>
+
+<p>Around the Keep arose a Central Ward—that is the space outside was
+enclosed with towers and walls and gardens. Then lower down the ridge
+another king built a church, and beyond it again other great towers, as
+the town arose, under the Castle’s shelter and protection. This part
+was again flanked and made strong, and called the Lower<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span> Ward. The
+church was dedicated first to St. Edmond, and then to St. George.</p>
+
+<p>But on the other side of the Keep the monarchs built themselves
+something in the way of lodging far better than the small rooms of
+the Keep, for a wide range of palace apartments existed there before
+even the days of the Tudors. These were extended and improved from the
+days of Queen Elizabeth to the days of Queen Victoria. These buildings
+formed the Upper Ward.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of this mass of buildings, dominated by the Round Tower, is
+very fine, and no better example exists of the feudal fortress. Whether
+seen from the river, with the red-roofed houses of the town clustered
+below the great white walls, or from the park, where Windsor rises like
+an enchanted castle above the wide greensward, which is varied with the
+groves of ancient oak and beech, there is nothing to compare with it.</p>
+
+<p>All who speak the English tongue may be equally proud of the palace
+strength of their great forefathers.</p>
+
+<p>Chambers built over castle gateways were often used as prisons for
+those whose lot was not to be made too hard. For the unfortunates who
+were to be severely dealt with, a far more horrible prison was provided
+in the shape of a dungeon with a narrow orifice above, through which
+the victim was let down with cords into a vault, having often no
+windows. Places like this must have soon become foul and fatal to the
+captives.</p>
+
+<p>At Windsor there is a very fair prison above the gateway, through which
+you must pass before entering the great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> stair that climbs the mound
+of the Keep. Although the windows are narrow they give light enough,
+and on the walls are the names of the men who here, in their durance
+vile, amused themselves by writing their name or making their mark by
+scratches on the stone. Sometimes they added a little tracing of their
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>These small rooms are among the few which remain exactly as they
+existed in the Middle Ages. In other apartments there has been much
+alteration. Most of the ceilings of Verrio are gone, the ancient
+tapestries have been removed, the heavy ornamentation of the times of
+the Georges, and almost all the still ponderous yet better decorations
+of Jacobean times, have disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>But the towers which held celebrated prisoners of State are yet
+pointed out. The two most notable are just under the hill on which
+the great round Keep is built. One of these has been raised high, and
+a very narrow stair communicates with each of its little rooms. Here
+King John of France had many a long hour in which to repent of his
+bad generalship at Poitiers, where the young Black Prince took him
+prisoner. Here he was brought after that ride through the streets of
+London, which must have been to him so humiliating, although he was
+shown much courtesy by his captor.</p>
+
+<p>It was the opposite tower across the Upper Ward, with better
+accommodations that Henry V. of England assigned to the use of the
+young King of Scotland, who had been illegally captured during a time
+of truce. Young James of Scotland’s uncle, the old Duke of Albany,
+was not supposed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> to be particularly sorry to have his sovereign and
+nephew kept in England, for it gave Albany all power in Scotland. So
+at Windsor James remained for nearly twenty years, becoming expert in
+literature and in knightly exercises.</p>
+
+<p>The English were kind to him, and it was from this building of his
+captivity, now called Edward the Third’s Tower, that he saw his future
+Queen, a daughter of the House of Beaufort, walking in the garden at
+the base of the Keep.</p>
+
+<p>His long residence in England was beneficial to James in many ways,
+and when he was at last allowed to return to his northern kingdom,
+he entered it the most accomplished knight of his time. He was much
+beloved by the English, with whom he managed, when on the throne, to
+keep on fair terms. His reign was illustrious, and worthy of a better
+close than that of the tragic assassination by which it was ended.</p>
+
+<p>We need not think of all the terrible things that have happened at
+Windsor Castle—of prisoners dying by inches in dark dungeons; of men
+mutilated for treason, like the Earl of Eu; of the rare attacks the
+Castle has been called to endure; of the ruin wrought in glorious
+chapel and halls by Cromwell’s soldiery. For Windsor has chiefly been
+associated with the brighter and more cheery events of the national
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Here, more often than in any other royal home, were the joy-bells rung
+for the births and marriages of our princes; although here, too, the
+funeral knell has also been often<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> heard; for it is the tomb, as it is
+the dwelling-place, of the monarchs of England.</p>
+
+<p>The most daring and most romantic of the Constables of the Round Tower,
+the fiery Prince Rupert, made his rooms beautiful with pictures, with
+tapestry, and with ornament. At once an artist and a warrior, such as
+few countries have produced, he lived to see the palace a prey to the
+spoiler.</p>
+
+<p>Earlier as well as later days are recalled by the buildings below,
+which are now devoted to the library. They overlook the Thames and
+England’s great school of Eton. From their windows one gazes across
+the river far below, on the roofs and towers of the college founded by
+Henry VI.</p>
+
+<p>Between the groups of houses and the thickly-scattered trees one may
+catch glimpses of bands of boys in the distance playing football or
+cricket, or rowing on the Thames. The poet Gray, looking on the same
+cheerful scene, wrote gloomily, “Alas! regardless of their doom, the
+little victims play.” Well, they are fortunate victims, and the men who
+have been at school there would gladly live over again the years they
+spent at Eton.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this part of the Castle that Queen Elizabeth lived and moved
+and had her imperious being. It was in a little chamber in a turret
+here that Queen Anne received the despatch from Marlborough wishing her
+joy on the victory of Blenheim. He wrote on a scrap of paper from the
+field, “Your Majesty’s troops have had a great victory, and Marshall
+Tallard is in my coach.” He had, with Prince Eugene, achieved one of
+the most fruitful successes of that reign of victories.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span></p>
+
+<p>The old look of a fortress has given way to that of the palace, fearing
+no foeman; and long may this be so! But the Castle could be made strong
+against everything save long-range artillery. The walls could contain
+a large force, and its underground apartments have the solidity of
+bomb-proof. Sentries pace its ramparts, and a regiment of guards is
+also at hand.</p>
+
+<p>Nor is it dependent for water on river or outside supply. Not long ago
+a room in the Round Tower was complained of as always cold. The floor
+was taken up, and there lay a vast circular stone with great iron
+rings. By these it was lifted, and a deep, carefully-constructed Norman
+well was discovered, going down to the level of the Thames itself.</p>
+
+<p>The interior of the group of rooms extending from the north side of
+the Norman Gate to the angle at which the red-coated porters await
+visitors, now devoted to a fine library, is not always shown. But
+for those who have leave, a most interesting collection of medals,
+illuminated manuscripts, ancient buildings, and Oriental miniatures,
+is displayed. Handsome Elizabethan chimney-pieces, on one of which the
+great Queen herself is represented, warm the north wall. The windows
+on the other, embayed in presses full of well-arranged literature,
+look out towards that far-off church, the spire of which is easily
+recognised through glass, where Gray wrote his immortal <i>Elegy</i>.
+One little room is that in which Queen Anne was sitting when
+Marlborough’s despatch announcing the victory of Blenheim was brought
+to her.</p>
+
+<p>Where the library ends is the first of a set of splendid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span> apartments,
+used only by the public and the greatest sovereigns. Paintings by
+Zuccarelli, who, at his best, is always most pleasing, are hung over
+cabinets containing very beautiful porcelain. Onwards, on the north
+side, room after room can be most profitably examined, for the pictures
+are of particular interest, either on account of their history or their
+art. Formerly the Sovereign’s family lived in this part of the Castle.
+Now they live on the southern side of the Upper Ward, where dwelt in
+other days the great officers of state.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE PALACE OF URBINO<br>
+<span class="subhed">JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The sunset was almost spent, and a four days’ moon hung above the
+Western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is
+a fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like
+some castle reared by Atlante’s magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero,
+or palace sought in fairy-land by Astolf winding his enchanted horn.
+Where shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed
+battlemented bulk of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies,
+suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses?
+This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of
+the time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto—or
+more exactly with Boiardo’s epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace
+at Urbino just at the moment when the Count of Scandiano had begun
+to chaunt his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry,
+transmuted by the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint,
+survived as a frail work of art. The man-at-arms of the Condottieri
+still glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumes and
+bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; their velvet
+caps with medals bearing legendary emblems. The pomp and circumstance
+of feudal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of the Gascon or the
+Switzer’s pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions had <span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>not begun
+for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII.’s holiday excursion would
+reveal the internal rottenness and weakness of her rival states, and
+the peninsula for half a century to come would be drenched in the blood
+of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, fighting for her cities as their
+prey. But now Lorenzo de’Medici was still alive. The famous policy
+which bears his name held Italy suspended for a golden time in false
+tranquillity and independence. The princes who shared his culture and
+his love of art were gradually passing into modern noblemen, abandoning
+the savage feuds and passions of more virile centuries, yielding to
+luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The castles were becoming courts, and
+despotisms won by force were settling into dynasties.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp226">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp226.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE PALACE OF URBINO, ITALY.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle at
+Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, one
+of the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined
+in himself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And
+these he impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to
+the mediæval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it
+the just embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfect
+analogue of the “<i>Orlando Innamorato</i>.” By comparing it with the
+castle of the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas
+at Mantua, we place it in its right position between mediæval and
+Renaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the
+ruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynastic
+under Spain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span></p>
+
+<p>The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give
+the building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed
+<i>loggie</i> and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the
+city ramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep
+ravine which separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take
+our station near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can
+appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group it
+forms with the cathedral dome and tower and square masses of numerous
+outbuildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, though baffling
+to a close observer of its details, is one of singular advantage to its
+inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino’s towering eminence, it fronts
+a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits towards the rising
+and the setting sun. There is nothing but illimitable air between the
+terraces and loggias of the Duchess’s apartments and the spreading
+pyramid of Monte Catria.</p>
+
+<p>A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this,
+which Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his
+<i>Cortegiano</i>. To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular
+how the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring
+back the antique life, and link the present with the past—a hint,
+perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies
+of the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising
+to the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when
+one of them exclaimed, “The day has broken!” “He pointed to the light
+which was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon
+we flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which looks
+towards the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of
+rosy hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had
+vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the
+border-lands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though
+a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness,
+and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the
+sweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds.”</p>
+
+<p>Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still
+only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian, and the
+beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the construction,
+was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like the Istrian
+stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel mark with
+wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must have had
+the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in scroll
+or foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves each
+cusp and angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispness and
+the sharpness of a crystal. When wrought by a clever craftsman, its
+surface has neither the waxiness of the Parian, nor the brittle edge
+of Carrara marble; and it resists weather better than marble of the
+choicest quality. This may be observed in many monuments of Venice,
+where the stone has been long exposed to sea-air. These qualities
+of the Dalmatian limestone, no less than its agreeable creamy hue
+and smooth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span> dull polish, adapt it to decoration in dull relief. The
+most attractive details in the palace at Urbino are friezes carved
+of this material in choice designs of early Renaissance dignity and
+grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli Angeli deserves special
+comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, with gilt hair and wings, their
+naked bodies left white on a ground of ultramarine, is supported by
+broad flat pilasters. These are engraved with children holding pots
+of flowers; roses on one side, carnations on the other. Above the
+frieze another pair of angels, one at each end, hold lighted torches;
+and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is carved with two more, flying,
+and supporting the eagle of the Montefeltri on a raised medallion.
+Throughout the palace we notice emblems appropriate to the Houses of
+Montefeltro and Della Rovere: their arms, three golden bends upon
+a field of azure: the Imperial eagle, granted when Montefeltro was
+made a fief of the Empire: The Garter of England, worn by the Dukes
+Federigo and Guidobaldo: The ermine of Naples: the <i>ventosa</i>, or
+cupping-glass, adopted for a private badge by Frederick: the golden
+oak-tree on an azure field of Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent
+beneath a block of stone, with its accompanying motto, <i>Inclinata
+Resurgam</i>: the cipher, FE DX. Profile medallions of Federigo
+and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible relief, adorn the
+staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze of military engines
+and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of war, alluding to
+Duke Frederick’s profession of Condottiere. The doorways are enriched
+with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span> acanthus foliage, honey-suckles,
+ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in all the riot of
+Renaissance fancy.</p>
+
+<p>This profusion of sculptured <i>rilievo</i> is nearly all that remains
+to show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione,
+writing in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that “in the opinion of many
+it is the fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well
+with all things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a
+palace than a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use,
+vessels of silver, the trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold
+and silk, and such-like furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze
+and marble statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of
+all sorts. There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent
+quality to be seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast
+cost a large number of the best and rarest books on Greek, Latin, and
+Hebrew, all of which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them
+the chiefest treasure of his spacious palace.” When Cesare Borgia
+entered Urbino as conqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off
+loot to the value of 150,000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a
+million sterling.</p>
+
+<p>The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in
+its length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How
+shall we reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with
+sound, the splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted
+here? It is not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with
+liveried servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair
+escapes from tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> may even
+replace the tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again
+the sideboards with their embossed gilded plate. But are these
+chambers really those where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo
+and Castiglione; where Bibbiena’s witticisms and Fra Serafino’s
+pranks raised smiles on courtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, “the
+Unique,” declaimed his verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible
+that into yonder hall, where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone
+on staring desolation, strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war,
+a gilded glittering dragon, and from the daïs tore the Montefeltri’s
+throne, and from the arras stripped their ensigns, replacing those
+with his own Bull and Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for
+Francesco Maria’s wedding-feast and read <i>Aminta</i> to Lucrezia
+d’Este. Here Guidobaldo listened to the jests and whispered scandals
+of the Aretine. Here Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy
+Raphael, cap in hand, took, signed and sealed credentials from his
+Duchess to the Gonfalonier of Florence. Somewhere in these huge
+chambers, the courtiers sat before a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena’s
+<i>Calandria</i> and Castiglione’s <i>Tirsi</i>, with their miracles
+of masques and mummers, whiled the night away. Somewhere, we know
+not where, Guiliano de’Medici made love in these bare rooms to that
+mysterious mother of ill-fated Cardinal Ippolito; somewhere, in some
+darker nook, the bastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned
+life of tyranny and license, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a
+traitor’s poignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many men, illustrious for
+arts and letters, memorable by their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> virtues or their crimes, have
+trod these silent corridors, from the great Pope Julius down to James
+III., self-titled King of England, who tarried here with Clementina
+Sobieski through some twelve months of his ex-royal exile! The memories
+of all this folk, flown guests and masters of the still-abiding
+palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry through. They are but filmy
+shadows. We cannot grasp them, localize them, people surrounding
+emptiness with more than withering cobweb forms.</p>
+
+<p>It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling
+round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and
+the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into
+harmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted
+balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye,
+and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Once
+more imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio ware
+upon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay—the pavement
+paced in these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets—that
+pavement where Monsignor Bembo courted “dear dead women” with Platonic
+phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce culled from
+Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, lifted above
+the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest converse. They
+lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of the balustrade,
+he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing
+with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea,
+broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo’s favourite<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> and
+carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of Rome’s Prefect,
+widow of Venanzio Verano, whom the Borgia strangled. On their discourse
+a tale will hang of a woman’s frailty and a man’s boldness—Camerino’s
+Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor’s stalwart charms. And more will
+follow, when that lady’s brother, furious Francesco Maria della Rovere,
+shall stab the bravo in torch-litten palace-rooms with twenty poignard
+strokes ’twixt waist and throat, and their Pandarus shall be sent down
+to his account by a varlet’s <i>coltellata</i> through the midriff.
+Imagination shifts the scene, and shows in that same loggia Rome’s
+warlike Pope, attended by his cardinals and all Urbino’s chivalry. The
+snowy beard of Julius flows down upon his breast, where jewels clasp
+the crimson mantle, as in Raphael’s picture. His eyes are bright with
+wine; for he has come to gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber and to
+watch the line of lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice
+in his honour. Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a
+conqueror to Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bold
+man, close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved
+in purest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he
+tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand.
+This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young
+wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant’s round
+of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean brained superstition. He
+drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his
+line by forethought,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span> but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the
+bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of the
+Church reverts Urbino’s lordship, and even now he meditates the terms
+of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort for
+the ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See.</p>
+
+<p>Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us
+at the inn. His horses sleek, well-fed, and rested, toss their heads
+impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a
+sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections,
+and are half-way on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and whir
+of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. There is
+just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We stand bareheaded
+to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. Then the
+open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span></p>
+
+<h2>ALNWICK CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">CUTHBERT BEDE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Alnwick is built on the summit of the southern bank of the Aln,
+on a plateau of five acres of ground, walled round with strong
+fortifications, defended by sixteen towers, and divided into two large
+courtyards, with the Keep in the midst. The Keep is polygonal in form,
+faced by nine towers, and is built round a third, or inner court. We
+have the northern side of the second courtyard, with the Round (or
+Record) Tower; next to that is the abutment, called the Ravine Tower,
+in whose recess is the stone seat called “Hotspur’s Chair,” and between
+which and the Record Tower is “the Bloody Gap,”—a name given to
+that part of the curtain-wall from a breach being there made by the
+Scots during some Border war, in a vain effort to capture the castle.
+Three hundred Scots are said to have fallen there, and the extent of
+“the Bloody Gap” is plainly to be discerned from the variations in
+the masonry. We then come to the Constable’s Tower, and the Postern
+Tower, or Sally Port, and then to the Keep itself, which was protected
+by a low curtain-wall, carried in a semicircle to the Armourer’s
+Tower and the Falconer’s Tower. These are the two towers lately swept
+away (together with their curtain-wall) in order to accommodate the
+arrangements consequent upon the erection of the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>Prudhoe Tower, for
+which also the two north-western round towers of the Keep were also
+destroyed. One of these towers contains the ancient banqueting-hall of
+the Percies; and the successive sacrifice of these four towers with
+their many interesting evidences of feudal times, in order that the
+modern Italian interior of the castle might not be interfered with,
+has raised a storm of discussion among such distinguished architects
+as Scott, Cockerell, Donaldson, Godwin, Pocock, Ferguson, and Salvin,
+under whom the recently completed works have been carried out, chiefly
+from the designs of Commendatore Canina. These works have been hailed
+with applause, and hailed upon with disapprobation. It is an example
+of one of those Sir Roger de Coverley cases, where much may be said
+on both sides. In the last six years these works have magically
+transformed the interior of the feudal castle of the chivalrous Earls
+of Northumberland (much debased, it is true, by Batty-Langley and
+Strawberry-Hill Gothic) into a Roman palazzo, with the most gorgeous
+and costly decorations of the Renaissance. For six years have two
+hundred workmen been employed in these alterations; much has been done
+at Rome, and much on the spot, especially by the twenty-seven native
+wood-carvers. There are no shams in the decorations; the ceilings
+and cornices are carved, and not cast or moulded: the walnut and
+maple-woods are what they pretend to be; and, to such an extent has
+this Ruskinism “conscientiousness of art” been carried that, in this
+age of <i>papier-mâché</i>, <i>carton-pierre</i>, gutta-percha, and the
+like, there are several <i>miles</i> of the egg-ornament laboriously<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>
+carved by hand, while a door panel has occupied its carver four months,
+and a shutter-panel, a twelvemonth. This modern sumptuousness of
+decoration is a remarkable contrast to that peculiar species of economy
+imposed upon the proud Percies of three centuries back, when Clarkson’s
+report (in 1567) advised the taking out of the glass windows whenever
+my lord and his friends were not there, and laying them up in safety
+until their return, justifying this economical act by the “decaye and
+waste” of the windows “throwe extreme winds.”</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp236">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp236.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">ALNWICK CASTLE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Next to these now destroyed Armourer’s and Falconer’s Towers, comes the
+Abbot’s Tower (the large corner one), where the abbot had apartments,
+whenever choice or necessity caused him to leave his abbey, snugly
+situated down in the wooded valley by the river-side. Beyond this is
+seen the West Garret, and the outer of “Utter Ward,” with its square
+and octagonal towers, and its advanced barbican, forming a picturesque
+mass of great size and strength, and a noble entrance to a noble castle.</p>
+
+<p>Walking along the parapets from the Round Tower, we pass East Garret.
+Beginning at the left hand, we first come to the Guard House, and the
+Auditor’s Tower, which flank the southern gate. The south wall is then
+continued to the Middle Ward, which, as being the second great entrance
+to the castle, is a building of great size and strength. Over it was
+the chapel, approached from the library,—a noble room that occupied
+the greater part of this block of building—but which has now been
+converted into the private apartments of the Duke and Duchess.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span> This
+block of building divides the two courtyards, and is terminated in the
+Keep, whose two semi-octagonal towers were added, in advance, to the
+old square Norman tower, by the second Lord Percy, about the year 1350.</p>
+
+<p>A series of escutcheons on the upper part of the towers helps us to
+the date of their erection; and though we know not their architect,
+we have full proof that he did his work well, for the towers have not
+needed repairs up to this day, and even a rector’s legal adviser would
+experience some difficulty in awarding dilapidations. The moat and
+drawbridge that guarded the entrance to the Keep have long since passed
+away; but, at the time of my visit, a field-piece, backed up by a
+pyramidal pile of cannon balls, did harmless duty on either side of the
+gateway, and playfully menaced the Auditor’s Tower and the Guard House
+on the opposite side of the courtyard.</p>
+
+<p>The ground-floor of the octagonal towers of the Keep is lighted by
+long arrow slits that admit a thin wedge of light to the wine-cellar,
+on the left hand, and to the chief dungeon, on the right. Each of the
+lodges at the various gates was furnished with dungeons; but this was
+the chief dungeon for the State offenders. Its size is eleven feet four
+inches, by ten feet four inches. In the floor is an iron grating, over
+a pit; and, a light being lowered into this for the depth of eleven
+feet, discloses a horrible grave (worthy of Naples and the dark ages)
+nine feet by eight, into which the wretched prisoner was lowered, or
+shot like a sack of coals. Let us thank Heaven that such a place can
+now only be shown as a curiosity. The breakfast-room was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> over the
+gateway: we see one of its windows over the mound of the Keep. The
+windows in the first round tower, and the windows in the flat wall to
+the left, lighted the old dining-room. The next round tower contained
+the old drawing-room whose interior shape was that of the ace of clubs.
+A portion of the low curtain-wall is seen at the base of the Keep
+mound; and then, immediately on the right is the postern tower, or
+sally-port. In the lower part was a laboratory; in the upper part, a
+collection of old armour, and a museum of miscellaneous antiquities;
+Roman remains; small cannon, used at the first invention of gunpowder;
+and the old standard bushel of Northumberland, and a chain of several
+links, that could be bound around an arm, like an iron chain, and was
+carved out of a solid block of stone.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now pass between those two great octagonal towers, and up the
+long dark tunnel that will lead us into the heart of the Keep, the
+third, or inner court; the carriages rattle under that dark archway
+with a peculiar dull sound, for its pavement is of wood, as is
+also the pavement of the inner court. It is a polygon, having nine
+sides of various dimensions, besides other little angles, and it is
+about a hundred feet across from the one side to the other; and,
+as it is walled in with high towers on every side, it has somewhat
+of a well-like aspect. Its two great architectural and antiquarian
+curiosities are the Saxon (or Norman, if you are a great stickler for
+this point) mouldings on the inner face of the archway, presenting a
+great diversity of enrichments—and the old draw-well, for the use of
+the castle during a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> siege. This is built in the thickness of the wall,
+with three pointed arches, surmounted by one large discharging arch, on
+the point of which is a humorous-looking corbel, supporting the figure
+of a priest, who is in the attitude of blessing the water. The old
+axle, with its pegged hand-wheels, still remains, and this interesting
+draw-well has not been interfered with in the recent alterations,
+though the aspect of the Inner Court has been altered by the addition
+of the covered drive.</p>
+
+<p>The limits of this paper do not allow me to say more of Alnwick Castle,
+or to touch upon the varied events that have befallen it and its
+owners, from those early Percy days when—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="i4">“in the Conqueror’s fleet</div>
+        <div>Lord William shipp’d his powers,”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="p-left">(as one of the family has told us in his ballad of the <i>Hermit of
+Warkworth</i>) down to those later times of handsome Hugh Smithson,
+the London apothecary, and his descendants, when, as the American
+poet Halleck sings in that ballad, which is not so well known (in its
+entirety) as it deserves to be:—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="ileft">“The present representatives</div>
+        <div>Of Hotspur and his gentle Kate,</div>
+        <div>Are some half-dozen serving-men,</div>
+        <div>In the drab coats of William Penn—”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="p-left">who will bow you</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="ileft">“From donjon vault, to turret wall,</div>
+        <div>For ten-and-sixpence sterling.”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p>I have not space to dwell upon these matters, although<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span> there is very
+much to interest us in the records of the Castle and its owners,
+and much for salient anecdote and gossip, not only as to the people
+but also their manners and customs. As, for example, that curious
+manuscript book, dated 1512, which tells us how the fifth Earl and his
+family lived; they had fresh meat from Midsummer to Michaelmas, and
+salt meat for all the rest of the year; how the servants rarely had
+anything else than salt meat, with few or no vegetables (the roast beef
+of Old England being a mere Jack-o’-Lantern to them); how my lord and
+lady had no sheets to their bed, and only washed their tablecloths once
+a month; how they rose at six, breakfasted at seven on a quart of beer,
+a quart of wine, two pieces of salt fish, six red herrings, four white
+herrings, and a dish of sprats—half a chyne of mutton and a chyne
+of boiled beef being added on flesh days; how they dined at ten and
+supped at four, and went to bed at nine; how there were only two cooks,
+with two assistants to provide for a household of two hundred and
+twenty-three, and how the head cook was so great a monarch that when
+he gives an order for the making of mustard it bears this preamble:
+“It seemeth good to us and our council;” how the players at Christmas
+had twenty-pence for every play, and the rockers in the nursery had as
+many shillings each year; how, in the winter, only a peck of coals were
+allowed for each fire, and no fires after Lady-day, except half-fires
+for my lord and lady, and the nursery. There is all this, and very
+much more, that is both curious and interesting, but space, and not
+material, fails me.</p>
+
+<p>Nor can I speak of the out-of-door lions of Alnwick,—the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> park, the
+gardens, the model farm, the Duchess’s dairy, the ruins of Alnwick
+Abbey, down in the sequestered dell by the river, the ruins of Hulne
+Abbey upon the slope of the hill over against the Castle—Brislee
+Tower, a Strawberry-hill erection eighty feet high, called by Mr.
+Walter White “an elegant structure”; but, in my humble opinion, a
+very hideous affair, and a fit companion to Kew Pagoda; and more
+useful than ornamental, for the summit commands a glorious view;—the
+monument to commemorate the capture of William the Lion, and the cross
+to commemorate the death of King Malcolm. It bears the following
+inscriptions: “Malcolm III., King of Scotland, besieging Alnwick
+Castle, was slain here, Nov. XIII., an. MXCIII.—K. Malcolm’s cross,
+decayed by time, was restored by his descendant, Eliz. Dutchess of
+Northumberland, MDCCLXXIV.” It is distant about three-quarters of a
+mile from the castle, on the opposite side of the river; but, from
+what the ancient chartulary of Alnwick Abbey says, the spot where
+Malcolm died was two or three hundred yards nearer to the castle,
+where Malcolm’s Well now is. Malcolm was ravaging Northumberland with
+fire and sword, and, in due course, laid siege to Alnwick, which was
+stoutly defended by Moroll of Bamburgh. When the garrison could hold
+out no longer, a certain man rode forth to Malcolm, bearing the keys
+of the castle tied to the end of his spear, and presented himself in a
+suppliant posture, as being come to surrender up possession. Malcolm
+advanced to receive the keys, when the soldier pierced him with a
+mortal wound, and, dashing through the swollen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span> river, escaped by the
+fleetness of his horse. Malcolm dropped dead; a panic arose among the
+Scots, and the desperate defenders of Alnwick made a successful sortie,
+and put their enemy to the rout. Prince Edward, Malcolm’s eldest son,
+received mortal wounds in this fight. The old Abbey chronicle says that
+the soldier’s name was Hammond, and the place where he swam the river
+was called “Hammond’s Ford.” But Hector Bœtius has improved the story
+into a legend, and says the soldier’s name was Mowbray, and that he
+pierced Malcolm through the eye, and from that circumstance acquired
+the name of Pierce-eye, and became the founder of the proud family of
+Percy, Earls of Northumberland. A very pretty legend, but somewhat
+damaged by obtrusive facts, especially by that fact that the ancestor
+of the family was that William de Percy, of the town of Percy in Lower
+Normandy, who was one of the Norman chieftains who came over with the
+Conqueror, and whose name is recorded in the rolls of Battle Abbey.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD<br>
+<span class="subhed">J. J. BOURRASSÉE.</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The name Saint-Cloud involuntarily carries us back to one of the most
+agitated epochs of our history and recalls a scene of savage violence.
+Clodowald, son of Clodomir, King of Orleans, saw his two brothers
+assassinated before his eyes: the executioners were his two uncles.
+The cruel spectacle was never effaced from his memory. Clodowald
+himself cut off his long hair, the emblem of his illustrious origin,
+preferring the humility of the cloister to the splendour of a crown.
+His pious self-abnegation received its reward even in this world. The
+village of Nogent took the name of its patron who was included in the
+list of saints: history has connected the name of Saint-Cloud with
+events that fill the universe. Here Henri III. fell beneath the blade
+of an assassin, and with him the Valois branch ended. Here suddenly
+died, not without suspicions of poison, the witty and brilliant
+Henrietta of England, wife of Louis the Fourteenth’s brother. In this
+same spot Marie Antoinette was preparing the most charming of royal
+residences when the Revolution came to drag her to the scaffold. Here
+the Revolution of Brumaire XVIII. overturned the French republic. In
+1815, the foreigners, with Wellington and Blücher at their head, are
+at Saint-Cloud, where the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> capitulation of Paris is signed on July
+3d. Here, on July 28th, 1830, Charles X. signs the fatal orders which
+are immediately followed by a new revolution. This prince leaves
+Saint-Cloud on July 30th, at 3 <span class="allsmcap">A. M.</span>, to go into exile where
+he is to find his tomb.</p>
+
+<p>The purity of the air, the abundance of water, the freshness of
+the landscape and the beauty of the banks of the Seine have always
+attracted the dwellers of Paris to Saint-Cloud. Nobles of the court,
+members of the parliament and men of finance built elegant country
+houses here. The masses, following a tradition which has not yet
+disappeared, went out there to take breath at liberty, to stroll about
+in the shade and to play their gambols.</p>
+
+<p>It must be confessed that at the gates of Paris one could not find
+a more agreeable promenade nor a more attractive dwelling-place.
+Consequently, at the period of our internecine wars, the possession
+of it was bitterly wanted. In 1346 Saint-Cloud was revisited by the
+English, and its inhabitants were so fortunate as to drive them off.
+But in 1358, after the fatal battle of Poitiers, the English took
+the place and pillaged and reduced it to ashes without sparing the
+pleasure-houses established in the vicinity. Under the reign of the
+unfortunate Charles VI., the Armagnacs and Bourguignons alternately
+fell upon the village and ravaged the countryside. These multiplied
+disasters were promptly repaired and the hills of Saint-Cloud again
+adorned themselves with elegant abodes framed in verdure.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp245">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp245.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD, FRANCE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The house that served as the kernel of the royal castle of Saint-Cloud
+first belonged to Jérôme Gonde. He was <span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>an Italian who came to
+France in the suite of Catherine de’ Medici. Like several of his
+fellow-countrymen, he succeeded in amassing a considerable fortune
+here. More fortunate than some of them, he kept in favour with the
+Queen Mother. It was in this house, August 1st, 1589, that Henri III.
+was assassinated by Jacques Clément. Devoted servants saluted Henri
+IV. as King of France: he was at Saint-Cloud in the Tillet house. This
+house, the witness of the accession to the throne of the Bourbon line,
+has since disappeared: its site is marked in the gardens of the castle
+by the Tillet alley.</p>
+
+<p>The grandson of Henri IV., so passionate for the grandeur of his house,
+bought Saint-Cloud for Philip of Orleans, his brother, generally
+called <i>Monsieur</i>. Various acquisitions were successively made to
+complete this beautiful demesne: the castle was rebuilt by Lepautre,
+and the gardens laid out by Le Nôtre. Saint-Cloud for a long time
+remained the favourite residence of the Dukes of Orleans. Henrietta
+of England with her gay spirit, her beautiful manners, her love of
+<i>fêtes</i>, her taste for pomp, her engaging character, her discreet
+advances, and the friendship shown for her by her brother-in-law,
+rendered it the most elegant abode, the centre of the most select
+gatherings, and the palace of decent and delicate pleasures.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! these brilliant entertainments of fashion were very soon to
+be interrupted by a terrible blow which fell suddenly like a clap
+of thunder. Henrietta returned from England whither she had been,
+charged by Louis XIV. with the negotiation of a secret treaty with
+her brother,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> Charles II. Arriving in the beginning of June, 1670,
+she was quietly resting at Saint-Cloud, when, on the twenty-ninth of
+the same month, suddenly in the castle in the middle of the night the
+terrible cry was heard: “Madame is dying!” and, eight hours later:
+“Madame is dead!” This princess was twenty-six years old. The disease
+declared itself by frightful agony the moment after drinking a glass
+of chicory water. At first she declared that she had been poisoned;
+if she retracted this afterwards, it was under the apprehension of
+the terrible consequences that a false declaration might entail. Her
+suspicions have been shared by historians, who briefly add that Louis
+XIV. was happy to learn that his brother was innocent of this crime.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur showed his grief by grand funeral ceremonies. What makes the
+memory of these obsequies notable is the funeral oration delivered by
+Bossuet. It is one of the masterpieces of pulpit eloquence.</p>
+
+<p>The tears, feigned or genuine, were scarcely dry before they began to
+think of filling the place left empty by death. The King made overtures
+on this subject to Mademoiselle, daughter of Gaston of Orleans, the
+brother of Louis XIII.; but this princess at that time was occupied
+with a project that became the torment of her life; she wanted to marry
+the Comte de Lauzun.</p>
+
+<p>Four months after the death of the gentle and witty Henrietta of
+England, Monsieur married the Princess Palatine, the daughter of the
+Elector Palatine. A robust German with strongly marked features, an
+enemy to ceremony, detesting entertainments on account of impatience
+with constraint,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> holding the toilette in aversion because it
+interfered with her usual habits, the Princess Palatine formed a
+complete contrast to the lively and delicate Henrietta. She abjured
+Lutheranism on the eve of her marriage. From this we may judge of
+the changes that followed at first in the customs of the castle of
+Saint-Cloud. But they did not last long. Philip of Orleans loved to
+hold a court and he was anxious to see it constantly filled with
+people who could amuse themselves. High play occurred there and many
+ladies came, who, says Saint Simon, “would scarcely have been received
+elsewhere.” At Saint-Cloud, as at the Palais Royale, there was an
+uninterrupted succession of entertainments. Madame often sulked at the
+company. She spent the greatest part of the day in her cabinet. Her
+husband allowed her every liberty and freely used his own, without
+concerning himself about her in any way.</p>
+
+<p>In 1701, Philip of Orleans, the King’s brother, died at Saint-Cloud.
+The Princess Palatine also breathed her last gasp there. This
+magnificent residence continued to be occupied with the same
+sumptuousness and luxury by the new owners; these were the Duke of
+Chartres who, on his father’s death, took the title of Duke of Orleans,
+and his wife, Mlle. de Blois, daughter of Louis XIV. This princess
+wanted to hold a court there that would do sufficient honour to the
+first prince of the blood. The King approved, provided that she took
+care to gather together a distinguished company free from the confused
+and objectionable mixture that had defiled the society of the late
+Duke of Orleans. The beginnings of this new court were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span> admirable.
+Families of the best positions in the realm crowded into the receptions
+at Saint-Cloud. The drawing-rooms and gardens were filled with
+personages belonging to the most illustrious houses. Since Louis XIV.
+was old and Versailles did not always afford much pleasure, the young
+generation gladly turned to Saint-Cloud where politeness, liberality,
+magnificence, fine manners and an amiable freedom attracted and held
+everybody.</p>
+
+<p>In 1752, Louis Philippe of Orleans, grandson of the Regent, gave a
+splendid <i>fête</i> at Saint-Cloud, a detailed description of which
+was given by the writers of the time with great gusto. It was remarked
+that the populace was admitted to take part in it. This remark, which
+was dwelt on with a kind of affectation, shows the influence of new
+ideas. In 1759, this prince lost his wife, Louise Henriette de Bourbon
+Conti, and in 1773 he secretly married the Marquise de Montesson.
+The latter, desiring a modest abode, induced the Duke of Orleans to
+sell the castle of Saint-Cloud. In 1785, this beautiful residence was
+purchased by Queen Marie Antoinette for six millions. By the Queen’s
+orders numerous changes were made. The new chapel was built at that
+time, and on the site of the old one a staircase of honour was built,
+leading to the grand apartments. Considerable additions were made
+to the buildings by doubling two bodies of outbuildings. The works
+were carried forward rapidly; but events were marching still faster;
+they were not yet completed when the Revolution burst. The palace was
+abandoned; the gardens were reserved for the pleasure of the citizens.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span></p>
+
+<p>A great political event was soon to happen at Saint-Cloud. After
+horrible and sterile agitation like that of a tempest, the Directory,
+far from healing France of the excesses of anarchy, was impotent,
+and its weakness, not less than the light conduct of the Directors,
+caused it to fall into discredit. All was ready for a new revolution,
+and it came on the 18th of Brumaire (Nov. 9th, 1799). The legislative
+body had been transferred to the castle of Saint-Cloud. The victor of
+Lodi and Arcola, having recently returned from Egypt, was ripe for
+new destinies. Surrounded by a crowd of superior officers determined
+to put an end to the <i>government of lawyers</i>, it was necessary
+to act. So he went to Saint-Cloud after having taken his measures in
+Paris.... At the sight of the grenadiers advancing with fixed bayonets,
+the terrified members of the council dispersed in flight through the
+passages, or jumping out of the windows. A new era was about to open;
+Napoleon Bonaparte is nominated First Consul, Consul for ten years,
+Consul for life, and lastly, Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>From the year 1800, the royal residences had been placed at the
+disposal of the new representative of sovereign authority in France,
+and he chose the castle of Saint-Cloud for his summer residence. It was
+here that he received the decree that proclaimed him Emperor of the
+French. Napoleon often came here for repose after his victories. Here,
+in quiet, he planned new conquests, and more especially he elaborated
+those regulations of public administration that, together with the code
+that bears his name, perhaps constitute his best title to glory in the
+eyes of posterity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span></p>
+
+<p>In 1810, on April 1st, the marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise was
+celebrated in the chapel of Saint-Cloud. The castle and gardens then
+witnessed rejoicings that seemed as if they could never be saddened by
+any cloud. In 1815, alas! the scene has greatly changed. Saint Cloud
+is invaded by a horde of foreigners. The conqueror wants to dishonour
+the palace of the hero whom Fortune has betrayed. Troops are encamped
+in the gardens; horses are watered in the park fountains. Nothing is
+respected, not even the private chamber of the Empress. A pack of
+hounds is put there; the furniture is soiled and torn books litter the
+floor. A soldier sleeps in his uniform in Napoleon’s bed and amuses
+himself with tearing the imperial draperies with his spurs. Those were
+days of mourning for Saint-Cloud and for France! The capitulation of
+Paris was signed at Saint-Cloud, July 3d, 1813.</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen years later, also in the month of July, another revolution
+chased Charles X. from Saint-Cloud. It was here that that prince signed
+the orders of July 24, 1830. Six days later, the royal family of
+Bourbon was on the road of exile! The government of the Restoration had
+various embellishments done to the palace and gardens of Saint-Cloud.
+We owe to Charles X. the construction of the building for the
+accommodation of the servants of his establishment, as well as a fine
+barracks, situated in the gardens of the lower park, for his bodyguard.</p>
+
+<p>Louis Philippe did not forget Saint-Cloud which recalled youthful
+memories. The apartments were renovated and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> richly furnished, and new
+distributions still further improved this beautiful residence.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the considerable works undertaken at different periods,
+it was easy to recognize the modern works from the ancient parts. The
+front on the court of honour was executed after the plans of Gerard;
+the two pavilions were by the architect Lepautre. The apartments of
+Napoleon III. and the Empress were situated on the first story in the
+left wing. Queen Marie Antoinette, the Empress Marie Louise and the
+Duchess of Angoulême occupied this part of the castle. The Apollo
+Gallery, inaugurated by a splendid <i>fête</i> given by Philip of
+Orleans to his brother, Louis XIV., was on the first story of the right
+wing. Under the Directory, this gallery was used for the sittings of
+the council of the <i>Anciens</i>. The emperor’s vestibule was in the
+centre of the façade, with the staircase built on the site of the old
+chapel. The internal decoration of the palace was of the greatest
+magnificence; the paintings on the ceilings were by illustrious
+artists, and the furniture, renewed several times, was of rare elegance
+and dazzling richness.</p>
+
+<p>The heir of Napoleon I. was soon to reappear there: it was at
+Saint-Cloud, Dec. 2, 1852, that the Empire was restored.</p>
+
+<p>The palace of Saint-Cloud was burnt during the siege of Paris by the
+German army in 1870–1871.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span></p>
+
+<h2>STIRLING CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">We passed through the outer rampart of Queen Anne; through the old
+round gate-tower of an earlier day, and beneath the vacant arch where
+the portcullis used to fall, thus reaching the inner region, where
+stand the old palace on one side and the old Parliament House on the
+other. The former looks aged, ragged and rusty, but makes a good
+appearance enough pictorially, being adorned all round about with
+statues, which may have been white marble once, but are as grey as
+weather-beaten granite now, and look down from beneath the windows
+above the basement story. A photograph would give the idea of very rich
+antiquity, but as it really stands, looking on a gravelled courtyard,
+and with “Canteen” painted on one of its doors, the spectator does
+not find it very impressive. The great hall of this palace is now
+partitioned off into two or three rooms, and the whole edifice
+is arranged to serve as barracks. Of course, no trace of ancient
+magnificence, if anywise destructible, can be left in the interior. We
+were not shown into this palace, nor into the Parliament House, nor
+into the tower, where King James stabbed the Earl of Douglas. When I
+was here a year ago, I went up the old staircase and into the room
+where the murder was committed, although it had recently been the scene
+of a fire <span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>which consumed as much of it as was inflammable. The
+window whence the Earl’s body was thrown then remained; but now the
+whole tower seems to have been removed, leaving only the mullions of
+the historic window.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp254">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp254.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>We merely looked up at the new, light-coloured freestone of the
+restored tower in passing, and ascended to the ramparts, where we found
+one of the most splendid views, morally and materially, that this
+world can show. Indeed, I think there cannot be such a landscape as
+the Carse of Stirling, set in such a frame as it is,—the Highlands,
+comprehending our friends Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, Ben An, and the whole
+Ben brotherhood, with the Grampians surrounding it to the westward and
+northward, and in other directions some range of prominent objects to
+shut it in; and the plain itself, so worthy of the richest setting, so
+fertile, so beautiful, so written over and over again with histories.
+The silver Links of Forth are as sweet and gently picturesque an object
+as a man sees in a lifetime. I do not wonder that Providence caused
+great things to happen on this plain; it was like choosing a good piece
+of canvas to paint a great picture upon. The battle of Bannockburn
+(which we saw beneath us, with the Gillie’s Hill on the right) could
+not have been fought upon a meaner plain, nor Wallace’s victory gained;
+and if any other great historic act still remains to be done in this
+country, I should imagine the Carse of Stirling to be the future scene
+of it. Scott seems to me hardly to have done justice to this landscape,
+or to have bestowed pains enough to put it in strong relief before the
+world; although it is from the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span> lights shed on it, and so much other
+Scottish scenery, by his mind, that we chiefly see it and take an
+interest in it.</p>
+
+<p>I do not remember seeing the hill of execution before,—a mound on
+the same level as the castle’s base, looking towards the Highlands. A
+solitary cow was now feeding upon it. I should imagine that no person
+could ever have been unjustly executed there; the spot is too much in
+the sight of heaven and earth to countenance injustice.</p>
+
+<p>Descending from the ramparts, we went into the Armoury, which I did
+not see on my former visit. The superintendent of this department is
+an old soldier of very great intelligence and vast communicativeness,
+and quite absorbed in thinking of and handling weapons; for he is a
+practical armourer. He had a few things to show us that were very
+interesting,—a helmet or two, a bomb and grenade from the Crimea;
+also some muskets from the same quarter, one of which, with a sword at
+the end, he spoke of admiringly, as the best weapon in the collection,
+its only fault being its extreme weight. He showed us, too, some Minie
+rifles, and whole ranges of the old-fashioned Brown Bess, which had
+helped to win Wellington’s victories; also the halberts of sergeants,
+now laid aside, and some swords that had been used at the battle of
+Sheriffmuir. These latter were very short, not reaching to the floor,
+when I held one of them point downward, in my hand. The shortness of
+the blade and consequent closeness of the encounter, must have given
+the weapon a most dagger-like murderousness. Hanging in the hall of
+arms, there were two tattered banners that had gone through the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>
+Peninsular battles, one of them belonged to the gallant 42d Regiment.
+The armourer gave my wife a rag from each of these banners, consecrated
+by so much battle smoke; also a piece of old oak, half-burned to
+charcoal, which had been rescued from the panelling of the Douglas
+Tower. We saw better things, moreover, than all these rusty weapons
+and ragged flags; namely, the pulpit and communion-table of John Knox.
+The frame of the former, if I remember aright, is complete; but one
+or two of the panels are knocked out and lost, and, on the whole, it
+looks as if it had been shaken to pieces by the thunder of his holdings
+forth,—much worm-eaten, too, is the old oak wood, as well it may be,
+for the letters MD (1500) are carved on its front. The communion table
+is polished, and in much better preservation.</p>
+
+<p>Then the armourer showed us a Damascus blade, of the kind that will cut
+a delicate silk handkerchief while floating in the air; and some inlaid
+match-lock guns. A child’s little toy-gun was lying on a work-bench
+among all this array of weapons; and when I took it up and smiled, he
+said it was his son’s. So he called in a little fellow of four years
+old, who was playing in the castle yard, and made him go through the
+musketry exercise which he did with great good-will. This small Son
+of a Gun, the father assured us, cares for nothing but arms, and
+has attained all his skill with the musket merely by looking at the
+soldiers on parade.</p>
+
+<p>Our soldier, who had resigned the care of us to the armourer, met us
+again at the door, and led us round the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> remainder of the ramparts,
+dismissing us finally at the gate by which we entered. All the time
+we were in the castle, there had been a great discordance of drums
+and fifes, caused by the musicians who were practicing just under the
+walls; likewise the sergeants were drilling their squads of men, and
+putting them through strange gymnastic motions. Most, if not all, of
+the garrison belongs to a Highland regiment, and those whom we saw on
+duty in full costume looked very martial and gallant. Emerging from the
+Castle, we took the broad and pleasant footpath, which circles it about
+midway on the grassy steep which descends from the rocky precipice on
+which the walls are built. This is a very beautiful walk, and affords
+a most striking view of the Castle, right above our heads, the height
+of its wall forming one line with the precipice. The grassy hillside
+is almost as precipitous as the dark grey rock that rises out of it,
+to form the foundations of the Castle; but wild rosebushes, both of a
+white and red variety, are abundant here, and all in bloom; nor are
+these the only flowers. There is also shrubbery in some spots, tossing
+up green waves against the precipice; and broad sheets of ivy here and
+there mantle the head-long rock, which also has a growth of weeds in
+its crevices. The Castle walls above, however, are quite bare of any
+such growth. Thus, looking up at the old storied fortress, and looking
+down over the wide, historic plain, we wandered half-way round the
+Castle, and then, retracing our steps, entered the town close by an old
+hospital.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS<br>
+<span class="subhed">THÉOPHILE GAUTIER</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">When in your caïque upon the Bosphorus you have passed the Tower of
+Leander,<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> you see opposite Scutari an immense, unfinished palace
+that bathes its white feet in the blue and rapid waters. There is a
+superstition in the East, supported by the architects, that no one
+dies while the house he is having built is uncompleted; therefore the
+Sultans always take care to have some palace on hand.</p>
+
+<p>As a rare instance among the Turks, who consecrate solid and precious
+materials to the house of God and erect for the transitory habitation
+of man only wooden kiosks hardly more enduring than himself, this
+palace is all of marble and built for eternity. It is composed of one
+great body and two wings. To say to what order of architecture it
+belongs would be difficult; it is not Greek, nor Roman, nor Gothic, nor
+Renaissance, nor Saracen, nor Arab, nor Turkish; it approaches that
+style which the Spaniards call <i>plateresco</i>, and which makes the
+façade of a building resemble a great piece of goldsmith’s work owing
+to the complicated wealth of its ornaments and the maddening mass of
+the details.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp259">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp259.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS, TURKEY.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span></p>
+
+<p>Windows with open-work balconies, small enwreathed columns, ribbed
+trefoils, festooned frames, and intervening spaces crowded with
+sculpture and arabesques, recall the Lombard style and make you think
+of the ancient palaces of Venice; only there is the same difference
+between the Palace Dario or Casa d’oro and the Sultan’s Palace as
+between the Grand Canal and the Bosphorus.</p>
+
+<p>This enormous building of Marmora marble, of a bluish white that seems
+a little cold owing to the sharp glitter from its newness, produces a
+very majestic effect between the blue of the sky and the blue of the
+sea; it will produce a better one when the warm sun of Asia shall have
+gilded it with its rays which are received direct and at first-hand.
+Vignola, doubtless, would not know what to make of this hybrid façade
+where the styles of all periods and all countries form a composite
+order which he did not foresee. But one cannot deny that this multitude
+of flowers, foliage, and rose-work, carved like jewels of precious
+material possesses a tufted and complicated appearance, gorgeous and
+delightful to the eye. It is a palace that might have been made by an
+ornament-worker who was not an architect, and who spared neither the
+work of his hands, nor time, nor money. Such as it is, I prefer it
+to those horrid, classic reproductions, so beastly, so flat, so cold
+and so tiresome, such as are built by pedants and those who like to
+be conventional, and I greatly prefer these gay, ornamental masses of
+foliage interlacing with fantastic elegance, to a triangular pediment
+or a horizontal attic, resting on six or eight lean columns.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span></p>
+
+<p>This naïve ignorance displayed upon so gigantic a scale has its charm;
+it is probable that the bold builders of our cathedrals knew little
+more, and their works are not the less admirable for that.</p>
+
+<p>Along the whole length of the palace, there runs a platform, bordered
+on the side of the Bosphorus with monumental pillars linked together by
+grilles of beautiful and charming wrought-iron, where the iron curves
+in a thousand flowered arabesques, resembling the flourishes of a bold
+pen sweeping the paper. These gilded grilles form an extremely rich
+balustrade.</p>
+
+<p>The two wings, built at a different period, are very much too low for
+the body of the principal dwelling, with which they have, moreover, no
+harmony of style or form. Imagine a double row of Odéons or Chambers of
+Deputies in miniature, following each other in wearisome alternation
+and presenting to the eye a line of slender little columns that seem to
+be of wood, although they are of marble.</p>
+
+<p>In passing and repassing before this palace, the desire to visit it
+had come to me many times. In Italy nothing would have been simpler;
+but to bring your caïque to an imperial landing-place in Turkey, would
+be a grave performance that might bring serious consequences. Happily,
+through the agency of a friend, I was put into communication with the
+architect, M. Balyan, a young Armenian of great intelligence, and who
+spoke French.</p>
+
+<p>M. Balyan had the kindness to take me in his boat of three pairs of
+oars, and made me enter first an old kiosk, a remnant of the former
+palace, where we were served with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span> pipes, coffee, and sherbet flavoured
+with rose; then he conducted me himself through the apartments with a
+kindness and charming politeness for which I thank him here, hoping
+that one day his eye will fall upon these lines.</p>
+
+<p>The interior has not been entirely finished yet, but, nevertheless, you
+can get an idea of the future splendour of the whole. The religious
+ideas of the Turks debar from their ornamentation a host of happy
+motives and restrict considerably the fancy of the artist, who must
+carefully abstain from mingling with his arabesques the representation
+of any living objects:—thus, there are no statues, no bas-reliefs, no
+masks, no chimæras, no griffins, no dolphins, no birds, no sphinxes, no
+serpents, no butterflies, no little figures half-woman and half-flower,
+no heraldic monsters, and none of those strange creatures that compose
+the fabulous zoölogy of ornamentation, and of which Raphael has made
+such marvellous use in the galleries of the Vatican.</p>
+
+<p>The Arabian style, with its interruptions, distortions and its
+broken lines, its lace of stucco cut out with a punch, its ceilings
+of stalactites, its bee-hive niches, its marble perforated like the
+lid of a perfume-box, its mottos in florid Cufic, and its colourings
+of green, white and red, discretely enhanced with gold, would have
+afforded natural resources for the decoration of an oriental palace;
+but the Sultan, with the same caprice that makes us build Alhambras in
+Paris, wished to have a palace in the modern taste. One is astonished
+at first at his caprice, but, upon reflection, nothing is more natural.
+Having so few motives at his disposition, M. Balyan<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span> has needed a rare
+fertility of imagination in order to decorate in different ways more
+than three hundred halls or chambers.</p>
+
+<p>The general arrangement is very simple: the rooms follow each other in
+succession, or open upon a large corridor; the harem, among others,
+is so arranged. The apartment of each woman opens by a single door
+into a vast passage, like the cells of nuns in a cloister. At each
+end, a guard of eunuchs, or <i>bostangis</i>, can be posted. From the
+threshold, I threw a glance over this retreat of secret pleasure, which
+resembles a convent or a boarding-school much more than one would
+imagine. Here are extinguished, without having shone upon the outside
+world, the stars of beauty unknown, but the eye of the master has
+rested upon them, for one minute perhaps, and that is enough.</p>
+
+<p>The apartment of the Sultana-Validé, composed of lofty rooms looking
+upon the Bosphorus, is remarkable for its ceilings painted in fresco
+with an incomparable elegance and freshness. I do not know who are
+the workmen that made these marvels, but Diaz would not find upon
+his palette finer, more vaporous, more tender and, at the same time,
+richer tones. Sometimes they are skies of turquoise sown with light
+clouds floating in incredible depths, sometimes immense lace veils of
+marvellous figures, then a great shell of mother-of-pearl irised with
+all the hues of the prism, or still again of imaginary flowers hanging
+their corollas and leaves upon golden trellises; other chambers are
+similarly ornamented; sometimes a casket whose jewels are scattered
+about in playful disorder, necklaces<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> whose pearls have broken from
+their strings and roll about like raindrops, a rillet of diamonds,
+sapphires and rubies forming the <i>motif</i> of the decoration; golden
+boxes painted upon the cornices allow the bluish smoke of perfumes
+to escape and compose a ceiling with their transparent haze. Here
+Phingari through a rift in the cloud shows his silver crescent, so
+dear to the Mussulman; there modest Aurora colours a morning sky with
+rose, like the cheeks of virgin; farther away a large piece of brocade
+streaked with light glittering like cloth of gold, and held up by a
+clasp of carbuncles, reveals a corner of blue. Arabesques with infinite
+interlacings, sculptured compartments, golden rose-work, and bouquets
+of imaginary or real flowers, blue lilies of Iran, or roses of Schiraz,
+come to vary these themes, the chief of which I have cited, without
+attempting to enter into impossible details, and which the imagination
+of the reader must supplement.</p>
+
+<p>The Sultan’s apartments are in the style of Louis XIV. Orientalized,
+where one feels an intentional imitation of the splendours of
+Versailles, the doors, the windows, and their frames are of cedar,
+mahogany, massive violet-ebony, exquisitely carved, and fastening
+by rich bolts gilded in ormoulu. From the windows you have the most
+marvellous view in the world: a panorama without a rival, and such as
+never sovereign had before in front of his palace. The coast of Asia,
+where upon an immense curtain of black cypress Scutari stands out, with
+its picturesque landing-place crowded with vessels, its pink houses,
+its white mosques among which are distinguished Buyuck-Djami and
+Sultan-Selim;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span> and the Bosphorus with its rapid and transparent waters
+furrowed with the perpetual going and coming of the sailing-vessels,
+steam-boats, feluccas, prames, boats from Ismid and Trebizond, with
+antique shapes, peculiar sails, canoes, and caïques, above which fly
+the familiar swarms of sea-mews and gulls. If you lean out a little,
+you can discern upon the two shores a succession of summer homes and
+kiosks, painted in flesh colours that form a double key of palaces
+for this marvellous marine river. Add to this the thousand accidents
+of lights, the effects of sun and moon, and you will have a spectacle
+which imagination could not surpass.</p>
+
+<p>One of the peculiarities of the palace is a large hall roofed with a
+dome of red glass. When the sun shines through this dome of rubies,
+everything assumes strange hues; the air seems to be in flames, and you
+seem to breathe fire; the columns seem like torch-lights, the marble
+pavement reddens into a floor of lava; a pink fire devours the walls;
+you fancy yourself in the reception-hall of a palace of salamanders
+built of metal in fusion; your eyes glitter like red spangles and your
+clothes become vestments of purple. An operatic hell, lighted with
+Bengal fire, can alone give an idea of this peculiar effect, of a
+questionable taste, perhaps, but very striking, nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>A little marvel which would not mar the most fairy-like architecture of
+the Thousand and One Nights, is the Sultan’s hall of baths. It is in
+the Moorish style, of veined Egyptian alabaster, and seems to have been
+cut out of one block of precious stone, with its columns, its splayed
+capitals,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> its heart-shaped arcades, and its ceiling constellated with
+crystal eyes that shine like diamonds. To what luxury might the body
+abandon itself upon these flags, transparent as agates, surrendering
+its flexible limbs to the skilful manipulations of the <i>tellacks</i>
+in the midst of a cloud of perfumed vapour and under a shower of
+rose-water and balsam!</p>
+
+<p>Tired of these marvels and fatigued with admiration, I thanked M.
+Balyan, who made me come out through the court of honour, the gate
+of which is a kind of triumphal arch of white marble of a very
+rich and florid ornamentation, and which forms on the land side an
+entrance quite worthy of this sumptuous palace. Then, as I was dying
+of hunger, I went into a fruiterer’s shop and was served with two
+<i>brochettes</i> of <i>kabobs</i>, wrapped in a thick pancake, which
+I moistened with a glass of sherbet,—a very sober and entirely local
+repast.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span></p>
+
+<h2>PLESSIS-LES-TOURS<br>
+<span class="subhed">J. J. BOURRASSÉE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The castle of Plessis stands to the west of the city of Tours in a vast
+plain watered by the Loire and Cher. To reach it, you follow a road
+bordered with old mulberry-trees, the remains or heirs of those planted
+by Henri IV. in 1607, and renewed in 1690 by Louvois. Impressed by
+the terrible memories of Louis XI., turn not your head towards those
+trees to look for those hanged by Messire Tristan L’Hermite. Neither be
+afraid of finding beneath your feet those man-traps that were planted
+in the vicinity of the Castle to catch the curious and the rustics
+who ventured upon the lands of His Majesty. To-day the country is
+safe and there is nothing to be feared from the Castle, even if it is
+not attractive; but, in the Fifteenth Century, a safe-conduct and an
+experienced guide were necessary for crossing this dangerous region.</p>
+
+<p>Plessis did not play any part in our national history until the reign
+of Louis XI. Until then, it was only an obscure lordship with a little
+castle on one of those rocky hillocks that still exist in the vale.
+This spot pleasing him much more than the castles of Amboise, Loches,
+or Chinon, the King bought it from his chamberlain, Hardouin de Maillé,
+in 1463, for the sum of 5,500 gold crowns, and abolished its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> old name
+of Montils. Here he built a castle in the Fifteenth-Century taste,
+simple and even severe, for brick largely figured in it, and with a
+glass gallery on the interior façade: a dwelling more worthy of a rich
+citizen than a King of France. Here, after his accession, Louis XI.
+spent the greater part of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the year 1464, the King gathered together the
+prelates and principal lords of the realm at Plessis with the pretext
+of seeking their advice as to the means of remedying the discontent
+that was beginning to break out. In this assembly, Charles, Duke of
+Orleans, thought it his duty to hazard a few remonstrances; but Louis
+XI. replied to the duke in such harsh and offensive language that the
+unfortunate prince died of chagrin at Amboise a few days later. This
+attitude of the King drew the nobles into the League of Public Welfare,
+and the Duke of Berri placed himself at the head of the discontented.
+In order to try to calm them, the King was obliged to call together the
+States-General at Tours in 1468.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp267">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp267.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">PLESSIS-LES-TOURS, FRANCE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The opposition of the nobles drove Louis XI. towards the middle
+classes, not that he had the least democratic tendencies, but because
+he felt more at ease among these small people, whose situation rendered
+them supple and easy. He always liked to have them about him, and
+raised them to the highest dignities, in hatred and defiance of the
+high nobility, because they were broken into the practice of affairs
+by commerce, and possessed the art, always prized by governments, of
+managing the finances skilfully and creating resources at critical
+moments. His <span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>selections were not always happy: witness La Balue,
+whom from a simple clerk he raised to the rank of bishop and even
+cardinal, and who betrayed him to the profit of the Duke of Burgundy.
+Louis XI., carrying a certain refinement of cruelty even into his most
+legitimate vengeance, had the cardinal confined in an iron cage. It is
+said that this odious invention was due to La Balue himself, and that
+he was the first on whom it was tried. After languishing for some time
+in one of the cells at Plessis, the cardinal was transferred to Loches
+and then to Montbazon: he did not recover his liberty till 1480, after
+a long and hard captivity.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the success of his policy, Louis XI. had a sad and
+morose old age. Separated from his wife and son, more suspicious of
+everybody than ever, he shut himself up closely at Plessis and there
+redoubled his minute precautions. But two terrible guests whom the
+“guard that keeps watch at the barriers of the Louvre” can never stop,
+disease and death, soon came to seek him. When he felt the first pangs
+of the disease that was to carry him off, he multiplied his vows, acts
+of devotion and pilgrimages. Then he sent and fetched all the way from
+Calabria a poor hermit named Francisco Paolo, with the hope that the
+holy man’s prayers would obtain his recovery. As soon as the King was
+informed of his arrival, he ordered the Dauphin to go to meet him with
+the chief lords of the court and to receive him with all the respect
+due to so saintly a personage; he himself did not think he could do
+the saint too much honour and lodged him with his companions in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>
+castle; but dwelling in the court ill suited the pious hermit and so
+they gave him a lodging in the Plessis courtyard. So many precautions
+and so many prayers failed to bend Heaven; even the holy ampulla was
+powerless. Louis XI. died at the Castle of Plessis, August 30th,
+1483, aged sixty, after reigning twenty-two years. His body was first
+taken from Plessis to the church of St. Martin of Tours, where it lay
+in state for eight days; then it was taken to Notre Dame de Cléry,
+the spot which he himself had chosen for his burial. St. Francis had
+not been able to perform the miracle of curing the King; but he had
+prepared him for his approaching death, and it must be acknowledged
+that with a man like Louis XI. this was no small prodigy.</p>
+
+<p>On the death of Louis XI. the court was installed at Plessis for some
+time. The Dauphin Charles, born at the Castle of Amboise in 1470,
+had reached his legal majority; but intelligence was very slightly
+developed in this puny and deformed child. His sister, Anne de Beaujeu,
+“fine and subtle, if any one ever was,” says Brantôme, “and the very
+image of her father in everything,” unhesitatingly took the regency,
+and, to resist the malcontents who wanted to deprive her of it, she
+convoked the States-General at Tours for January 1st, 1484. This
+celebrated assembly gave firm and vigilant attention to all the affairs
+of the realm and obtained quite a sensible reduction of taxes.</p>
+
+<p>Amid the shock of intrigues and diverse ambitions, the lady of Beaujeu
+conducted herself with so much address and prudence, that the States
+confirmed the last wishes of Louis XI. in her favour.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span></p>
+
+<p>The little King, as he was called, was not long in shaking off his
+sister’s yoke, and began his reign with an act of magnanimity by
+himself going in despite of his council and breaking the chains of
+the Duke of Orleans. Since the battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, that
+prince had been confined in the great tower of Bourges. One evening
+with a small suite the young King set out, or rather fled, from the
+Castle of Plessis under the pretext of a hunting-party, and went to
+free his prisoner. The Regent thought that Charles VIII. was going to
+return at the head of her enemies to proscribe her in turn. Happily she
+was mistaken. The reconciliation took place at Plessis, and from that
+day Louis of Orleans became the most faithful subject of his King.</p>
+
+<p>The Castle of Plessis was a fortunate place for the Duke of Orleans.
+After the death of Charles VIII., he was proclaimed King under the
+title of Louis XII. and visited Touraine several times and stayed at
+the castle where his reconciliation with Anne de Beaujeu had been
+effected. There he convoked the States General in 1506, and the
+opening of this assembly took place in the great hall of Plessis on
+the fourteenth of May. The purpose of this assembly was to free the
+King’s word and by the intervention of the nation to break the treaty,
+impolitic as well as onerous to France, that had been signed at Lyons
+in 1503 and by which Louis XII. had promised to give his daughter
+Claude, then only seven years of age, in marriage to Charles of
+Luxembourg, who afterwards became the Emperor Charles V. and to whom
+she was to take as a dowry<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span> the duchies of Milan and Brittany and the
+county of Blois. It was a veritable dismemberment of France and the
+ruin of that wise policy which by the two marriages of the Duchess
+Anne with Charles VIII. and Louis XII. had secured Brittany to France.
+The States rose in force against the treaty and demanded the marriage
+of François of Valois, then twelve years old, with Claude of France.
+These wishes were favourably received, and Cardinal Georges d’Amboise
+proceeded to the ceremony of betrothal on the twentieth of May, in the
+great hall of Plessis.</p>
+
+<p>Beginning with Francis the First, the court made only rare appearances
+at Plessis: the more splendid castles of Chenonceaux, Amboise, Blois,
+Chambord, and Fontainebleau received the preference. Henry III.,
+however, when tossed about by events, found himself there; and when
+Paris embraced the cause of the League, he transferred his little court
+thither in 1589. Mayenne followed to attack him. The King of Navarre,
+who had recently signed a truce with Henry III., hastened to help him,
+and set his troops in battle array on the right bank of the Loire near
+Saint Cyr. Thence he sent to say that if His Majesty would deign to
+come as far as the faubourg, he would kiss His Majesty’s hands and take
+his orders. Henry III., not thinking it wise to go, invited the King
+of Navarre to pass the Loire and come to visit him at Plessis. Some of
+the Huguenot captains feared a snare; but the Béarnais, as loyal as
+he was brave, did not hesitate for a moment and set out accompanied
+by his nobles. The interview took place in the great alley of the
+park of Plessis, and the crowd<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span> was so great that the two kings, with
+outstretched arms, had great trouble to approach each other. At last,
+having embraced, they mutually exchanged evidences of the most sincere
+affection. This touching scene occurred amid the liveliest acclamations
+of the public, who saw in this reconciliation of the two princes the
+end of the evils of the civil war. The two kings afterwards held a two
+hours’ council, and, when the King of Navarre departed, Henry III.
+accompanied him as far as the St. Anne bridge.</p>
+
+<p>This was the last memorable event that occurred at Plessis.
+Pre-occupied with the ever-increasing political importance of Paris,
+Henry IV. left Touraine for good, and transported his court to the
+capital, so as to be at hand to supervise and direct its movements.</p>
+
+<p>For a century and a half, the royal garden of Plessis, under the
+management of able gardeners, has been the most active and fruitful
+school of French horticulture. Here have been produced the “good
+Christian pear,” the Queen Claude plum dedicated to the wife of Francis
+the First, and doubtless a host of other excellent fruits and charming
+flowers. In the Seventeenth Century, the gardens were abandoned, or
+transformed into mulberry nurseries: they no longer gave impulse
+to local horticulture, but they contributed in another way to the
+prosperity of the province. From 1744 to 1762, the Plessis nurseries
+distributed not less than four hundred thousand feet of mulberry trees
+in Touraine, and which gave a vigorous impulse to the silk industry.
+The castle underwent a new transformation in 1778, became a place of
+confinement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span> for vagrants. Finally, it was alienated in the Revolution
+and partly demolished. By the cruel irony of Fate, the terrible abode
+of Louis XI. has become a depot for fertilizers!</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span></p>
+
+<h2>HAMPTON COURT PALACE<br>
+<span class="subhed">ERNEST LAW</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Among the many places of interest that lie within easy reach of London,
+there is none, if we except Windsor Castle, that can be held to vie in
+historic and artistic charms with the Queen’s magnificent palace at
+Hampton Court.</p>
+
+<p>Nowhere else do we meet with attractions so uncommon, and yet so
+varied, as those which are to be found within its precincts. There we
+may behold a building, which still remains, altered and restored though
+it has been, an almost perfect specimen of Tudor palatial architecture,
+side by side with the best example existing in England of the debased
+classic of Louis XIV., namely Wren’s State Apartments. There, too, we
+may feel, in a more than ordinary degree, amid its red-brick courts,
+solemn cloisters, picturesque gables, towers, turrets, embattled
+parapets, and mullioned and latticed windows, that indescribable charm
+which invests all ancient and historic places. While walking through
+Wolsey’s courts we may recall the splendour and wealth of the mighty
+Cardinal; and while standing in Henry VIII.’s chapel, or his gorgeous
+Gothic hall, ponder on the many thrilling events within the palace
+in the days of the Tudors and Stuarts—the birth of Edward VI. and
+the death of Jane Seymour; the marriages of Catherine Howard<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span> and
+Catherine Parr; the honeymoons of Philip of Spain and Mary Tudor, and
+of Charles II. and Catherine of Braganza; James I.’s conference with
+the Puritans; and Cromwell’s sojourn here in almost regal splendour.
+And while passing through William III.’s splendid suite of rooms, with
+their painted ceilings, carved cornices, tapestried and oak-panelled
+walls, we may mentally people them again with the kings and queens,
+and statesmen and courtiers, who thronged them in the last century.
+Moreover, by the aid of an unbroken series of historical pictures and
+portraits, illustrative of three centuries of English history, we may
+recall the past with a vividness that no books can ever excite.</p>
+
+<p>And then, when satiated with art and archæology, we can relax the
+mind by wandering beneath the shade of Queen Anne’s stately avenues
+of chestnut and lime; strolling in the ever delightful gardens where
+Wolsey paced in anxious meditation a few weeks before his fall;
+where Henry VIII. made love to Anne Boleyn and to Catherine Howard;
+along the paths where Queen Elizabeth took her daily morning walk;
+past the tennis-court where Charles I. played his last game on the
+day he escaped from the palace; beneath the bower where Queen Mary
+sat at needlework with her maids of honour; along the terrace to the
+bowling-green and pavilions where George II. made love to Mrs. Howard
+and Mary Bellenden; under the lime-groves which sheltered from the sun
+Pope and Hervey, Swift and Addison, Walpole and Bolingbroke.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp275">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp275.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">HAMPTON COURT PALACE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Yet, strange to say, though Hampton Court is so rich in historic
+associations, it has found no writer to investigate <span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span>and chronicle
+its past. Any one curious as to its history must make researches for
+himself, or be content with the scanty and often misleading information
+supplied in old country histories and topographical works.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way its architecture, which is particularly characteristic
+of the Tudor period, and in many points most unique and instructive to
+the student of ancient manners, has to a great extent been overlooked
+in books where these topics are treated of.</p>
+
+<p>The whole domain, consisting now of about 1,900 acres, has been
+divided, probably ever since Saxon times, into two parts by the highway
+from Kingston and Hampton Wick to Hampton, which passes in front of
+the garden gates, within 250 yards of the palace. To the north of this
+road lies Bushey Park, which, with its appurtenances, is fringed on
+its western, northern, and eastern sides by the districts of Hampton,
+Teddington, and Hampton Wick; while to the south of the Kingston road
+lies the House or Home Park, bounded on its three sides by the Thames
+and the palace, with its various subsidiary buildings, courtyards,
+gardens, and grounds.</p>
+
+<p>The natural features of the country in which Hampton Court is situated,
+are not particularly striking. The ground is flat, with scarcely an
+undulation rising more than twenty feet above the dead level, and
+the soil, though light and gravelly, supports very little indigenous
+timber. Indeed, in primeval times, the whole district of Hampton
+appears to have been an open track, forming part of the famous Hounslow
+Heath, to which it immediately adjoins; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> the thorns in Bushey Park,
+with a few ancient gigantic elms and oaks in the Home Park, are the
+still surviving remnants or traces of its original state. One of the
+oaks, which is believed to be the largest in England, is as much as
+thirty-seven feet in girth at the waist; and there is a magnificent
+elm, of which the smallest girth is twenty-three feet, and which is
+known as “The Two Sisters,” or “King Charles’s Swing.”</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the surrounding prospect must, from the earliest times,
+have been not unpleasing. The stretch of the river opposite Hampton
+Court—studded with eyots, and bordered with luxuriant meadows fringed
+with willows—is one of the prettiest in the lower Thames; and the
+stream, which is particularly clear and swift at this point, is always
+lively with boats and barges. When we add, that the view from the
+palace extends, across the river, over a wide expanse of</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div>“Meads forever crowned with flowers,”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="p-left">clusters of trees, flowery hedgerows, and broad undulating
+heath-clad commons,—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="ileft">“To Claremont’s terraced height and Esher’s groves,</div>
+        <div>By the soft windings of the silent Mole,——”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="p-left">and that in the distance can be traced the dim blue
+outline of the Surrey hills; while on another side appear the crowded
+gables and the picturesque old church-tower of Kingston, we have
+enumerated all the natural and local amenities of Hampton Court.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span></p>
+
+<p>Several motives probably weighed with Wolsey in fixing on Hampton
+Court as a residence. In the first place, he was in need of a secluded
+country place, within easy access of London, whither he could withdraw
+occasionally for rest and quiet, without being too far from the centre
+of affairs—as he would certainly have been, had he retired to his
+diocesan palaces of York, Lincoln, or Durham. At the same time he
+was anxious to select a place where his health, which suffered much
+from the fogs and smoke of London, might be recruited in fresh and
+pure air. We may presume, too, that he was not regardless of the
+advantage attaching to a site on the banks of the Thames, in days when,
+on account of the badness and danger of the roads, no route was so
+safe, convenient and expeditious as the “silent highway” of a river.
+Indeed it would take Wolsey scarcely more time to be rowed down, by
+eight stout oarsmen from Hampton Court to the stairs of his palace at
+Whitehall, than it now takes one to go up to Waterloo Station by the
+South Western trains.</p>
+
+<p>Wolsey had no sooner entered into possession of Hampton Court, than he
+began with characteristic energy to plan the erection of a vast and
+sumptuous edifice, commensurate with the dignity and wealth he had just
+attained to. He was then on the threshold of his career of greatness,
+and already receiving enormous revenues.</p>
+
+<p>The old manor-house already stood in the midst of an extensive domain
+of pasture land, consisting of some two thousand acres. All this he
+proceeded to convert into two parks, fencing them partly with paling,
+and partly enclosing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span> them with a stout red-brick buttressed wall,
+a great part of which remains to this day, and may be identified by
+its deep crimson colour, toned here and there with chequered lines of
+black, burnt bricks. There may be found, too, inserted in this wall
+of Wolsey’s, in the Kingston road near the Paddock, a curious device
+of these black bricks, disposed in the form of a cross evidently an
+allusion to his ecclesiastical character; and similar crosses may be
+observed on an old tower, standing near a piece of ground which was
+formerly the Cardinal’s orchard, and on one of the turrets in the Clock
+Court. At the same time he surrounded the house and gardens with a
+great moat—a precaution which is noticeable as the mediæval custom of
+so defending dwelling-places had generally died out, since the Wars of
+the Roses, and Wolsey’s moat here must have been one of the last made.
+It remained as a prominent feature in front of the palace till the time
+of William III., and traces of it still exist on the north side of the
+palace.</p>
+
+<p>His gardens, also, were to be an appanage in every way worthy of the
+princely residence he was projecting.</p>
+
+<p>The general plan and scope of the building were, no doubt, determined
+by the Cardinal himself, whose style was so distinct, both in this
+palace and in his other edifices, from the ordinary ecclesiastical
+Gothic, as to be often designated by the term, “The Wolsey
+Architecture.”</p>
+
+<p>The material selected was red brick, stone being employed for the
+windows, the doorways, the copings of the parapets and turrets, the
+string courses, and the various ornamental<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span> details—such as pinnacles,
+gargoyles, and heraldic beasts, on gables and elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>The first portion taken in hand was, doubtless, the great west front
+of the building, which extends, with its two wings, from north to
+south, 400 feet. This façade, though only two stories in height, has
+considerable beauty about it, and the picturesque turrets at the angles
+of the building, the embrasured parapet, the chimneys of carved and
+twisted brick, the graceful gables with their gargoyles and pinnacles,
+and the varied mullioned windows, form an admirable specimen of
+Tudor domestic architecture. It still preserves much of the charm of
+old work, although it has frequently been subjected to repairs and
+alterations; but the effect is marred by the absence from the numerous
+turrets of the leaden cupolas (or “types” to use the correct old
+English term) which, with their crockets, pinnacles, and gilded vanes,
+formerly gave so uniquely picturesque an appearance to this part of the
+building.</p>
+
+<p>An especially striking feature in Wolsey’s west front, as in other
+parts of the Tudor building, is the delicately moulded forms of the
+chimney shafts which rise in variously grouped clusters, like slender
+turrets above the battlements and gables. They are all of red brick,
+constructed on many varieties of plan, and wrought and rubbed, with the
+greatest nicety, into different decorative patterns. Some are circular,
+some square (but set diagonally), and some octagonal; and they are
+grouped together in twos or fours, with their shafts sometimes carried
+up solid, and sometimes separate.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span></p>
+
+<p>Another charm is the deep crimson of the bricks, approximating often
+to a rich purple, which contrasts favourably with the staring scarlet
+of modern red-brick work. This is particularly the case in the south
+or right-hand wing, one of the most picturesque portions of the whole
+palace.</p>
+
+<p>By the month of May, 1516, the building had so far advanced that Wolsey
+was able to receive the King and Queen at dinner in his new abode. This
+was a time when Henry delighted to honour with his company his “awne
+goode Cardinall,” as he termed him, at pleasant little entertainments,
+when he could throw off the restraints of royalty, and join in
+unconventional intercourse with his personal friends. During dinner or
+supper the minstrels usually played music, and afterwards the King and
+a few intimate friends took part in a masquerade or an impromptu dance.
+Sometimes he “would oblige the company with a song,” accompanying
+himself on the harpsichord or lute. At other times the King would visit
+the Cardinal in state accompanied by his whole court.</p>
+
+<p>After Wolsey’s return from the meeting at the “Field of the Cloth of
+Gold,” in 1520, he appears to have made more prolonged stays than
+heretofore at Hampton Court, which had now nearly arrived at that stage
+of completion in which he left it. We are not able exactly to define
+the limits of the Cardinal’s palace, for after his death Henry VIII.
+carried out many alterations and additions, which in their turn have
+been subsequently modified; but we can form a rough idea of its extent.
+We have already noticed the West Front as being entirely Wolsey’s; the
+same may<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span> be said of the First Court, otherwise called the Base Court,
+or Utter (that is <i>Outer</i>) Court, which is the largest courtyard
+in the palace, being 167 feet from north to south, and 142 from east
+to west. It gives us no mean idea of Tudor palatial architecture; and
+when we restore in imagination the green turf which originally covered
+the area, the cupolas on the turrets, and the latticed windows, we
+see it as it appeared to the great Cardinal when riding through it on
+his mule. It has a look of warmth and comfort and repose, and an air
+of picturesque gloom which is in pleasing contrast with the staring
+vulgarities of the “cheerful” cockney buildings of the present day.</p>
+
+<p>The Clock Court, access to which is had from the First Court through
+the archway of the Clock Tower, formed the inner and principal part of
+Wolsey’s original palace; but the alterations that it has undergone
+since his time cause it to present a very different appearance now. In
+the first place, the present Great Hall, which occupies the whole of
+its north side, though often called Wolsey’s hall, was not erected by
+him, but, after his death, by Henry VIII., though it doubtless stands
+on the site of the smaller and older hall of the Cardinal’s building.
+Then half of the east side of the court was rebuilt by George II.,
+while the original south range is almost entirely obscured from view by
+the Ionic colonnade of Sir Christopher Wren. Here, however, we are in
+one of the most interesting corners of Hampton Court; for behind this
+colonnade remains the original range of buildings in which are situated
+the very rooms occupied by Cardinal Wolsey himself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span></p>
+
+<p>Attached to this corner was one of the Cardinal’s galleries, in which
+he used to pace, meditating on his political plans, on his chances for
+the popedom, and on the failing favour of the King. To this, which must
+have been demolished by William III., and to the other long galleries
+in the First Court, Cavendish makes reference in his metrical life of
+his master:</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="ileft">“My gallories were fayer, both large and long</div>
+        <div>To walk in them when that it lyked me best.”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p>On the north side of the last two mentioned courts is a long intricate
+range of buildings, enclosing various smaller courts, and containing
+kitchens and other offices and bedrooms for the numerous members of
+his household. Much of this part of the building, together with the
+cloisters and courts to the north-east, called the Round Kitchen and
+Chapel Courts, seem also to have been the work of the great Cardinal.
+The chapel, however, was remodelled, if not entirely rebuilt, by Henry
+VIII., though we may assume that it occupies the same site as that of
+Wolsey and the ancient one of the Knights Hospitallers, whose tombs
+perhaps lie beneath the kitchens and other offices contiguous to the
+Chapel Court.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, we take into consideration William III.’s demolitions,
+which included some of the Cardinal’s original structure as well as
+Henry VIII.’s additions, we may conclude that Wolsey’s palace cannot
+have been very much smaller than the existing one, which covers eight
+acres, and has a thousand rooms.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN<br>
+<span class="subhed">BHOLANAUTH CHUNDER</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Our next excursion was to the Fort, or Palace of Shah Jehan, which
+resembles a city on a miniature scale. In circuit, the high red walls
+encompassing it are a mile and a half. The space enclosed is 600,000
+yards. There is no wall on the river-face. Bernier’s account holds true
+to the present day, so far as the walls are five to six feet thick,
+forty to fifty feet high, and flanked with turrets and cupolas at
+intervals, similar to those on the walls of the city. They are built of
+granite, but possess no more the beauty of polished marble. The wide
+and deep moat round the walls, that he describes as full of water,
+and abounding with fish, is now all dry—the freestone pavement being
+beat upon by the sun. No longer, also, beyond the moat, are there any
+gardens extending to the skirts of the royal abode.</p>
+
+<p>Facing the <i>Nowbut-Khanna</i> on the inside about a hundred and
+twenty yards distant, is the first suite of the royal buildings, styled
+the <i>Dewanni-anum</i>, or the hall of public audience. The ranges
+of two-storied buildings, once about this place, with their walls and
+arches adorned with a profusion of the richest tapestries, velvets,
+and silks, have all disappeared. The <i>Dewanni-anum</i> of Shah Jehan
+is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span> considerably larger and loftier than the building of the same name
+at Agra. It is a quadrangular hall, open at three sides, the roof of
+which is supported upon four rows of tall redstone pillars, formerly
+ornamented with gilt arabesque paintings of flowers, but now covered
+with the eternal whitewash. The building was now occupied by the
+troops, and it was a great disappointment for us to miss the celebrated
+Marble Throne which all travellers speak of with admiration,—though
+it was in a state, we were told, that did not make it a very great
+curiosity. The throne is in an elevated recess, or niche in the
+back-wall, from which it projects into the hall, in front of the large
+central arch. There is a staircase to get up to it, the seat being
+raised ten feet from the floor. The size of the throne is about ten
+feet, and over it is a marble canopy supported on four marble pillars,
+all beautifully inlaid with mosaic work exquisitely finished, but now
+much dilapidated. In the wall behind is a doorway, by which the emperor
+entered from his apartments in the harem. This wall is covered with
+mosaic paintings in precious stones of various birds, beasts, fruits,
+and flowers. Many of them are executed in a very natural manner,
+and represent the birds and beasts of the several countries ruled
+over by Shah Jehan. On the upper part, in the centre of the wall “is
+represented, in the same precious stones, and in the graceful attitude,
+the figure of an European in a kind of Spanish costume, who is playing
+upon his guitar.” This has been interpreted into a group of Orpheus,
+charming the birds and beasts with his music, and is what decides the
+work to be from the hands of a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>French artist, mentioned by Bernier
+under the name of La Grange, <i>alias</i> Austin de Bordeaux.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp285">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp285.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN, INDIA.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Upon this throne did Shah Jehan seat himself every day at noon, to
+receive the compliments or petitions of his subjects. He appeared
+on such occasions in great state, preceded by a <i>cortège</i> of
+mace-bearers, bearing silver figures upon silver sticks. His sons sat
+on each side of him, decked in costly apparel and jewels. Behind them
+stood in array eunuchs in rich liveries. Some of them drove off flies
+by moving <i>chowries</i> made of peacocks’ feathers. Others waved
+fans of coloured silk or velvet, embroidered with gold and precious
+stones. The <i>chobdars</i> and other messengers waited next in
+respectful silence to receive the commands of the sovereign. On a fine
+large slab of white marble, raised some three feet above the ground,
+and fenced with silver rails, stood the vizier and other secretaries,
+in front of the throne, to hand up petitions to their master, and to
+receive and convey his imperial commands. Next to them stood in humble
+attendance tributary Rajahs, dependent chiefs, and ambassadors from
+foreign princes. Beyond them was the place for the <i>Munsubdars</i>,
+who showed themselves in the same attitude of respect and humility
+that marked the demeanour of the other attendants in the hall. In
+the furthermost part of the building, as well as in the outer court
+in front of it, thronged all sorts of people and visitants in one
+promiscuous crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Thus hedged round by divinity, sat Shah Jehan, as the Vicegerent of God
+upon earth, with his face turned towards Mecca.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span></p>
+
+<p>The next suite of apartments is the <i>Dewanni-Khas</i>, or hall of
+private audience. There is certainly much to admire in this building,
+but the expectations raised by reading are not half fulfilled. In
+richness of materials it may stand unrivalled, but in point of
+architectural design it does not possess more than ordinary excellence.</p>
+
+<p>Rising from a terrace, elevated some four to five feet from the ground,
+the <i>Dewanni-Khas</i> forms an oblong-shaped pavilion, which measures
+one hundred and fifty feet in length, by forty feet in breadth. The
+height is well proportioned to these dimensions. The building has a
+flat roof, supported upon ranges of massive arcaded pillars, all of a
+rich bluish-white marble. Between each of the front row of pillars is
+a balustrade of the same material, chastely carved in various designs
+of perforated work. The cornices and borders are decorated with a
+great quantity of frieze and sculptured work. The top is ornamented
+with four elegant marble pavilions, with gilt cupolas. In short,
+the <i>Dewanni-Khas</i> is an open, airy, and lightsome building,
+possessing in the highest degree all those features which, suggested
+by local climate form the peculiarity of Indian architecture. It is
+advantageously situated near the river, and affords, on a sultry night,
+the best place for delicious zephyrs to fan you to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing that is recorded in fiction or fact comes up to the
+magnificence of this hall. There traces remaining of that magnificence
+are enough to show that the reality of wealth develops those ideas
+of grandeur, which surpass all the imaginings of imagination. The
+gorgeous Pandemonium<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span> of Milton, of which the idea may have been
+taken from Bernier’s account of the Mogul court, is eclipsed by the
+<i>Dewanni-Khas</i>, the grandeur of which is not apocryphal, but a
+realized fact. That “jasper pavement,” which the mighty poet deemed
+to be so rich as to adorn the court of heaven, is seen here by every
+individual with his eyes broadly open. The pillars and arches are
+ornamented with tendrils of bright flowers and wreaths of bloodstone,
+agate, jasper, cornelian, and amethyst, that seem “snatched as it
+were from the garden, and pressed into the snowy blocks.” There was a
+rich foliage of silver filagree work covering the entire ceiling. The
+Mahrattas in 1759, under their celebrated General Bhao, tore this down,
+and melted it into seventeen lacs of rupees. It has been replaced by
+one of gilt copper worked in a flower pattern. Never could the gorgeous
+splendour of this hall have been more emphatically summed up than in
+the inscription which is sculptured in letters of gold in the cornices
+of the interior room—“If there is a paradise upon earth, it is this,
+it is this, it is this.”</p>
+
+<p>In this hall was the <i>Tukt Taous</i>, or the famous <i>Peacock
+Throne</i>. It was so called from its having the figures of two
+peacocks, with their tails spread, that were so naturally executed
+in sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other precious stones of
+appropriate colours, as to represent life, and strike every beholder
+with the most dazzling splendour. “The throne itself was six feet long
+by four feet broad; it stood on six massive feet, which, with the body,
+were of solid gold, inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>
+was surmounted by a canopy of gold supported by twelve pillars, all
+richly emblazoned with costly gems, and a fringe of pearls ornamented
+the borders of the canopy. Between the two peacocks stood the figure
+of a parrot of the ordinary size, said to have been carved out of a
+single emerald (?). On either side of the throne stood a <i>chatta</i>
+or umbrella, one of the Oriental emblems of royalty; they were formed
+of crimson velvet, richly embroidered and fringed with pearls,
+the handles were eight feet high, of solid gold, and studded with
+diamonds.” Tavernier, a jeweller by profession, and who saw this superb
+throne, estimates the cost of it at six and a half millions sterling,
+or six crores of rupees. The device was not original; it seems to
+have been taken from a representation of the Karteek of the Hindoos.
+The umbrella, also, was one of the insignia of Hindoo royalty. It was
+on the birthday of Soliman Sheko that the joy of a grandfather had
+been especially manifested by Shah Jehan’s first mounting the <i>Tukt
+Taous</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It is recorded by Bernier, that the “King appeared seated upon this
+throne at one extremity of the great hall of the <i>Am-Khas</i>,
+splendidly attired, his garment being of white flowered satin, richly
+embroidered, his turban of gold cloth, having an aigrette worked upon
+it, the feet of which were studded with diamonds of extraordinary
+lustre and value, and in the centre was a beautiful Oriental topaz
+of matchless size and splendour, shining like a little sun: round
+his neck was a string of pearls, of great value, which hung down to
+his waist. The throne on which he sat was supported by six pillars
+of massive gold, enriched with a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span> profusion of rubies, emeralds,
+and diamonds, and his other insignia of state were embellished
+with equal grandeur.... The pillars of the hall were magnificently
+ornamented with gold tapestry, and the ceiling was covered over with
+beautiful flowered satin, fastened with red silk cords, having at
+each corner festoons with gold tassels. Below nothing was to be seen
+but rich silk tapestries of extraordinary dimensions. In the court,
+at a little distance, was pitched a tent called the <i>Aspek</i>,
+which in length and breadth somewhat exceeded the hall, and reached
+almost to the centre of the court. It was likewise surrounded with
+a large balustrade of solid silver, and supported by three poles,
+of the height and thickness of a large mast, and by several smaller
+ones,—covered with plates of silver. The outside was red, and the
+lining within of beautiful chintz, manufactured expressly for the
+purpose at Masulipatam, representing a hundred different flowers, so
+naturally done, and the colours so vivid, that one would imagine it to
+be a hanging parterre.” No mention of the Koh-i-noor appears in this
+account—it must have been somewhere, either in the Peacock Throne, or
+on the arm or turban of the monarch. Possibly, the string of pearls
+spoken of was the same that Runjeet Sing afterwards wore around his
+waist. The cynicism of a poet may style all this as “barbaric pearl and
+gold,” but it is what, after all, quiets the yearnings of all civilized
+men.</p>
+
+<p>The Peacock Throne no longer exists. It was carried off as a trophy
+by Nadir Shah, and had to be broken up in all probability, into ten
+thousand pieces of stone, now scattered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span> all over the world. In its
+place is a simple marble throne that by itself is not an ordinary
+piece of workmanship. In strolling through the hall we paused before
+this throne; and as a monument of fallen greatness it failed not
+to affect us with the usual sentiment of “all is vanity under the
+sun.” It may be looked upon almost as the seat of Shah Jehan, and
+Aurungzebe, and Shah Alum,—and raises a host of associations that
+come rapping at the door of memory. Here stood the graceful Soliman,
+his hands bound in gilded fetters, entreating in the most pathetic
+language to be put to death at once, rather than be sentenced to die
+by slow poison,—thereby affecting many of the courtiers to tears, and
+making the ladies of the harem to weep aloud from behind the screens.
+Here Sevajee in expectation of an honourable reception, but finding
+himself to be treated with studied neglect, could not control his
+feelings of indignation, changed colour, and sank to the ground in
+a swoon,—while a daughter of Aurungzebe, seeing the young stranger
+from behind a curtain, became enamoured of him. Here sat Mahomed Shah
+bandying compliments with Nadir Shah, and sipping coffee, while the
+corpses of a hundred thousand slaughtered Delhi-ites tainted the air.
+It is related “that the coffee was delivered to the two sovereigns in
+this room upon a gold salver, by the most polished gentleman of the
+court. His motions, as he entered the gorgeous apartment, amidst the
+splendid trains of the two emperors, were watched with great anxiety;
+if he presented the coffee first to his own master, the furious
+conqueror, before whom the sovereign of India<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span> and all his courtiers
+trembled, might order him to instant execution; if he presented it
+to Nadir first, he would insult his own sovereign out of fear of the
+stranger. To the astonishment of all, he walked up with a steady step
+direct to his own master. ‘I cannot,’ said he, ‘aspire to the honour of
+presenting the cup to the King of Kings, your Majesty’s honoured guest,
+nor would your Majesty wish that any hand but your own should do so.’
+The emperor took the cup from the golden salver, and presented it to
+Nadir Shah, who said with a smile as he took it, ‘Had all your officers
+known and done their duty like this man, you had never, my good cousin,
+seen me and my Kussilbashees at Delhi; take care of him, for your own
+sake, and get round you as many like him as you can.’”</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Dewanni-Khas</i> is now all desolate and forlorn. It is a
+matter of heartfelt regret to see the barbarous ravages that have been
+committed in picking out the different precious stones. There is a
+mark of violence on one of the pillars, which the Mahrattas attempted
+to break. No rose-beds or fountains about the building now—only the
+bare skeleton of it is standing. The Great Mogul’s hall of audience
+was, till lately, used as a museum, the contents of which have been now
+removed to the new Delhi Institute.</p>
+
+<p>The freest public lounge is not more open to access than is now the
+seat of Mogul jealousy—the <i>Seraglio</i>. “There was scarcely
+a chamber that had not a reservoir adjoining it—with parterres,
+beautiful walks, groves, rivulets, fountains, grottos, jets of water,
+alcoves, and raised terraces to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span> sleep upon, and enjoy the cool air
+at night.” Now that everything has disappeared, this description of
+Bernier seems to be almost imaginary—an account of the “baseless
+fabric of a vision.” The “parterres,” “walks,” “groves,” “grottos,” and
+“raised terraces” have all ceased to exist.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span></p>
+
+<h2>EDINBURGH CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Meditative people will find a charm in a certain conancy between the
+aspect of the city and its odd and stirring history. Few places, if
+any, offer a more barbaric display of contrasts to the eye. In the very
+midst stands one of the most satisfactory crags in nature—a Bass Rock
+upon dry land, rooted in a garden, shaken by passing trains, carrying
+a crown of battlements and turrets, and describing its warlike shadow
+over the liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the new town. From
+their smoky beehives, ten stories high, the unwashed look down upon
+the open squares and gardens of the wealthy; and gay people sunning
+themselves along Princes Street, with its mile of commercial palaces
+all beflagged upon some great occasion, see, across a gardened valley
+set with statues, where the washings of the old town flutter in the
+breeze at its high windows. And then, upon all sides, what a clashing
+of architecture! In this one valley, where the life of the town goes
+most busily forward, there may be seen, shown one above and behind
+another by the accidents of the ground, buildings in almost every
+style upon the globe. Egyptian and Greek temples, Venetian palaces and
+Gothic spires, are huddled one over another in a most admired disorder;
+while, above all, the brute mass of the Castle and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span> the summit of
+Arthur’s Seat look down upon these imitations with a becoming dignity,
+as the works of Nature may look down upon the monuments of Art. But
+Nature is a more indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in
+no way frightened of a strong effect. The birds roost as willingly
+among the Corinthian capitals as in the crannies of the crag; the
+same atmosphere and daylight clothe the eternal rock and yesterday’s
+imitation portico; and as the soft northern sunshine throws out
+everything into a glorified distinctness—or easterly mists, coming up
+with the blue evening fuse all these incongruous features into one, and
+the lamps begin to glitter along the street, and faint lights to burn
+in the high windows across the valley—the feeling grows upon you that
+this also is a piece of nature in the most intimate sense; that this
+profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock, is
+not a drop-scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of every-day
+reality, connected by railway and telegraph-wire with all the capitals
+of Europe, and inhabited by citizens of the familiar type, who keep
+ledgers and attend church, and have sold their immortal portion to a
+daily paper. By all the canons of romance, the place demands to be half
+deserted and leaning towards decay; birds we might admit in profusion,
+the play of the sun and winds, and a few gypsies encamped in the chief
+thoroughfare: but these citizens, with their cabs and tramways, their
+trains and posters, are altogether out of key. Chartered tourists, they
+make free with historic localities, and rear their young among the
+most picturesque sites with a grand human indifference. To see them
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>thronging by, in their neat clothes and conscious moral rectitude, and
+with a little air of possession that verges on the absurd, is not the
+least striking feature of the place.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp295">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp295.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The Old Town, it is pretended, is the chief characteristic, and, from
+a picturesque point of view, the liver-wing of Edinburgh. It is one
+of the most common forms of depreciation to throw cold water on the
+whole by adroit over-commendation of a part, since everything worth
+judging, whether it be a man, a work of art, or only a fine city, must
+be judged upon its merits as a whole. The Old Town depends for much of
+its effect on the new quarters that lie around it, on the sufficiency
+of its situation, and on the hills that back it up. If you were to set
+it somewhere else by itself, it would look remarkably like Stirling
+in a bolder and loftier edition. The point is to see this embellished
+Stirling planted in the midst of a large, active, and fantastic modern
+city; for there the two re-act in a picturesque sense, and the one is
+the making of the other.</p>
+
+<p>The Old Town occupies a sloping ridge or tail of diluvial matter,
+protected, in some subsidence of the waters, by the Castle cliffs,
+which fortify it to the west. On the one side of it and the other the
+new towns of the south and of the north occupy their lower, broader,
+and more gentle hill-tops. Thus, the quarter of the Castle overtops the
+whole city and keeps an open view to sea and land. It dominates for
+miles on every side; and people on the decks of ships, or ploughing in
+quiet country places over in Fife, can see the banner on the Castle
+battlements, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span> smoke of the Old Town blowing abroad over the
+subjacent country. A city that is set upon a hill. It was, I suppose,
+from this distant aspect that she got her name of <i>Auld Reekie</i>.
+Perhaps it was given her by people who had never crossed her doors; day
+after day, from their various rustic Pisgahs, they had seen the pile of
+building on the hill-top, and the long plume of smoke over the plain;
+so it appeared to them; so it had appeared to their fathers tilling the
+same field; and as that was all they knew of the place, it could be all
+expressed in two words.</p>
+
+<p>There is a silly story of a subterranean passage between the Castle
+and Holyrood, and a bold Highland piper who volunteered to explore its
+windings. He made his entrance by the upper end, playing a strathspey;
+the curious footed it after him down the street, following his descent
+by the sound of the chanter from below; until all of a sudden, about
+the level of St. Giles’s, the music came abruptly to an end, and the
+people in the street stood at fault with hands uplifted. Whether he was
+choked with gasses, or perished in a quag, or was removed bodily by the
+Evil One, remains a point of doubt; but the piper has never again been
+seen or heard of from that day to this. Perhaps he wandered down into
+the land of Thomas the Rhymer, and some day, when it is least expected,
+may take a thought to revisit the sunlit upper world. That will be a
+strange moment for the cabmen on the stands beside St. Giles’s, when
+they hear the drone of his pipes reascending from the bowels of the
+earth below their horses’ feet.</p>
+
+<p>Of all places for a view Calton Hill is perhaps the best;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span> since you
+can see the Castle, which you lose from the Castle, and Arthur’s Seat,
+which you cannot see from Arthur’s Seat. It is the place to stroll on
+one of those days of sunshine and east wind which are so common in our
+more than temperate summer. Upon the right, the roofs and spire of the
+Old Town climb one above another to where the citadel prints its broad
+bulk and jagged crown of bastions on the western sky.—Perhaps it is
+now one in the afternoon; and at the same instant of time, a ball rises
+to the summit of Nelson’s flagstaff close at hand, and, far away, a
+puff of smoke followed by a report bursts from the half-moon battery
+at the Castle. This is the time-gun by which people set their watches,
+as far as the sea-coast or in hill farms upon the Pentlands. And while
+you are looking across upon the Castle Hill, the drums and bugles begin
+to recall the scattered garrison; the air thrills with the sound; the
+bugles sing aloud; and the last rising flourish mounts and melts into
+the darkness like a star: a martial swan-song, fitly rounding in the
+labours of the day.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span></p>
+
+<h2>EDINBURGH CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">JAMES NORRIS BREWER</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The Castle of Edinburgh was originally denominated <i>Castelh Mynyd
+Agned</i>, that is, “the fortress of the hill of Agnes;” and the hill
+itself was termed <i>Mynyd Agned Cathre-gonion</i>, which implies
+in the language of the ancient Britons, “the Hill Agned nigh the
+fortress.” From which appellations it would appear that the Castle
+was founded after the introduction of Christianity to Scotland. At a
+subsequent period, the fortress was called <i>Castrum Puellarum</i>,
+because, as some assert, the daughters of the Pictish chiefs received
+“their education” in the Castle. It is beyond a question that a very
+short period would have been sufficient for all the instruction
+which the rude chieftains of the Picts were anxious to bestow on
+the daughters; but the Castle answered a more needful purpose, by
+protecting those high-born damsels from the indignities to which they
+might have been subject in a residence of less strength, while their
+fathers and brothers were despoiling neighbouring territories, and
+making free with the families of conquered rivals. Some persons have
+wished to ascribe a very remote origin to Edinburgh Castle; but it is
+certain that a battle was fought on the site of the building by Arthur,
+King of the Britons, towards the close of the Fifth Century.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span></p>
+
+<p>The ground-plot of the fortress occupies about six acres. At the
+western extremity is the outer barrier, which is formed of strong
+palisadoes. Beyond this are a dry ditch, a drawbridge and a gate,
+defended by two flanking batteries.</p>
+
+<p>In the south-east quarter of the castle, state-prisoners were formerly
+kept, and here, in an apartment called the <i>crown-room</i> it is by
+some pretended that the regalia of Scotland are still deposited. It is
+well known that they were lodged here, with much formality on the 26th
+of March, 1707.</p>
+
+<p>Neither history nor tradition records any circumstance in which
+Edinburgh Castle is conspicuous, till the year 1093. On the authority
+of Fordun and Dalrymple, the following story concerning that period
+is related:—when Malcolm Canmore was slain in battle, his widow,
+Queen Margaret, took refuge in the Castle of Edinburgh, where she very
+shortly died. “Donald Bane, uncle to Malcolm’s children, having usurped
+the throne, now besieged the Castle in which the orphan-heir to the
+crown resided. The usurper, presuming from the steepness of the rock
+that Malcolm’s children could escape only at the gates, ordered them
+alone to be guarded. But those in the garrison, knowing this, conveyed
+the body of the Queen through a postern gate on the west side of the
+Castle, to the church of Dunfermline, where it lies interred: and the
+children escaping to England, where they were protected and educated by
+their uncle, Edgar Atheling.”</p>
+
+<p>After the murder of James I. at Perth, the son and successor of that
+Monarch, who inherited the crown at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span> age of seven years, was
+placed under the care of Crichton, the chancellor, while Sir Thomas
+Livingstone was appointed regent. But a quarrel occurring between
+the two great officers of state, James was detained, in splendid
+confinement, at Edinburgh Castle, by Sir William Crichton. But the
+Queen-Dowager, who favoured the opposite party, resolved to rescue
+her son, and place him in the hands of the regent. In pursuit of this
+purpose, she paid a visit to the youthful Sovereign, during which
+she affected to display great friendship towards the chancellor,
+and asserted an intention of never interfering in matters of state.
+Crichton was deceived by these assurances, and readily granted the
+Queen permission to remove certain articles from the Castle, which
+would be wanted by her in the course of a pilgrimage to a church in
+East Lothian, which she was on the point of undertaking. The effects
+were conveyed from the Castle at an early hour of the morning, and
+among them, concealed in a trunk, was removed the young King, who was
+supposed to be asleep and secure in his chamber. A vessel was ready,
+and he, the same night, reached Stirling, where he was received with
+open arms by the triumphant Queen and regent.</p>
+
+<p>But the fruit of the Queen’s ingenuity was soon wrested from her by the
+superior address of the chancellor. Crichton knew that the King hunted
+frequently in the woods near Stirling, and he watched an opportunity
+during the absence of the regent, to conceal himself, and a determined
+band, in the deep shade of a wood through which it was likely the King
+would pass. James fell into the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span> snare, and the chancellor, with many
+protestations of respect, and much show of real courtesy, conducted him
+to his former place of secluded residence.</p>
+
+<p>The over-weening power and extreme insolence of the <i>Earl of
+Douglas</i> caused a reconciliation to take place, shortly after
+this event, between the chancellor and the regent, who were mutually
+apprehensive of the ill consequences of a division in the state, while
+the ambitious Douglas was daily increasing in authority and turbulence.
+Convinced of the inefficacy of the executive power to inflict justice
+on the Earl, or to put a stop to his oppressive proceedings, the two
+new co-adjutors resolved on proving the sincerity of their alliance, by
+the assassination of their rival; and, for this purpose, the chancellor
+decoyed him into the Castle. Lord Douglas was treated with so much
+well-counterfeited respect that he felt assured of security, and
+consented to share a banquet with the King and the two great officers
+who ruled in the Monarch’s name. Here smiles and hilarity prevailed:
+the regent flattered the pride of Douglas, and the chancellor pressed
+his hand, with warm assurances of attachment. But, towards the
+conclusion of the entertainment, <i>a bull’s head</i> was set before
+the unsuspicious guest. Douglas understood the fatal symbol, and sprang
+from the table; but he was instantly surrounded by armed men, who
+dragged him, in spite of the King’s tears and supplications, to the
+outer court of the Castle, where he was murdered.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span></p>
+
+<h2>LAMBTON CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">WILLIAM HOWITT</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Lambton Castle is a perfect and expressive image of the feudalism
+of the Nineteenth Century; of feudalism made easy, to the present
+generation; of feudalism which has never ceased to exist, whatever
+concussions shook the empire, or whatever spasms rocked the
+constitution; which has for the greater part of a thousand years fought
+its way, whether in steel jacket or in scarlet broadcloth, with spear
+or with musket; which has never failed to hold its own, and to hand
+down the huge domains which it won in England, under the banners of
+William of Normandy. It is now polished indeed, but it is still strong;
+it prides itself on its most ancient style of habitation, but over
+and around that habitation it has poured the grace of modern art, and
+filled it with all the amenities, the comforts, the softnesses, and
+intellectual resources of a busy, scientific, refined, and luxurious
+age. Such is the entire character of Lambton Castle. You see before
+you, indeed, Gothic towers and battlements, but around them spread
+lawns such only as England and the England of our day knows. You
+approach it by roads not made for the hoofs of old war horses to
+disturb, but for the wheels of gay chariots to roll over; and within
+you find a glittering and sumptuous succession of books, paintings,
+statues, marble <span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span>pillars, gorgeous vases, soft carpets of richest
+dyes and softer beds, curtained into silken privacy; and all the
+nameless and numberless little articles and marks of taste, which, to
+a true old castle-dweller, would form a wilderness of contemptible
+baubles, and a heap of articles that he would never even wish to want.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp304">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp304.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">LAMBTON CASTLE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>At the time that I visited Lambton Castle, its possessor was even then
+seeking relief from indisposition in the south of England, and serious
+fears were entertained that his life would not be long. That curious
+old legend of Lambton, of which we shall have presently to speak,
+seemed still, in the physical condition of the existing lord, to assert
+that it was more than a superstition of the old times, but was founded
+on an influence fatal to the longevity of the race. Though the period
+of the spell was said to terminate in General Lambton, as the ninth
+in descent from the slayer of the Worm, yet neither his son nor his
+grandson has been longer lived, nor have they died at home.</p>
+
+<p>It was not without a more sensible interest, that, reflecting on these
+circumstances, I went through the grounds and the Castle of Lambton.
+Here were all that nature and art could effect in combination to make a
+noble abode for its possessor; but a mysterious fiat of destiny seemed
+to be pronounced over the race, of short and embittered enjoyment of it.</p>
+
+<p>The Wear here performs some of its most beautiful windings, for
+which it is so remarkable, and its lofty banks hung with fine woods,
+presented the most lovely views whichever way you looked. A new bridge
+leads across the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span> river, and a winding carriage-road conducts you by
+an easy ascent through pleasant woodlands up to the Castle. You pass
+under a light suspension bridge which leads from the Castle, along the
+banks above the river, through the woods of great beauty, and where you
+find the most pleasant solitudes, with varied views of the river and
+sounds of its hurrying water. The Castle, in all its newness of aspect,
+stands boldly on the height above the river, with beautiful green
+slopes descending towards it. As you approach the Castle, and enter it,
+everything impresses you with a sense of its strength, tastefulness,
+and completeness. The compact and well-built walls of clam-stone; the
+well-paved and well-finished courts; the numerous and complete offices;
+the kitchens, furnished with every convenience and implement that
+modern skill and ingenuity can bring together; all tell you that you
+are in the abode of a man of the amplest resources. As you advance,
+elegance and luxury are added to completeness; and you are surrounded
+not by the rude and quaint objects of our old houses, but by the
+rich requisites of present aristocratic existence. The snug boudoir,
+the lord’s dressing-room, the bath, the library, the saloon, the
+drawing-room, and all the various apartments of a noble modern house,
+into which are sometimes crowded several hundred guests—we shall not
+attempt to describe.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most remarkable things about Lambton, is that Legend of the
+Worm, and the popular ideas attached to it, to which we have already
+alluded. The story of the Worm of Lambton cannot be better told than
+in the words<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span> of Surtees: “The heir of Lambton, fishing, as was his
+profane custom, in the Wear of a Sunday, hooked a small worm or eft,
+which he carelessly threw into a well, and thought no more of the
+adventure. The worm, at first neglected, grew till it was too large
+for its first habitation, and issuing forth from the <i>Worm Well</i>,
+betook itself to the Wear, where it usually lay a part of the day
+coiled round a crag in the middle of the water; it also frequented a
+green mound near the well, called thence ‘<i>The Worm Hill</i>,’ where
+it lapped itself nine times round, leaving vermicular traces, of which,
+grave living witnesses depose that they have seen the vestiges. It
+now became the terror of the country; and, amongst other enormities,
+levied a daily contribution of nine cows’ milk, which was always placed
+for it at the green hill, and in default of which it devoured man and
+beast. Young Lambton had, it seems, meanwhile, totally repented him
+of his former life and conversation; had bathed himself in a bath of
+holy water, taken the sign of the Cross, and joined the Crusaders. On
+his return home he was extremely shocked at witnessing the effects of
+his youthful imprudence, saw that the Worm must be at once destroyed,
+and immediately undertook the adventure. After several fierce
+combats, in which the crusader was foiled by his enemy’s <i>power of
+self-union</i>, he found it expedient to add policy to courage, and
+not, perhaps, possessing much of the former quality, he went to consult
+a witch, or wise woman. By her judicious advice, he armed himself in
+a coat of mail, studded with razor-blades, and thus prepared, placed
+himself on the crag in the river, and awaited<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span> the monster’s arrival.
+At the usual time, the Worm came to the rock, and wound himself with
+great fury round the armed knight, who had the satisfaction to see his
+enemy cut in pieces by his own efforts, while the stream washing away
+the several parts prevented the possibility of re-union. There is still
+a sequel to the story. The witch had promised Lambton success only on
+one condition—that he would slay the first living thing which met his
+sight after the victory. To avoid the possibility of human slaughter,
+Lambton had directed his father, that as soon as he heard him sound
+three blasts on his bugle, in token of the achievement performed, he
+should release his favourite greyhound, which would immediately fly to
+the sound of the horn, and was destined to be the sacrifice. On hearing
+his son’s bugle, however, the old chief was so overjoyed that he forgot
+his injunctions, and ran himself with open arms to meet his son.
+Instead of committing a parricide, the conqueror again repaired to his
+adviser, who pronounced, as the alternative of disobeying the original
+instructions, that no chief of the Lambtons should die in his bed for
+seven, or, as some accounts say, for nine generations—a commutation
+which, to a martial spirit, had nothing probably very terrible, and
+which was willingly complied with.”</p>
+
+<p>Popular tradition assigns the chapel of Brigford as the spot where
+Lambton offered up his vows before and after the adventure. In the
+garden-house at Lambton are two figures of great antiquity. A knight,
+in good style, armed cap-à-pie, the back however <i>not studded with
+razor blades</i>,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span> who holds the Worm by one ear with his left hand,
+and with his right, thrusts his sword to the hilt down his throat; and
+a lady, who wears a coronet, with bare breasts, etc., in the style
+of Charles II.’s Beauties—a wound on whose bosom, and an accidental
+mutilation of the hand, are said to be the work of the Worm. A real
+good Andrea Ferrara, inscribed on the blade 1521, notwithstanding the
+date, has also been pressed into the service, and is said to be the
+identical weapon by which the Worm perished.</p>
+
+<p>The scene of the Worm’s haunts, and the combat, is at a considerable
+distance from the Castle; in fact, about a mile and a half from the
+<i>old</i> Lambton Hall, where the Lambtons then dwelt. It is on the
+north bank of the Wear, in the estate of North Biddick, and now in
+quite a populous location. The Worm Hill is a conspicuous conical mound
+of considerable size, but having all the appearance of an ancient
+barrow, or other artificial tumulus. It stands in a meadow just at
+the backs of some houses, is perfectly green with grass; and now,
+whatever it might do formerly, bears not the slightest trace of the
+place where the worm coiled itself. It is about eighty yards from the
+river, and the well lay twenty-six yards from the hill. Half a century
+ago the Worm Well was in repute as a <i>Wishing Well</i>, and was one
+of the scenes dedicated to the usual festivities and superstitions of
+Midsummer Eve.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span></p>
+
+<h2>ARANJUEZ<br>
+<span class="subhed">EDMONDO DE AMICIS</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">In leaving Madrid by the southern route, you traverse an uninhabited
+country that recalls the poorest provinces of Aragon and old Castile,
+just as happened on your arrival by the northern. These are vast,
+yellowish, and dried-up plains; you would say that if you beat upon it,
+the earth would resound like an empty box, or crumble away like the
+crust of a burnt tart; occasionally you see miserable villages, of the
+same colour as the land, which look as if they would ignite like a heap
+of dry leaves, if any one were to bring a match to the roof of one of
+the houses. After an hour’s travel, my shoulder sought the side of the
+carriage, my elbow a leaning-place, and I fell into a profound sleep,
+like a member of Leopardi’s <i>Ateneo d’ Ascoltazione</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I looked around me: the vast deserted plain was transformed as if by
+enchantment into an immense garden full of delightful groves, crossed
+in every direction by great avenues, dotted with little country houses
+and rustic cabins covered with vines; and, here and there were tossing
+fountains, shady nooks, flowery meadows, vineyards, little footpaths,
+and a greenness, a freshness, an odour of spring, a breath of joy and
+delight that wafted your soul to paradise. We had arrived at Aranjuez.
+I left the train, threaded my <span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span>way down a beautiful avenue shaded by
+two rows of gigantic trees, and in an instant found myself opposite the
+royal palace.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp310">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp310.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">ARANJUEZ, SPAIN.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Castelar, the minister, wrote recently in his <i>memorandum</i> that
+the fall of the ancient Spanish monarchy was foreseen on the day that
+a herd of populace with abuse on their lips and anger in their hearts,
+invaded the palace of Aranjuez to disturb the tranquil majesty of its
+sovereigns. I was precisely on that spot, where, on March 17, 1808,
+occurred the events that formed the prologue to the national war
+and the first word of the sentence, as it were, that condemned the
+ancient monarchy to death. I immediately looked for the windows of the
+apartment of the Prince of Peace; I pictured him, fleeing from hall
+to hall, pale and dishevelled, hunting for a hiding-place, amidst the
+echoing cries of the multitude that mounted the stairway; I saw poor
+Charles IV. place the crown on the head of the Prince of the Asturias
+with trembling hands; all the scenes of that terrible drama passed
+before my eyes; and the deep silence of this place and the sight of
+that shut and abandoned palace chilled me to the heart.</p>
+
+<p>The palace is built like a castle; it is of brick with corners of white
+marble, and covered with a slate roof. Every one knows that Philip
+II. had it built by the celebrated architect Herrera, and that nearly
+all his successors embellished it, and lived there during the summer
+season. I entered: the interior is splendid; there is a resplendent
+hall for the reception of ambassadors, a beautiful Chinese cabinet of
+Charles III., a superb dressing-room of Isabella<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span> II., and a profusion
+of precious ornaments. But all the riches of the palace are not worth
+the view of the gardens. Expectations are not deceived. The gardens
+of Aranjuez (Aranjuez is the name of the little town situate a short
+distance from the palace) seem to have been laid out for the family
+of Titan Kings, to whom the parks and gardens of our Kings would have
+appeared like terrace parterres and sheep-folds. Avenues, extending
+as far as the eye can reach and bordered by trees of an inordinate
+height uniting their branches and leaning towards us as if bent by
+two contrary winds, in every direction cross a forest the boundaries
+of which one cannot see; and through this forest the wide and rapid
+Tagus describes a majestic curve, forming here and there cascades
+and basins; a luxuriant and flourishing vegetation abounds amid a
+labyrinth of little avenues and cross-roads; everywhere is seen the
+whiteness of statues, fountains, columns and high jets of water that
+fall in sheets and rain and spray on all the flowers known to Europe
+and America; and to the majestic sound of the cascade of the Tagus is
+joined the song of innumerable nightingales that pour their trills into
+the mysterious shade of the lonely paths. Beyond the gardens, rises
+a little marble palace, modest in appearance, which contains all the
+marvels of the most magnificent royal residence, and where one still
+breathes the atmosphere of the life of the Kings of Spain. Here are
+the little secret chambers the ceilings of which may be touched by the
+hand, the billiard-room of Charles IV., cushions embroidered by the
+hands of queens, musical clocks that amused the idle children, little
+stairways,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span> tiny windows that preserve a hundred little traditions
+of the caprice of princes: and, finally, the richest toilet-room in
+Europe, due to a whim of Charles IV., and which contains in itself
+so much wealth that one could draw enough from it to build a palace,
+without depriving it of the noble pre-eminence it boasts above all
+rooms appropriated to the same use.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond this palace, and around the woodlands, extend vineyards,
+olive-trees, plantations of fruit-trees and smiling meadows. It is a
+veritable oasis surrounded by a desert which Philip II. chose in a day
+of good humour, as if to alleviate the black melancholy of the Escurial
+with a gay picture. On returning from the little marble palace to the
+great palace of the Escurial down these long avenues, beneath the shade
+of these large trees, in this profound peace of the forest, I thought
+of the splendid pageants of ladies and cavaliers that formerly followed
+the steps of the gay young monarchs and capricious and unrestrained
+queens to the sound of love-songs and hymns, celebrating the grandeur
+and the glory of unvanquished Spain, and I repeated sadly with the poet
+of Recanati:</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div>“... All is peace and silence,</div>
+        <div class="i2">And one speaks no longer of them....”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span></p>
+
+<h2>GLAMIS CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">LADY GLAMIS</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">To the lover of Shakespeare, the name of Glammis (as it was sometimes
+spelt) will recall the act of treachery and murder which tradition
+gives as having taken place there, when King Duncan was done to death
+by the hand or at the instigation of the ambitious and unscrupulous
+Lady Macbeth; although there is no possibility of proving or testing
+the truth as to the details or locality of the tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>To the antiquarian, the Castle must be of immense interest on account
+of the great age of the central portion, or keep, which is known to
+have been standing in 1016, but “whose birth tradition notes not”;
+while to the romantic and superstitious it is associated as a place
+where ghosts and spirits moving silently down winding stairs and dark
+passages are wont to make night fearsome. This feeling of eeriness is
+not confined to the naturally nervous, for Sir Walter Scott, who spent
+a night at Glamis in 1794, writes:</p>
+
+<p>“After a very hospitable reception, ... I was conducted to my apartment
+in a distant part of the building. I must own that when I heard door
+after door shut, after my conductor had retired, I began to consider
+myself too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead.”</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp314">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp314.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">GLAMIS CASTLE, SCOTLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span></p>
+
+<p>Additional interest attaches to this castle from the fact that its
+venerable walls enshroud a <i>mysterious something</i>, which has for
+centuries baffled the curiosity and investigations of all unauthorized
+persons; this secret is known only to three people—the Earl of the
+time being, his eldest son, and one other individual, whom they think
+worthy of their confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Most people have theories upon this subject, and many ridiculous
+stories are told; but so carefully has the mystery been guarded, that
+no suspicion of the truth has ever come to light. One version of the
+story is as follows: Several centuries ago the Lord Glamis of the time
+was entertaining the head of another noble family then resident in
+Angus; and in the course of the evening they commenced to play cards.
+It was Saturday night, and so intent were they on wagering lands and
+money on the issue of the game, that they did not recognize the fact
+that Sunday morning was approaching until an old retainer ventured to
+remind them of the hour. Whereupon one of the gamblers swore a great
+oath, with the tacit approval of the other, that they did not care what
+day it might be, but they would finish their game at any cost, even if
+they went on playing till Doomsday! It had struck midnight ere he had
+finished his sentence, when there suddenly appeared a stranger dressed
+in black, who politely informed their lordships that he would take them
+at their word, and vanished.</p>
+
+<p>The story goes on to aver that annually on that night three noblemen,
+or their spirits, meet and play cards in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span> <i>secret room</i> of the
+Castle, and that this will go on till Doomsday. In corroboration of
+this story, it is said that on a certain night in the autumn of every
+year, loud noises are heard, and some of the casements of the Castle
+are blown open.</p>
+
+<p>Glamis Castle stands in the centre of the vale of Strathmore, in a
+picturesque and well-wooded part of Forfarshire; the heather-clad
+sides of the Sidlaws, which divide Strathmore from the sea, rising to
+the south, while away to the north tower the Grampians, which form a
+magnificent background to the ancient pile of buildings, whose turrets
+rise some hundred and fifteen feet above the level of the ground.</p>
+
+<p>The poet, Gray, in a letter, describes the exterior of the castle in
+the following words:</p>
+
+<p>“The house, from the height of it, the greatness of its mass, the many
+towers atop, and the spread of its wings, has really a very singular
+and striking appearance, like nothing I ever saw.”</p>
+
+<p>The oldest portions of the Castle are formed of huge irregular blocks
+of old red sandstone, which time and weather have mellowed into a
+beautiful grey, pink colour. The walls in many places are sixteen
+feet thick, which in the olden days had the essential recommendation
+of great security, and also of allowing space for secret rooms and
+passages as means of escape in times of peril; and as a matter of
+fact, two secret staircases have been discovered within the last
+five-and-twenty years, and possibly there are others which still remain
+forgotten and unused.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span></p>
+
+<p>The narrow windows appear at irregular heights and distances in the
+central building or keep and left wing (the right wing having been
+burnt down and rebuilt early in 1800, is not so interesting), but the
+great staircase added by Patrick, Lord Glamis, in 1605, is very fine,
+occupying a circular tower, the space for which has been partly dug
+out of the old walls of the keep, and rises to the third story. This
+staircase (the designing for which has been attributed to Inigo Jones)
+is spiral, with a hollow newel in the centre, and is composed of stone
+to the summit. It consists of 143 steps, 6 feet 10 inches in width,
+each of <i>one</i> stone.</p>
+
+<p>The staircases, which were in use before 1600, are very narrow, dark,
+and some of them winding, the steps steep and irregular in height, worn
+into hollows by the many feet that for centuries climbed them. Up two
+flights of these dimly lit, uneven stairs, the wounded king, Malcolm
+II., after having been treacherously attacked and mortally wounded
+by Kenneth V. and his adherents on the Hunter’s Hill, about a mile
+from the Castle, was carried by his followers to die in the chamber
+that still bears the name of King Malcolm’s room. This murder of King
+Malcolm is the first authentic event mentioned by the chroniclers in
+connection with Glamis.</p>
+
+<p>In the time of King Malcolm, Glamis was a royal residence, and remained
+so till 1372, when Sir John Lyon, “a young man of very good parts
+and qualities, and of a very graceful and comely person, and a great
+favourite with the king” (Robert II.), was made Lord High Chamberlain
+of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span> Scotland. At that time the king’s daughter, the Princess Jean,
+fell in love with this young knight, and was given him in marriage
+together with the lands of the thanedom of Glamis, “<i>pro laudabili
+et fideli servitio et continuis laboribus</i>,” as the charter bears
+witness, March 18, 1372. Ten years later Sir John fell in a duel with
+Sir James Lindsay of Crawford, and was buried at Scone among the kings
+of Scotland. He left one son, from whom the present family of Lyon have
+descended without a break from <i>father to son</i> to the present day.
+Fifty years later, Sir Patrick Lyon (Sir John’s grandson), who was one
+of the hostages to the English for the ransom of James I. from 1424 to
+1427, was created Baron Glamis, and appointed Master of the Household
+to the King of Scotland. For the next hundred years nothing of interest
+occurred till John, sixth Lord Glamis, married the beautiful Janet
+Douglas, granddaughter of the great Earl of Angus (Bell-the-Cat), and
+died in 1528. Lady Glamis married, secondly, Archibald Campbell, of
+Kepneith, whose relative, another Campbell, fell in love with her.
+Finding, however, that his addresses were but ill received by this
+lady, who was as good as she was lovely, his love turned to hate, and
+he revenged himself by informing the authorities that Lady Glamis, her
+son, Lord Glamis, and John Lyon, his relative, were conspiring against
+the life of the king, James V., by poison or witchcraft. They were
+tried for high treason, and wrongfully convicted! Lady Glamis and her
+young son were both sentenced to be <i>burned</i>, and the estate of
+Glamis was forfeited and annexed to the Crown by Act of Parliament,
+December 3d, 1540.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span> However, these brutal judges, on account of the
+extreme youth of Lord Glamis, feared to bring him to execution, so the
+boy was kept in prison, with the death sentence hanging over him, while
+the beautiful Lady Glamis was dragged forth and burned at the stake on
+the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, July 17th, 1537. Those were days when
+acts of violence and cruelty were regarded with an indifference that
+we cannot now realize, although when she stood up in her beauty to
+undergo this fearful sentence, it is recorded that all heads were bowed
+in sorrowful sympathy. When this infamous execution was accomplished,
+remorse seems to have come over Campbell, who was visited by visions of
+his victim looking at him with sad, reproachful eyes. When, some years
+later, his death was drawing nigh, he confessed that his evidence at
+the trial was altogether false. Lord Glamis was therefore released from
+prison, and his estates and honours restored.</p>
+
+<p>To return to the Castle. The exterior is much ornamented with ancient
+armorial bearings in carved stone, while a round niche over the
+front door contains a bust of Earl Patrick. The principal entrance
+is a striking feature. The doorway is small and low, and a stout
+iron-clenched oaken door, thickly studded with nails, is guarded on
+the inside by a heavily grated iron gate, which opens right on to
+the staircase. A flight of steps to the right of the entrance leads
+down to the dungeons, vaults, and the old well (now filled up) which
+supplied the inmates with water in times of siege; while another stair
+to the left leads up to the Retainers’ Hall (or Crypt as it is now
+called), low, and fifty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span> feet in length, with walls and arched roof
+entirely composed of stone. Of the seven windows, which are small, four
+or five are cut out of the thickness of the walls, and make recesses
+just large enough to form small rooms, which might have been used as
+sleeping chambers in old days. Lay figures, clad in complete armour,
+stand in the recesses, which, especially in the dusk, give an eerie
+effect to this part of the Castle. It is said that a ghostly man in
+armour walks this floor at night—possibly the original of one of those
+armoured figures standing silently in the crypt year after year, who
+may, perchance, have ended his life in the dungeon that lies exactly
+underneath.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHÂTEAU DE CHINON<br>
+<span class="subhed">J. J. BOURRASSÉE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">To the traveller who arrives at Chinon from the south or west, the
+aspect of the old castle is imposing. What an effect it must have
+produced at the period of its full splendour! Originally it was a
+fortress situated on an eminence commanding the course of the Vienne
+and the fertile plain of Veron. It might be regarded as the key of
+lower Touraine. Therefore we see the Romans, the Visigoths, the Franks,
+and, later, the Counts of Anjou and Touraine, the Kings of England and
+France sparing no efforts to secure its possession. In 462, Frederic,
+brother of Theodoric King of the Visigoths, having advanced as far as
+the banks of the Loire, seized the Castle of Chinon: up to that time
+the Romans had occupied it, and by its favourable position it had
+become the last citadel of their power in this part of Gaul. Ægidius
+Afranius, the Roman governor of Gaul, hastened into Touraine to recover
+Chinon; but he could not do it by force of arms. Despairing of carrying
+the place of assault, the Romans blockaded it. The defenders were at
+the last extremity from lack of water when a violent storm poured
+abundant rain within the ramparts. The Romans raised the siege and the
+Visigoths remained masters of the castle until the defeat of Alaric in
+the plains of Vouille. The conquering Clovis<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span> understood the importance
+of this military post and made it one of the ramparts of his kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The Frankish princes installed themselves there so well that no foe
+ever thought of disputing its possession with them. The Carlovingians
+were still its masters when feudalism transformed to the profit of the
+great barons the precarious title that they held by the confidence of
+the sovereign. Thibault the Trickster had Touraine as his share in this
+vast parcelling out of France. He had the Castle of Chinon repaired and
+often resided there, as in an impregnable fortress. Thibault’s lot in
+the partition of the territory was not in the least an agreeable one,
+for he had to defend it against the envy of his neighbors. Touraine
+for about a century was a prey over which rival powers fought. In
+the end it remained with the strongest. The Count of Anjou became
+completely master of it after the battle of Nouy, fought on the heights
+of Montlouis in 1044. Even in the bosom of this powerful house there
+were quarrels over the possession of the Castle of Chinon. An unequal
+partition between Geoffroy le Barbu and Foulques le Rechin led to war
+between those two brothers. Abandoned and betrayed by his followers,
+Geoffroy was made prisoner and cast into the cells of the Castle of
+Chinon, where he remained closely immured for the space of eighteen
+years with such rigour that he almost lost his reason. Nothing less
+than the intervention of Pope Urban II. in 1096 was required to have
+him set at liberty.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp321">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp321.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">CHÂTEAU DE CHINON, FRANCE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Thanks to a marriage, the house of Anjou mounted the throne of
+England and Chinon became a royal possession. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span>Henry Plantagenet,
+great-grandson of Foulques le Rechin, brings this fine residence into
+new relief. Henry II. made it his favourite manor. He made it the
+seat of a royally privileged domain, comprising Cande, Champigny,
+La Haye, L’Île Bouchard, Saint Epain, Sainte Maure, Azay le Rideau
+and Bourgueil. Henry II. added to the Castle of Chinon a fortress
+distinct from the other buildings, with its own ramparts, moats, gates,
+drawbridges, buildings for the accommodation of the King, his court
+and his archers, and its church dedicated to St. George. From his
+donjon keep, the King of England ceaselessly laboured to increase his
+territory and his influence on the Continent. By means of his marriage
+with Eleanor of Guienne, repudiated by King Louis VII., he had become
+more powerful than his sovereign. It seems as if nothing could stay the
+course of such success, were it not for discord in his own family. At
+war with Philip Augustus, and with his own son the famous Richard Cœur
+de Lion, the King of England retired to Chinon. Necessity compelled
+him to sign with the King of France the humiliating peace of Azay sur
+Cher. “Shame!” he cried, “shame to the vanquished king! Cursed be the
+day I was born! Curses upon my two sons!” This fit of fury sent him to
+the tomb, July 6, 1189. He was carried without pomp to the Abbey of
+Fontévrault, near Chinon, where he had desired to be buried.</p>
+
+<p>Ten years later, another train took the same road: it was that of
+Richard Cœur de Lion. Being mortally wounded at the siege of Chaluz,
+that prince caused himself to be taken to Chinon, where he quickly
+succumbed in cruel<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span> agony. He was buried beside Henry II. in the Abbey
+of Fontévrault, that celebrated house that has had as abbess fourteen
+princesses of the royal blood, and that had deserved the name of
+<i>King’s Cemetery</i>. In an obscure corner are still to be seen the
+admirable statues of the counts of Anjou, masterpieces of the statuary
+at the close of the Twelfth Century.</p>
+
+<p>At that time, nothing presaged that the Castle of Chinon was to leave
+the hands of the Kings of England, when suddenly a protracted cry of
+horror and indignation resounded through the world. John Lackland had
+just got rid of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by a cowardly murder
+at Rouen. Philip Augustus summoned the murderer to appear before the
+court of the peers of the realm. After several adjournments regularly
+notified, the criminal, not having presented himself, was condemned to
+lose the fiefs held from the French crown. The sentence was easy to
+deliver, but not so easy to execute. The King of France hastened to
+Touraine at the head of an army and took possession of Tours, Loches
+and Chinon.</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that the Castle of Chinon was valiantly defended;
+it was carried by assault after an obstinate struggle in 1205. Philip
+Augustus gave it a good garrison. After that day, the English never
+set foot in it; and when during our intestine discord they profited by
+treason and dominated many of our provinces, the Castle of Chinon was
+the last refuge of the monarchy. From there were struck all the blows
+that gave France back her independence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span></p>
+
+<p>Feudalism had greatly lessened the royal power. Noble efforts had
+been made to restore the authority that the king ought never to have
+lost. These attempts had produced memorable results; but the great
+feudatories were discontented. They wanted to profit by the minority
+of Louis IX. and the regency of a woman to recover the power that had
+escaped them. Events called St. Louis and Queen Blanche to Chinon. The
+young king held a parliament of twenty days at the castle gates. The
+rebel lords refused to attend, but their plans were rendered abortive,
+thanks to the activity of Blanche of Castile.</p>
+
+<p>Philip Augustus had partly rebuilt the Castle of Chinon: the Thirteenth
+Century work is easily visible amid the later constructions. Under the
+reign of St. Louis, further works to render this fortress as a whole
+more formidable were executed.</p>
+
+<p>In 1308, a great bustle was manifest in the Castle and town of Chinon:
+Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Order of the Templars, Hughes de
+Péraldo, Visitor of France, and the Commanders of Cyprus, Aquitaine and
+Normandy had just been brought in. Other Knights of the same Order had
+already been confined there. They were all to be taken to Poictiers
+where were Pope Clement V. and Philippe le Bel, King of France; but
+several of them had fallen ill on the road, so the sovereign pontiff
+deputed three cardinals to proceed with the investigation at Chinon.
+Every one knows the result of these grave proceedings: the Order of the
+Templars was suppressed, and those who were prisoners at Chinon only
+left their cells to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span> go to the stake at Paris. They had confessed their
+crimes in the question to which they had been put; but most of them
+retracted amidst the flames. This frightful execution took place in
+1313.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of the Fourteenth Century, Charles VI. ceded the duchy
+of Touraine and the county of Chinon to his brother Louis, Duke of
+Orleans, who was afterwards assassinated by order of John the Fearless,
+Duke of Burgundy. This period recalls the most mournful memories of our
+history. Our land was ravaged by bands of English, skilful to profit by
+our dissensions. At last the hour of deliverance has arrived. France
+will now see more prosperous days; and Charles VII., the Victorious,
+will stretch his sceptre over the territory formerly subject to his
+ancestor.</p>
+
+<p>Charles VII. established his court at Chinon. Joan of Arc came to see
+him there and to inaugurate her extraordinary mission beneath the
+castle arches. Everybody knows the details of the heroine’s arrival
+at Chinon: how she recognized the disguised king in the midst of his
+courtiers, revealed a secret known only to himself and God, showed
+herself full of confidence in the cause that she was to make triumphant
+and finally succeeded in inspiring the hearts of others with the
+enthusiasm that overflowed her own.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the first public deeds of the providential mission of Joan of
+Arc are connected with Chinon. At this moment, Charles VII. had by
+his side another woman of generous heart and strong spirit: this was
+the queen, Marie of Anjou. Her influence was greater than historians
+have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span> recognized; it was much more salutary and efficacious than that
+of Agnes Sorel. When the latter appeared at Chinon for the first time
+before the eyes of Charles VII., it was already six months since
+Joan of Arc had gone to the stake at Rouen. Is not that enough for
+us to say that France had already been saved and that the advice and
+remonstrances of Agnes Sorel came too late?</p>
+
+<p>However that may be, the presence of Agnes Sorel at the court of Chinon
+was insupportable to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. He even made
+it a pretext for a conspiracy against his father. These designs of an
+unnatural son did not succeed, but they poisoned the King’s last years.</p>
+
+<p>In 1461, Charles VII. died at Mehun sur Yèvre, and Louis XI. succeeded
+to the throne. Louis XI. took up his abode by preference at the Castle
+of Plessis-lez-Tours: he often came to Chinon. It was in the environs
+of that town, at the Castle of Forges, that he felt the first attack
+of the malady that carried him off. Philippe de Commines, Seigneur
+d’Argenton, governor of the Castle of Chinon, informs us how this
+accident, which was nothing less than an attack of apoplexy, came upon
+him.</p>
+
+<p>In the very year of the death of Louis XI. a famous personage in
+buffoon literature was born at Chinon. François Rabelais is the most
+cynical of writers, and if, as some people assert, he tried to hide his
+philosophy beneath the masque of folly, it must be acknowledged that he
+succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>After the reign of Louis XI., the Castle of Chinon was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span> very little
+frequented by the court. Catherine de’Medici was there in 1560, and
+the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henri III. appeared there at the head
+of his army, marching against the Reformers, who were to be so rudely
+chastised in the plains of Montoncour.</p>
+
+<p>In 1629, the Princess de Conti, who possessed Chinon by virtue of an
+exchange of property with Henry of Lorraine, Duke of Chevreuse, sold
+the castle with all its dependencies to Cardinal Richelieu. The sale
+gave the signal, so to speak, for the demolition of the royal castle of
+the Plantagenets and French monarchs. When the Revolution, that piled
+up so many ruins arrived, it found nothing more to do here.</p>
+
+<p>The remains of the old manor are still gigantic. Those high walls,
+dismantled curtains, crenellated masonry, and discrowned turrets
+harbour glorious memories; but it is not always easy to distinguish
+what belongs to each century, or clearly to discern the work of
+the Romans or the Visigoths, of Thibault the Trickster, Henry II.,
+Philip Augustus, Charles VII., or Louis XI. The greater part of these
+ruins, however, is characteristic of the Fifteenth Century. Scarcely
+anything remains intact except the belfry tower, now called the <i>Tour
+de l’Horloge</i>, twenty to twenty-five meters in height. These
+picturesque ruins belong to the town of Chinon, having been left to it
+by the house of Richelieu.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE SUMMER PALACE<br>
+<span class="subhed">MAURICE PALÉOLOGUE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">THE last time that I saw the Imperial Palace of Pekin was on a morning
+in the last of April. The air was fresh and limpid, and the vault of
+heaven seemed to have lifted itself to a prodigious height. It was
+not that somewhat misty atmosphere of spring in France, which seems
+impregnated with damp and vegetable odours, and which bathes the
+unstable outlines of objects; neither was it that tenuous light of
+those mornings in the East that overspreads the distances, envelops
+objects, and defines their planes. It was a very dry air, for five
+months had passed since a drop of rain had fallen, with an almost
+brutal clearness which seemed to bring the horizon nearer and which
+harshly exhibited the forms of the buildings and the lines of the
+landscape.</p>
+
+<p>I went out very early, and the windings of my course took me to the
+Imperial City, one of the three cities that compose the capital of the
+Middle Kingdom. The streets differed in appearance from those of the
+quarters I had just traversed, the shops became rarer, the roadways
+wider, and the temples and palaces closer together. But at this early
+hour there was still greater animation here, and a crowd of horsemen,
+pedestrians, and carriages made passage difficult.</p>
+
+<p>I was about to turn in order to return to the French<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span> Legation, when
+a cart, peculiarly constructed upon two wheels placed almost at the
+back, and escorted by two horsemen, made my horse stand aside; it was
+a Tartar carriage from the court stables: a black mule harnessed with
+yellow leather and led by a groom, also in yellow livery, drew it along
+with great strides.</p>
+
+<p>In front, visible between the open curtains, a young woman was seated
+with her legs crossed beneath her. She was clothed in a large mantle of
+salmon-pink silk bordered with blue and gold lace and ornamented down
+the front and on the sleeves with clusters of flowers embroidered with
+very delicate brilliancy and delicious harmony of colour. This vestment
+almost entirely covered her gown of a pale and dead green that fell in
+folds about her.</p>
+
+<p>Her hair, gathered up on the top of her head, was divided in two thick
+folds, crossed here and there by long pins of gold, surmounted by
+butterflies of silver filagree, and artificial flowers of the strangest
+forms and hues. Also, as is customary among ladies of quality, her
+face was entirely painted with ceruse; but the cheeks and the dimple
+of the chin and the lips were coated with a thick layer of carmine,
+while a line of antimony immoderately lengthened her eyes out towards
+the temples, and two black <i>mouches</i> stuck near the cheek-bone,
+gave a peculiar appearance, a sort of air of morbid coquetry, to this
+depressing face in which life seemed to have been extinguished.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp329">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp329.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE SUMMER PALACE, CHINA.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>She held herself in a paralyzed immobility, with a hebetated fixity of
+gaze and a doubtful glimmer of intelligence, oscillating like a waxen
+puppet or an idol in a procession, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span>at each jolt of the carriage. She
+was, doubtless, judging from the livery of the driver and the escorting
+horsemen, a young Tartar lady of the court, one of the Empress’s maids
+of honour, or one of the imperial princesses shut up in the Palace.</p>
+
+<p>I set out to follow her at a distance. Her chariot ascended the
+inclined plane of a bridge, the flooring of which was of marble; the
+balustrade, also of marble, supported some sculptured dragons.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath the arches, the waters of a lake glittered. The light of the
+sun, still near the horizon, barely touched the liquid surface but
+spread its brilliancy everywhere else. In certain spots, lotus flowers
+blossomed and made the lake look like a meadow floating upon the clear
+and sleeping waters. It was the “Golden Lake,” a dependency of the
+Imperial Palace, whose high walls and golden roofs could be seen in the
+background.</p>
+
+<p>Light buildings, such as kiosks and temples, reached to the shore. The
+vast number of these roofs assumed rosy hues and the slightest details
+of their complicated architecture stood out clearly, looking in the
+liquid air that enveloped them, elegant, graceful and fresh amid the
+apricot trees and blossoming mimosas that covered the banks.</p>
+
+<p>North China was, in fact, just emerging from her long winter’s
+mourning, and the impression given by that spring-tide picture of
+earth’s new awakening was exquisite.</p>
+
+<p>The Tartar chariot continued to advance with the rapid steps of its
+mule: it was now passing at the foot of an artificial hill, planted
+with green trees, at the summit of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span> which rose a Buddhist obelisk that
+stood out almost harshly against the blue of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>But along the shore of the lake, the tints had already become deeper,
+and the lines less sharp. The kiosks, the pavilions, and the temples
+that rose upon the banks exhibited the original type of Chinese
+buildings, a canvas tent with turned up corners. The extreme profusion
+of ornamental details did not succeed in hiding the poverty of the
+original conception: dragons, chimeras, phœnixes, and tortoises, an
+entire fabulous and fantastic zoology of sculptured wood or terra
+cotta, surcharged the ridge-poles; figurines and painted flowers of
+clay weighed down the cornices, the larmiers, and the pediments; gaudy
+colors made a motley mixture upon the capitals of the columns and the
+architraves; but beneath this bristling and unrestrained decoration,
+you always found the absolute and invariable type that China has
+uniformly adopted at every epoch of her history and throughout her
+entire empire.</p>
+
+<p>However, I had by this time arrived at the fortified enclosure of the
+palace. High above me a rampart reared itself, thirty feet high and
+surrounded by a wide moat. At regular intervals, towers with turned-up
+roofs jutted out over this line of stone which extended so far that it
+seemed to shut in an entire city. A few trees had crossed the sloping
+wall, and the shadows of their branches spread over the dark and
+stagnant waters of the moat.</p>
+
+<p>A large gateway, surmounted by an enormous square tower, gave access to
+the interior of the palace, and three gigantic black letters engraved
+upon a golden panel at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span> summit of the tower seemed a mysterious
+inscription placed at the threshold of an unknown world.</p>
+
+<p>And at the moment when the Tartar carriage became engulfed under the
+arch and was lost in the Imperial enclosure, I experienced still more
+powerfully the impression that I had received three years before in
+Morocco in front of the palace of the Sultan Moulay-Hassan. There also,
+in the old city of Islam shining in the sunlight, I had felt myself
+transported into the midst of a new world, but I saw the barriers
+broken down, I was able to pass through the great pointed doorways of
+Dar-el-Mechouar, and the Court of the Scherifs was opened before me, as
+a scene of fairy-land or dreamland unfolds in a dazzling brilliancy of
+light and colour.</p>
+
+<p>Here, on the contrary, everything remained closed and impenetrable.</p>
+
+<p>However, the topography of the palace was not entirely unknown to me;
+I had already studied the plan made by the Jesuit missionaries who
+visited it in the Eighteenth Century, and, indeed, from the heights
+of the ramparts of the Tartar village, I had been able to recognize
+the general arrangement and distinguish the regular succession of its
+rectangular courtyards and gardens containing forty-eight enormous
+palaces and about the same number of pavilions, kiosks, arches and
+gateways.</p>
+
+<p>Only the tops of the principal buildings rose above the surrounding
+wall and into the clumps of verdure. Very far away, in the south, near
+the “Gate of Eternal Purity,” I perceived the temple of the ancestors
+of the dynasty of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span> Ta-Thsing now reigning, where the Emperor comes at
+stated dates to accomplish the sacred rites of the official cult.</p>
+
+<p>Then nearer, three buildings, taller than the rest, stood in a row, and
+the sculptured dragons on the ridge-poles and the glazed tiles on the
+roofs were resplendent in the sunlight: these were the three palaces
+of the “Sovereign Concord, Medium Concord, and Protective Concord,”
+where the Sovereign attends to the affairs of state and traces with
+his vermilion-steeped pencil the characters that express his decisions
+and that are laws venerated as the figured and material form of the
+Imperial will. There, every morning at two o’clock, the Emperor
+presides at the Grand Council of the Middle Kingdom; five ministers
+only have access to it. There, no matter what their age or fatigue,
+they must remain standing the whole time, or bow their foreheads to the
+ground when, from his throne, a stage of gilded wood raised six feet
+above the floor, the Son of Heaven addresses them. During the minority
+of the sovereigns, as is the case with the present Emperor, the Empress
+Regent is present also in the council, but she is not considered as
+there, and a screen of yellow silk hides her from all eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw a confused mass of houses of imperial princes, Manchus,
+chamberlains, daughters of Emperors married to Mongol princes and
+immured in the palace until their death, wives of the second degree and
+concubines of the deceased sovereigns, ladies of honour, mistresses
+of ceremonies, and eunuchs, an entire population, a wisely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span> arranged
+hierarchy amounting to more than eight thousand persons. Towards the
+east, in the dazzling sunlight, appeared also the barracks of the three
+banners of the guard, the treasury, the shops of porcelain, silver,
+and silk, ornaments, garments, tea, religious objects destined for the
+Son of Heaven, and manufactories where things are prepared for his
+exclusive use; the armoury, the stables, the Imperial library where
+the oldest annals of the world are kept, the “Pavilion of the Literary
+Flowers,” whither the Emperor repairs in the second moon of the year
+to interpret the sacred books; and the temple of the Tchouan-sin-tien
+where the sacrifices to the memory of Confucius and the great
+philosophers are performed.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, very near me, behind the gardens that ran along the length
+of the wall of the enclosure, I caught a glimpse of the “Palace of
+the Superior Terrestrial Element,” which recalled the memory of that
+unfortunate Empress Aluteh, who died in 1875 at the age of eighteen.
+She was the daughter of a Manchu prince. When very young, barely
+fifteen years, a decree proclaiming her for the Emperor tossed her
+brusquely into the Court of Pekin from her province in Tartary, and
+shut her up in the palace which she was to leave only with her life. On
+November 16, 1872, at midnight, she entered in bridal toilette through
+the “Gate of Celestial Purity”: she wore a robe of red silk embroidered
+with dragon and phœnix, a large scarlet veil enveloped her from head to
+foot. Three years later she went out dead through the “Flowered Gate
+of the East”: she had killed herself on learning of the death of her
+husband,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span> the Emperor Tong-Tche: an unusual luxury was lavished upon
+her funeral procession, and embroideries of pale blue silk upon white
+satin embossed with gold covered her coffin.</p>
+
+<p>However, the hour was advancing; the meeting of the Council was over;
+the couriers of state were departing for the provinces; the great
+mandarins came out of the palace, and after making interminable bows,
+got into their chariots, and I returned to the French Legation.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span></p>
+
+<h2>BERKELEY CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">For sylvan beauty and pastoral loveliness there is no fairer
+countryside in all England than the broad domains of which the old
+feudal stronghold of the Berkeleys is the centre. A mile to the
+westward, the Severn’s broad flood sweeps slowly to the Bristol
+Channel, only twenty miles away. Five miles or so to the eastward,
+the last spurs of the Cotswold Hills sink to the level of the plain.
+There is Stinchcomb Hill with its flat bare top dotted with the white
+tents of its summer camp. Beautiful Dursley lies in a neighbouring
+hollow. Nibley Knoll, where begin the beeches of Westridge Woods,
+amid which are the earthworks of a Roman or Saxon fort, can be easily
+distinguished by the column by Teulon that rises about one hundred feet
+to commemorate the part William Tyndale took in the Reformation. The
+little valleys running into these hills (locally called <i>bottoms</i>)
+hear the call of spring long before the uplands, and along the margins
+of their streams the snowdrops wake to nod graciously at their
+reflected beauty; and then, before the Westridge Woods are clothed in
+green, among the shielding trunks the primrose spreads a cloth of gold
+above the last year’s leaves.</p>
+
+<p>This whole district is thronged with historic memories; many a Norman
+cross and church lies within a circuit of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span> twelve miles’ radius.
+Tortworth Court is close at hand. A few miles down across the river,
+stands mighty Chepstow with the Wye washing her ruined walls; but
+Berkeley is still intact and inhabited after seven centuries’ assault
+by Time and civil strife. This is what renders Berkeley so remarkable
+among English castles: it retains its ancient shell, and it has always
+been owned and inhabited by a lineal descendant of the original owner
+and builder.</p>
+
+<p>The “Faire Vale of Berkeley” was always famous for its beauty and
+fertility. William of Malmesbury describes it as “rich in corn,
+productive in fruits ... enticing even the lazy to industry by the
+prospect of a hundredfold return.... Neither has any county in England
+more numerous or richer vineyards ... the wine is but little inferior
+to that of France in sweetness.” The vineyards have long disappeared,
+and the only vines now seen are those that beautify the walls and frame
+the latticed casements of the cottages.</p>
+
+<p>In Domesday Book, Berkeley appears as a royal demesne and borough: one
+of the trees mentioned as a boundary of the hundred is still pointed
+out in the Deer Park, and known as King William’s Oak. The Conqueror
+gave the manor to Roger de Berkeley who erected the Keep about 1093. At
+first this was only a military hold to keep the neighbourhood in check,
+but buildings were gradually added till the castle assumed its present
+form and the lord took up his residence here under Cœur de Lion, a
+century later.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp337">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp337.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">BERKELEY CASTLE, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Situated on a little rise, its strong battlements and towers look
+across the tops of the beautiful trees that now shade <span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span>its useless
+moat, and the visitor enjoys a lovely view in every direction. Situated
+midway between Gloucester and Bristol, the baron, predatory doubtless
+as was the custom of the age, was in a fine position to levy toll
+on merchant caravans that must pass through the vale. The form of
+the castle is that of an irregular circle. The drawbridge leads to a
+portcullised gateway in massive walls between two hexagonal towers. The
+donjon is a square tower with turrets at the angles, built on higher
+ground than the other constructions to dominate the rest of the castle.
+It was erected in 1342. It is called Thorpe’s tower after the family
+who held lands in tenure from the lord in return for acting as its
+warders. The strong keep also still stands and shows the warder’s walk
+fifty-eight feet in length, in perfect preservation. The dimensions of
+the great hall are forty-eight by thirty-three feet. Its great chimney
+is adorned with mediæval armour and antlers. The ancient kitchen and
+other offices still exist, and so does the chapel with its Decorated
+style of architecture. The sacrarium is of special interest since it is
+divided into two floors, each with a separate entrance and fireplace,
+the lower for the use of the retainers and the upper, or Oriel, for the
+family and guests. The living-rooms contain many pictures by famous
+masters, and some historic furniture. Among the latter, are some ebony
+chairs and a table that Drake brought home from the Spanish Main.</p>
+
+<p>Rich as the castle is in antiquarian remains, however, the interest
+of these walls is multiplied a hundredfold by their historical
+associations. When we take our stand on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span> summit of the Donjon and
+look around and below us, what memories are evoked! When we recall
+the history of the family, we cannot but marvel that the ancient line
+is still in possession; for a turbulent race were the Berkeleys, and
+often arrayed against the Crown. Roger de Berkeley joined Stephen
+against the granddaughter of his father’s benefactor, and therefore
+Henry Fitz-Empress confiscated his fief, and conferred it upon Robert
+Fitz-Harding, Governor of Bristol, of royal Danish descent, at the
+same time making him a baron. The latter’s son, however, married
+Roger’s heiress, and thus the Berkeleys were restored in their son
+Maurice. Robert, the son of the latter, joined the barons against John,
+who seized the castle, and was there in the last year of his reign.
+However, Robert’s brother Thomas managed to get it restored, in 1233,
+by Henry III. Maurice, the son of Thomas, was in rebellion with Simon
+de Montfort twenty-five years later, and, as a result, Berkeley was
+again confiscated. His son Thomas served Edward I., the “Hammer of the
+Scots,” so well in the North that he got back his ancestral honours
+and domains and was summoned to Parliament as Baron Berkeley in 1295.
+This lord and his son and grandson were rich and powerful, and all the
+beautiful “Edwardian” stone-work is of this period. Much of the older
+work was cleared away for the new buildings of the loveliest style of
+English Gothic. But what a deed of violence was perpetrated in the
+narrow chamber in the adjoining building below us! We have reached the
+dark memory that above all else enshrouds Berkeley. The effeminate king
+who lost Bannockburn<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span> and handed over the reins of government to the
+unworthy Gaveston and De Spencers, decimating the English baronage at
+their behests, and revelling in Oriental vice and ferocity, finally
+succumbed to his wife and her paramour at Kenilworth early in 1327.
+The Lord of Berkeley now was Thomas, the grandson of the favourite of
+Edward I. To him and to two knights named John Maltravers and Thomas
+de Gournay was entrusted the custody of the dethroned Edward II. The
+two latter removed their captive secretly and treated him with every
+indignity: they crowned him with a crown of hay and shaved him with
+ditch-water along the way. A circumstantial account tells how he said
+therefore he would supply his own hot water with tears! On Palm Sunday,
+Baron Thomas received him kindly and treated him with consideration,
+whereupon he received a reprimand from Queen Isabel, bidding him
+“use no familiarity with Edward, the late king;” and so, fearing for
+himself, he “departed with heavy cheere, perceiving what violence was
+intended.” Lovely as was the view from his window, the long summer from
+April to September brought no joy to the prisoner. The <i>Berkeley
+MS.</i> says that “this poor, foolish king did nothing but lament for
+his wife, singing love-songs in a low voice and grieving that she would
+neither see him nor permit his son or any of his relatives to come near
+him. The Queen was afraid that the Church would compel her to live
+with him again, and therefore urged his death.” At first, his keepers
+tried to ruin his health by piling putrid carcases in the pit below his
+chamber; then they kept him half-starved and half-clad.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span> Yet the Queen
+reproved them for excessive clemency! Marlowe quotes the historian in
+noble verse when Edward complains:</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="ileft">“In mire and puddle I have stood</div>
+        <div>This ten days’ space; and, lest that I should sleep,</div>
+        <div>One plays continually upon a drum.</div>
+        <div>They give me bread and water, being a king,</div>
+        <div>So that, for want of sleep and sustenance,</div>
+        <div>My mind’s distempered and my body’s numbed....</div>
+        <div>O, would my blood dropped out from every vein,</div>
+        <div>As doth this water from my tattered robes.</div>
+        <div>Tell Isabel, the queen, I looked not thus,</div>
+        <div>When for her sake I ran at tilt in France,</div>
+        <div>And there unhorsed the Duke of Cleremont!”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The night of September 22nd heard the shrieks of the tortured king:
+that they reached the ears of people in the town, who crossed
+themselves and prayed for the passing soul, is doubtless a statement
+due to the historian’s sympathy, for the walls are thick. In the
+morning, the citizens of Bristol were called to gaze upon the distorted
+features of their dead king, who otherwise bore no sign of violence.
+All were afraid to bury Isabel’s victim, till the Abbot of Gloucester
+bravely undertook the task. The next year Isabel and Mortimer actually
+visited Berkeley, and were entertained by its wealthy lord. The latter
+kept twelve knights to wait upon him, each of whom was served by two
+servants and a page. He also had twenty-four esquires, each of whom
+had a horse and an attendant. There were about three hundred in his
+household who fed at his board.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span> The Lord of Berkeley was a mighty
+baron in those days. The blame had to be shifted, however, and so he
+was brought to an irregular trial before twelve knights, instead of his
+peers: he was finally acquitted of complicity in the crime in 1330.
+In that year, his son and successor, Maurice, was born. He fought in
+Granada and Gascony, and was so desperately wounded at Poictiers in
+1366 that he died at Berkeley two years later. His son Thomas was also
+a warrior who unfurled his banner in Spain, France and Scotland. He
+entertained Richard II. at Berkeley in 1386, but this did not prevent
+his voting for Richard’s deposition in favour of Bolingbroke in 1399.</p>
+
+<p>The direct male line fails soon after this and the Berkeley heiress
+marries a Talbot. A collateral branch comes in and the descendants have
+rival claims and start what is usually called the longest law-suit on
+record: it is not finally settled till 1609. In the course of this
+suit, occurs the last battle that was fought between independent
+noblemen in England. Lord Lisle of Wotton, the grandson of the great
+Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, claims Berkeley which is held by William,
+a fiery youth of nineteen. (Wotton-under-Edge lies under the edge of
+the hills three miles beyond Nibley Knoll.) On March 22nd, 1470, the
+Viscount sends a challenge to Berkeley to settle all differences by
+combat: it is eagerly accepted. There was bustle in the castle that
+night. The meeting was at Nibley Green. Long Lane still preserves
+memories of how the men of Berkeley chased the men of Wotton into the
+churchyard till the grass was heavy with crimson dew.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span> Berkeley far
+outnumbered Lisle; moreover the latter were taken as they were marching
+unawares, and an arrow entered their leader’s open visor and a dagger
+afterwards finished him. The victors proceed to Wotton and sacked
+Lisle’s house. His widow gave premature birth to a dead son amid the
+carnage, and the Lisle claims were ended. The Wars of the Roses were
+still raging and a little affair of that kind passed unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret of Anjon rested once at Berkeley in her campaigning. Richard
+III. created Viscount Berkeley an Earl, but, true to his race, he went
+over. When Henry of Richmond landed at Milford Haven, Berkeley joined
+him and, to spite his heir, made over to him his castle and domains.
+After Bosworth, Henry created him a Marquess, but his avarice induced
+him to keep the property. In default of heirs male, however, on the
+death of Edward II., it lapsed to the Berkeley heirs again. The new
+lord of Berkeley was a mighty hunter and delighted in his beautiful
+deer park. On one of her progresses, Good Queen Bess paid him a visit.
+He happened to be absent, but his venison proved useful in victualling
+the courtly following. Everybody knows what it cost to entertain that
+locust-swarm! When Lord Henry returned, he was greatly enraged at the
+havoc, and ordered his park to be disparked rather than let it be a
+future temptation. Elizabeth heard of this and sent him a quiet hint
+to “beware of his words and actions, for the Earl of Leicester greatly
+desired the castle for himself!” One of the rooms in this “Naboth’s
+vineyard” is still called Queen Elizabeth’s room. Other<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span> royal guests
+who have visited the castle are George IV. and William IV.</p>
+
+<p>The Earls of Berkeley no longer own their ancestral home, in fact they
+maintain that the title is not rightfully theirs. This celebrated
+romance of the peerage started with the fifth Earl. Some of his
+children were born before the only marriage he could prove to the
+satisfaction of the House of Lords, though he maintained that he and
+the lady had previously gone through a secret marriage ceremony. The
+Earl left the castle and estates to his eldest son, and the Crown
+created him Baron Fitzhardinge. The late Earl of Berkeley never took
+his seat in the House of Lords nor assumed his title in any way since
+the decision that set the baton sinister in the escutcheon of the elder
+sons of the fifth Earl.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE CASTLE OF CHILLON<br>
+<span class="subhed">NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Further onward we saw a white, ancient-looking group of towers, beneath
+a mountain, which was so high, and rushed so precipitately down upon
+this pile of building as quite to dwarf it; besides which, its dingy
+whiteness had not a very picturesque effect. Nevertheless, this was the
+Castle of Chillon. It appears to sit right upon the water, and does not
+rise very loftily above it. I was disappointed in its aspect, having
+imagined this famous castle as situated upon a rock, a hundred, or for
+aught I know, a thousand feet above the surface of the lake; but it is
+quite as impressive a fact—supposing it to be true—that the water
+is eight hundred feet deep at its base. By this time, the mountains
+had taken the beautiful lake into their deepest heart; they girdled it
+quite round with their grandeur and beauty, and, being able to do no
+more for it, they here withheld it from extending any farther; and here
+our voyage came to an end. I have never beheld any scene so exquisite;
+nor do I ask of Heaven to show me any lovelier or nobler one, but only
+to give me such depth and breadth of sympathy with nature, that I may
+worthily enjoy this. It is beauty more than enough for poor, perishable
+mortals. If this be earth, what must Heaven be!</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly eight o’clock when we arrived; and then <span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span>we had a walk
+of at least a mile to the Hotel Byron. I had forgot to mention that
+in the latter part of our voyage there was a shower in some part of
+the sky, and though none of it fell upon us, we had the benefit of
+those gentle tears in a rainbow, which arched itself across the lake
+from mountain to mountain, so that our track lay directly under this
+triumphal arch. We took it as a good omen, nor were we discouraged,
+though, after the rainbow had vanished, a few sprinkles of the shower
+came down.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp346">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp346.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE CASTLE OF CHILLON, SWITZERLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>We found the Hotel Byron very grand indeed, and a good one, too. There
+was a beautiful moonlight on the lake and hills, but we contented
+ourselves with looking out of our lofty window, whence, likewise, we
+had a sidelong glimpse at the white battlements of Chillon, not more
+than a mile off, on the water’s edge. The castle is wofully in need of
+a pedestal. If its site were elevated to a height equal to its own it
+would make a far better appearance. As it now is, it looks, so to speak
+profanely of what poetry has consecrated, when seen from the water, or
+along the shore of the lake, very like an old whitewashed factory or
+mill.</p>
+
+<p>This morning I walked to the Castle of Chillon with J——, who sketches
+everything he sees, from a wild flower to a castle or a range of
+mountains. The morning had sunshine thinly scattered through it; but,
+nevertheless, there was a continual sprinkle, sometimes scarcely
+perceptible, and then again amounting to a decided drizzle. The road,
+which is built along on a little elevation above the lake shore, led us
+past the Castle of Chillon; and we took a side-path, which passes still
+nearer the castle-gate. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span> castle stands on an isthmus of gravel,
+permanently connecting it with the mainland. A wooden bridge covered
+with a roof, passes from the shore to the arched entrance; and beneath
+this shelter, which has wooden walls as well as roof and floor, we
+saw a soldier or <i>gendarme</i>, who seemed to act as warder. As it
+sprinkled rather more freely than at first, I thought of appealing to
+his hospitality for shelter from the rain, but concluded to pass on.</p>
+
+<p>The castle makes a far better appearance on a nearer view, and from
+the land, than when seen at a distance and from the water. It is built
+of stone, and seems to have been anciently covered with plaster, which
+imparts the whiteness to which Byron does much more than justice, when
+he speaks of “Chillon’s snow-white battlements.” There is a lofty
+eternal wall, with a cluster of round towers about it, each crowned
+with its pyramidal roof of tiles, and from the central portion of the
+castle rises a square tower, also crowned with its own pyramid to a
+considerably greater height than the circumjacent ones. The whole are
+in a close cluster, and make a fine picture of ancient strength when
+seen at a proper proximity; for I do not think that distance adds
+anything to the effect. There are hardly any windows, or few, and very
+small ones, except the loopholes for arrows and for the garrison of the
+castle to peep from on the sides towards the water; indeed, there are
+larger windows at least in the upper apartments; but in that direction,
+no doubt, the castle was considered impregnable. Trees here and there
+on the land side grow up against the castle wall, on one part of which,
+moreover, there was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span> green curtain of ivy spreading from base to
+battlement. The walls retain their machicolations, and I should judge
+that nothing had been altered, nor any more work been done upon the old
+fortress than to keep it in singularly good repair. It was formerly a
+castle of the Duke of Savoy, and since his sway over the country ceased
+(three hundred years at least), it has been in the hands of the Swiss
+government, who still keep some arms and ammunition there.</p>
+
+<p>We passed on, and found the view of it better, as we thought, from
+a farther point along the road. The raindrops began to spatter down
+faster, and we took shelter under an impending precipice, where the
+ledge of rock had been blasted and hewn away to form the road. Our
+refuge was not a very convenient and comfortable one, so we took
+advantage of the partial cessation of the shower to turn homeward,
+but we had not gone far when we met mamma and all her train. As we
+were close by the castle entrance, we thought it advisable to seek
+admission, though rather doubtful whether the Swiss <i>gendarmes</i>
+might not deem it a sin to let us into the castle on Sunday. But he
+very readily admitted us under his covered drawbridge, and called an
+old man from within the fortress to show us whatever was to be seen.
+This latter personage was a staid, rather grim, and Calvinistic-looking
+old worthy; but he received us without scruple, and forthwith proceeded
+to usher us into a range of the most dismal dungeons, extending along
+the basement of the castle, on a level with the surface of the lake.
+First, if I remember aright, we came to what he said had been a chapel,
+and which, at all events, looked like an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span> aisle of one, or rather such
+a crypt as I have seen beneath a cathedral, being a succession of
+massive pillars supporting groined arches,—a very admirable piece of
+Gothic architecture. Next, we came to a very dark compartment of the
+same dungeon range, where he pointed to a sort of bed, or what might
+serve for a bed, hewn in the solid rock, and this, our guide said, had
+been the last sleeping-place of condemned prisoners on the night before
+their execution. The next compartment was still duskier and dismaller
+than the last, and he bade us cast our eyes up into the obscurity and
+see a beam, where the condemned ones used to be hanged. I looked and
+looked, and closed my eyes so as to see the clearer in this horrible
+duskiness on opening them again. Finally, I thought I discerned the
+accursed beam, and the rest of the party were certain that they saw it.
+Next, beyond this, I think, was a stone staircase, steep, rudely cut
+and narrow, down which the condemned were brought to death; and beyond
+this, still on the same basement range of the castle, a low and narrow
+[corridor] through which we passed, and saw a row of seven massive
+pillars, supporting two parallel series of groined arches, like those
+in the chapel which we first entered. This was Bonnivard’s prison, and
+the scene of Byron’s poem.</p>
+
+<p>The arches are dimly lighted by narrow loopholes, pierced through the
+immensely thick wall, but at such a height above the floor that we
+could catch no glimpse of land or water, or scarcely of the sky. The
+prisoner of Chillon could not possibly have seen the island to which
+Byron alludes, and which is a little way from the shore, exactly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span>
+opposite the town of Villeneuve. There was light enough in this long,
+grey, vaulted room, to show us that all the pillars were inscribed
+with the names of visitors, among which I saw no interesting one,
+except that of Byron himself, which is cut, in letters an inch long
+or more, into one of the pillars next to that to which Bonnivard was
+chained. The letters are deep enough to remain in the pillar as long
+as the castle stands. Byron seems to have had a fancy for recording
+his name in this and similar ways; as witness the record which I saw
+on a tree of Newstead Abbey. In Bonnivard’s pillar there still remains
+an iron ring, at the height of perhaps three feet from the ground.
+His chain was fastened to this ring, and his only freedom was to walk
+round this pillar, about which he is said to have worn a path in the
+stone pavement of the dungeon; but as the floor is now covered with
+earth of gravel, I could not satisfy myself whether this be true.
+Certainly six years with nothing else to do in them save to walk round
+the pillar, might well suffice to wear away the rock, even with naked
+feet. This column and all the columns, were cut and hewn in a good
+style of architecture, and the dungeon arches are not without a certain
+gloomy beauty. On Bonnivard’s pillar, as well as on all the rest, were
+many names inscribed; but I thought better of Byron’s delicacy and
+sensitiveness for not cutting his name into that very pillar. Perhaps,
+knowing nothing of Bonnivard’s story, he did not know to which column
+he was chained.</p>
+
+<p>Emerging from the dungeon-vaults, our guide led us through other
+parts of the castle, showing us the Duke of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span> Savoy’s kitchen, with a
+fireplace at least twelve feet long; also the judgment-hall, or some
+such place, hung round with the coats-of-arms of some officers or
+other, and having at one end a wooden post, reaching from floor to
+ceiling, and having upon it the marks of fire. By means of this post
+contumacious prisoners were put to a dreadful torture, being drawn
+up by cords and pulleys, while their limbs were scorched by a fire
+underneath. We also saw a chapel or two, one of which is still in good
+and sanctified condition, and was to be used this very day, our guide
+told us, for religious purposes. We saw, moreover, the Duke’s private
+chamber, with a part of the bedstead on which he used to sleep, and be
+haunted with horrible dreams, no doubt, and the ghosts of wretches whom
+he had tortured and hanged; likewise the bedchamber of his duchess,
+that had in its window two stone seats, where, directly over the head
+of Bonnivard, the ducal pair might look out on the beautiful scene of
+lake and mountains, and feel the warmth of the blessed sun. Under this
+window, the guide said, the water of the lake is eight hundred feet in
+depth; an immense profundity, indeed, for an inland lake, but it is
+not very difficult to believe that the mountain at the foot of which
+Chillon stands may descend so far beneath the water. In other parts
+of the lake and not distant, more than nine hundred feet have been
+sounded. I looked out of the duchess’s window, and could certainly see
+no appearance of a bottom in the light blue water.</p>
+
+<p>The last thing that the guide showed us was a trap-door, or opening,
+beneath a crazy old floor. Looking down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span> into this aperture we saw
+three stone steps, which we should have taken to be the beginning of a
+flight of stairs that descended into a dungeon, or series of dungeons,
+such as we had already seen. But inspecting them more closely, we
+saw that the third step terminated the flight, and beyond was a dark
+vacancy. Three steps a person would grope down, planting his uncertain
+foot on a dimly seen stone; the fourth step would be in the empty air.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span></p>
+
+<h2>ROCCA MALATESTIANA<br>
+<span class="subhed">CHARLES YRIARTE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The name of Malatesta illuminates every step in Rimini. The
+fortification that serves to enclose the town, strengthened by
+towers of defence and by windows that resemble our modern casements,
+is certainly due to them. The celebrated fortress known under the
+name of Rocca Malatestiana still commands the city, although it is
+now dismantled and converted into a prison, and upon the square,
+San Francesco, there rises the Temple of the Malatestas (Tempio
+Malatestiano), the purest building, perhaps, of the most beautiful
+period of Italian art, upon the pediment of which you read the pompous
+inscription: “To Immortal God Sigismond Malatesta, son of Pandolphe.”</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp354">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp354.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">ROCCA MALATESTIANA, ITALY.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>In 1294, Malatesta da Verucchio built the castle upon the same site,
+and he made of it at once a sumptuous residence and a solid fortress
+to which was given the name of Gattolo dei Malatesta. It is from there
+that Verucchio dates his will. The great Ghiberti, the sculptor of
+the “Gates of Paradise,” tells us, in his <i>Commentaries</i> that
+in 1400 he made some enamels for the apartments and that he painted
+some frescoes. Alas! nothing of these remains for us. In 1446, comes
+Sigismond, son of Pandolphe, the great warrior and conqueror, he who
+has been nicknamed <span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span>Poliorcète, skilful in making fortifications,
+pupil and soon the rival of Roberto Valturco, the celebrated author of
+the volume of <i>Re Militari</i>; he battered down the Gattolo, or,
+at least, he changed it from roof to basement at the moment when the
+discovery of artillery had changed all the conditions of the attack
+and defence of old castles. It was during this transformation that
+the frescoes and all the ornamentation, of which Ghiberti speaks,
+disappeared. Two superb inscriptions, one Gothic, the other of the
+first half of the Fifteenth Century, surmounted by the escutcheon of
+the Malatestas with the helmet crowned by elephants’ heads and the
+chess-board, are sure guarantees of these serious modifications. In
+order that they should be proved with more certainty, Matteo de’ Pasti,
+a pensioner of the lord of Rimini, struck, by order of his master, the
+superb commemorative medal representing the Rocca Malatestiana. Piero
+della Francesca, the great artist to whom we owe the greater number
+of the beautiful portraits of the Bentivoglios, the Montefeltros, and
+the Malatestas, brings us, in his turn, an unexceptionable proof,—the
+day when, in the temple of San Francesco of Rimini, the pantheon of
+the Malatesta family, he represents the lord of Rimini kneeling before
+Saint Sigismond, and gives the view of the Rocca as a background for
+his precious fresco.</p>
+
+<p>So imposing a mass should certainly have triumphed over time, but it
+has been disfigured at the pleasure of succeeding generations. Upon the
+ground where we walk while regarding the present façade, is dug the
+first enclosure,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span> a large moat a hundred feet wide and thirty-five feet
+deep, to-day filled up and forming a platform. We find no longer the
+six towers, eighty feet high, destroyed by Urbain VIII. (1625), who has
+also given his name to the building for more than a century,—Castello
+Urbano. Finally, in 1826, the first circuit was razed, and, the moat
+having already disappeared, they did away with the drawbridge. It is
+nothing more than a prison, through the gratings of which we see the
+red caps of the prisoners who come to gaze upon a bit of blue sky.</p>
+
+<p>Another tradition insists that the Malatestas, sons of Verucchio,
+lived, during the lifetime of their father, in a dwelling near the old
+gate of San Andrea; but the house designated, dating at most from the
+last centuries, belonged to the Graziani, and to-day it serves as the
+residence for the family of the Ugolini Micheli. One sees how difficult
+it is to establish anything even after long inquiry; however, the
+conclusion of the historian, Tonini, must also be our own: the cruel
+scene must have taken place in Rimini, and probably in the Gattolo
+de Santa Colomba, that is to say in the fortress known to-day under
+the name of Rocca Malatestiana, a residence greatly disfigured and
+modified, where it would be impossible to identify the exact spot of
+the murder, but which, according to a number of chronicles, was at the
+moment this murder was accomplished, a princely residence, “containing
+noble apartments,” with the exterior appearance of a castle.</p>
+
+<p>Since Francesca was born in Ravenna, why has posterity unanimously
+designated her under the name of Francesca<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span> da Rimini? Logically she
+should be Francesca da Ravenna; but she lived in Rimini as the wife
+of Giovanni Malatesta, and it was there that she expiated her crime,
+or her weakness, by death; it was there that her tomb was made, and
+posterity will therefore forever call her by the name of Francesca da
+Rimini. Moreover, if we sum up the opinions of the chroniclers and
+historians, it is understood by the most of them that the deed was
+accomplished in this town, and they doubt it so little that the idea
+never occurs to them to support a contrary opinion. Marco Battaglia,
+Benvenuto da Imola, Fra Giovanni da Serravalle, and Baldo di Branchi
+furnish proofs that might be considered as negative; but if they do not
+cite the name of Rimini, it never occurs to them to mention any other
+town. As for Jacopo Della Lana, Gradinego and Boccaccio, all three name
+the city of the Malatestas, and later, when Silvio Pellico and many
+other dramatic poets of other nations will write their dramas, their
+poems, or their stories, they will not hesitate to place the scene in
+the same city. Count Odoardo Fabri will not do otherwise, and if Lord
+Byron had realized the plan he conceived and which he made known to
+Murray, his publisher, in the letters which are now in everybody’s
+hands, Rimini would still be the scene. Is it necessary to speak of
+our compatriot, M. Auguste Thomas, the composer of <i>Mignon</i>, who
+having written the score of <i>Francesca da Rimini</i>, dedicated it to
+M. Tonini, the librarian of the Gambalunghiana.</p>
+
+<p>Francesca then is not Francesca da Ravenna, she is and she will ever
+remain “Francesca da Rimini.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span></p>
+
+<p>She belongs to the history of this town, or if you prefer, to its
+legend. It is in vain to turn over the leaves of the archives, you
+cannot deprive the city of the Malatestas of its touching picture.</p>
+
+<p>Before formulating our conclusions we will note, merely for the
+curiosity of the fact, a singular document taken from a volume printed
+in Rimini in 1581, by Simbeni, entitled <i>Il Vermicello della
+seta</i>, signed under the name Giovanni Andrea Corsucci da Sascorbaro,
+and cited by Luigi Tonini:</p>
+
+<p>“A few days ago in the church of Saint Augustin, in Rimini, they found
+in a marble sepulchre Paolo Malatesta and Francesca, daughter of Guido
+da Polenta, lord of Ravenna, who were put to death by Lancilotto, son
+of Malatesta, lord of Rimini, brother of the said Paolo found under
+the accomplishment of a dishonest deed, and both miserably killed with
+the blows of a poignard, as Petrarch describes in his <i>Triumph of
+Love</i>. Their clothes were of silk, and, although they had been shut
+up in this sepulchre for so many years, they were found in a perfect
+state of preservation.”</p>
+
+<p>Upon what document Sascorbaro relies for this statement no one can say;
+there was no inscription, no medal and no sign whatever that could
+certify to the identity of the skeletons; but the legend was evidently
+established, since Boccaccio and the greater number of chroniclers had
+said that the two bodies were united in the same tomb. The assertion
+of Sascorbaro, deprived of all proofs as it is, has come to confirm
+the opinion of the Florentine story-teller.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[359]</span> Rimini persists in its
+legend, if legend it is; and I also discovered a few days ago, at
+Gambalunghiana, the bit of silk tissued with gold, and placed in a
+frame upon which the erudite son of Tonini, successor to the historian
+of Rimini, does not willingly call to the attention of learned
+historians, because history desires authentic proofs; but the common
+people view with great pleasure a contemporary relic of Francesca and
+Paolo.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[360]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE WARTBURG<br>
+<span class="subhed">L. PUTTICH</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The Wartburg lies on the north-western slope of the Thuringer Forest
+at the top of a spur that commands an extensive view over the fruitful
+fields and woody Thuringian ridges. If the traveller has enjoyed the
+prospect during the ascent, he is engrossed by other feelings as soon
+as he has passed through the gateway into the old stronghold and
+mentally rehabilitates the entire castle as it was in days of yore.
+For the Wartburg is not only memorable as having been the abode for a
+century of the powerful landgraves of Thuringia who had their court
+here from the time this hold was built by Ludwig II. at the end of the
+Eleventh Century (1080 <span class="allsmcap">A. D.</span> is usually considered the year
+of its completion) to the extinction of his line with Heinrich Raspe
+in the middle of the Thirteenth Century, but it has also acquired a
+classic repute in German history by three important occurrences: the
+famous Singer-war, the life of Saint Elizabeth, and Luther’s sojourn
+here.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp360">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp360.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE WARTBURG, GERMANY.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>The Singer-war, also called the war of the Wartburg, was brought about,
+as is well known, by the Minnesong-enthusiast landgrave, Hermann I.
+and his art-loving wife, Sophia. In 1206, they assembled six of the
+most celebrated Minnesingers,—Walter von der Vogelweide, Heinrich von
+Ofterdingen, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich (the virtuous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[361]</span> writer),
+Johann Bitterolff, and Reimer von Zwethin, partly native and partly
+foreign,—and arranged a singing-contest among them. Heinrich von
+Ofterdingen sang of the knightly qualities of the Archduke Leopold II.
+of Austria; Eschenbach celebrated the fame of the King of France; and
+Walter von der Vogelweide, the preëminence of the landgrave Hermann;
+whilst the other singers extolled other princes. But this gave rise
+to a serious strife, and the irritated contestants agreed (so it is
+said) that the defeated singer should die by the executioner’s hand.
+The landgrave strongly forbade such a bargain over his undertaking, but
+nevertheless when Ofterdingen was declared the loser, the protection
+of the landgravine, to whom he fled, was necessary to save him from
+his adversaries. The landgrave adjusted the quarrel by arranging
+a new contest, to which Ofterdingen had to fetch from Hungary the
+world-famous meistersinger, Klingsor, to act as umpire. About a year
+afterwards, therefore, the latter appeared with Ofterdingen and the
+contest began again. Klingsor, however, would not decide in favour of
+any one singer, but rather sought to reconcile the parties. In this he
+was successful, and so the “War of the Wartburg” ended in feasting and
+revels which the landgrave provided.</p>
+
+<p>Although its original features have been destroyed, the Minnesinger
+Hall in which the contest took place still stands, and might easily be
+restored; but fragments of the poems of the Wartburg war are preserved
+in the <i>Maneseichen</i>, <i>Docenschen</i>, and other collections. It
+has been held, however, and not without good grounds, that the poems
+still<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[362]</span> extant of that contest were first collected a century after it
+was held. It seems certain, nevertheless, that the kernel of the matter
+is largely contained in these collections.</p>
+
+<p>Saint Elizabeth, the daughter of King Andrew II. of Hungary, became
+the wife of the landgrave Ludwig VI., the Pious, in 1221; and resided
+at the Wartburg with him. She was a model of simplicity, piety
+and gentleness; and during a famine and accompanying pestilence
+that ravaged Thuringia, she displayed these great virtues to the
+highest degree, proving herself a true mother of her country by her
+self-sacrifice in nursing the sick and dying.</p>
+
+<p>Luther had left the Diet at Worms; he had been outlawed, and the
+safe-conduct granted to him by the Emperor Charles V. was soon about
+to lapse, for it was limited to twenty-one days. His friends and
+protectors therefore feared for his life, and, in order to hide him,
+Luther was snatched up by masked servants while passing through the
+Thuringer Forest, and brought to the Wartburg. It is scarcely to
+be doubted that this happened by the contrivance of the Kurfurst
+Friedrich, although at first he may have avoided all knowledge of
+Luther’s retreat, in order to be able to meet all official inquiries.
+Luther arrived at the Wartburg in May, 1521, under the name of a knight
+Görg. Here, for nearly a year, he lived in a little chamber, in a wing
+to the right of the chief tower, very simply adorned and furnished only
+with the barest necessaries. It still exists in its original condition,
+and it is with awe that the visitor enters the little abode wherein the
+great man partly accomplished his undying work,—the translation of the
+Bible.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[363]</span> The castle chapel in the landgrave’s quarters still contains
+the pulpit from which Luther often preached to the inmates.</p>
+
+<p>When we approach the castle from the east, where the carriage road
+leading from the town of Eisenach first winds through a wooded valley
+up to the tree-clad ridge, the Wartburg sits enthroned high above on
+the top of the mountain. From this point we see the landgrave-abode,
+and to its immediate right the residence built in 1791, and fortified
+walls stretching to the gate-house, or knight-house (<i>Ritterhaus</i>).</p>
+
+<p>The ridge on which the castle extends from north to south is long and
+narrow and of very irregular form. It was formerly entirely covered
+with buildings that surrounded the inner courtyard. The single main
+entrance originally consisted of three or four gateways constructed
+one behind another with intermediate spaces, on the north-east. The
+outermost of these, supplied with a high tower, stood close to the
+narrow and steep approach which is cut in the rock and leads to the
+top of the mount. This outermost tower, it is conjectured, overhung
+this steep path, so that in case of attack the foe might be more
+easily repelled. The innermost gateway, which led into the stronghold
+itself, is the only one now standing. Formerly it was furnished with a
+drawbridge which recently has been changed to a strong bridge of stone.
+Above the gateway, rises the so-called <i>Ritterhaus</i> (knight-house)
+which retains evidences of having been much higher formerly than it
+now is. It probably formed the tower-gate which, in 1558, was partly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[364]</span>
+demolished and brought into closer relations with the other buildings.
+The <i>Ritterhaus</i> served as the dwelling of the knights whom the
+landgrave assembled about him for the defence of the castle: it is
+now the dwelling of the Castellan. The style of those buildings still
+standing shows that they belong to the Fifteenth Century, and only
+the lower part of the walls is of the date at which the castle was
+founded, at the end of the Eleventh or some time during the Twelfth
+Century. The relief carved on the wall over the gateway also belongs
+to the same date. Its meaning cannot be solved. Popularly, it is
+called the Jonah; but it represents a knight about to be devoured by
+a dragon. The coat-of-arms hanging at the knight’s neck appears to
+bear the imperial eagle. Another perhaps equally ancient relief, which
+is found on the west wall not far from the square tower, is also to
+be noted. It represents a man sitting on a lion and tearing its jaws
+apart: it refers to the fact that the landgrave Ludwig the Good once
+single-handed bound a lion that his father-in-law had sent to him, and
+that had escaped from its cage in the courtyard.</p>
+
+<p>Through the door under the <i>Ritterhaus</i>, we enter the courtyard
+of the Wartburg, and see to the west one of the continuations of the
+<i>Ritterhaus</i>. Adjoining this to the south, are other buildings;
+among others, that containing Luther’s chamber. On the left, to the
+east, runs a long high wall from the <i>Ritterhaus</i> to the chief
+building standing on that side. This wall is covered with a defence-way
+of very simple form resembling those still occasionally found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[365]</span> in old
+city walls. The first chief building already mentioned on that side
+was formerly called the <i>Musshaus</i> (house of ease and leisure).
+Between it and the above-mentioned wall at the end of the courtyard,
+was originally a high wall with a wide doorway, so that the whole rear
+part of the castle, the residence of the ruling family, was separated
+from the front part where the knights and attendants dwelt. According
+to ancient report, the <i>Musshaus</i> was only a tall, plain block,
+though the interior was not devoid of luxury, and here the landgrave’s
+family dwelt.</p>
+
+<p>Adjoining the south side of the <i>Musshaus</i> was the
+<i>Landgravenhaus</i> (landgrave-house), also called the great or high
+house, which was devoted to ceremonials in the days of the landgraves.
+It is a stately structure that originated perhaps in the time of Ludwig
+III. in the middle of the Twelfth Century. In Germany it stands alone
+as a princely private building of such dimensions that still preserves
+its original form in the Byzantine or Roman style of architecture. In
+these respects, there is no ancestral secular building that can compare
+with it abroad also. On the west, it is connected with the Minnesinger
+Hall which formerly formed the chief entrance to the above hall through
+broad windows, divided up into round arches by little columns, for the
+other three sides had no entrance. The columns rest upon a low sill, so
+that people can look between them into the hall; so that it is to be
+presumed that the passage thus formed was intended for spectators. The
+little columns are ornamented with delicate capitals and volutes. They
+have Attic bases. In the time of Friedrich I. this hall was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[366]</span> adorned
+with mural paintings of battles and other memorable occurrences of the
+life of the period. Traces of these paintings were still visible at the
+beginning of the present century.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[367]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE<br>
+<span class="subhed">JULES LOISELEUR</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The Castle of Amboise is placed at the entrance of Touraine like the
+jealous sentinel guarding the entrance to the Garden of the Hesperides.
+It is not a palace like the castle of Blois, nor a villa of a royal
+mistress like Chenonceaux, nor a sort of immense convent full of
+mysterious cells like Chambord: it is a military place, a veritable
+fortress of the Middle Ages upon which is grafted a castle of the
+Fifteenth Century.</p>
+
+<p>This formidable military position has been at all times the key of this
+beautiful province. When Cæsar marched against the Armoricans, there
+lodged here a Roman garrison. From the height of these impregnable
+rocks, the counts of Anjou, and later the Plantagenets, their
+descendants, these worthy sons of the Black Falcon restrained within
+their talons the slightest movements of Touraine, while they kept a
+jealous watch over the counts of Blois and Champagne, who possessed
+but a few leagues away the sombre fortress of Chaumont. Amboise and
+Chaumont were the two advanced sentinels of these two impregnable
+neighbours. These solid walls served under Charles VII. as the rampart
+for the monarchy menaced by the English invasion; they protected the
+Catholic royalty of Francis II.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[368]</span> against the stroke of Renaudie; they
+have enclosed turn by turn the illustrious victims of royal ingratitude
+like the Marshall de Gié, powerful rebels like the princes of Vendôme,
+accomplices of Chalais, state prisoners like Fouquet and Lauzun, and
+the vanquished like Abd-el-Kader. When you interrogate these enormous
+towers, these menacing battlements, and these inaccessible walls, you
+draw from them no memories of joy, peace, or love; nothing but bloody
+deeds spring from them; nothing but memories of mourning are evoked.</p>
+
+<p>Buildings have, even more than mankind, their own physiognomy upon
+which their history is reflected. History and physiognomy are here in
+perfect union. No romancer, even were he possessed with Melusine’s
+enchanted ring, would dare to place an intrigue of love behind these
+walls impressed with deep wounds of gun-shots, or, if he did so, it
+would doubtless be on account of that law of contrasts, so loved of
+Nature, that places the nests of the warbler in the mouths of deserted
+cannon.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp367">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp367.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE, FRANCE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>Stop upon this old bridge constructed by Hugues d’Amboise, one of the
+heroes of Tasso. From here you will take in the entire imposing and
+truly Roman view of the powerful citadel, from the Gate of the Lions,
+which opens upon the moat dug by Cæsar, as far as the two towers, now
+decapitated, of the ancient donjon above the trunks of which rises
+the slender spire of the Chapel of St. Hubert. Remove by imagination
+the narrow and common dwellings that encroach upon the old castle.
+Throw into the Loire the modern levee and quay that obstruct it
+here, and picture <span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[369]</span>the noble river freely beating the base of the
+fortress. The great tower erected by Charles VIII. casts its shadow
+upon the Loire, on which opens a door that forms on this side the only
+entrance to the castle. Further back, and as if lost in the shadow of
+the immense tower, is the principal building of this habitation, the
+base of which dates from the counts of Amboise and whose five windows
+pierced at a considerable height on the side overlooking the Loire,
+although they are on the ground floor on the side of the court, seem
+like vigilant eyes upon the country. Then by mental effort throw down
+the terrace in front of these windows, the work of Louis-Philippe, who
+caused this façade to lose some of its crabbed countenance; close up
+the five rounded bay windows, also the work of the same King, which
+light the kitchens; in a word, leave nothing that juts out upon that
+straight and perpendicular façade except the balcony that overhangs
+the five casements of which we shall speak, and upon which open the
+large windows of the royal apartment. You will then have an approximate
+idea of what Amboise was in the time of Henri III., when Du Cerceau
+conceived the plan in 157–.</p>
+
+<p>This balcony from which you look upon the Loire, is the work of Louis
+XII.: it is an historical monument. Nothing could be less complicated,
+nothing could be more formidable in its simplicity. It was upon this
+balcony that the chief ringleaders of the conspiracy against Amboise
+were hanged. The bodies, attached to these solid bars, hung in the
+open air; the stroke of a poignard cut the rope and they fell into the
+Loire: a means of burial as rapid as had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[370]</span> been the judgment and the
+execution. Such is the Castle of Amboise seen from the Loire.</p>
+
+<p>The tunnel, the stairway, and even the vault are modern works, which
+in moulding this old castle to our ideas of comfort deprive it of its
+feudal character. It is by the southern tower that we must ascend if we
+wish to be deeply impressed by this character. In the time of Charles
+VIII., this tower was the only entrance for knights and litters, for
+the one on the north corresponding to it bathes its foot in the Loire,
+as we have said. It was through the southern tower that Charles V.
+entered when he crossed France in 1539. This solid and immovable work
+is certainly the largest construction of the kind in France. The thick
+masonry that forms the nucleus of it is in itself a respectable size.
+The stairway turns four times from the base to the summit around this
+hollowed-out centre, and reaches a height of more than 600 feet.</p>
+
+<p>This stairway, or rather these steps in helix, rest upon an ogival
+vault. Carvings sustain the points from which the large arches spring
+and terminate the nerves of the little arches. These carvings present
+all kinds of little figures, some of which are fantastic, others
+grotesque, and others again indecent, for the artists of the late
+Gothic period were willing enough to execute the latter to please their
+patrons who enjoyed these grotesques and the laughter they caused far
+more than fine arabesques. Monks abound in these sculptures. This
+one holds his stomach in both hands, like a gastronome punished by
+his exploits; this one, suffering from a terrible toothache, makes a
+grimace like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[371]</span> one possessed. Most of these figures have been mutilated
+with blows of the bayonet by the prisoners who for about fifteen
+years were shut up in this tower in 1815. Louis-Philippe began its
+restoration.</p>
+
+<p>About one-third of the way up, a little stone step, pierced in the
+outer wall, leads to a kind of hollowed-out rostrum, where, if we may
+believe tradition, Louis XII. harangued the multitude, when an attack
+on the municipal franchise aroused the inhabitants of the town of
+Amboise, or Petit-Fort. Happy time! when revolutionary uprisings could
+be calmed by orations!</p>
+
+<p>At the top of this tower you see the gigantic horns of a stag that
+formerly ornamented the base of the Chapel of Saint Hubert. This is
+more than ten feet high, and was made at the order of Charles VIII.
+with such art and truthfulness of imitation that allows the guide
+to show it to unsophisticated tourists for the natural horns of a
+full-grown and gigantic stag killed in some forest in the Brobdinagian
+country.</p>
+
+<p>The donjon, the first dwelling of the lords of Amboise, occupied the
+west, the space comprised between the two little headless towers which
+still exist.</p>
+
+<p>On the side of the Loire, opposite the building of the Sept-Vertues,
+there rise other buildings belonging to Amboise, but they were restored
+by Charles VIII. and completely changed by Louis XII. and Francis I.
+There are to be found the apartment of the King and Queen, due to
+the last prince, and close beside it, that curious chamber which was
+supported by four massive pillars of masonry,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[372]</span> and to which no entrance
+was possible except by a single opening pierced through the floor. This
+was the work of Catharine de’Medici, after one of her astrologers had
+forewarned her of the fall of a great edifice. She thought that, by
+means of these material precautions, she could escape the menace of
+Fortune which allowed her to see the fall of quite a different edifice
+to Amboise: that of the Valois dynasty, so laboriously restored by her
+efforts.</p>
+
+<p>The chapel is the perfect antithesis of the castle.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the one is sombre, severe, dominating and sinistrously
+beautiful, on account of its mass and size, the other is bright,
+efflorescent, and smiling, delicately embroidered and pierced like lace.</p>
+
+<p>This charming chapel, proudly encamped upon a rocky peak, is one of the
+best products of the third ogival style of that period of Flamboyant
+Gothic that immediately preceded the Renaissance. But it is not, as
+has been believed until now, the work of Italian artists brought
+from Naples by Charles VIII. That is an error in which even M. Jules
+Quicherat shared, but which was obliterated at the recent discovery of
+an itemized account of all the expenses of furnishing and decorating
+the Chapel of Amboise and for the contiguous apartments in the towers.
+This precious document states that the expenses commenced in 1490
+and continued until 1494. Now the year 1494, in which Charles VIII.
+finished ornamenting and furnishing the Chapel of Amboise, is precisely
+the one in which he started on his expedition to Italy. The honour of
+this charming conception then reverts wholly to native artists.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[373]</span></p>
+
+<p>The façade is entirely occupied by a large ogival entrance, the top
+of which presents one of those great, circular rose-windows,—the
+characteristic sign of the Flamboyant Gothic. An authority no less
+exact for the construction of this façade is shown in the form of
+the two doors cut in the entrance, these showing that surbased arch
+so common in the English buildings of the reigns of Henry VII. and
+Henry VIII., and which derives from them the name of the Tudor arch.
+These two doors, separated by a pilaster and niche, support a stone
+bas-relief, the principal motive of which is the conversion of Saint
+Hubert.</p>
+
+<p>A gigantic stag stands in the centre of the composition. Between his
+horns there rises a flamboyant cross. The ardent huntsman stops in
+terror at this sight, he bends one knee, and with one hand restrains
+his horse, while with the other he salutes the miraculous sign destined
+to convert him to Christianity: instead of the Aquitaine Nimrod, the
+persecutor of the forests of Ardennes, he is only an apostle, the
+successor of Saint Lambert. A host of wild animals form the accessories
+of this picture, as if the entire population of the forests is taking
+part in the conversion of the patron of huntsmen. Saint Anthony, in a
+corner to the left, contemplates Saint Christopher bearing his divine
+burden.</p>
+
+<p>This bas-relief, somewhat clumsy in workmanship, does not give the
+slightest idea of the charming delicacy of the interior. The banal and
+rather strained comparison of lace woven by the fays, is more than a
+truthful one here. Imagine two rows of <i>point d’ Alençon</i>, half a
+metre high, festooned the entire length of the walls to form a series
+of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[374]</span> canopies and niches in corbelling, diversified by graceful little
+columns with prismatic arches. Carvings and figures, inexhaustible in
+variety, terminate the pendentives of these niches. Not one of these
+motives is repeated a second time: vine leaves, acanthus leaves, holly
+leaves, oak leaves, cabbage leaves, and thistle leaves,—the entire
+architectural flora of the Fifteenth Century is here under our eyes
+mingled with a host of real and fantastic animals. There are also some
+human figures: a little monk in a corner by the side of the altar blows
+the trumpet in a whimsical manner, exactly like the one that serves for
+a reading-desk in the <i>Temptation</i> by Callot.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this profusion of lace, of foliage, of crockets, and stags’ horns,
+upon this mass of curled leaves, pinked leaves, and leaves turned and
+twisted in a hundred fashions, there falls a glowing light, sifted
+through the windows, where vermilion, orpiment and ultramarine are the
+dominating colours. These windows, upon which saints are represented
+in life-size, were made in Sèvres, some of them after the designs of
+the Princess Marie d’Orléans. Perhaps there is a slight false note in
+the selection of these strong colours. Light tones and yellowish and
+whitish tints were generally preferred at the end of the Fifteenth
+Century. It was this gradual abandoning of colour that fifty years
+later engendered the <i>grisailles</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Before it was restored by Louis-Philippe, this church had been used for
+twenty years as the hall for the castle’s police. One may judge by that
+alone of the seriousness of the mutilations.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[375]</span></p>
+
+<h2>BLARNEY CASTLE<br>
+<span class="subhed">MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">Few places in Ireland are more familiar to English ears than Blarney;
+the notoriety is attributable, first, to the marvellous qualities of
+its famous “stone,” and next, to the extensive popularity of the song,—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div>“The groves of Blarney, they are so charming.”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="p-left">When or how the stone obtained its singular reputation,
+it is difficult to determine; the exact position among the ruins of
+the castle is also a matter of doubt; the peasant-guides humour the
+visitor according to his capacity for climbing, and direct, either to
+the summit or the base, the attention of him who desires to “greet it
+with a holy kiss.” He who has been dipped in the Shannon is presumed
+to have obtained, in abundance, the gift of that “civil courage” which
+makes an Irishman at ease and unconstrained in all places and under
+all circumstances; and he who has kissed the Blarney stone is assumed
+to be endowed with a fluent and persuasive tongue, although it may be
+associated with insincerity; the term “Blarney” being generally used to
+characterize words that are meant neither to be “honest nor true.” It
+is conjectured that the comparatively modern application of the term
+“Blarney” first had existence when the possessor, Lord Clancarty, was
+a prisoner to Sir George Carew, by whom he was subjected to several
+examinations touching his loyalty, which he was required to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[376]</span> prove
+by surrendering his strong castle to the soldiers of the Queen; this
+bet he always endeavoured to evade by some plausible excuse, but as
+invariably professing his willingness to do so. The particulars are
+fully detailed in the “Pacata Hibernia.”</p>
+
+<p>It is certain that to no particular stone of the ancient structure is
+the marvellous quality exclusively attributed; but in order to make
+it as difficult as possible to attain the enviable gift, it had long
+been the custom to point out a stone, a few feet below the battlements,
+which the very daring only would run the hazard of touching with their
+lips. The attempt to do so was, indeed, so dangerous, that a few years
+ago Mr. Jeffreys had it removed from the wall and placed on the highest
+point of the building, where the visitor may now greet it with little
+risk. It is about two feet square, and contains the date 1703, with
+a portion of the arms of the Jeffreys family, but the date, at once,
+negatives its claim to be considered the true marvel of Blarney.<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>
+A few days before our visit a madman made his way to the top of the
+castle, and after dancing around it for some hours, his escape from
+death being almost miraculous, he flung this stone from the tower;
+it was broken in the fall, and now as the guide stated to us, the
+“three halves” must receive three distinct kisses to be in any degree
+effective.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp375">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp375.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">BLARNEY CASTLE, IRELAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[377]</span></p>
+
+<p>The age of the song has been satisfactorily ascertained; it was written
+in the year 1798 or 1799, by Richard Alfred Millikin, an attorney
+of Cork. The author little anticipated the celebrity his lines were
+destined to acquire; they were composed to ridicule the nonsense verses
+of the village poets, who, with a limited knowledge of the English
+language, and a smattering of classical names, were in the habit of
+indulging their still more ignorant auditors, by stringing together
+sounds that had no sense, but conveyed a notion of the prodigious
+learning of the singer.</p>
+
+<p>Millikin’s song has been injurious to Ireland; it has raised many a
+laugh at Ireland’s expense, and contributed largely to aid the artist
+and the actor, of gone-by times, in exhibiting the Irishman as little
+better than a buffoon—very amusing, no doubt, but exciting any feeling
+rather than that of respect.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to contemplate the romantic ruins of Blarney Castle
+without a feeling more akin to melancholy than to pleasure; they bear,
+so perfectly, the aspect of strength utterly subdued, and remind one
+so forcibly that the “glory” of Ireland belongs to days departed. The
+castle stands—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div class="i8">“as stands a lofty mind,</div>
+        <div>Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,</div>
+        <div>All tenantless, save to the crannying wind.”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+<p class="p-left">The stronghold of Blarney was erected about the middle of
+the Fifteenth Century by Cormac MacCarthy, surnamed “Laider,” or the
+Strong; whose ancestors had been chieftains in Munster from a period
+long antecedent to the English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[378]</span> invasion, and whose descendants, as
+Lords of Muskerry and Clancarty, retained no inconsiderable portion
+of their power and estates until the year 1689, when their immense
+possessions were confiscated, and the last earl became an exile,
+like the monarch whose cause he had supported. The castle, village,
+mills, fairs, and customs of Blarney, with the land and park thereunto
+belonging, containing 1400 acres, were “set up by cant” in the year
+1702, purchased by Sir Richard Pyne, Lord Chief Justice, for £3,000,
+and by him disposed of, the following year, to General Sir James
+Jeffreys, in whose family the property continues. Although the walls of
+this castle are still strong, many of the outworks have long since been
+levelled with the earth; the plough has passed over their foundations,
+and “the stones of which they were built have been used in repairing
+the turnpike-roads.”</p>
+
+<p>The small village of Blarney is about four miles north-west of Cork;
+a few years ago it was remarkably clean, neat, and thriving; its
+prosperity having resulted from the establishment of several linen
+and cotton factories, the whole of which have been swept away, and
+the hamlet is now, like the castle, an assemblage of ruins. In the
+vicinity, however, there is yet a woollen-manufactory and a paper-mill,
+both in full work. The scenery in the neighbourhood is agreeable, but
+the grounds that immediately surround the castle are of exceeding
+beauty. Nature has done much more for them than art; although there
+is evidence that the hand of taste had busied itself in the duty
+of improvement. “The sweet Rock-close” is a small dell, in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[379]</span> which
+evergreens grow luxuriantly, completely shaded with magnificent trees.
+At its termination, are the “Witches’ Stairs”; a series of rugged stone
+steps which lead down through a passage in the rock to a delicious
+spot of greensward forming the bank of a clear rivulet—and where some
+singular masses appear to have been “the work of Druid hands of old.”</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[380]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES<br>
+<span class="subhed">J. J. BOURRASSÉE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The traveller who visits Loches for the first time is greatly struck by
+the picturesque position of the town on an elevation—gently sloping
+down to the meadows watered by the Indre. Above the houses rise the
+turrets of the castle, which in turn are dominated by the pyramids
+of the old collegiate church of Our Lady, above which again appears
+the ancient mediæval fortress in its somewhat austere majesty. The
+combination forms an enchanting view seen under the first beams of the
+rising sun from the edge of the forest on the Montrésor road.</p>
+
+<p>About the beginning of the Sixth Century, St. Ours came to Touraine
+to settle at Loches. There several monks placed themselves under his
+discipline. The monastery of St. Ours made a town of Loches. As has
+often been remarked, the people of the country like to group around
+these religious houses where they find at the same time a church with
+its spiritual aid, a refuge always open against the persecution of the
+mighty, a school, a hospital, and a model farm with its agricultural
+and industrial instruction. In a few years the collection became
+sufficiently important for the establishment of a <i>castrum</i>. This
+strong castle, which was already in existence at the time of Gregory
+of Tours, was placed in a position that was very <span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[381]</span>easy to defend: it
+was protected on one side by that elbow of the mountain to which St.
+Ours had retired and by the escarpment towards the Indre, a flank that
+was rendered almost inaccessible by the river and the valley marshes;
+on another, by the natural depression of the vale of Mazerolles; and,
+on the third, by a deep and wide cutting in the chalky tufa. The castle
+which crowned the hill and commanded the surrounding country was so
+strong for that age that all conquerors contended for its possession.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp380">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp380.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES, FRANCE.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>After the Romans, we find the Visigoths here, and then the Mérovingian
+princes, the feudal lords, the counts of Anjou and Touraine who became
+kings of England and the kings of France after Philip Augustus. At the
+foot of the ancient castle of Loches, a hundred fights of chivalry were
+settled. Under the feudal rule, the surrounding fields were thronged
+with bands of men marching under various banners.</p>
+
+<p>The counts of Anjou, whose ambition was the scourge of our province,
+had become masters of Loches, thanks to skilfully calculated
+matrimonial alliances. The citadel of Loches became the boulevard of
+their warlike enterprises in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.</p>
+
+<p>The Eleventh Century fortress, whose square donjon commands the
+surrounding country, is not so well preserved as the collegiate church.
+Nevertheless, the learned who study our national antiquities consider
+it one of the most precious remains of the military architecture of
+that remote age. Picture to yourself an imposing mass, formed of two
+bodies of buildings shoulder to shoulder rising to a height<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[382]</span> of forty
+<i>mètres</i>. The principal building is 25 m. 33 cm. long while
+the other attains only half this length. The interior disposition
+of the small tower is visible at the first glance on account of the
+disappearance of the floors that formerly divided it into four stories.
+In the lower portion is a low hall from which rose a stairway of from
+thirty-five to forty steps, with two landings, by which to reach the
+principal rooms. At the top of this stairway is the door that gave
+access to every part of the donjon. On the first story, it opens into
+a hall of the great tower, the dimensions of which are so vast that
+it could contain five hundred men; then, at the same level, into the
+corresponding hall of the little tower; and lastly by a secret passage,
+twenty-four <i>mètres</i> in length, hidden in the thickness of the
+wall, one could descend to the vaulted hall that occupied the base of
+the donjon, and that served as an arsenal, a treasury and a prison.
+Three flights of steps, at present interrupted and set in the interior
+of the walls, led to the upper stories. The donjon probably terminated
+in an exterior wooden gallery resting on a movable scaffolding intended
+for repulsing assaults; the numerous holes to be seen at the top of the
+wall authorize this supposition.</p>
+
+<p>Thus established, the Roman donjon of Loches is one of the most
+remarkable monuments of its kind. The beauty of its size, the masterly
+skill of its construction, the imposing amplitude of its mass, half
+disguised by round buttresses that rise to the summit, the artifice of
+its military dispositions, the ingenious multiplicity of its defences,
+the boldness of its outline, and the proud aspect of the whole,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[383]</span> all
+recommend it to the attention of the antiquary and the artist. To-day
+it is of no military importance; but for the town of Loches it will
+ever constitute a picturesque element of the first order.</p>
+
+<p>In 1194, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, being delivered from the prison in which
+he was unjustly kept by the Emperor of Germany, made haste to Touraine,
+his possession of which was being disputed by Philip Augustus. Nothing
+could moderate his boiling heat. After having captured and ransomed
+Châteauneuf de Tours, the King of England hastened to Loches. The
+castle was defended by twenty knights and eighty archers under the
+command of Guy de Laval. The governor at first defended himself
+resolutely enough; but Richard attacked the place with such fury, and
+himself directed the assault with such energy, that it was necessary to
+yield. Guy de Laval was made prisoner with some of his most intrepid
+knights. But the struggle was far from being ended: it only slumbered
+for a few years. Richard, wounded at the siege of Chaluz, in Limousin,
+died at Chinon at the age of forty-two, April 6, 1199. He was buried at
+Fontevrault, leaving behind a troubled and more especially a greatly
+disputed heritage. Queen Berengaria, his wife, received Loches and
+Montbazon with their domains and dependencies as her dowry.</p>
+
+<p>In 1204, we see Philip Augustus reappear in Touraine. In consequence of
+the confiscation pronounced against John Lackland, the King of France
+himself came to take possession of the principal places and towns in
+the province. Tours opened her gates at the first summons.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[384]</span> Loches did
+not show herself so obliging. The castle was defended by Girard d’Athée
+and other lords devoted to the interests of England.</p>
+
+<p>It was necessary to lay a regular siege. After a year of struggle and
+toil, the place was forced to capitulate on account of the failure of
+provisions and ammunition. Philip Augustus gave it in recompense to
+Dreux de Mello, constable of France, a brave knight, celebrated for his
+exploits in France and Palestine, whither he had accompanied the King.
+Afterwards this gift was bought back by St. Louis, by an act dated
+December, 1249, on the banks of the Nile in Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>On returning to France, St. Louis spent several days at Loches. In 1301
+and 1307, Philippe le Bel rested eight days at the castle of Loches on
+his way to talk to Pope Clement V. about the affair of the Templars.
+Half a century later, John II. arrived at Loches at the head of the
+flower of French chivalry on his way to Poictiers to give battle to
+the Black Prince. Fortune appeared to be smiling upon him and victory
+seemed to be assured; but instead of accepting the advantageous
+propositions made by his adversary, he wanted to crush the army of
+the foe. He then fell victim to one of those disasters that leave a
+long and sad echo in history. The evils that overwhelmed France were
+horrible. Anarchy was complete, and reigned in every rank of the
+hierarchy. The English retook Loches, and for more than half-a-century
+the foreigner trampled on and desolated our provinces.</p>
+
+<p>At length came Charles VII. When he first visited<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[385]</span> Loches, he was
+still only the King of Bourges. A poor suite followed him; but he was
+accompanied by Marie d’Anjou, a princess of rare prudence and a courage
+proof against everything. This virtuous queen was France’s good genius.
+In spite of the miseries of the time, she never despaired of her
+country. Her confidence was not deceived: Joan of Arc soon accomplished
+her glorious mission: France was saved.</p>
+
+<p>In 1436, Charles VII. reappeared at Loches; but this time the queen was
+not alone. In her company was a young girl whose timidity seemed to
+recommend her, but whose position was no mystery to anybody: she was
+Agnes Sorel, born in the village of Fromenteau in Touraine. Charles
+VII. gave her the castle of Beauté in Champagne, it is said, so that
+she might be <i>Dame de Beauté</i> by title as well as in reality.
+Agnes possessed a small house at Beaulieu where she sometimes stayed
+to hide herself from the eyes of the courtiers. So the King had the
+tower built at the Castle of Loches that still bears the name of Agnes
+Sorel. This tower stands in a delightful spot: it commands the smiling
+vale of the Indre, and from it the view embraces a charming panorama.
+The eye is arrested by a curtain of verdure formed by the ancient oaks
+of the forest and then wanders with pleasure over the freshest meadows
+imaginable. Agnes Sorel is in the choir of the church at Loches. Her
+white marble tomb, with her statue also of white marble, the feet
+resting on two little lambs and hands clasped, is now to be seen in the
+castle tower that bears her name.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[386]</span></p>
+
+<p>The strong position of the castle of Loches gained for it at an early
+date the sad honour of becoming a state prison. Behind its beautiful
+and solid walls, great lords came to expiate their ambitious intrigues,
+or the simple misfortune of having displeased those more powerful than
+themselves. Geoffroy de Saint-Aignan was shut up here and strangled in
+the Eleventh Century; Thibault, Count of Tours, suffered the severest
+treatment here after his defeat at Nouy; and John, Duke of Alençon, was
+cast into a deep cell here by order of Charles VII. for having aided an
+ungrateful son in his attempts at rebellion, a son who was always ready
+to foment trouble in the realm. But it was Louis XI. who made the most
+frequent use of the Loches cells.</p>
+
+<p>Charles VIII. often inhabited the castle during his early youth.
+Charlotte of Savoy, his mother, was treated in it almost like a
+prisoner by the suspicious Louis XI., who never exhibited a very lively
+friendship for his wife. On his accession, Charles did not forget
+Loches; he began the great tower that was completed by his successor,
+and he took his graceful wife, Anne of Brittany, thither. Louis XII.
+constructed the building that connects the round with the square tower.
+In this is found the low room in which Louis le More was confined in
+1505. The Duke of Milan spent several years in his prison at Loches, in
+a truly sinister cell.</p>
+
+<p>The soldier became an artist, and on the sombre walls of his cell
+he laid a strange and original composition, full of grandeur and
+character. Over the chimney-piece he placed his portrait, more than
+life size, with casque on head as on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[387]</span> the day of battle, and vizor
+raised. The energetic features of this profile, the aquiline nose,
+prominent chin and upper lip curled in a disdainful smile, depict for
+us the entire man. Between the lines <i>pens</i> are ranged, punning
+allusions to the pains he suffered. The whole cell is decorated in
+three colours, yellow ochre, red brown and almost blue black, combined
+with the white of the walls. It was with this work that Sforza occupied
+the interminable hours of his solitude. Travellers view these paintings
+with curiosity as if to probe the secret thoughts that filled the
+bitter heart of the dethroned prince. One cannot help shuddering at
+the thought that the unfortunate Duke of Milan lived here for long
+years, shut up in this <i>in pace</i> by the good Louis XII. However,
+Ludovic did not remain forever in this cell. Towards the last, the
+King permitted him to occupy the upper apartments of the palace under
+surveillance of some Scottish soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>Another noted prisoner deserves mention. John, lord of Saint Vallier,
+father of Diana of Poictiers, allowed himself to be drawn into the
+conspiracy of the Duke of Bourbon. The plot was revealed by Louis de
+Brézé, who had no idea that he was implicating his father-in-law.
+Saint Vallier was arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Loches.
+From his prison, September 19, 1523, he wrote touching letters to his
+children begging them to appeal to the King in his favour. But Francis
+I. showed himself hard and impenetrable. The guilty man was condemned
+and led to the Place de Grève, more dead than alive, to be decapitated.
+At the moment when the sentence was about to be carried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[388]</span> out, an
+archer came from the King, bringing, not a pardon, but a commutation.
+The unfortunate man, whose hair had turned white in a night, was so
+affected by the preparation for his death that he almost lost his
+reason. Ever afterwards he was afflicted with a nervous trembling,
+accompanied by fever, which became known as the <i>fever of St.
+Vallier</i>.</p>
+
+<p>By a singular irony of fate, splendid <i>fêtes</i> were held in this
+same castle, whither so many wretches came to groan. Thirty years had
+not elapsed since the Duke of Milan had breathed his last sigh, when
+the conqueror of Pavia was received at Loches by him who there had lost
+“all but honour.” Francis I., like a generous prince, on this occasion
+displayed extreme magnificence: he came to meet his rival, December
+12, 1539, accompanied by his queen, Eleanor, and followed by his whole
+court. The entertainments were numerous and splendid, and only ended
+when the Emperor had arrived on the frontier of the Low Countries.</p>
+
+<p>The splendour of <i>fêtes</i> shone anew at Loches in 1559, when Henri
+II. and Catherine de’Medici passed through ten years afterwards; Henri
+III., while still the Dauphin, stayed there for several days, at the
+moment when he was going to take his place at the head of the army
+concentrated in the environs, on the eve of the victory of Moncontour.
+Here also were seen Charles IX., Henri IV. and Marie de’Medici. The
+latter was a fugitive, taking refuge here for a few moments after
+leaving the Castle of Blois, whence she had succeeded in escaping.
+From that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[389]</span> epoch, silence has invaded the vast halls and towers, the
+terraces and gardens. Nothing has interrupted it except the savage
+cries of the Revolution. To-day the palace of the Kings, discrowned and
+almost deserted, keeps only the memory of magnificence gone forever.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[390]</span></p>
+
+<h2>THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM<br>
+<span class="subhed">NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE</span></h2></div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap p-left">The park gate of Blenheim stands close to the end of the village street
+of Woodstock. Immediately on passing through its portals, we saw the
+stately palace in the distance, but made a wide circuit of the park
+before approaching it. This noble park contains three thousand acres
+of land, and is fourteen miles in circumference. Having been, in
+part, a royal domain before it was granted to the Marlborough family,
+it contains many trees of unsurpassed antiquity, and has doubtless
+been the haunt of game and deer for centuries. We saw pheasants in
+abundance, feeding in the open lawns and glades; and the stags tossed
+their antlers and bounded away, not affrighted, but only shy and
+gamesome, as we drove by. It is a magnificent pleasure-ground, not
+too tamely kept, nor rigidly subjected within rule, but vast enough
+to have lapsed back into nature again, after all the pains that the
+landscape-gardeners of Queen Anne’s time bestowed on it, when the
+domain of Blenheim was scientifically laid out. The great, knotted
+slanting trunks of the old oaks do not now look as if man had much
+intermeddled with their growth and postures. The trees of later date,
+that were set out in the Great Duke’s time, are arranged on the plan
+of the order of battle in which the illustrious commander ranked his
+troops at <span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[391]</span>Blenheim; but the ground covered is so extensive, and
+the trees now so luxuriant, that the spectator is not disagreeably
+conscious of their standing in military array, as if Orpheus had
+summoned them together by beat of drum. The effect must have been
+very formal a hundred and fifty years ago, but has ceased to be
+so,—although the trees, I presume, have kept their ranks with even
+more fidelity than Marlborough’s veteran’s did.</p>
+
+  <div class="figcenter" id="i_fp390">
+     <img
+    class="p1"
+    src="images/i_fp390.jpg"
+     alt="">
+     <p class="p0 sm center">THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM, ENGLAND.</p>
+  </div>
+
+<p>After driving a good way, we came to a battlemented tower and adjoining
+house, which used to be the residence of the Ranger of Woodstock
+Park, who held charge of the property for the King before the Duke of
+Marlborough possessed it. The keeper opened the door for us, and in the
+entrance hall we found various things that had to do with the chase and
+woodland sports. We mounted the staircase, through several stories,
+up to the top of the tower, whence there was a view of the spires
+of Oxford, and of points much farther off,—very indistinctly seen,
+however, as is usually the case with the misty distances of England.
+Returning to the ground-floor, we were ushered into the room in which
+died Wilmot, the wicked Earl of Rochester, who was Ranger of the Park
+in Charles’s time. It is a low and bare little room, with a window in
+front, and a smaller one behind; and in the contiguous entrance-room
+there are the remains of an old bedstead, beneath the canopy of which,
+perhaps, Rochester may have made the penitent end that Bishop Burnet
+attributes to him. I hardly know what it is, in this poor fellow’s
+character, which affects us with greater tenderness on his behalf than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[392]</span>
+for all the other profligates of his day, who seem to have been neither
+better nor worse than himself. I rather suspect that he had a human
+heart which never quite died out of him, and the warmth of which is
+still faintly perceptible amid the dissolute trash which he left behind.</p>
+
+<p>Methinks, if such good fortune ever befell a bookish man, I should
+choose this lodge for my own residence, with the topmost room of the
+tower for a study, and all the seclusion of cultivated wilderness
+beneath to ramble in. There being no such possibility, we drove on,
+catching glimpses of the palace in new points of view, and by and by
+came to Rosamond’s Well. The particular tradition that connects Fair
+Rosamond with it is not now in my memory; but if Rosamond ever lived
+and loved, and ever had her abode in the maze of Woodstock, it way
+well be believed that she and Henry sometimes sat beside this spring.
+It gushes out from a bank, through some old stone-work, and dashes its
+little cascade (about as abundant as one might turn out of a large
+pitcher) into a pool whence it steals away towards the lake, which is
+not far removed.</p>
+
+<p>Passing through a gateway on the opposite side of the quadrangle, we
+had before us the noble classic front of the palace, with its two
+projecting wings. We ascended the lofty steps of the portal, and were
+admitted into the entrance-hall, the height of which, from floor to
+ceiling, is not much less than seventy feet, being the entire elevation
+of the edifice. The hall is lighted by windows in the upper story, and
+it being a clear bright day, was very radiant with lofty sunshine, amid
+which a swallow was flitting to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[393]</span> and fro. The ceiling was painted by
+Sir James Thornhill in some allegorical design (doubtless commemorative
+of Marlborough’s victories) the purport of which I did not take the
+trouble to make out,—contenting myself with the general effect, which
+was most splendidly and effectively ornamental.</p>
+
+<p>We were guided through the show-rooms by a very civil person, who
+allowed us to take pretty much our own time in looking at the pictures.
+The collection is exceedingly valuable,—many of these works of Art
+having been presented to the Grand Duke by the crowned heads of England
+or the Continent. One room was all aglow with pictures by Rubens; and
+there were works of Raphael, and many other famous painters, any one
+of which would be sufficient to illustrate the meanest house that
+might contain it. I remember none of them, however (not being in a
+picture-seeing mood), so well as Vandyck’s large and familiar picture
+of Charles I. on horseback, with a figure and face of melancholy
+dignity such as never by any other hand was put on canvas.</p>
+
+<p>After passing through the first suite of rooms, we were conducted
+through a corresponding suite on the opposite side of the
+entrance-hall. These latter apartments are most richly adorned with
+tapestries, wrought and presented to the first Duke by a sisterhood of
+Flemish nuns; they look like great, glowing pictures, and completely
+cover the walls of the rooms. The designs purport to represent the
+Duke’s battles and sieges; and everywhere we see the hero himself, as
+large as life, and as gorgeous in scarlet and gold<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[394]</span> as the holy sisters
+could make him, with a three-cornered hat and flowing wig, reining in
+his horse, and extending his leading-staff in the attitude of command.
+Next to Marlborough, Prince Eugene is the most prominent figure. In the
+way of upholstery, there can never have been anything more magnificent
+than these tapestries; and, considered as works of Art, they have quite
+as much merit as nine pictures out of ten.</p>
+
+<p>One whole wing of the palace is occupied by the library, a most noble
+room, with a vast perspective length from end to end.</p>
+
+<p>The next business was to see the private gardens. An old Scotch
+under-gardener admitted us and led the way, and seemed to have a fair
+prospect of earning the fee all by himself; but by and by another
+respectable Scotchman made his appearance and took us in charge,
+proving to be the head-gardener in person. He was extremely intelligent
+and agreeable, talking both scientifically and lovingly about trees and
+plants, of which there is every variety capable of English cultivation.
+Positively, the Garden of Eden cannot have been more beautiful than
+this private garden of Blenheim. It contains three hundred acres, and
+by the artificial circumlocution of the paths, and the undulations, and
+the skilfully interposed clumps of trees, is made to appear limitless.
+The sylvan delights of a whole country are compressed into this space,
+as whole fields of Persian roses go to the concoction of an ounce of
+precious attar. The world within that garden-fence is not the same
+weary and dusty world with which we outside mortals are conversant;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[395]</span>
+it is a finer, lovelier, more harmonious Nature; and the Great Mother
+lends herself kindly to the gardener’s will, knowing that he will make
+evident the half-obliterated traits of her pristine and ideal beauty,
+and allow her to take all the credit and praise to herself. I doubt
+whether there is ever any winter within that precinct,—any clouds
+except the fleecy ones of summer. The sunshine that I saw there rests
+upon my recollection of it as if it were eternal. The lawns and glades
+are like the memory of places where one has wandered when first in love.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> A guide for travellers, furnished by the villages.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Court of the magistrate attached to the palace.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> “The following account of Akbar’s Pachisi-board is from
+an old Agra periodical:—The game is usually played by four persons,
+each of whom is supplied with four wooden or ivory cones, which are
+called ‘gots,’ and are of different colours for distinction. Victory
+consists in getting these four pieces safely through all the squares
+of each rectangle into the vacant place in the centre,—the difficulty
+being that the adversaries take up in the same way as pieces are
+taken at backgammon. Moving is regulated by throwing ‘cowries,’ whose
+apertures falling uppermost or not, affect the amount of the throw
+by certain fixed rules. But on this Titanic board of Akbar’s, wooden
+or ivory ‘gots’ would be lost altogether. Sixteen girls, therefore,
+dressed distinctively—say four in red, four in blue, four in white,
+four in yellow—were trotted up and down the squares, taken up by an
+adversary, and put back at the beginning again; and at last, after many
+difficulties, four of the same colour would find themselves gliding
+into their <i>dopattas</i> together in the middle space, and the game
+was won.”—<i>Bholanauth Chunder.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Oluf, called God-dreng, who reigned before King Ring, is
+by Adam of Bremen supposed to be the real Holger Dansk: he accompanied
+Charlemagne to the Holy Sepulchre, and helped to place Prester John on
+the throne of India.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> In 1538 the citizens of Lund received orders to pull down
+the stone churches in disuse since the Reformation, and forward the
+materials to Copenhagen to be employed for the building of the new
+castle; and again, in 1552, a second supply was sent. Even Laura Maria,
+the big bell purchased with the legacy of Bishop Absalom, was not
+spared; she got cracked on the journey, was melted down and recast into
+two little ones, which still hang in the clock-tower of Kronborg. Laura
+Maria was looked upon almost as a saint, and Valdemar Atterdag, who
+believed in nothing, when on his death-bed is said to have roared out
+in a paroxysm of pain, “Help me, Soro! help me, Esrom! help me, Laura
+Maria, you big bell of Lund!”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> The Maiden’s Tower.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> The Rev. Matthew Horgan, the parish priest of Blarney,
+informs us that “the curious traveller will seek in vain for the
+<i>real</i> stone, unless he allows himself to be lowered from the
+northern angle of the lofty castle, when he will discover it about
+twenty feet from the top with this inscription:—</p>
+
+  <div class="poetry-container">
+   <div class="poetry">
+      <div class="stanza">
+        <div>Cormac MacCarthy Fortis,</div>
+        <div>Me Fieri Fecit. <span class="allsmcap">A. D.</span>, 1446.”</div>
+      </div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="transnote">Transcriber’s Notes:<br>
+<br>
+1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
+corrected silently.<br>
+<br>
+2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
+been retained as in the original.</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77405 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
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@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #77405
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77405)