Presented to the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

by the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY

1980

ROYAL PALACES ftP GARDENS

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE, LONDON

57503

ROYAL" PALACES
~&~GARDENS

BY

MIMA-NIXON

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY

DION CLAYTON CALTHROP

AUTHOR OF " THE CHARM OF GARDENS "

57503

A. & C. BLACK LTD.

4, 5, & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W

1916

1)

<\\0

A/

€

DEDICATED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION
TO HER MAJESTY

QUEEN ALEXANDRA

Sea-King s daughter from over the sea,

Alexandra !

Saxon and Norman and Dane are we,
But all of us Danes in our welcome of Thee,
Alexandra/'1

TENNYSON

NOTE

THE author of the paragraphs on the English
and Villa Hvidore Gardens, " Bygdo Kongs-
gaard," " The Magnolia Tree, Aranjuez,"
Portugal,- and Russia, wishes to acknowledge
indebtedness, among several books consulted, to
the following, from which numerous extracts
have been taken : " Round About Piccadilly
and Pall Mall"; " Denmark," by A. de Flaux ;
" Courts of the North," by Brown ; " Norway,"
by L'Enault ; " History of Norway," by H. H.
Boyesen ; George Sorrow's "Bible in Spain";
R. Nisbet Bain's " Rise of the Romanoffs."

vn

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ENGLAND

Owner of Original

1. Marlborough House . . Queen Alexandra frontispiece

Page

2. Buckingham Palace . . -. The Queen . . -35

3. The Dutch Garden, Kensington Queen Alexandra . . 43

Palace

4. King James's Steps, Windsor 5 1

Castle

5. The Park, Sandringham . . 59

6. The Church, Sandringham . Hon. Maude Lawrence 65

7. Barton Manor, Isle of Wight . The Queen . . 71

DENMARK

8. The Park, Fredensborg Castle . Queen Alexandra . . 77

9. Fredensborg Castle, from the 8 1

Marble Garden

10. Villa Hvidore . . . Queen Alexandra . . 85

1 1 . Herbaceous Border, Villa Hvi- „ „ . .91

dore

Z2. The Garden by the Sea, Villa Dowager Empress of Russia 95
Hvidore

13. The Open Door, Villa Hvidore „ „ 101

14. The Dahlia Border, Villa Hvi- Queen Alexandra . .105

dore

15. Frederiksborg Castle ... m

ix

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

NORWAY

Owner of Original Page

16. Bygdo Kongsgaard . . . The Queen of Norway . 117

17. The Mercury, Bygdo . . „ „ .123

18. The Palace, Christiania . „ „ .127

SWEDEN

19. Drottningholm Castle . 133

20. Chateau Sofiero ... 137

GREECE

21. The Royal Palace, Athens . Dowager Queen of Greece 141

22. The Acropolis, from the Royal Queen of Greece . .147

Palace, Athens

23. The Garden of the Crown King of Greece . . 151

Prince's Palace, Athens

24. The Wistaria Bower, the Royal „ „ . 155

Palace, Athens

25. The Rose Pergola, Achilleion, Queen of Greece . .159

Corfu

26. Cinerarias, Achilleion, Corfu „ „ 163

27. Sunset, The Achilleion, Corfu Mdme. - — , Petrograd 167

AUSTRIA

28. The Palace, Schonbrunn . . Mdme. , Petrograd 171

29. The Menagerie, Schonbrunn . Prince and Princess Karl 175

Friedrich of Hesse

30. The Gloriette, Schonbrunn . 179

31. Miramar .... Sir John Miller, K.C.S.I. 183

32. Schloss zu Gmunden . . Duchess of Cumberland . 189

33. Schloss zu Gmunden, from the ,, „ .193

Chestnut Avenue

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

SWITZERLAND

Owner of Original Page

34. Lake Constance from Schloss 199

Mainau

FRANCE

35. The North Wing of the Palace, 207

from the Parterre d'Eau,
Versailles

36. The Parterre de Latone, Ver- King of Greece . .211

sailles

37. The Fountain of Diana, Ver- 215

sailles

ITALY

38. Boboli Gardens, Florence . General Paul Muller, , 219

Russian Horse Guards

39. The Villa Petraja, Florence . M. de Benckendorjf . 223

40. The Sunk Garden, The Vatican, 229

Rome

41. The Villa d'Este, Rome . 233

42. Capo di Monte, Naples . . 237

SPAIN

43. La Granja . . . . M. Demidoff . . 243

44. Aranjuez .... Miss Lyall . . . 247

45. The Magnolia Tree, Aranjuez . 251

PORTUGAL

46. Necessidades Palace, Lisbon . 255

xi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

RUSSIA

Owner of Original Page

47. The Palace, Peterhof . 261

48. The Fountains, Peterhof . . 265

49. The Tsar's Church, Peterhof . General Lermontoto . 269

Chef de Fadminis-
tration des Talais de
Peterhoj

GERMANY

50. Schloss Friedrichshof . . Prince and Princess Karl 279

Friedrich of Hesse

51. The Rose Garden, Friedrichshof Mrs. S laden . . . 283

52. The Palace, Sans Souci . 287

53. The Mill, Sans Souci . . M. Demidoff . . 29 1

54. The Clock Tower, Wolfsgarten. The Grand Duke of Hesse 295

55. The Pond, Wolfsgarten . „ „ 299

BAVARIA

56. Schloss Nymphenburg . 303

HOLLAND

57. The Berceau, Het Loo . . 307

58. The Palace Gardens, Het Loo . 309

BELGIUM

59. The Orangery, Laeken . . The Queen of the Belgians 313

60. The Covered Way to the „ „ 317

Chapel, Laeken

Xll

KINGS IN GARDENS

BY

DION CLAYTON CALTHROP

KINGS IN GARDENS

I HAVE often dreamed that I have met a king
walking alone in a long lane between high walls.
And in the dream he says to me, " There is a
door somewhere in this lane, and it gives on to
the most beautiful garden in the world." And
then I feel in my pocket and I draw out a key,
not being in the least surprised, and I say, " I
believe this key would open it if we could find
the door." And at that minute the king says,
" Hullo, here is the door ! " And so it is.

It is a little, low, secret-looking door without
carving or handle, or any ornament, and very
narrow. I put the key into the keyhole and it
opens at once. Then, since it is so very narrow
and he is a king, I stand aside and say, " After
you," and he says, " After you," in the simplest
way possible ; and I bow, and he steps inside,
and then I follow him.

There is a little square, or cabinet, of hedges,

3

KINGS IN GARDENS

like a hall of green, just inside the door, and but
one way out, and that through an archway of
pomegranates in full flower. And this we pass
through, and at once we are in an orderly place,
and it is Holland, and very, very quiet. Rows
and rows of tulips and hyacinths burning with
colour are on each side of us, and the pathway is
of red brick and the borders of box. Behind the
border on either side a clear-water canal runs,
making no sound. Behind that again are box
trees and yew trees in tubs, and the trees are
curiously cut into the shape of peacocks and
ships and men holding clubs. The king says,
" I suppose we can smoke here ? " And at that
minute I see a little arbour contrived in a hedge
of yew, and in it a table and seats, and on the
table a brass box of tobacco and clay pipes. So
we sit down.

In the dream I say, " Now, I want to know,
your majesty . . ." and the king always says,
" Oh, let's drop all that, we are all kings in
gardens." " But," I say, " I have always wanted
to know what it felt like to be a king." And
he looks over thelwonderful flowers with his eyes
far away, as if he were counting his subjects, and

4

DUTCH EXACTNESS

then he speaks. '' It is very lonely. There are
people who would die for you, and people who
do die for you, and millions who pray for you.
And you live all the time in the light. Yes, it is
very lonely. There are enemies everywhere, and
if you have friends they say you have favourites.
I often wish, as Napoleon wished, that I was a
simple gardener."

After that he is silent, and one hears only the
bees murmuring to the flowers. And I watch a
bumble-bee slip into a tulip cup and make a noise
as if he were very angry.

The tulips look like the turbans and dresses or
the Kabyle women or the dancers of the Ouled
Nail people in Bousaada, and the hyacinths are
like the curled periwigs of the courtiers of
William of Orange.

Then we rise by common consent and walk
down the path, and we do not speak because the
peace of gardens is on us.

We see trim bowling greens through archways
in the hedges that are sometimes of yew and
sometimes of holly ; and there are little walled
courts with sundials on white stands, and fruit
trees on the walls. Everything is very trim and

5

KINGS IN GARDENS

orderly, and the storks walking about give a very
dignified air of calm. Then, all of a sudden, we
enter a maze contrived of nut trees, and, after a
turn or two in its bewildering paths, we feel a
subtle change in the air. The scent of orange
blossom is carried to us by a little secret wind,
and the sound of water playing, and somewhere
a bird is singing passionately, and we both stop,
for it is a nightingale, and you must stop when a
nightingale sings, for it is a song of love and
exquisite agony and the bitter-sweet of life, and
an aching of hearts and then a torrent of triumph,
and then the sinking, dying, heart-breaking notes
of love desolated.

And then we turn a corner and we are in Italy.

The great Italian garden is spread before us,
prodigal of colour, set with paths for emperors to
tread. It is on the magnificent scale of Italian
things, rich beyond words ; dazzling in pure
sunlight.

Now choirs of birds sing, and somewhere a
hidden lute is playing.

One is reminded of that garden in which stood
the palace of the President Maison, and of how
he pulled down a whole village to make room for
6

ITALIAN GRANDEUR

his pleasure. There is here this sense of such
royal commands. And, besides, there is the
feeling that all this has been artificially arranged.
Its essence is architectural ; a vast mosaic of
paths and alleys and beds and fountains, groves
and solitudes.

There is something brazen in its beauty, as of
a Venetian beauty in stiff brocades and ropes of
pearls and hair artfully bleached in the sun. All
the gods are here, and the philosophers standing
on pedestals, their marble whiteness against
cypress trees flashing in the sun. In the basin of
the great fountain before us naked women ride on
the backs of dolphins, and the waters play in a
hundred patterns, while the sun, for his amuse-
ment it seems, makes and breaks a thousand
rainbows. They die and fade and leap into life
in the mist of spray above the water ; they lie
embedded in single drops, or curve across the
expanse.

There are white steps beyond leading to
terraces and groves of citron, where the lemons
lean against white columns and gleam pale beside
the red gold of the oranges. Two giant fig trees
mark the entrances to grotts ; and on the hill

7

KINGS IN GARDENS

behind the melancholy sweet grace or olives
shows with the blue sky caught, it seems, in the
intricate tracery of their boughs.

Now, as we watch, comes the genius of this
garden, Giorgione's poet come to life. That
figure from the Fetes Champetres is all Romance.
He carries his lute slung behind him as he walks
down the steps ; he twirls a carnation between
his fingers ; his hair is long and bushes out over
his ears, and the sun makes fine play on his
crimson sleeves. In a moment he is lost in the
shadows of an orange grove.

With this figure comes all the memory of
those great Italian gardens, the gardens of the
D'Estes, of the Borghesi, of the villa of Cardinal
Aldobrandi.

" This is indeed Italy," I say to the king.
And he replies in the way of a man heavy with
dreams of ancient things. " In this garden we
could find that aviary the D'Estes built where
artificial birds sang until an owl appeared, on
which they suddenly change their notes. And
there will be somewhere a great fountain of
Dragons casting out streams of water with tre-
mendous noises. What dreams sleep in gardens !
8

ITALIAN ROMANCE

It is no effort to see those long-dead men and
women in their brave clothes, the big women of
Palma with their golden hair, the Violantes,
Simonetta, that reed-like spirit of the Renais-
sance ; the secret women of Leonardo, all the
great wonders and beauties of those women
Veronese painted, I see them all. And there are
little boys with flaxen hair playing on flutes and
mandolines, like the child angels Carpaccio drew.
The Italy of Romance is always a garden to me,
with Paradises as the Borghesi had, contrived
with shades of myrtils, cypresse and other trees,
with pretty murmuring streams and fountains
and bass-relievos. There should be a herd of deer
here, and nets to catch woodcock in the trees,
and a Vivarie containing among other things that
exotic fowl the ostridge."

I, too, could see the garden fill with ghosts,
but mine, somehow, were in periwigs and three-
cornered hats and cloaks, and they bowed to ladies
in great hoops and high-heeled shoes, and all
were masked.

" There is a certain atmosphere of the drawing-
room about this garden," I said. " I seem to
feel that the trees wear their best appearance.

B 9

KINGS IN GARDENS

There is a stateliness and yet there is a hint ot
the stage about it."

" Don't you think," said the king, " that there
is a hint of the stage in everything ? If you are
a poet you conjure up backgrounds in the street ;
if you are of the philosophic mind you will see
that a mob is but one person, and that a spirit.
A crowd will seem to you like a stage crowd,
trained to its work. Nature and Art are so
linked that it is sometimes difficult to know
where they merge. Now a garden is all dreams.
The men who made this one had the sense
of artificiality highly developed. They made
grotts where water played strange music, to
imitate the chirping of birds or the roaring of
wild beasts. They set copper balls dancing
above the pavements by virtue of wind conveyed
secretly to holes beneath them. They even
went so far in their theatres of water as to cause
artificial storms to arise in built caves, with a
fury of wind and rain and thunder such as the
one the Cardinal Aldobrandini had at his villa.
Men who try to harness the elements for their
pleasure are all dreamers. Just so the man who
plucks a rose, for he who plucks a rose plucks
10

ROSES OF YESTERDAY

yesterday. The dust of legions underneath our
feet gave the rose birth. No man smells its
perfume but he inhales in that sweet scent all
that poets have written of the flower, and all its
significance.

" In a garden one dreams always ; the senses are
intoxicated, the world is shut away. Somewhere
on the other side of these walls and hedges a busy
world goes hurrying by. Here there is no hurry ;
Nature assists at countless weddings, at births and
deaths. And all is leisurely and ruled and orderly.
Underneath there goes on the fierce battle of life,
but so minute that we do not notice it. The
plantain preys upon the grass, the bindweed
throttles the rose with its tiny murderous fingers.
If this place were deserted for a year tall, dark
grass would choke the borders, weeds destroy the
more timid flowers, carnations would grow small
and wildly, roses would deteriorate. It is the
triumph of common, strong, hardy things against
the efforts of civilization, the people against the
over-civilized. There seems to be but one
civilization permanent and fine, a civilization
which affects us even to-day.

" Go into the desert of the Sahara and see

u

KINGS IN GARDENS

Timgad standing there under that burning sky,
and you will know what Rome meant and means.

" Here in this royal Italian garden one must
have dreams of Italy, and dreams of Italy are
dreams of a great glory which has never faded.
I think of Italy as a golden land of palaces ; from
end to end I feel its grandeur ; those sunburnt
cities of the plains, those strong rock-built cities
of the hills with their scarred walls that show
to-day the marks ot endless battles ; the dead in
their sacred gardens guarded by impressive dark
cypress trees. Italy, to me, has a lute over her
shoulder and a sword in her hand, and looks with
fearless, passionate eyes. One speaks of France
as a country that smiles. I see no smiles in Italy.
I love France : she is my heart ; but I bow the
knee to Italy.

" In those great Spanish gardens I feel a little
lost ; they have in them the challenge of the
East and its profundity and its unfathomable
secret. The Moor is there in those gardens,
proud, reserved, polite, each man looking like an
emperor. He holds the flower of a pomegranate
in his hand, and smells it delicately. It would
seem that he has been there for ever."

12

ARABIAN MYSTERY

Then, in my dream, it seems that the Italian
garden melted away : rare spiced perfumes filled
the air, while from some secret place the piping
of a reed instrument rose and fell. " We are in
Africa," I said.

We stand in a little courtyard of sand beaten
hard : on one side graceful pepper trees move
gently as the warm desert air caresses them ; on
the other a line of date palms gives shade, and in
front of us is a white wall pierced by two arches.
On this wall roses hang and fill the air with
scent, and through the arches we may see groves
of the feathery bamboo flickering pathways with
intricate arabesques of shadow.

We walk in silence while the genius of the
place pipes his melancholy song hidden, and the
silver voice of running water seems to cool the
passion of the hot shadows. The scented bells
of datura ring out their perfumed breath as if
some sensuous god had brushed them as he
passed. The scarlet fires of the rose of Granada
light the deep shades, and the pure cups of arum
lilies show everywhere beneath the trees.

We come at length to a clearing where, on a
white seat shaded by trees of geranium burning

'3

KINGS IN GARDENS

with fiery flowers, we rest. Strange shadows flit
about in dim vistas through the palms, noiselessly,
white, scented.

Says the king : " It was such a place as this
that gave to Mahomet his idea of Paradise. In
the Koran you will find how all the Faithful
shall go to a garden when they die. They
repose there on couches of white silk lined with
crimson, and drink wine that does not intoxicate
them ; ' wine that shall have the odour of musk,
in bottles none but themselves shall open, mixt
with the water of the fountain of Paradise, where
the Cherubins do drink.' After the heat of the
desert and the burning sand and the strife of
life they are promised time and time again the
pleasures of a garden where they live for ever
like kings, waited upon by pages in shining
robes of green silk, adored by women as white
as pearls, with coal-black eyes. It is of shade
and rivers, of fruit and ease and scent and wine
they dream.

" Look at this garden where we sit and see how
it is to these Arabs an earthly Paradise. The
fruits of the earth grow here, and a man can live
by stretching out his hand. There are figs and

14

ARABIAN MAGIC

dates, grapes and bananas, oranges and lemons
and pomegranates. For a space of time man is a
king here, and walks with the perfumed silence
alone with his thoughts. Other gardens are full
of history and the remembrance of art ; here it
is half a dream. It is a place for lotus-eaters.
Sleep, languor rests deliciously on the brain,
soft fingers seem to stroke one's eyelids. I
could listen to that boy singing for ever ; his
voice is the peace of this place speaking. Out-
side is the fierce glare, the sand quivering with
heat, the parched road."

I force myself to keep my eyes open. Some-
where there is a small fire burning, and the smoke
has an aromatic perfume which mounts to my
head like wine. I know neither the time nor the
season. They could make me king, emperor, and
I should not move. They could clothe me in
purple silk and bind my head with bands of gold,
and I should not stir. Voices drift across my
fading consciousness ; I am aware of strange
music.

" There is a magic in this place," says the
king drowsily. Instantly I begin to fight the
spell. I withdraw the mists from my mind, but

'5

KINGS IN GARDENS

they roll back until I feel I have no will, and
then — a strange thing — I hear a sound so clean-
cut and so full of association that I rise and
throw the East from my shoulders like a cloak
discarded. It is the sound of a man whetting a
scythe.

We make a way through the trees, turn by a
wall of cactus, and so into a deep cut in a hedge
of yew. The king goes first. " England," he says.

There is a strength about the scene before us
that is missing from the other gardens. It has
what all other European gardens lack, a feeling
that it stands in the open country, that it is
Nature enclosed ; and that it is intensely alive.

The Italian garden teases the eye, the French
garden is full of falsities, the Eastern garden of
unreality. This, for all its space and orderliness,
is a steadfast, watching repose.

It has, after the others, a great sense of green.
It has a quality of velvet to the eye. Green
slopes to green and mounts to green again. Oaks
full of solemnity and strength ; giant elms and
beeches meet the rolling lawns, and the lawns
meet long ponds where water-lilies open their
cups to the dappled sky.
16

ENGLISH STRENGTH

It is a garden of long borders. It is a garden
of little gardens, one to face a sundial, one to
hold the wise-looking herbs and simples, one
dedicated to roses and carnations. But the trees !
They are almost arrogant in their beauty and the
triumph of their age. If you have imagination
look at an oak and conjure up picture after
picture of what the oak means to England. Oak
and elm and walnut and willow, ash and pine.
Oak for our panelled walls, oak for our ships
once upon a time when we had wooden walls.
In elm we bury our dead. Off walnut we dine,
and it gives us the table and the nuts to our
good port. Pine for the masts of our ships,
ashen staffs for our hands3 and willow for our
national game. These are the kings of our
gardens, these wonderful trees. Nor should one
leave out the yew, for it sings of the great bow-
men of our past, nor the holly, nor the may for
our festivals.

This garden has all the clean feeling of a
vigorous old age. It must have some genius, not
the golden glamour of the garden in Italy, not
the smiling friendliness of France.

" It is the eighteenth century," says the king.

c 17

KINGS IN GARDENS

I see him now, the genius of this place ; he is
in a full-bottomed wig and a wide-skirted coat of
claret-coloured silk. By his side are two water
spaniels, behind him at his heels a pointer. He
has a pleasant, open face and a measured walk,
and as the lace falls back when he lifts a hand to
take a pinch of snuff I see it is a strong, capable
hand. It is a man of his date but not of his
kind who haunts French gardens, so it seems to
me. Such a man would not do as did the French
when they painted perspectives on the walls to
appear to continue the walks, nor, I think, would
he have cages for wild beasts as they did in the
old Tuileries, or artificial echoes. Both would
have Temples of Flora and leaden statues of the
gods, for both are bitten with the classic idea.
The Englishman seated at his bottle of Madeira
that has been twice round the Cape in a sailing
ship, seated with long-stemmed glasses, with, I
think, a copy of the Gentleman s Magazine or a
volume of verses by Mr. Pope in his hand, is of
a different breed. " As for your French clarets
and the kickshaws they eat," I can hear him say,
" give me a good piece of beef, washed down with
good home-brewed ale, and I'll defy any man."
18

HISTORY UNDERFOOT

Very likely the fishponds here were made by
monks years and years ago ; under the soft
springy turf lie the mosaics of a Roman villa ;
the walls in the fruit garden be built of Tudor
bricks ; but for all that, when I see the arbours of
mulberry trees, the pinks and gillyflowers in the
borders, the white fantails strutting on the lawn,
I feel myself to be in the times of Addison and
Steele.

" Gardens of palaces," says the king, " remind
me of France and Italy, for they were builders of
palaces and loved formality of the shapes and
paths, and they liked wide open spaces and many
steps, and great splashing of many fountains.
English gardens have, for all their grand manner,
a sense of home. Where the Italian builds with
marble the English plant trees. I think the
English have the finest sense for wildernesses and
for parks, parks with great avenues and clumps of
trees, and deer grazing, with meadows beyond,
and a river running at the foot of a hill.

" If Romance be your portion, then the world is
a garden and a window box is a garden ; but real
Romance is the portion of the few. People as a
whole elect to distress themselves about facts that

'9

KINGS IN GARDENS

do not matter instead of ideas that do matter,
People looking at this garden where we have
happily met " (I rise and bow) " would, for the
most part, see nothing but its exterior beauties.
I have known people say of Venice that it is a
place of tottering palaces and bad smells. There
is a railway up the Jungfrau. There are ad-
vertisements in English meadows. But what
can one expect of people to whom Romance is
nothing ? One can only expect from them
accurate material sight and soul-blindness. To
us the ghosts of our fancies are more real than
the things we can touch. Let us make a pro-
cession of kings in gardens : we can do it. There
goes Louis the Fourteenth in all his pomp and
vanity strutting through the gardens of Versailles ;
that garden is his perpetual background. There's
Dutch William with his tulips ; Napoleon talking
to his gardener. I think of most kings with
backgrounds all their own : Charles the Second
in the Mall, Henry the Eighth at Windsor,
George the Third at Weymouth. History is
the most fascinating study, and certainly the
worst taught. It ought to be taught so that
one could hear the laughter in Whitehall ; and
20

CHILDREN AND POETS

the roar of Cromwell's Ironsides singing their
psalms ; and the pitter-pat of high-heeled shoes
on the pavements of Nash's Bath. Humanity is
the study for men, and the world would be a deal
poorer without the Diary of Samuel Pepys or
Pliny's Letters."

" And what may this have to do with Royal
Gardens ? " I ask.

" Without you people them," he answers,
" they are just so many trees and parterres and
walks. If you take a walk in your mind you
must meet somebody or you would go mad.
The man who proclaims himself a solitary and
so leaves the world of men and becomes an
anchorite does so in order that he may not be
disturbed at his visions. I will give more for
twenty minutes with the man who says he is not
sure but that he has seen an angel, than I will
give for a week with the man who laughs at all
he cannot lay his finger on. Give me lovers
and children, and I have all the poets ; give me
the man who chats about the way of the world
and of his common sense and of the price of
things, and I have a vulgarian. These gardens,
now, that we have seen, are they to you so many

21

KINGS IN GARDENS

blots of colour, accidents of sunlight, fantastic
silhouettes of trees ; or have they the imprint of
the human mind to give them sweetness ?

" Only the dead are very great ; their ghostly
existence prevails more than did their actual
personality. Napoleon is so great now that he
has almost ceased to be a fact and has become
an idea. St. Francis of Assisi is more a state of
mind than a little man in a tattered habit. The
magnificence of the Emperor Maximilian is a
legend, and Keats is a voice.

" Gardens help one to understand this because
they are places of prepared quiet ; unprepared
Nature has too much personality for very quiet
thought. Trees talk, streams talk, great moun-
tains have voices of their own ; but in a garden all
things are bound together in a great harmony.

" I admit to you the world is full of niggards
who put on tinted spectacles and say the sun is
dark, but even in those minds there are secret
passages and quiet chambers where, if one could
look, I think one would find a woman or a child."

Now when he has finished speaking, there
arises — as always in this dream — the sound of
many birds at their vespers, and the garden is
22

ENCHANTED NIGHT

bathed in a golden glory with long shadows
slanting on the lawn, and ripples on the pool
where fishes move. The sun sinks and, as it
were, splashes up the stars. The twilight creeps
in upon us in robes of mystery. The birds are
hushed, and now all outlines soften, and the great
trees seem to nod their heads.

" Listen," says the king.

One hears the voices of flowers as they wake
or settle themselves to sleep. A bat wheels past,
and in the trees an owl begins to hoot mourn-
fully. The nymph of the pool looks out
cautiously from her lily-fringed window, dryads
creep from the trees, and a young faun steps
nimbly from the shadows. And then, as if with
one voice, a thousand royal lovers whisper to the
ladies by their sides, " My Queen."

I feel the pressure of a hand in mine ; I look
round, the king has vanished. Then everything
fades away, and I find myself in that long lane
between high walls, and the door is shut. And
I wake.

ENGLAND

Marlborough House, London

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE was built by
Sir Christopher Wren in 1710 for the
first Duke of Marlborough and Sarah his wife.
Queen Anne gave the land, which was cut off
the Royal Garden. The Duke spent £40,000
to £50,000 on the building. The mural decora-
tions by Laguerre commemorating the great
Duke's battles were at one time completely con-
cealed by whitewash, which has, however,
apparently in no way injured the colours.
Marlborough House is a large brick edifice
ornamented with stone. The front is extensive,
and on each side the wings are decorated at the
corners with a stone rustic. The facade towards
the Park resembles the other, only instead of the
two middle windows in the wings there are
niches for statues, and instead of the area you

D 25

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE, LONDON

descend by a flight of steps into the garden along
the Park wall. The rooms are lofty and well
arranged. In the vestibule at the entrance is
depicted the Battle of Hochstet.

Outside Marlborough House in olden days
was the stand for sedan chairs to bear fair ladies
to many a gorgeous function. On George Ill's
birthday, June 4, 1790, sixteen mail coaches,
drawn by as many sets of blood-horses, paraded
up St. James's Street. In the year 1688 the
Earl of Peterborough saw a canary at a coffee-
house in Pall Mall that piped twenty tunes, and
he tried to purchase it for Lady Sandwich ; but
the owner was rich, and she would not part with
it. The Earl was determined to have the bird,
and he succeeded in changing it for one marked
just in the same way. Some time after he called
upon the woman and said he supposed she was
now sorry she had not accepted his offer. " No,
no," she replied ; " if your lordship will believe
me (as I am a Christian it is true) it has
moped and moped, and never once opened
its pretty lips since the day the poor King
went away."

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, husband of
26

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE, LONDON

Princess Charlotte, lived here from 1817 until
he accepted the Throne of Belgium in 1831.
It finally reverted to the Government in 1835,
and was afterwards occupied by the Queen
Dowager Adelaide. It then became a Picture
Gallery and Library under the department of
Science and Art, and here the Vernon collection
and the English pictures of the National Gallery
were exhibited until they were removed to
South Kensington Museum. George IV's
scheme of uniting by a long gallery Carlton
Palace, St. James's Palace, and Marlborough
House was never carried out. In 1850 the
house was granted to the Prince of Wales, be-
coming the official residence of the Heir Ap-
parent till 1910. It was here that the Prince
of Wales in 1863 brought his fair young bride.
At the first moment she appeared she won all
hearts, Queen Victoria calling her " The Fairy."
This ascendancy only increased with time, thanks
to her exquisite tact, a quality also possessed by
her husband in the highest degree. The late
Empress Frederick, whose enthusiastic letters,
full of the charms of Princess Alexandra, led to
the first meeting of the youthful pair, said of her,

27

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE, LONDON

" I have known many women who please men
without exception, but none who, like Alexandra,
also gain the good graces of their own sex with-
out awaking or exciting jealousy."

Owing to the great sorrow and consequent
semi-retirement of Queen Victoria for many
years, Marlborough House became the centre or
English society, the dinners, balls, and garden-
parties there becoming classic. The Princess
was a devoted mother ; and the Prince, ever
thoughtful and full of resource, devised an
exterior lift from the nursery to the royal
boudoir. Whenever the Princess desired to see
her child, she rang the bell connected with the
nursery overhead, and baby appeared in a little
carriage so well adjusted that the child's sleep
was undisturbed.

Here our present Sovereign King George V
was born, full of health and vigour from the
first, frank and goodhearted, and here he brought
comfort to his Royal Mother in her great sorrow,
and thenceforth with our Queen and their
children has constantly visited her. Here was
celebrated the Silver Wedding in 1888, for which
Queen Victoria emerged from her retirement
28

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE, LONDON

to pay public homage to the qualities of the
Princess as wife and mother. She dined with
her son at Marlborough House, and gave a great
ball at Buckingham Palace. Many brilliant
functions took place here, including the reception,
in 1889, of the Shah of Persia.

But it is, perhaps, by making Marlborough
House her principal home, after her short but
brilliant reign at Buckingham Palace, that our
beloved Queen Mother has endeared it to every
British heart. Its beautiful rooms are full of
the memories of a great career. Luke Fildes'
portrait of King Edward, Benjamin Constant's
sketch for the picture of Queen Victoria ; the
Coronation by a Danish artist, Professor Tuxen ;
Westminster Abbey on the evening of the
Queen's funeral ; portraits of Queen Louise and
King Christian of Denmark, with the whole of
their family, at Fredensborg Castle ; a charming
marble statuette by Boehm of the Queen of
Norway as a child, who was christened in the
great drawing-room; beautiful miniatures, flowers
everywhere, and over all the ineffable charm of
the queenly lady whose big heart has felt for
all the joys and sorrows of the nation, who, in

29

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE, LONDON

its turn, loves and reveres her with a whole-
hearted devotion.

The garden is a very haven of peace, secluded,
with its sunken stretch of brilliant green, its
white seats and glowing rose-red blossoms, its
marble fountain, and beautiful views of St.
James's Palace and the towers of Westminster.
Wild doves come flocking in the evening to be
fed, to drink at the fountain, and fill the air
with their cooing voices. Outside in the mornings
the band marks with sudden sound of drum and
fife the changing of the Guard at St. James's
close by, and, coming faintly through the day,
breaks in upon the silence the distant roar of
London town.

3°

ENGLAND

Buckingham T^alace^ London

IT MAY BE that the most interesting, the
most vital part of London, " the Heart of the
Empire," lies just in the district dominated by
the subjects of the Frontispiece (Marlborough
House) and the next illustration (Buckingham
Palace). Originally a park devoted to pleasure,
dating from the time of Henry VIII, who
acquired the fields which it now covers in
exchange for some lands in Suffolk, St. James's
Park was converted by the King from a marsh
to a pleasant haunt which, however, was not
frequented by the public until the Restoration of
Charles II. The designs are attributed to Le
Notre. Charles II arranged the ornamental water
in one sheet, laid out the walks, and gave the
enclosed ground its present name. Here were
planted long rows of young elms and lime trees,

31

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON

and we are able from various sources, plans,
engravings, and incidental notices in books, to
form a tolerably accurate notion of the aspect
the Park assumed under these operations.

At the end nearest Whitehall was a line
of buildings occupying nearly the site of the pre-
sent Government buildings. Wallingford House
stood on the site of the Admiralty ; the old
Horse Guards, Tennis-yard, Cockpit, and other
appendages of Whitehall on the sites of the
present Horse Guards, Treasury, and offices of
the Secretaries of State.

From Wallingford House towards Pall Mall
were the Spring Gardens, opening into the Park.
The south wall of the King's Garden extended
in a line with the part of it which still remains
behind the Palace of St. James's, as far as the
west end of Carlton Terrace. Marlborough
House was built on a part of the garden at a
subsequent period.

The Duke of Buckingham, in a letter to the
Earl of Shrewsbury, in which he describes this
part of the Park as serving the purpose of an
avenue to his newly erected mansion, gives us
an idea of its appearance in the beginning of the

32

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON

eighteenth century. " The avenues to this house
are along St. James's Park, through rows of goodly
elms on one hand, and gay flourishing limes on
the other ; that for coaches, this for walking,
with the Mall lying betwixt them."

The Mall, at that time a vista half a mile in
length, was rormed into a hollow smooth walk,
skirted round with a wooden border, and having
an iron hoop at the further end, for the game
" Pall Mall." In a drawing of the time of
Charles II we observe a high pole with a hoop
suspended from an arm at its top, and through
this the ball was driven. Pepys records in 1663,
May 1 5th " I walked in the Park, discoursing
with the Keeper of the Pall Mall, who was
sweeping of it, who told me that the earth was
mixed that 'do floor the Mall, and that over all
there is cockle shellft'powdered to keep it fast,
which, however, in dry weather, turns to dust,
and deads the ball."

Between Buckingham House and the house
in James's Street stood Tart Hall. How it
obtained its odd name it is difficult to tell, unless
it had anything to do with the tarts sold at the
Mulberry Garden close by.

E 33

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON

Buckingham Palace is built on the site
formerly occupied by Goring House, and the
once famous Mulberry Garden. In 1673 the
Mulberry Garden was granted by Charles II to
the Earl of Arlington, in 1685 the house
descended to the Duchess of Grafton, who let
it to the first Duke of Devonshire. In Gibson's
account of London Gardens ( 1 69 1 ) it is described as
"a fair plot, with good walks, both airy and shady."
The Duchess of Grafton sold it to John Sheffield,
Earl of Mulgrave and Marquis of Normanby,
in 1698. It was rebuilt for the Duke of
Buckingham in 1703 by Colin Campbell. It
was purchased by George III in 1761 for
£28,000.

In 1775 Buckingham House was settled on
Queen Charlotte and called the Queen's House.
George IV converted it into a palace, and in
1825 caused it to be remodelled by Nash, by
whom also the wings were altered and the
Marble Arch added. It remained empty until
1837. In 1847 the present fa9ade was erected
by Blore, and three years later the Marble Arch
was removed to Cumberland Gate. The large
ball-room and other apartments were subsequently

34

BUCKINGHAM PALACE

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON

constructed ; the whole building now forms a
large quadrangle.

During the residence of George III and
Queen Charlotte in June 1763 the Queen per-
suaded the King to stay for a few days at St.
James's, coming back the night of his birthday
(June 6). She led him to a window, and the
shutters being thrown back revealed a brilliant
illumination contrived by the Queen, the Park
being lit up by transparencies, and soft music
supplied by an orchestra of fifty members. The
King's magnificent library was formed in 1765,
by the purchase of Consul Smith's library in
Venice, for £130,000. George III greatly
added to this nucleus, but directed his librarian
never to bid against a scholar or a collector of
moderate fortune. This library is now in the
British Museum. , Pope describes Buckingham
House as a country house in summer, a town
house in winter. When the Duke of Bucking-
ham described his new house to a friend he
wrote : " On one side a wall, covered with roses
and jasmines, is low to admit the view of a
meadow full of cattle just under it. Beneath the
window of the owner's private closet is a wilder-

37

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON

ness full of blackbirds and nightingales." The
surroundings, now very different, cannot, per-
haps, be excelled by any other capital in Europe
in the fine drive of the Mall, terminating at one
end with the Admiralty Arch ; the Towers of
the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey
look down upon it ; it passes the ancient Palace
of St. James's, and Marlborough House, and ends
fitly with the Memorial to the great Queen
Victoria, surrounded by the Colonies, Bucking-
ham Palace rising behind.

Here for nine memorable years the great
King Edward with our beloved Queen Alex-
andra resided ; their brilliant Courts, held in the
evening, were thronged not only by representa-
tives of every portion of their own great Empire,
but also by members of all the reigning families
in Europe. The marriage of the Duchess of
Fife took place here, and many other striking
events. King Edward rearranged most of the
rooms, and did up the beautiful new ball-room.
He made the plans for all these improvements
inside the Palace, and also laid out the beautiful
gardens. Two years ago the entire fa9ade of
the Palace facing the Mall was beautifully reno-

38

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON

vated, and altered to the design of Sir Aston
Webb, under the personal direction of the
present King and Queen. This has also been
the case with the redecoration of the Picture
Gallery, as well with her Majesty's own rooms.
Stirring scenes have been witnessed in our own
days outside the Palace, which is fast becoming
associated with the Sailor King who is guiding
the Ship of State with steady hand through the
stormiest waters she has ever encountered. Here
in the breezy, open Palace gardens, tree-shaded
and bright with flowers, we see the rooms conse-
crated to our King and Queen, the young Princes,
and their sister, Princess Mary. Brought up
in English surroundings, amid the best Eng-
lish traditions, enjoying a pure home life, and
fond of healthy out-of-door pursuits, joining
with their royal parents in the encouragement
of every good work, and the personal cheering
of many a sorrowful heart (in this the King
himself and our Queen set a noble example), they
may look forward with confidence to a bright
future, and their subjects to a continuance of
support from the throne of the higher ideals of
our Empire, already drawn closer together by

39

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON

the bond of personal knowledge, gained in their
journeys to the distant parts of it, by our King
and Queen. I close with our King's character-
istic message to his people beyond the seas : " As
a sailor I have been brought into constant touch
with overseas dominions of the Crown, and I have
personally realized the affectionate loyalty which
holds together many lands and adverse peoples
in one glorious fellowship."

40

ENGLAND

Kensington Talace^ London

KENSINGTON GARDENS, adjoining
Hyde Park, at one time belonged to
Sir Heneage Finch, created Earl of Nottingham
in 1 68 1. We read that in March 1662 a
grant was made to Finch " of that ditch or
fence which divides Hyde Park from his own
lands with the trees, etc., thereto belonging,
10 feet by 100 roods, from the southern high-
way leading to Kensington, to the northern
highway leading to Acton, with the disparking
the same " (only twenty-six acres then sur-
rounded the house and park). In 1691
William III purchased Nottingham House,
as it was then called, from Daniel, second
Earl of Nottingham, a considerable part of
Whitehall having just been destroyed by fire.
He rebuilt it almost entirely from designs by

F 41

KENSINGTON PALACE, LONDON

Sir Christopher Wren, Surveyor-General, and
Nicholas Hawksmoor, Clerk of the Works. Kent
designed the east front, cupola room, and grand
staircase, painting the walls and ceilings. The
gardens were laid out by King William, the
yews and holly hedges being cut to resemble
lines, angles, bastions, scarps, and counterscarps
of regular fortifications ; the result was known
as the " Siege of Troy." Gibson, in 1691,
describes the gardens thus :

" Kensington Gardens are not great, nor
abounding in fine plants. The orange, lemon,
myrtles, and what other trees they had there in
summer were all removed to Mr. London's and
Mr. Wise's greenhouse at Brompton Park, a
little mile from them. But the walks and grass
laid out are very fine, and they were digging up
a flat of four or five acres to enlarge the garden."

Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark
were as much attached to the palace and gardens
as William and Mary had been ; the place was,
in fact, settled on Prince George, but he died
six years before his wife. Anne added to the
gardens, planting nearly thirty acres more to the
north, separated from the rest by a large green-
42

THE DUTCH GARDEN, KENSINGTON PALACE

KENSINGTON PALACE, LONDON

house. The Temple, or Banqueting House, was
built by order of the Queen from designs by Sir
Christopher Wren. Queen Caroline, wife of
George II, bequeathed the gardens to us in their
present form, adding three hundred acres of
ground, and forming the Round Pond and the
beautiful vistas of trees that radiate from it.
Each had a distinct name, such as Old Pond
Walk, Bayswater Walk. The groves were filled
with squirrels and a large number of tortoises,
presented to the queen by the Doge of Genoa.

Bridgman was the gardener who planned the
alterations and invented the sunken fosse dividing
the park from the gardens. This was a popular
novelty, and from it we may trace the origin of
the word, " Ha-ha ! " the surprised exclamation
of the pedestrian, meeting an unexpected obstacle
to his walk. This fosse was partly filled up in
1868.

The gardens were opened to the public on
Saturdays, when the Court went to Richmond,
but the company were expected to appear in full
dress. On Sundays the Queen held a Court after
morning service, an elegant rendezvous taking
place on the green in front of the palace. On

45

KENSINGTON PALACE, LONDON

the death of George II the Court ceased to
reside here, and the gardens were thrown open
freely.

Sheridan says of the gardens, " We all herd
in one walk, and that nearest the Park :

" There 'with ease we may see as we pass by the

wicket
The chimneys of Knightsbridge and footmen at

cricket.

I must though in justice ; declare that the grass
Which, 'worn by our feet ', is diminished apace,
In a little time more will be brown and as Jiat
(L^!f the sand at Vauxhall or as Ranelagh mat.
Improving thus fast, perhaps by degrees,
We may see rolls and butter spread under the

trees,
With a small pretty band in each seat of the

walk
To play little tunes, or enliven our talk."

A few deer were still to be seen here some time
after the beginning of the nineteenth century,
and foxes were hunted here at the end of the
eighteenth century. (Minute Board of Green
Cloth, 1798, pension to Sarah Gray, husband
accidentally killed by keepers while hunting
foxes.)

KENSINGTON PALACE, LONDON

Queen Victoria was born at Kensington Palace
in 1819 ; Lord Eldon's official duties as ,Lord
Chancellor obliged him to be in attendance.
When he returned home, greatly moved, he took
down Shakespeare, reciting from Henry VIII :

" This royal infant — heaven still moves about

her !

Though in her cradle yet now promised
Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,
Which time shall bring to ripeness ; she shall be,
'But few now living can behold that goodness —
A pattern to all prices living with her,
And all that shall succeed"

The Princess was privately christened here on
June 24, 1819, and was still living in the palace
with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, when at
the death of her uncle, William IV, the throne
devolved upon her, and here she held, in 1836,
her first Council.

The late Duke of Sussex occupied apartments
in the palace, where as President of the Royal
Society he gave receptions to men of science and
scholars. Here he collected his magnificent
library, specially rich in Bibles.

Queen Alexandra's cousin and friend from

47

KENSINGTON PALACE, LONDON

babyhood, the Duchess of Teck, whose father,
the Duke of Cambridge, was George Ill's
favourite son, lived in apartments in the palace
where our present queen, Princess May of Teck,
was born on May 27, 1867, the baptism taking
place on the following 27th of July. Thus the
young princess spent part of her happy childhood
in the palace whose gardens are the playground
of London's children.

ENGLAND

Windsor Castle

TT7INDSOR CASTLE stands on a single
* * blunt cone of chalk (the Great Mound)
commanding a magnificent view. The Castle
is a mile in circumference, more than twelve
acres being contained within the walls. The
Saxon kings' palace was at old Windsor. The
memories of English sovereigns who have re-
sided here are numerous. Here William the
Conqueror held Court in 1070, and Henry I spent
Whitsuntide in iiio; Henry II often stayed
here, holding a Court at Easter, 1 170. John
frequently spent Christmas here, and it was
from Windsor he rode out to sign the Magna
Charta at Runnymede. Edward I lived much
at Windsor, and in 1278 he held a Tournament
in the park. Edward III made it his chief
residence, and rebuilt it, also building in ten

G 49

WINDSOR CASTLE

months the Round Tower to receive the Round
Table for his new Order of Knights of the
Garter, which he founded in 1349. In 1347
King David Bruce of Scotland was imprisoned
at Windsor ; and ten years later another prisoner,
King John of France, captured at Crecy, was
brought a captive here also. It was in the
same year that Chaucer visited Windsor, a visit
repeated in 1358. In 1406 Prince James of
Scotland (afterwards James I), when on his way
to school in France — he was then eleven years
old — was captured and imprisoned for seven-
teen years in the Norman Tower. He was
released in 1423 on payment of 60,000 marks,
on condition that he married an English lady
of good birth. Already the gentle, studious
youth, gazing out of his narrow window, had
made -his choice. The maiden (Joan Beaufort,
daughter of the Earl of Somerset), wandering
among the paths and flowers, had caught
with her fresh young beauty the weary eye
of the prisoner, and became the subject of
his poem full of sensitive feeling " The King's
Quair " — " A garden faire, and in the corners
set, an Arbour green."

5°

KING JAMES'S STEPS, WINDSOR CASTLE

WINDSOR CASTLE

Under Henry V, the Emperor Sigismund
came to the Feast of St. George, bringing the
heart of St. George as an offering to the Chapel.
Henry VI founded Eton Chapel in 1440.
Queen Elizabeth built the North Terrace, on
which she loved to enjoy the wide prospect,
attended by her ladies in ruff and farthingale ;
but only on calm days, for she especially disliked
wind.

On the Prince of Wales' twenty-first birthday
Prince Christian of Denmark (Christian IX)
brought Princess Alexandra, now grown into a
lovely girl, to visit the Queen at Osborne and
Windsor.

On March 9th, 1863, her state arrival as the
future Queen of England at Windsor took place
amid scenes of indescribable enthusiasm. On
the following day the wedding was celebrated in
St. George's Chapel. The elaborate dressing
occupied four hours ; then, with a white mantle
thrown over her, the bride was conducted to the
Rose Boudoir, adjoining St. George's Chapel,
where her ladies arrayed her in an exquisite robe
of white satin embroidered with Brussels lace,
the gift of the King of the Belgians ; the crown

53

WINDSOR CASTLE

of orange and myrtle and veil of Honiton lace
were held in place by a little Grecian diamond
tiara with three Prince of Wales plumes, the
gift of the bridegroom. On her neck were
collars of pearls and diamonds with the cross
of Dagmar, presented by the Corporation of
London and by Frederick VII, King of Denmark.
On her left arm a bracelet of diamonds and
opals from Queen Victoria, and one from the
ladies of Manchester and Leeds. Her diamond
earrings were given by the bridegroom, her
bouquet of orange flowers, roses, and orchids,
lilies of the valley and myrtle (from the famous
myrtle tree at Osborne), was held by a porte
bouquet of rock crystal, diamonds and emeralds,
with a coral and gold chain studded with pearls,
the gift of the Maharajah Dhuleep Sing. Her
train was borne by eight Maids of Honour
with crowns of myrtle and roses. St. George's
Chapel, itself a thing of beauty, surely never
was the scene of a fairer spectacle, or a more
memorable one. The waiting audience, among
whom were Alfred Tennyson, Charles Dickens,
Thackeray, Dean Stanley, and Charles Kingsley,
stood breathless until at last the door opened,

54

WINDSOR CASTLE

and coming forward with little steps, on her
father's arm, Alexandra, who had already won
all hearts, filled the place with the vision of
her loveliness and charm. Queen Victoria was
much moved when the hymn composed by
the Prince Consort for the Crown Princess of
Prussia's wedding was sung. The Archbishop
of Canterbury and the Bishop of London per-
formed the ceremony. The King and Queen
of Denmark, the Crown Prince and Princess of
Prussia were present ; their eldest son Prince
William was placed between his uncles, the
Dukes of Connaught and Albany ; Prince Louis
of Hesse was here with his wife, Princess Alice,
the second daughter of the Queen ; Princesses
Louise, Helena, and Beatrice were present also.
The state banquet was held after the ceremony
in St. George's Hall. The ring put on the
bride's ringer was composed of beryl, emerald,
ruby, turquoise, jacynthe, and emerald, so
arranged that the initial letters of the stones
spelt " Bertie " ; that given to Edward by
Alexandra was plain gold, the name "Alexandra"
being engraved within.

Former marriages between the British royal

55

WINDSOR CASTLE

houses and that of Denmark were : that of
James III of Scotland with Marguerite, daughter
of Christian I of Denmark, who brought as
" dot " the Orkney Islands ; that of James VI
of Scotland and I of England married to
Princess Anne, daughter of Frederick II of
Denmark ; Princess Louise, daughter of
George II, who married Frederick V of Den-
mark, and had two children, Louise, grand-
mother of Christian IX of Denmark (Queen
Alexandra's father) and Frederick, grandfather
of Louise, Christian's wife.

ENGLAND

Sandringham

TT 7HEN Edward, Prince of Wales, attained
his majority, the Prince Consort
purchased for him the Sandringham estate,
giving for it £200,000 which had accumulated
from the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall.
In 1863 the Prince brought his bride to visit
the estate, before beginning anything in the
way of alterations, in order that she might be
consulted. At that time the Manor House
was in ruins, and Wolferton did not exist. It
was April, and the country folk at King's Lynn
gave their Prince and Princess an unforgettable
reception. When the Princess saw the smiling
valley of Wolrerton, the Manor House rising
on the plateau at Sandringham, and the
immense panorama unfolding itself, stretching
to the north over Lincolnshire, the estuary of

H 57

SANDRINGHAM

the Wash, and the North Sea to the shores ot
Denmark, she was enchanted and decided at
once it should be their future home. Recon-
struction was undertaken, costing £70,000, for
the house was entirely rebuilt ; it was com-
pleted in 1 870. The object aimed at was sim-
plicity without and comfort within. The Prin-
cess had her petit trianon, her English garden
bordering one lake, while wilder scenery,
cascades and caverns edged upon the other.
There also was the vegetable garden, with its
fruit trees, the farm, full of cows of all breeds,
the white marble dairy with a central fountain
representing a swan in porcelain ; above, the
room reserved for the Princess's tea, the Swiss
cottage, on the peacock-blue walls of which
are shown the Rose of England, the Thistle of
Scotland, the Shamrock of Ireland, and " Ich
Dien " surmounted with the three plumes.
Three miles from the Norwich Gate, a beauti-
ful wrought iron one presented to the Prince
on his marriage by the town of Norwich, the
village of Wolferton and the new station soon
arose. The domain consists of five villages,
Dersingham, Wolferton, W. Newton, Sand-

58

m&**' w$m> '$&&

THE PARK, SANDRINGHAM

SANDRINGHAM

ringham, and Appleton. Public-houses on
the estate were replaced by workmen's clubs
where each man could only be served with one
pint of beer, excellent of its kind. Sports of
all sorts were encouraged, in order that there
should be no drunkards or loafers. An old
chateau at Castle Rising was converted into a
Home for old women left unprovided for.
The Technical School for boys teaches them
trades by which they are sure of getting good
places in the outside world, and there is also
one for girls. The Princess converted an old
secluded farm, on the road to Lynn, into a
hospital and Home of Rest for any one invalided
from whatever cause on the estate. Here
during the South African War came con-
valescent officers (it being temporarily arranged
for their use) to recuperate in the pure Nor-
folk air. A Fever Hospital was constructed
from an abandoned farm near the ruined
church of Babingdon, which dates from the
sixth century. Here the Princess placed the
words : " Ask God for all you want. Thank
God for all you have, and never grumble."
On the birthdays of the Prince (November 9)

61

SANDRINGHAM

and the Princess (December i) each child
received a packet of tea from the one, and from
the other a woollen garment. On Christmas
Day a tree thirty feet high, in the ball-room,
held presents for every one, the little princes
and princesses distributing toys to every child.
At the close of the annual examinations the
children of the various schools were enter-
tained, the Princess giving each child a little
present. The Prince was keenly interested
in the farm, and the Sandringham cattle and
live stock constantly figured in prize lists. For
cases of illness a blue cart left Sandringham
House daily, laden with good things. On
hunting days each peasant received his hare
or pheasant ; in winter the skaters were given
cups of hot wine or soup. Three great balls
took place annually : for the County, the Farm,
and the Servants' Hall. Alexandra and all her
children loved dancing and riding, the latter to
such an extent that the saying of " the weather
is too bad to put a dog outside," became in
Norfolk " too bad for the Princess to be out
riding." Lord Ronald Gower says in a letter
to a friend, " The Princess is adorable on her
62

SANDRINGHAM

horse King Arthur, and mounts lightly like a
bird." Princess Maud (now Queen of Norway)
has equal courage.

During the long absence of the Prince in
India the Princess often drove in her phaeton
over Norfolk with the four beautiful horses given
to her by him just before he left. The Princess's
fondness for photography had a fortunate result
in averting what might have been a very serious
accident ; the Prince noticed in one of her
photographs of a railway bridge on the estate
that the structure was out of the perpendicular ;
therefore he caused other photographs to be
taken before and after the passage of a train,
and it was found that the weight of the
train affected the bridge, which was therefore
rebuilt.

The Princess's love of birds found satisfaction
in the Aviary. A parrot having been given to
the royal children, Princess Louise and her
brothers and sisters taught "Coco" with im-
mense pains some sentences with which to
welcome their grandmother. As the Queen
would certainly arrive with their mother at her
side, the bird was taught to utter his cries on

63

SANDRINGHAM

the appearance of the Princess, and, being very
greedy, and rewarded with sugar each time,
the air was filled with his prayers for the
Sovereign's health. One hour before the arrival
of Queen Victoria, the princesses with beating
hearts took their pupil to the marble room of
the Dairy beside the fountain. Hardly had
Victoria crossed the threshold on the arm of her
daughter-in-law than " Coco " cried, " God
Save the Queen ! " The Princess smiled at the
children's joy, and the Queen, turning to
" Coco " said, " So, it is you who acclaims
me ! Good morning, my Coco." " Good
morning," cried the bird, not wishing to
be outdone in politeness. Victoria paused in
astonishment. " But he is marvellous, your
Coco. Give me a piece of sugar that I may
reward him." " Three cheers for the Queen,"
cried Coco, and the success was complete.
Poor Coco ! His popularity, which has some-
times had the same effect on other Court
favourites, turned his giddy head and he became
so noisy that he had to be returned to the
obscurity from which he had arisen.

Many pet animals of various kinds lived at

64

THE CHURCH, SANDRINGHAM

SANDRINGHAM

Sandringham, especially dogs, to whom Alex-
andra has always been much attached. Life
was not monotonous for the royal guests at
Sandringham, parties of whom were constantly
invited, and there the best brains in the king-
dom were to be met : renowned preachers,
brilliant wits, eminent statesmen, beautiful
women, and famous shots and riders. The
Duchess of Teck said of these reunions, " One
is always sure to find there those one likes best,
and to hear spoken of those of whom one has
kept the kindliest remembrance." Riding and
driving parties, hunting and shooting, filled the
afternoons. Tea was served in the Dairy, and
dinner at a round table, the Prince and Princess
facing each other.

Alexandra, with her cousin, the future
Duchess of Teck, abolished crinolines and
revolutionized dress in England, wearing suitable
costumes for each pursuit they took part in.
The extraordinary beauty and grace of the
Princess made everything she wore look attrac-
tive, and she was copied to such an extent that
being lame for some time after an attack of
rheumatism, walking sticks became de rigueur

SANDRINGHAM

with ladies of fashion, vanishing again on her
complete recovery.

It was at Sandringham her children's happiest
moments were spent, their Mother one day
quoting to a friend Montaigne's saying,
" Children's games are not games ; they are
their most serious actions," and adding, " The
enlightened woman, instructed, gifted with
sentiment, having aesthetic ideas, even elemen-
tary, who will meditate on these words and be
inspired by them in educating her children, will
accomplish a very beautiful task, and society
will be in her debt."

The late Tsar or Russia, Alexander III,
husband of Princess Dagmar, said, " I do not
know better nurses in the world than the
daughters of the King of Denmark," and here
at Sandringham our beloved Princess proved
the truth of the imperial words, earning the
undying gratitude of the -nation by nursing the
Prince through the terrible attack of typhoid
contracted by him in 1871 while on a visit to
Lord Londesborough at Scarborough. Princess
Alice of Hesse and her children were on a visit
at Sandringham ; and Queen Victoria, coming
68

SANDRINGHAM

down for the day to visit the Prince, took the
children of both back with her, leaving the two
Princesses together. Princess Alice speaks in
her letters of the terrible anxiety of Alexandra.
It was on her birthday, December i, that news
came that the condition of Lord Londesborough
and his valet was hopeless. The Prince was in
a comatose condition, but suddenly a gleam of
intelligence crossed his face, and he asked the
date. "December i. The birthday of the
Princess," he murmured, relapsing again into
unconsciousness. Alexandra began from that
moment to hope ; the crisis came soon after-
wards, and finally slow recovery, during which
his devoted nurse never left him. The Prince
always retained to the end of his life a lively
sense of gratitude for the great qualities shown
by Alexandra in his direst need.

ENGLAND

Barton Manor ^ Isle of Wight

ISLE OF WIGHT shares with Kent

•1 the title of the " Garden of England."
Sir Walter Scott said of it, " He who has once
seen it can never forget it." The Wight was
mentioned in the " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle."
It was invaded by Vespasian in the year 43,
and later on by Cedric the Saxon. In 66 1,
Wulfhere, King of Mercia, possessing it, be-
stowed it upon Ethelwold, King of the South
Saxons, and it changed hands pretty often,
Danes and Saxons taking part in conflicts for
it. William the Conqueror granted lordship
of the Isle or Wight to William Fitz-Osborne.
Later on it passed to the Crown. It was subse-
quently held by the Earl of Devon, William
de Vernon, styled Earl of the Isle of Wight ;
by King John, by Edward I, Edward II,

7°

BARTON MANOR, ISLE OF WIGHT

BARTON MANOR, ISLE OF WIGHT
Edward III, and Richard II. The Duke of
Warwick was crowned " king " of the island,
but his son dying without issue, it reverted to
the Crown.

It was at Sir Robert Peel's suggestion that
Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort bought
the Osborne estate (five thousand acres) for
£200,000, in March of the year 1845. The
Court occupied the house for the first time
in the following September. The park is
magnificent, permitting a ten miles' drive
within its bounds. The old Manor House of
Eustace Mann was pulled down and Osborne
House built by the Prince on its site, from
which there is a splendid panoramic view of the
wooded slopes to the sea. Its vicinity to
Spithead and Portsmouth pleased the Queen,
able thus to watch the manoeuvres of her
Fleet. The Prince Consort, fond of landscape
gardening, designed the gardens. Here are
his words on the art of gardening : " In this
the artist who lays out the work and devises
a garment for a piece of ground, has the delight
of seeing his work live, and grow hour by hour,
and while it is growing he is able to polish, to

K 73

BARTON MANOR, ISLE OF WIGHT

cut and carve, to fill up here and there, to hope
and to love."

On entering the newly built Osborne House
a suggestion was made to throw an old shoe in
for luck, but the Prince said : " We have a
hymn for these occasions ; it begins, ' God bless
our going out, nor less our coming in, and make
them sure. God bless our daily bread, and bless
whate'er we do, whate'er endure ; till death
unto His peace awake us, and heirs of His
salvation make us.' ' The Prince had an
organ at Osborne, and Lady Lyttelton has
left a record of the strong impression his
beautiful playing made upon her, as she sat by
the window gazing upon one of the wonderful
sunsets to be seen from the island.

The myrtle tree in the garden, struck from a
sprig of myrtle in the Princess Royal's (Crown
Princess of Prussia) wedding bouquet, has now
grown to an immense size and furnishes a sprig for
every royal bride, none going to the altar without
one. Twice Queen Victoria sent one to Petrograd,
once for the Archduchess Marie's wedding with
the Duke of Edinburgh, and again for that of
Princess Alix of Hesse with the present Tsar.

74

BARTON MANOR, ISLE OF WIGHT

For many years the Queen and Prince Consort
resided constantly at Osborne House ; here their
children had the Swiss Cottage, where were
their gardens, their carpenter's bench, a forge,
and the rooms where the princesses learned
domestic economy, as well as their Natural
History Museum. The Queen constantly
attended the village church at Whippingham,
where, after her death, the members of her
family erected a memorial to her. In the
chapel there is also the beautiful tomb of Prince
Henry of Battenberg. Queen Victoria died at
Osborne. Her rooms are still kept sacred, but
Osborne House was given by King Edward as
a Coronation gift to the nation and has become
an ideal home for invalid naval and military
officers. Not far off, within the grounds, stand
the bungalows and other buildings of the Royal
Naval College and Barton Court House — the
oldest building on the estate, now the only
royal residence of the King on the island. King
Edward completely restored the interior of the
building, and enlarged the garden and grounds.

75

DENMARK

Fredensborg Castle

T^REDENSBORG CASTLE is beautifully
•** situated four miles from Frederiksborg, in
Denmark, by the Lake Esrom, surrounded by
woods. The lovely garden and park are decorated
with many different monuments by the sculptor
Wiedevelt. King Frederick IV built the castle
between 1720 and 1724, and gave it the name
of Fredensborg ; during the last year of his life
he spent most of his time here. In the reign of
Christian VI the castle was seldom used by the
King, but Frederick V often visited it in the
summer. After his death his Queen, Juliane
Maria, always spent her summers there. After
her death her daughter, Princess Juliane, oc-
casionally visited it, and after the fire at Frede-
riksborg in 1859, King Frederick VII stayed
there from time to time, but he preferred his

THE PARK, FREDENSBORG CASTLE

FREDENSBORG CASTLE

other castles. In 1863 King Christian IX and
Queen Louisa came here in the summer, and in
the autumn of 1864 their daughter, Queen
Alexandra, then Princess of Wales, came with
her husband, and from that time onward every
second year the whole Danish royal family met
there. It was on the 23rd of June, 1866, that
the Danish King's second daughter, Princess
Dagmar, was there engaged to the Grand Duke
Alexander, afterwards Emperor of Russia. The
third daughter, who became Duchess of Cumber-
land, was confirmed at Fredensborg in 1870.

It is a curious story the castle has to tell of a
large family of affectionate growing boys and
girls, princes and princesses, passing on to reign
in various European countries as sovereigns.

Christian IX passed away, and his son Frederick
VIII was very fond of Fredensborg, coming
there every year, sometimes even in the spring
and autumn, until he in his turn gave way to
Christian X, the present King, who will probably
be there some months every autumn.

George I, King of Greece, son of Christian IX,
and brother of Queen Alexandra, was perhaps
the most fond of Fredensborg, for, recorded on

79

FREDENSBORG CASTLE

a window pane, we find his regret at leaving
his beloved home.

Justly the inhabitants of Fredensborg called
the days King Christian IX and Queen Louisa
stayed at Fredensborg " the sunny days," for
while they lasted from 1864 ^ I$9I> they
carried no shadow. Seldom has there existed so
much real affection, joy, and peace as among the
members of the royal family at Fredensborg. It
was touching to see their undisguised happiness,
when every second year, at the end of August,
the children, still " children " though sovereigns,
many of them, in the countries of their adoption,
arrived to stay some weeks with their parents.
The example of this family life was of inestimable
value to Denmark. The days were passed by
the King and his sons in sailing, fishing, and
hunting, the ladies going out driving and walking,
and generally at two o'clock every day punctually
Queen Louisa used to play the piano and sing
with her daughters.

The Queen was of an artistic and musical
temperament ; she had wide interests and a great
influence, usually exerted to bring out the best
qualities of those who came in contact with her.
80

FREDENSBORG CASTLE, FROM THE MARBLE
GARDEN

FREDENSBORG CASTLE

As so many European thrones were occupied by
her children, she was sometimes called " the
Grandmother of Europe."

The Emperor Alexander III of Russia was
very popular with all the younger members of
the family, his nephews and nieces, and generally
when he went for his morning walk he was
attended by a whole bevy of youngsters in the
highest spirits.

King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra
regularly continued to visit Fredensborg when
they had come to the throne. To all that
generation there could be no place like Fredens-
borg on the face of the earth, but the inevitable
passing of time has made gaps in the circle, filled
by the oncoming race.,

DENMARK

Villa Hvidore

THOSE OF US who have been in Denmark,
who remember Lord Nelson's letter, lying
in the archives of the Foreign Office at
Copenhagen addressed to the " Brothers of
Englishmen, the Danes," and have seen the
sailing ships on its blue waters, the sturdy
fisherfolk, worthy descendants of their Viking
ancestors, and, at the other end of the scale, the
members of the reigning house, carrying on
with gracious dignity the traditions of the
great houses of Oldenburg and Gliicksborg,
will rejoice that the ties between the two
countries have in the last century been more
firmly knit together. The connexion between
them, dating from the time of Canute the Great,
may be said to have reached its culminating
point when the Sea-King's fair daughter came

VILLA HVIDORE

VILLA HVIDORE

to rule over us, winning all hearts with her
radiant beauty, added to a queenly dignity and a
womanly tenderness unique in their combination
in one personality, possessing also the rare charm
which made her conquest complete and lasting,
her words unforgettable to those who heard
them.

The Villa Hvidore is therefore of peculiar
interest, being the peaceful retreat from cere-
monious Court life of our beloved Queen
Alexandra, and Her Imperial Maiesty the
Dowager Empress of Russia.

Nine years, with skill and taste, have con-
verted the place into a very beautiful garden.
The pure white villa, standing on high ground
on the edge of the sea, with its long upper
veranda supported by sculptured goddesses in
the form of pillars, and gay with palms and
flowers, commands splendid views over the sea
and the surrounding country. And here I
cannot resist quoting a learned Frenchman's
impressions.

" The beauty of the Baltic, in the Sound, on
a summer's day is indescribable. Nowhere, in
the Roads of Toulon, the Venetian Lakes, the

87

VILLA HVIDORE

Gulf of Naples, or the coasts of Africa, have
I found a sea so calm, so transparent, this colour
— green-blue — which makes one dream. These
depths seem peopled with ondines and sirens.
I know not what vague sentiment impelled me
to throw myself into it. Nowhere else have
I experienced this bizarre temptation ; up to
now the sea has terrified me. I understand
the meaning of the Scandinavian ballad where
the hero throws himself into the waves, drawn
thither by a mysterious longing."

Nor are the shores of the Sound less beauti-
ful, the trees and fields melting into the water.
A magnificent panorama unrolls itself: first
Charlottenlund, with its gigantic oaks, then
the village of Bellevue, the Royal Park of
Dynhaven, the bathing-places of Klampenborg,
the Chateau D'Hermitage. He continues :
" What struck me most in Scandinavia is
the sentiment of loyalty, of honesty, which
animates the people. The streets of Copenhagen
are as safe by night as by day. One night
I found myself at 2 A.M. in the Ostergade.
The night was lighted by a clear moon unknown
in our regions, and so luminous it seemed to

VILLA HVIDORE

prolong the day. Glass of a spotless cleanliness
alone separated me from the jewelled stores of
diamonds and precious stones. I felt surprised
the pickpockets of London did not try to
invade this fertile spot. It appears, however,
they made the attempt, but, finding themselves
isolated in the midst of all these honest folk,
they were soon pointed out to the notice of the
police and obliged to desist."

M

DENMARK

The Herbaceous TSorder, Villa Hvidore

npHE HERBACEOUS BORDER with its
•*• lavender-edged walk and rich colours, the
flowers growing strong and high, in great groups,
one mass giving relief and contrast to another, is
a splendid example of the kind of landscape
gardening lately become popular. In this border
pink and white, pure blue, and deep yellow glow
brilliantly ; dark foliage behind them. Sufficient
space, air, and light allow every plant to reach
perfection in its own way. Nor is the border
without life. Big bumble-bees suck the sweet-
ness from the flowers, and countless butterflies
rest on them, wings outspread, like jewels in the
sun. The trees, touched with the copper colour
of the coming autumn, dark against the sky, are
full of singing birds. One sunny morning magic,
wakened in the garden by the hidden music of
90

HERBACEOUS BORDER, VILLA HVIDORE

THE HERBACEOUS BORDER

the Russian Imperial Band, come to do honour
to its Imperial Mistress, and the gracious Queen,
whose charm has given this place an atmosphere
all its own.

93

DENMARK

The Garden by the Sea, Villa Hvidore

A TUNNEL, lighted by electric lamps, leads
*• *• under the high road to the Garden by the
Sea. It is already full of reminiscences ; here
the late King constantly enjoyed the sea breezes
from a favourite summer-house. When one
emerges from the semi-darkness of the tunnel,
half draped in hanging hothouse plants, the
unsuspected beauties of the Garden by the Sea
reveal themselves in a riot of colour. Near this
entrance we find a young tree planted by the
Queen of Norway. Farther on the garden
almost thrusts itself into the waves, which
on breezy days break over and mingle
with the blossoms. The Mauve Border, or
" Butterflies' Parlour," apparently loves the
proximity of salt water. The boat from the
Pole-Star 'is drawn up in readiness on the

94

THE GARDEN BY THE SEA, VILLA HVIDORE

THE GARDEN BY THE SEA

shore, and, looking over the Sound, thoughts
come to us of King Frederick IFs Queen
Sophie, visiting the great Tycho Brahe on the
Island of Hveen, and her Majesty's invitation
to Tycho Brahe's teacher, Andreas Sb'rensen
Vedel, the chief historian of the sixteenth
century, to edit the first collection of ballads from
the Middle Ages ; the heroic " Kaempeviser,"
taking its inspiration from the old Northern
myths and traditions ; the magical "Trylleviser,"
with belief in goblins, elves, and sea-monsters,
and the tremendous power of Runes ; the
" Legende Viser " from Biblical stories and
saintly miracles ; the Knightly Lays (" Ridder-
viser"), chiefly dwelling on love, and their
minute descriptions of life and manners in the
castles, of the costumes of knights and dames,
having a high historical value ; the Daquiar
Ballads, the tales of Marsk Stig and his
daughters, Niels Ebbesen and others. These
treasures were copied in the Middle Ages by
many a noble lady, and thus escaped oblivion.
At Hveen remain the ruins of the Palace
D'Uranienborg, a magnificent retreat, built by
Frederick II, and granted as a dwelling-place

N 97

THE GARDEN BY THE SEA

to the illustrious astronomer. It was in this
severe solitude that he worked and taught. His
reputation was so great that even from Asia,
students, eager to hang upon his words, hastened
to this rock, set in the Baltic, assailed by
perpetual tempests, and covered with snow
eight months in the year. They remained
there, vowed to science, content to lose all for
the privilege of following the researches and
participating in the discoveries of a man of
genius.

DENMARK

The Open Door, Villa Hvidore

t I ^HIS is a comparatively new part of the
•*• garden, a tiny promontory, with a view of
Klampenborg Bay, a plot of emerald grass and
brilliant blooms, and Queen Alexandra's summer-
house, a little gem of daintiness, which has
witnessed already many a royal meeting. It is
here that their Majesties meet, fresh from the
Empire on which the sun never sets, and from
that other mysterious Empire, still in the making,
full of vivid contrasts and startling tragedies,
wild lonely tracts of country, and Eastern pomp
and magnificence.

Here, in the autumn of 1913, three royal
sisters (the Duchess of Cumberland joining the
Queen and the Empress for a few days) met
together, and several other members of the Royal
Family. Here, too, Caesar, beloved of our

99

THE OPEN DOOR, VILLA HVIDORE

revered King Edward, his medal round his neck,
solemn, a faithful shadow clinging to his royal
mistress, walked gravely, while the two beautiful
little Chinese dogs attending the Empress played
in and out ot the borders and enjoyed the pears
falling from the trees. The stately Palace ot
Amalienborg in Copenhagen, left to their
Majesties by the late King Christian IX, forms
the town residence, and, with the King's Palace
and the Foreign Office enclosing the octagonal
" Frederiksplads," the equestrian statue of Fred-
erick V in the centre, built by noblemen under
Frederick V and afterwards transferred to the
Crown, is surrounded by the " West End " of
Copenhagen. Here are the houses of the
Danish aristocracy, and the diplomatic quarter,
and here is still to be seen unaltered the changing
of the Guard. The shopping district is in the
centre, in the environs of the Ostergade, of
Storekiob-magergade, and of Hoibroplads.

The intellectuals live in the north-west,
grouped around the University. Sailors also
have their quarter in the Place de Greenland. They
are lodged at the expense of the State, in little
uniform houses, each containing but one family.

100

-

THE OPEN DOOR, VILLA HVIDORE

DENMARK

The Ttahlia TSorder^ Villa Hvidore

DAHLIAS, a blaze of colour, on
••• one side of the old white Marble Well,
border this path leading down to the sea,
where gulls float over the blue water and
little white-sailed boats constantly pass and
repass ; farther out in the bay stately sailing
vessels, three-masted, with topsails, go by on
their way to Copenhagen. Like Christiania
and Stockholm, Copenhagen has a modern origin.
In the middle of the twelfth century the site was
occupied by a few fishermen's huts. In the
fifteenth century, having become the seat of the
government, and the capital of the kingdom,
surrounded by superb country, its position
favourable and its port excellent, it deve-
loped into a city, which, forming a centre
for intellectual thought and science, claims

103

THE DAHLIA BORDER

undisputed the proud title, "Athens of the
North."

Full of the souvenirs of the Christians and the
Fredericks, we can re-construct from the stones
of the capital the history of the monarchy.
The Royal Library, founded by Christian III,
contains more than 400,000 volumes, and price-
less manuscripts. The city has broad streets,
beautiful gardens, vast squares, its palaces and
monuments being very remarkable. The fasti-
dious and wealthy kings who built them have
left in them works of art which bear witness to
their magnificence and good taste. The Palace
of Rosenborg, built by Christian IV is the most
curious and interesting, because of the souvenirs
it contains. This prince, one of the greatest
Denmark has ever had, had the same tastes as
Henri IV, and Louis XIV. He loved building,
protected the fine arts, encouraged letters. This
his great wealth enabled him to do. In the
museum we find the Silver Ingot, extracted from
the mines at Konigsberg, at the time when
immense treasures discovered by a poor goatherd
made Christian IV the richest king in Europe.

It was from the designs, and under the
104

THE DAHLIA BORDER, VILLA HVIDORE

o

THE DAHLIA BORDER

direction of Inigo Jones in 1604, the Palace of
Rosenborg was built. One finds re-united there
all the relics of the Oldenborg Dynasty. Starting
from Christian IV, each Sovereign has devoted
to him a space which bears his name, and is
filled with his relics. This custom, practised
already a long time in the north, cannot be too
highly praised. We feel moved by again seeing
objects which have been cherished and kept by
the illustrious men whose features have been pre-
served for us by celebrated pictures, and whose
lives are recorded by history. It is hard to find
a richer collection of clocks, ivories, bijoux,
tapestries, belonging to the different styles of the
last three centuries. Among them the famous
silver horn of Oldenborg, which, according to
tradition, was given to Christian I during his
sojourn at Cologne, where he was called upon to
arbitrate between the Emperor Frederick III and
Charles the Bold. The rooms of Christian IV
have been left as they were in this king's time.
Here is the fine harness, made in Paris, and
given on his wedding day to the monarch's
eldest son, the rich velvet saddle-cloth is em-
broidered with pearls, and precious stones stud

107

THE DAHLIA BORDER

the bridle and spurs. On the third floor in the
Throne-Room, at the foot of the seats serving
for the crowning of the King and Queen, are
three lions in gold, life-size, their guardians. One
is standing, the other seated, the third ready
to throw itself upon the rash being, who, without
respect for the majesty of places, would wish to
usurp a seat reserved for the one man alone who
has the right to occupy it. At each side are
the baptismal fonts reserved for the baptism of
the royal children. The pedestals and vases are
in silver. Sculptured on the flanks of the vase
is a representation of the Baptism of Our Lord.
Beautiful caryatides ornament the walls of this
vast hall. But the ceilings, which are sculptured
in wood, are the most striking. There defile entire
regiments, with their tambours on their heads.
These bas-reliefs, so placed, have an extraordinarily
decorative effect. The magnificent Palace of
Christiansborg, work of Christian IV, was re-
constructed on its original plans by Christian VII.
The Hall of the Knights is one of the finest in
Europe, decorated with a superb frieze by Thor-
waldsen (the entry of Alexander into Babylon).

108

DENMARK

F rederiksborg Castle

T?REDERIKSBORG CASTLE, one ot the
•*• most magnificent buildings in Denmark,
was enlarged and rebuilt by King Christian IV
in 1588. The architect, Zorgen Friberg, without
doubt rebuilt the castle after the drawings of the
King himself; the reconstruction was completed
within the years 1602-21. The castle had
then many towers and portals. The splendour
of the interior of the church and many halls
was in accord with the exterior. Justly the
castle was considered one of the most splendid
buildings in Europe at that time. No expense
was spared ; a contemporary French writer said,
that what at other places was made of iron,
here was made of the purest silver.

Unfortunately, the castle has been more than
once on fire.

109

FREDERIKSBORG CASTLE

King Frederick VII adored this magnificent
and delicious retreat, visiting it constantly, and
enriching its collections, until a fire, in 1859,
laid the inside of the castle in ashes. It was a
national disaster, because so many valuable things
were destroyed. For example, in the so-called
" Praying Closet " all the ivory decorations of
grapes and foliage on the ceiling had been turned
by King Christian IV himself. There was a
national contribution, and Mr. Jacobsen, a
wealthy citizen of Copenhagen, undertook, with
the help of Mr. Meldahl as architect, to rebuild
the castle once more ; but from that moment
the castle became not a royal dwelling, but a
national museum.

The busts and initials of King Christian IX
and Queen Louisa are in the Knights' Hall,
as well as good paintings of the King and Queen.
There is also a beautiful painting of their eldest
daughter, Queen Alexandra, in the Knights'
Hall.

The castle is built on three isles in the lake.
The gardens are old, with very high lime
avenues and box-tree hedges ; the enclosure, too,
is beautiful, broken up by small lakes in which
no

FREDERIKSBORG CASTLE

FREDERIKSBORG CASTLE

are reflected grand old beeches. The woods all
round the castle are old and splendid. There
was in former times a renowned Stud of white
horses, called " The Frederiksborg Breed," but
it no longer exists.

I close these paragraphs on Denmark with
a song, said every night in the capital, as in
the smallest towns of the kingdom, the first song
a man hears in his cradle, and the last he will
hear on his death-bed, a song of the streets, full
of a sublime and nai've poetry :

Entends^ Veilleur de nuit,
L'Horloge a sonne huit heures.

HUIT HEURES
Quand la nuit couvre la terre
Et que le jour s'evanouif,
C'est rheure de nous rappeler
Le sombre tombeau.
Guide ', doux Jesus !
Chacun de nos pas
Jusqu au tombeau,
Ef accorde-nous une mort heureuse.

NEUF^HEURES
Void que le jour a disparu
Et que la nuit a penetre par tout ;

FREDERIKSBORG CASTLE

Par les plaies de Jesus,

Pardonne-nous, Dieu de misericorde !

Preserve dans le pays

La maison du roi,

Ef le toit de tout homme

De la violence de leurs ennemis.

e/f ONZE HEURES
Dieu, notre pere, protege-nous
Grands et petits
La sainte armee des anges
Forme un rempart autour de nous.
Dieu lui-meme garde la viHe,
La maison et le Joyer.
II veille aussi
A notre corps et a notre dme.

^ 3VL1NVIT
C'est a rheure de minuit
Que le Christ est ne
Pour sauver le monde,
Que, sans lui, etait perdu.
LHorloge a sonne douzefois ;
Non-seulement awe votre langue.
Mais du fond du cceur
Recommandez-'vous a Dieu.

^ UNE HEURE
Aide-nous, O doux Jesus !
A porter patiemment
114

FREDERIKSBORG CASTLE

Notre croix dans ce monde.

Nous navons pas d'autre sauveur que toi.

L'Hor/oge a sonne une heure.

Prete-nous la main,

O notre consolateur !

Tout far deau nous deviendra leger.

BARONESS ROSENKRANTZ

NORWAY

o^ Kongsgaard

TT IS IMPOSSIBLE to study the history
-** of Norway without becoming fascinated
by the tales of adventure, of daring, of
personal courage, of the Vikings ; of Olaf
Tryggvesson, of Harold the Fairhaired, of
Haakon Haakonsson, come of the Yngling
race which traced its descent from the god
Frey. Their greatness depended on their
fleets ; their young princes and nobles begin-
ning at the age of twelve or thirteen to take
command of ships. The squadrons penetrated
as far south as Greece, sent conquering troops
to Dublin and York, and, in spite of its remote-
ness, kept Norway in touch with and respected
by all the European Powers. This makes the
vision of the young golden-haired, blue-eyed
Prince Olav, Crown Prince of Norway, one
116

BYGDO, KONGSGAARD

BYGDO, KONGSGAARD

which recalls the mighty past, as the Norwegian

boat on the Pond recalls "The Long Serpent,"

and the glorious end of that other Olav and

his Queen Thyra. Tall for his eleven years,

athletic, with well-cut features and beautifully

shaped eyes, Prince Olav diligently pursues his

studies under a tutor's supervision, and is trained

in all manly sports and exercises. Queen Maud,

slight and fairy-like, has inherited the wonderful

charm of her royal mother, our beloved Queen

Alexandra, and her grandmother, Queen Louise,

together with the social gifts which made the

great King Edward one of the most influential

diplomats in Europe. With the King, the

Queen takes an interest in, and shares all the

pursuits of the young Prince, and an ever

kindly interest also in everything pertaining

to the good of the nation and the development

of its resources. To this the Queen brings gifts

of a remarkable kind, artistic and intellectual,

one of them being that of designing. The

beautiful fountain in front of Bygdo is the

Queen's work, and many patterns for the linens

and textile manufactures of the country carried

out by peasants, come from the same source.

119

BYGDO, KONGSGAARD

Her choice is seen in the arrangement and
colour-schemes, which are carried out in vivid
contrasts out of doors in the Rock Garden,
herbaceous borders, and the scarlet-and-white
sunblinds on the white walls against which
dark, beautiful trees make exquisite patterns.
When the long Northern summer day draws
near its close, the shadows grow in length,
the sky becomes a living orange, and twilight
falls gently with the evening dew, for there
is scarcely any night. Then the soldiers
arrive, tall, with waving plumes, " To guard
Us through the night," the Queen said, with
vibrating voice, full of subtle dignity, thrilling
the hearer.

Guards are not needed ; Norway, the most
democratic country in Europe, evolved, as its
historian relates, from the Vikings of old, from
the feudal state ; having as its root the instinct
of loyalty, developed at a later stage to a noble
spirit of independence, Norway adores its King
and Queen and the young Prince.

120

NORWAY

The Mercury^ Bygd'b^ Christiania

T}YGDO KONGSGAARD is the summer
•*-* residence of the royal family. The pro-
perty is situated on the island of Bygdo, which
is just opposite the town of Christiania, only
separated by a narrow strip of the fjord.

In olden times the whole island belonged to
a nunnery. Part of it, however, was pur-
chased by the Crown, and was, in the reign
of Christian IV of Norway and Denmark, a
favourite shooting-ground of the King.

About the middle of the eighteenth century,
the house which is still the main building was
erected. It is typically Norwegian in style,
being built entirely of wood, painted white,
with a low black-tiled roof. The entrance is
on the north, a smaller avenue leading up to
the house from the high road. On the front

Q 121

THE MERCURY, BYGDO, CHRISTIANIA

of the house a big terrace has been built,
from which there is a most delightful view
of the garden. This is one of the many
improvements the place has undergone since
King Haakon and Queen Maud took up
their abode for six months of every year at
Kongsgaarden. Still more striking, however,
is the changed aspect of the garden and park.
What was once a garden had, in 1905, become
more like a wilderness, and it is entirely due
to Queen Maud's untiring interest and care
that such wonders have been wrought under
her superintendence. The plan is that of an
English garden, Queen Maud's special pride
being her most successful rock-garden, and
indeed it is a lovely sight, with its masses
of colours which blend so well together. In
the shade of the big old elms bright green
lawns stretch out as far as the eye can reach.

On the round space in front of the house
there are red geranium beds in circles, and
smaller ones with pink begonias. At both
sides are herbaceous borders where every
shade of blue, pink, mauve, yellow, and white
alternates.
122

THE MERCURY, BYGDO

THE MERCURY, BYGDO,CHRISTIANIA

A statuette of Mercury stands in the midst
of flower-beds, as well as a sundial and two
angels carrying baskets of geraniums on their
heads. In shady places, white benches invite
one to rest. One of the favourite seats of
the Queen is near the lake, with a lovely view
of a little island on which big birch trees grow.
The white stems contrast well with the dark
green of the trees on the opposite hill, and their
reflection in the water can be seen between the
pure white water-lilies. Sometimes Prince Olav
is about in his little Rosdland boat, while
his smart grey miniature car waits to take him
back to the house. In the morning the King
and Queen on their thoroughbreds, and Prince
Olav on his little pony, can be seen riding
down the long straight avenue leading to the
woods beyond the park. And when the sun
leaves the flower garden, Queen Maud will
come out with her basket to pick some of her
favourite flowers, sweet-peas, which are left to
her special care. When the weather is fine,
dinner is served on the terrace, where the last
glow of the gorgeous sunsets can be admired.

FREDERIKKE HAGERUP

125

NORWAY

The Palace^ Christiania

'"pHE ROYAL PALACE in Christiania is
•*• a large white stone building rendered more
striking by its imposing position at the top of a
hill dominating the town. From far can be seen
the royal banner, with the yellow lion holding
an axe, floating in the wind. In the front a
colonnade supports a big balcony from which
there is a most magnificent view, looking down
to the town and to the hills encircling Christiania
on the western, the northern and eastern sides,
and farther, to the fjord with its busy life of
boats coming and going.

At the open space in front of the palace is
a statue of King Carl Johan on horseback. He
was General Bernadotte of Napoleon's time,
great-grandfather of the present king, whose
mother, Queen Louise of Denmark, was Princess
126

THE PALACE, CHRISTIANIA

THE PALACE, CHRISTIANIA

of Sweden. A big park where fine trees grow
surrounds the palace.

The building dates from the year 1844; it
was the residence of the kings of the United
Kingdoms of Norway and Sweden until 1905,
when the Union was dissolved. The Norwegian
people then elected a king of their own, and
by common consent the choice fell upon Prince
Charles of Denmark, who accepted the throne
and became King Haakon VII of Norway.
The new king was second son of King
Frederick VIII of Denmark, and grandson of
King Christian IX, who was the father of Queen
Alexandra. The Prince was an active officer
in the Danish Navy, where he had acquired
a great number of friends by his personal charm
and unaffected manner. To the English public
he was well known already, long before his
ascension to the throne, as he had married
Princess Maud, the youngest daughter of King
Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

In November 1905 the young King and
Queen with their son and heir, little Prince
Olav, landed in Norway, and were received
with the greatest enthusiasm by thousands and

R 129

THE PALACE, CHRISTIANIA

thousands of their new subjects. They took
up their abode in the palace, which has since
undergone a great many changes and improve-
ments to make the interior suitable according to
modern ideas. The King and Queen personally
superintended the work, displaying great taste
as well as practical talent in combining the
useful and the decorative, thus rendering the
inside of the palace in keeping with its imposing
exterior.

FREDERIKKE HAGERUP

130

SWEDEN

Drottningholm

TAROTTNINGHOLM, the residence of the
**^ King and Queen or Sweden, situated six
miles from Stockholm, is one of the most
beautiful royal palaces of Sweden. It was
begun about 1662 and finished during the
reign of Adolt Fredrik (1751-71), but its
most brilliant period was when Gustaf III lived
there with his gay Court (1771-92). The
theatre, where were acted the plays for which
the King himself so often wrote the text, is
still standing, and in the park also you find
the remains of a little open-air theatre, where
the side-scenes as well as the dressing-rooms
are made of green hedges. The castle, which
lies close to Lake Malaren, contains many
beautiful old things and works of art, especially
tapestries. The gem of the collection is a set

DROTTNINGHOLM

of English Mortlake tapestries. The park is
all in the French style, but some of the very
fine bronze statues were taken as loot from
Prague in the Thirty Years War. If you
penetrate farther into the park you find a
quaint little Chinese palace which was erected
by King Adolf Fredrik as a birthday surprise
for his queen, Louise Ulrika. Wherever you
go at Drottningholm you feel the atmosphere .
of old times ; it is as if the thoughts, joys,
and tears of those who lived there in days gone
by still linger, and add a charm that nothing
else could give.

HOFROKEN DAGMAR WIEDENHIELM

132

DROTTNINGHOLM CASTLE

SWEDEN

Chateau Sqfiero

THE SWEDISH COAST, opposite
the Danish castle Kronborg, you find
Sofiero, hidden among the beeches ; it is here
the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden come
to spend the summer months with their children.
The plain red brick house was built by King
Oscar II and given by him to Prince Gustat
Adolf as a wedding gift when he married Prin-
cess Margaret of Connaught. It had then been
uninhabited for many years, and garden and park
alike had been neglected. Both the Crown
Prince and Princess are keen and clever gardeners,
and seeing that the place had great possibilities
they at once set to work. Together they drew
plans for a new garden and wrote for each plant
and each packet of seeds themselves, and the
result of their labours has really been wonderful.

'35

CHATEAU SOFIERO

You now find lovely English-looking herbaceous
borders in varied and brilliant hues, borders
kept in one shade, all yellow, all blue ; in a
ravine below the house there is a water-garden
and down towards the sea a rockery. Trees were
cut down, the sunlight could again penetrate
everywhere and renew the fertility of the soil.
Many flowers that were considered too fragile
to grow in a northern climate have proved them-
selves hardy when watched over with tender
care. Sofiero is now regarded as a model garden,
and the Crown Princess is consulted by many as
an authority on gardening in her new home.
It is thanks to her that the slumbering charm
of Sofiero has been awakened and the place
transformed from a wilderness to " a thing ot
beauty."

HOFROKEN DAGMAR WIEDENHIELM

136

CHATEAU SOFIERO

GREECE

The Royal T^alace^ ^Athens

DAY OF MY ARRIVAL at Athens-
as we drove along the track of the Long
Walls from the Piraeus, and entered the modern
city which spreads out like a fan from the
Acropolis — I thought I should never be able to
look at anything or even to open my eyes, on
account of the glare. The sun shining through
an absolutely pure atmosphere on rocks bare of
vegetation, on roads smothered in white dust,
had a power and a brilliance unknown in tawny
Rome or in flower-veiled Sicily. But after a
day or two I found I could see beautifully ; in
accordance no doubt with the approved principles
of mental therapeutics, great enthusiasm had
strengthened my bodily organs. I realized that
the roads were white with dust of marble ; the
translucence of the air was such that one seemed

J39

THE ROYAL PALACE, ATHENS

not only to feel but actually to see beyond
Lycabettus the plain of Marathon and the
^Egean Sea ; the bareness of the mountains
explained the city's epithet Violet-crowned^ for
the soft mauves of morning reflected from their
glowing surface become at midday an intensity
of violet seen nowhere else, and at stormy eve a
pomp of the deepest, the most royal purple.
Greece for the visitor is more beautiful and
more interesting than any other country ; over
the whole of it lies the subtle charm of associa-
tion. " Not only the poet and the antiquary,
but even the average person has an undefined
love for the names of places he learned about
at school, the names which resound through
all literature and are the fete names of all the
arts."

From the tree-shaded garden-alleys of the
Royal Palace there are charming glimpses of the
Acropolis, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum, the
Parthenon crowning the heights, the broken
columns of the temple of Olympian Zeus. An
ancient canal flows among the grassy paths ;
there is an antique mosaic, and an antique
marble pillar with an inscription saying that
140

THE ROYAL PALACE, ATHENS

THE ROYAL PALACE, ATHENS

once it belonged to a Garden of the Muses.
King George's children looked down from their
nursery windows on this green garden, and
on some palm trees and umbrella pines which
he planted himself.

The enthusiasm for Greek Independence, felt
so keenly in England in the days of Byron,
cooled down a little during the troubled reign
of the Bavarian Otto. It was too much to
expect rapid political advancement in a small and
disunited country where the idea of patriotism
was only at its dawn. At least it was a period
of material advancement; and Otto made roads
and started some agriculture and manufactures.
King George, too, was an excellent farmer, and
his vineyards produced the best wine in a country
where there is much of great excellence.

King George proved a much greater ruler than
Otto. His reign was marked by continuity of
aim ; that persistence of the idea, without
which nothing great is ever accomplished. His
sagacity in choosing his ministers, his consum-
mate knowledge of when to assert himself and
when to yield, brought him triumphantly
through disorders and even mutinies which

H3

THE ROYAL PALACE, ATHENS

would have upset the delicately poised throne
of a man less evenly balanced in mind and
character.

Alas ! it is another of the " sad stories of the
death of kings." King George fell by the
hand of an obscure assassin; yet who could
think him all unhappy in his death ? He died
at the moment of triumph. He had seen his
adopted country successful in war, and brought
under his guiding hand from chaos to regenera-
tion ; he had seen a great idea implanted in the
minds of his subjects and set before them as
an aim — the idea that it is their mission to
Hellenize that great stretch of the Nearer East
which is inhabited by people of Hellenic stock,
professing the Greek faith and speaking the
Greek language.

HELEN HESTER COLVILL

144

GREECE

The Big Palace and Royal Gardens^
Athens

\ THENS, both in its ancient and modern
•*- *• aspects, is a city of white marble bathed
in yellow sunlight and splashed with shadows
of indigo blue. And so long time as the sun
retains his kinder aspect, the streets of the city
are full of genial exhilaration ; but when he
grows in strength he grows in tyranny, and his
mortal victims are soon gasping under his cruel
smile. Then there opens before them a para-
dise, vast, cool and lovely, having been created
of the loving enthusiasm of a dead and almost
forgotten queen, Amelie of Oldenburg, and, as
gardens arc wont to do, this one has grown
apace and grown in grace since first its maker
conceived the idea of thus enclosing a great

T 145

THE BIG PALACE, ATHENS

space and planting therein every plant, from
palm to pine, that can be found within the
realms of Greece.

In its entirety it does not lend itself to
description, but baffles by a complexity arising,
seemingly, from an absence of plan, and does
not lend itself to any word-picturing save what
may be done in separate sketches.

One might perhaps liken this garden to a
wonderful jewelled mantle of many folds and
unspeakable richness of handiwork, trailing in
wide sweeping dignity behind the stately
though serenely simple white palace, the
modern nucleus of Athens.

The garden sweeps up to the south front
of the palace ; an avenue of palms precedes a
green grass lawn, terminated by bright parterres
of brilliant flowers lying at the foot of the wide
marble steps of the southern terrace, where the
picturesque Evzone Lifeguards pace to and fro.

From the lawn looking towards the palace an
exquisite glimpse of Mount Lycabet may be
caught. Always a sudden sharp silhouette against
the northern sky, this inspiring height here
takes on something of an enchanted mien. The
146

THE ACROPOLIS, FROM THE
ROYAL PALACE, ATHENS

THE BIG PALACE, ATHENS

white walls of the fortress church at its apex
might stand for some magic castle in a mediaeval
or Eastern legend ; and here in the foreground is
the wavy palm tree of the unchanging East,
while a sage-green flowing border to the grass
green lawn carries out the afternoon colour of

the hillside.

MARY MOORE

149

GREECE

The Garden of the Crown Prince's
Palace^ Athens

npHE "CROWN PRINCE'S PALACE"

•*• stands, a marble megathron, foursquare, in
the midst of a cool garden of graceful green.

Here are palm trees firm and broad of girth,
sturdily implanted in an oasis of green lawns,
whose preciousness may only be esteemed fully
by those having a close and personal experience
of life in a dry and thirsty land where no
water is.

Here are orange trees bearing at the same
time their double trophy of heavy perfumed
blossom and those golden apples which, when
the world was young, found their way from the
Far East to the land of the evening star. From
thence, by ancient mariners, they were carried
back again as far as Greece, bearing with them,
150

I

THE GARDEN OF THE CROWN
PRINCE'S PALACE, ATHENS

CROWN PRINCE'S PALACE, ATHENS

as they bear there to-day, the name of the land
of their first adoption : " Portucalia."

To be seen aright, or in other words, in its
entirety, this fair garden must be viewed from
the roof of the palace. Here the four sides are
spread out below in all the glory of their rich-
ness of verdure, and peaceful, ordered repose.

But the golden hours slip by fast up here.
The lights change, Hymettus receives from
Helios her violet crown. Lycabet's sharp sil-
houette is culminated by the watchlight of
St. George. The immense green mass of the
great royal gardens in front turns to blackness,
while out to the east spreads the unique view of
Acropolis and ^Egean.

And then comes, ah ! that indescribable love-
liness of the softly approaching Athenian night
when, under the del nacre pierced by a diamond
star or two, the voices of all men and living
things seem hushed to a reverent stillness, and
only the nightingale dares to lift her wail of
melody, for no other note could harmonize with
this ineffable presence, so lovely it is.

MARY MOORE

153

GREECE

The Wistaria Bower , Palais Royale^ Athens

TT 7ISTARIA has a very lovable trait. It can
* * never learn to grow ungracefully. It
can never droop its grape-like bunches of mauve-
blue blossom, nor twirl the tender fronds of its
yellow-green foliage in any way but a perfect
one. But if such a thing were thinkable as the
perfecting of perfection, then it would be found
in the early days of May in the Wistaria Bower
of the royal gardens in Athens. Here an ancient
and vigorous vine, of the Japanese bloom, climbs
to the top of a wide long woodwork trellis
roofing in the heart of the cool deep paradise,
and, in an overshadowing embrace, sends down
the far green aisle an even canopy of richest
blossom, a dream of tender and sympathetic
colouring, a fairy grotto of mauve stalactite
turned to flowers breathing out a floating per-

154

THE WISTARIA BOWER, THE
ROYAL PALACE, ATHENS

THE WISTARIA BOWER

fume of haunting sweetness from their myriad
clusters.

There are people who, having witnessed Queen
Alexandra going to and returning from her
crowning, say they wish to see no lovelier vision
while on earth. .That is because they never saw
her Majesty (whose astral colour must surely
be Wistaria mauve) walking down the Glycine
Pergola in the royal gardens of Athens.

These gardens are a thing of beauty and a joy
for ever, a retreat of endless riches and delight.
But Earth, lavish mother, after giving her gifts
of violet-strewn spaces, of starry beds, of spring
flowers, of perfumed trees covered with Bride
Blossom, of laughing red roses reaching up to
kiss the turquoise sky, holds back awhile her
masterpiece, and you must wind your way
through labyrinthine paths and devious walks to
a centre spot whose rock and pool screen off the
heat and glare of day, if you would find the

Glycine Pergola.

MARY MOORE

'57

GREECE

Rose Pergola^ The Achilleion^ Corfu

ACHILLEION was built for the
Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who loved
the beauty and the quiet of Corfu. In 1907 it
was acquired by the German Emperor, who
altered and added to it for his own use. It
stands high up on the side of the steep little hill
called Agia Kyriaki or St. Sunday, overlooking
the Ionian Straits. The garden is arranged in
terraces around the southern and eastern sides of
the palace, and continues in a long strip down
the hillside to the sea.

Twice a year, in the autumn and in the spring,
a " Herr Botaniker " arrived from Berlin ; in
the autumn he prepared everything for the spring
blossoming, and in the spring put the finishing
touches to his work, and then as at the wave of
a magic wand, thousands of flowers opened their

.58

THE ROSE PERGOLA, THE ACHILLEION, CORFU

ROSE PERGOLA, THE ACHILLEION

buds to welcome the arrival of their imperial
owner. For these few weeks only, the upper
terraces were a blaze of colour, odd corners just
outside the garden walls blushed red with
poppies, and rows of flowering plants in pots
lined both sides of the short approach to the
palace door, and were changed every few days
when, with military exactitude, their successors
had reached the necessary stage of bloom. Look-
ing over the roof of one of the two rose pergolas
on the second terrace from the palm garden on
the upper one with its great clusters of red and
white roses seen over the top of white marble
balustrades, we get a glimpse of the Ionian
Straits and the mountains of Epirus through the
olive and cypress trees beyond the garden.

E. D.

161

GREECE

Cinerarias^ The Achilleion^ Corfu

UPPERMOST TERRACE of the

Achilleion (the palm garden) is laid out on
formal lines and adorned with statues. Here
we find the beautiful " Dying Achilles," which
gave its name to the Palace, and is well known
to all visitors to Corfu. At midday the bright,
hot spring sunshine pours down on to masses
of cinerarias and lilies grouped round the statues
and the palms.

Our own royal family has been to Corfu more
than once. When King Edward and Queen
Alexandra visited Athens together, they came
on here, and during their stay the Prince and
Princess of Wales stopped here for a few days
on their way home from India, and the whole
party visited the Achilleion, which was still in
the hands of the Austrian Emperor.
162

THE CINERARIAS, THE ACHILLEION, CORFU

CINERARIAS, THE ACHILLEION

It was on the occasion of this visit, which
excited the wildest enthusiasm in all Greece,
that the story went the round of the Greek papers
that a little schoolboy wept bitterly over his
blotted copybook, because his master furiously
asked him, " What will King Edward think of
Greek school children when he sees that ?"

E. D.

165

GREECE

Sunset^ The Achilleion ^ Corfu

SUNSETS are wonderful in Corfu, and
from the Achilleion one looks at the sink-
ing sun across the whole width of the island,
which is about six or eight miles at this, its
southern end.

I think it was on the occasion of King Edward's
second visit to Corfu, that he came up to the
Achilleion just about sunset-time, after it had
rained all day and the gateway was slippery with
mud and gleaming with puddles. Pai'petti, the
district mayor, a prosperous peasant from a
neighbouring village, had prepared a speech, in
English if you please ! with which to welcome
him. Now a peasant's prosperity may be
measured by his girth, and Pai'petti was very
prosperous, and it was his first presentation to a
king ; unfortunately he slipped and fell, and his
166

SUNSET, THE ACHILLEION, CORFU

SUNSET, THE ACHILLEION

English speech was received with a very kindly
smile.

For some years after this Queen Alexandra
paid an annual visit to her brother King George
at Corfu, to the great delight of the islanders.

The Victoria and Albert was anchored close to
the garden steps of the King's town palace, and
enthusiastic Corfuites watched for the coming
ashore of her Majesty at about midday. Towns-
folk and peasants alike were at one time buoyed
up by the hope that she would build herself a
residence here. Mount Dellelia, a celebrated
beauty spot on the western coast, was the site
rumour most often sold to her ; but the wish
was — and alas for Corfu ! the wish remained —
father to the thought.

E.D.

169

AUSTRIA

The Palace^ Schonbrunn

TV If ORE than three hundred years ago (1570),
*-V ** there stood by the side of the river Wien,
about two miles to the south of the city of
Vienna, a hunting-lodge of the Emperor Maxi-
milian. All around was forest.

On the site of this hunting-lodge Gatterburg
stands, the present Schonbrunn Palace. Under
the Empress Maria Theresa great alterations
were made and the grounds were laid out in
the eighteenth-century French style.

This is the story as to the origin of the
name Schonbrunn : Kaiser Matthias, a grand-
son of Ferdinand II, was hunting in the
neighbourhood of the present castle ; tired and
thirsty he suddenly heard the splashing of water.
Tasting the clear cool water, he called out " Ei !
das ist ein schoner Brunnen " (" Hi ! this is a
170

THE PALACE, SCHONBRUNN

THE PALACE, SCHONBRUNN

beautiful well"). And thus the well has given
the name to the castle and park.

In this palace Napoleon Buonaparte lived in
1805, and in 1809 his son, the Duke of
Reichstadt, died here.

The park, which is seven hundred acres in
extent, is open to the public. In winter it is
beautiful, and when the trees and shrubs are
covered with hoar-frost, it is a wonderful sight.
In summer there are many flowers and all kinds
of blossoming trees, and at one end of the park
is a botanical garden, where there are rows of
orange trees and a fine rose-garden.

It is a place of which one never grows tired.
No wonder the Viennese are so fond of it.

CONSTANCE JULIA HILL

'73

AUSTRIA

The Menagerie^ Schonbrunn

\ T THE WEST END of Schonbrunn Park
*• *• is the Menagerie or Zoological Garden, a
fine collection of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish.
Altogether there are more than three thousand.

This collection of animals is the oldest existing
one in Europe. It dates back to 1552, when
there was a small collection, but not in this part
of Vienna.

Emperor Maximilian II brought the animals
and birds to Gatterburg, which was on the site
of the present Schonbrunn.

The present garden was laid out in the time
of the Empress Maria Theresa in 1752.

The centre of the garden was, and is now, the
Parrot House, a large octagonal building, but in
Maria Theresa's time it was used as a summer-
house. Underneath in the basement of the

'74

THE MENAGERIE, SCHONBRUNN

THE MENAGERIE, SCHONBRUNN

building there were kitchens, and the Empress
used to give dinner-parties in the place where
now are parrots and cockatoos of all colours,
screaming at one another and keeping up a
terrible noise.

The ceiling above them is beautifully painted,
the subjects being scenes from Ovid's " Meta-
morphoses," and from each of the eight windows
one looks out on to enclosures of wild animals.

So in Schonbrunn Park people can always find
something to interest and please them.

In the woods there are innumerable birds ;
one might fancy oneself miles away from town,
whereas Schonbrunn is surrounded on three sides
by houses and a short ride in the electric tram
will take one into the centre of Vienna.

CONSTANCE JULIA HILL

177

AUSTRIA

The Gloriette^ Schonbrunn

GARDENS in front of the Emperor's
Palace and those near the large Palm
House are beautifully kept, and for half the
year are filled with thousands of flowers of
various kinds. The different designs of these
flower-beds, and the masses of colour, have a
splendid effect, and this effect is intensified by
the green walls on both sides formed by the
closely trimmed trees ; while here and there in
alcoves of green, curiously made by carefully
cutting the trees, stand marble statues of ancient
Greek and Roman deities. Beside the single
figures there are groups in marble. Some of
these are in the centre of a fountain ; some are,
as in the case of the Neptune group, behind
the water basin.

The Neptune group faces the palace, and

r/8

THE GLORIETTE, SCHONBRUNN

THE GLORIETTE, SCHONBRUNN

above the marble figures stretches a fine expanse
of green on the hill which is surmounted by
" The Gloriette." This is a conspicuous object,
as it stands on the summit of a hill 777 feet
high. It is in the form of a marble colonnade,
built in the time of Maria Theresa (1775) by
Ferdinand Von Hohenberg. It stands on the
spot where the Emperor Joseph I wished to
build a palace.

From the Gloriette one can get splendid
views of Vienna. In front of it is a sheet
of water, and behind another lake ; and beyond
this is the Fasan Garten (pheasant garden), but
this part is not open to the public.

CONSTANCE JULIA HILL

181

AUSTRIA

Miramar

THE VISITOR Miramar will always
have not only the attraction of its fine
position but also the prestige of its romantic
memories." The palace stands five miles north
of Trieste, that beautiful city on the shores of
the Adriatic.

In 1856 the young Archduke Maximilian,
Admiral of the Austrian fleet, was living at
Trieste. He was an enthusiastic traveller, an
author, and a botanist ; also a lover ot adven-
ture, and of storm-wind and tossing sea. One
wild day his small boat capsized near Cape
Grignano. He managed to get ashore, and then
found himself to his surprise in so charming
a spot, with so fine a view and so gentle and
sun-warmed a breeze, that he at once resolved to
build a villa exactly there, with a garden in
182

MlRAMAR

MIRAMAR

which he could experiment in the culture
of exotic plants. The following year he
married Charlotte, the daughter of the
Belgian king, and it was clear the villa must
be adorned and enlarged to fit it for the royal
bride.

The story — sorrowful and romantic — thus
begins where the fairy-tales wisely end ; with
the wedding of a beautiful princess and a
charming, devoted and prosperous prince, who
gives her wealth, ease, admiration, and a fairy
palace to live in — " a magic casement opening
on the sea " wreathed in flowers, vocal with
singing-birds, shaded with terraced cypress and
groves of myrtle.

Within the house were all the charms of
books and pictures, trophies from foreign lands,
and a continual coming and going, not only of
royal relatives but of the best intellectual and
literary society. Yet a certain simplicity of
taste distinguished the Prince, and a large corner
of his heart was reserved for his beloved sea, his
ship and his knight-errantry — all symbolized
for him by his own two rooms in the fairy
palace. He had made them exact reproductions

2 A 185

MIRAMAR

of his cabins in the frigate Novara^ in which he
had made his tour of the world.

Some say that in this earthly paradise Eve
was not quite content. It seemed exile to her.
She was ambitious, and she wanted a throne.
Fate, perhaps in irony, gave her her desire. In
1863 t^ie Pa*r sailed in the Novara for
Mexico on that " dolorous adventure which
ended in death." They went not to the
triumphs they had hoped ; not, as they had
designed, to the regeneration of a stricken
country. From the first no faint gleam of
success shone upon their mission. It was an
unintermittent struggle, a merciless bloody
struggle, in which they were abandoned by their
allies, betrayed by their friends, and all too sadly
made aware that their own equipment for the
tremendous task had been insufficient.

A few years passed and they had made no
progress. Charlotte, never to see her husband
again, came to Europe to plead his cause with
Emperor and Pope. Alas ! disappointment,
terror, and grief had turned her brain. She was
brought back to Miramar in a condition of
living death from which she never rallied.
186

MIRAMAR

Maximilian fell into the hands of his enemies,
and, with two followers, still faithful when all
others had rorsaken his fallen fortunes, perished
by the bullet of the executioner. The ship
Novara, which, decked with flowers, had
carried the young sovereigns to their Empire,
now veiled in black brought the Emperor's
corpse back to Miramar, whither had returned
the distracted wife.

" If in the other world there are recompenses
for those who have suffered unjustly here, let us
believe that his spirit is at times permitted to
revisit the groves which he planted, and to find
in them the footprints of his poor Ophelia."

HELEN HESTER COLVILL

AUSTRIA

Schloss %u Gmunden

\ FTER THE WAR of 1866 the King
-^ *- and royal family of Hanover found a
hospitable reception in friendly Austria, and
took up their residence in Gmunden am
Traunsee, " die Perle des Salzkammergutes,"
where, during the first years of their exile, they
occupied a small but beautifully situated villa.
After the death of King George V in Paris
in 1878, his Majesty's body was conveyed
to England and laid in the royal vault at
Windsor, and his successor, the present Duke of
Cumberland and of Brunswick and Liineburg,
resided, after his marriage with the Princess
Thyra of Denmark, in a larger villa, in which
five of their children were born.

The Duke then decided to build a house more
suitable to the requirements of his family, and

SCHLOSS zu GMUNDEN

SCHLOSS ZU GMUNDEN

built the schloss in which they now
reside.

It stands on the ridge of a hill, half a mile
distant from the old town of Gmunden, looking
down on green hills and valleys, with a back-
ground of snow-covered mountains. The exact
date of the castle is 1882—86, and it was
designed by the architect F. Schorbach of
Hanover, in the style of the thirteenth century,
by command of the Duke, who is an admirer
and connoisseur of Gothic architecture. It
stands in the immediate vicinity of the villa
where King George V of Hanover, the Duke's
father, had lived, and which was the constant
residence of Queen Marie and her daughter,
Princess Mary, till they died.

After the death of Prince Christian, the
Duke's second son, in 1901, a family vault
was built on the east side of the castle in
the rising ground which forms the foundation
of the south terrace. The vault is a jewel in
material and in execution. Four members of
the Royal house, Queen Marie, Princess Mary,
Prince Christian, and Prince Georg Wilhelm,
already rest there.

191

SCHLOSS ZU GMUNDEN

The castle is surrounded by gardens, brilliant
with flowers, and grounds which melt gradually
into a beautiful shady park.

The south side of the castle has a varied
and picturesque fa9ade. The Royal Standard
of Hanover waves proudly from the tower.
In the escutcheon are the Arms of England,
above which is the shield with the Bruns-
wick Leopards, the Luneburg Lion and the
Saxon White Horse, surmounted by the Royal
Crown of Hanover, and in the centre shield
above it, the old German Kaiser-Krone, the
symbol of the dignity of the " Reichs
Erbschatzmeister " of the old Electors of
Brunswick-Liineburg. The Leopards from
the English and the Lion from the Danish
coat-of-arms came by marriage in the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries into the shield of the
Guelphs.

The latest-born heir to all these historic
honours — the heir-apparent to the Duchy of
Brunswick and the headship of the House of
Guelph is a grandson of the German Emperor ;
he may be seen carried about in the sunshine
on this beautiful terrace, carefully and tenderly
192

&*<

f " ,-,'".

SCHLOSS zu GMUNDEN

FROM THE CHESTNUT AVENUE

2 B

SCHLOSS ZU GMUNDEN

watched by his mother, the Kaiser's only
daughter, and by his grandmother, the youngest
sister of our own Queen Alexandra, who, when
here on a visit, lived in rooms looking out on
this terrace ; she made frequent sketches from
this point, looking down over the old beech
woods on to the dazzling shimmer of the lovely
Traun-see, on whose shores the old town of
Gmunden with its numerous villas lies, and on
whose glittering surface the lofty and imposing
rocky height of the Traunstein is reflected.

This view made so great an impression on
King Edward VII when he was here some
years ago on a visit to the Duke and Duchess
of Cumberland, that he said, " On my many
journeys I have seen many beautiful scenes, but
not many more beautiful than this."

There is another view of the castle, a partial
one, which offers itself to the traveller who
walks up from Gmunden ; from this point
it peeps out through the trees, and gives no
idea of the stately house which lies behind.
In summer this road is sheltered by chestnut
trees, covered with crimson blossoms. On the
late evening of the 5th of January it is traversed

T95

SCHLOSS ZU GMUNDEN

by strange parties of countrymen (originally the
workers from the salt mines which abound in
this province of Austria), who run along the
road through the snow, with a curious ambling
step, making a tinkling with the bells of the
lanterns which, in form of castles and ships, are
lighted up inside by wax candles and fastened
on their heads ; this performance is in quaint
celebration of the story of the Wise Men from
the East. These old-world figures come from
considerable distances, amble all through the
town and round the castle — greatly to the
wonder and joy of any children who may be
there — and return, doubtless, well satisfied with
the guerdon bestowed on them with praise and
thanks.

BARONESS DE KLENCK

196

SWITZERLAND

Lake Constance from Schloss Mainau

BODENSEE— Lake of Constance-
fifteen square miles smaller than the
Lake of Geneva, has been formed by the Rhine,
which enters at the south-eastern extremity
and flows out at the north-west, hurrying on
its way to the Falls of SchafFhausen. There
is geological evidence that the Rhine was long,
long years in forcing a passage through the walls
of rock at its egress, for the level of the lake
was once much higher than it is now. And
when at last the river did escape, the lake sank
for a while at least ten feet below the present
level, as is evidenced by the interesting remains,
now submerged, of the prehistoric Lake-
dwellers. In winter the great lake becomes a
solid sheet of ice, and pleasant excursions on
skates can be made from one point to another

197

LAKE CONSTANCE

of its little-frequented shores. The wintry sun
shines bright and brings a sparkle to the snow-
clad heights ; but at other seasons there are
storms, and great tumbling billows agitate the
usually placid bosom of the lake. The lake
washes the feet of no less than five separate States
— Austria, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Baden, and
Switzerland. Always it should be approached
from the north. Otherwise, arriving let us say
from the Oberland, you are apt to think the
scenery tame ; but coming down from the north
and rejoicing in its crystal floor, its wide horizons,
the huge wall of its sun-warmed, air-bathed
distant mountains, it will seem to you, not
threatening, not oppressive, but a very land of
poetry and dream.

One of these royal residences is the Castle of
Mainau, which for the last fifty years has
belonged to the Grand Dukes of Baden. It
stands on an island some two miles in circum-
ference rising gently from the water to a height
of ninety feet, descending again abruptly to the
lake. The castle crowns the top of this hill.
Avenues of old limes throw fragrance over the
path to the gardens which immediately surround
198

LAKE CONSTANCE FROM SCHLOSS MAINAU

LAKE CONSTANCE

the castle ; before it is a broad terrace adorned
with busts of the Roman emperors, with orange
trees and a riot of purple clematis. Across the
lake the eye travels over green slopes and forests
to the mountains. All is calm and sunlit and
health-giving ; a retired nook in the very centre
of Europe where " sweet Peace sits crowned
with smiles," and all alarums and excursions
belong to the past.

The State of Baden was practically created by
Napoleon after Austerlitz to honour his ally, the
almost landless Margrave, who was a relative of
the Tsar of Russia and had thrown in his lot
with France. Afterwards the Grand Duchy was
incorporated in the German Empire ; but the
Grand Duke Frederick, who had married Louise,
only daughter of the Emperor William I, was a
man of such sterling worth and of so sympa-
thetic a character, that he won glowing tributes
of admiration even from the French, when he
died at Mainau in 1907. The castle now
belongs to his widow.

This part of the Lake of Constance seems
peculiarly rich in romantic legends. Mainau
was originally an appanage of the Bodmann

2 c 201

LAKE CONSTANCE

family, who gave their name to a neighbouring
town. Once in the twelfth century this family
was near extinction, having been reduced to a
single member, a little orphan boy. His castle
was set on fire, and the child, asleep in an
upper chamber, seemed hopelessly imperilled.
But his nurse was a woman of resource. She
snatched him up, packed him in woollen
blankets and stuffed him into a huge copper
saucepan, clapped on the lid, and rolled sauce-
pan and child down the castle wall to safety
and a glorious future. The saucepan was for
centuries preserved as a precious relic. Once,
indeed, it did pass out of the family keeping, but
was redeemed at the cost of the freehold of a
large farm.

A little earlier had lived — I believe at Mainau
— one Countess Anna, who had a son and three
fair daughters. To her came begging a peasant
woman, a bereaved mother, asking for roses for
her dead child's bier. The Countess refused :
" Daisies are good enough for the like of you."
So the poor mother cursed the fine lady ; and
within a year she had to deck the biers of her
own three daughters with the begrudged roses.
202

LAKE CONSTANCE

Ever after, when the death of a maiden of
the family is about to take place, Countess Anna
is seen at midnight in the castle garden, weaving
a wreath of roses.

At last Mainau passed out of the hands of
the Bodmanns. Castle and island pertained
to the dower of the family's heiress. She was
betrothed to a neighbour, Hugo of Langenstein.
Before the wedding he went off to the Crusades,
was taken prisoner by the Saracens and was for
years unheard of. During this long silence the
lady refused many suitors for love of him.
Despairing perhaps of her constancy, the
Crusader bound himself by a rash vow. If
he might escape from his dungeon he would
give himself to religion. He did escape ; and
guiding his steps by the stars he crossed the
desert to Egypt, took ship to Europe, and
eventually arrived at his native Bodensee. He
joined the celibate Order of Teutonic Knights;
then wrote to the lady that he was indeed alive
but must see her no more. She was broken-
hearted ; but rising to the heights of mag-
nanimity she presented her island of Mainau
to the Order for ever, making but one

203

LAKE CONSTANCE

stipulation, that Hugo of Langenstein should be
the first master there.

And with the Order it remained for five
hundred years, till the coming of Napoleon and
of modern times.

HELEN HESTER COLVILL

204

FRANCE

The North ff^ing of the Palace from the
Parterre d^Eau, Versailles

/CASTLES in the air are drawn to earth for
V-^ later generations, the dreams of the past
becoming the possessions of the present. None
of those who planned Versailles saw it as we
have inherited it.

Louis XIII, resting from a day's hard hunting
in a crumbling manor, dreamed of a new chateau
on its site, surrounded by those desolate forests
and marshes through which, a little lad of six,
he had followed his first chase. But the master-
piece built for him by Lemercier of white stone
and red bricks, with stately chimneys and steep
richly gilded roofs, moat-encircled and set in
formal gardens, served only to suggest Louis
XIV's superber dreams. So Levau incorporated
the old chateau in a spacious structure befitting

205

NORTH WING OF THE PALACE

the splendour of the Grand-Monarque ; and when
this palace proved inadequate to contain his
growing magnificence, Mansart added the south
and north wings successively, completing the
great fa£ade.

Still, like a vital thing, obeying natural laws,
the vast pile continued to develop. Louis XV
altered the interior to suit new ideas of con-
venience, and the Salle de 1'Opera (whose roof
shows above the north wing in the illustration)
was inaugurated at the marriage of Marie-
Antoinette and stood ready for the last stirring
scene of the drama of the old regime.

Then came the Revolution, destroying the ideal
of sovereignty, which was the soul of Versailles,
and leaving its husk to descend to us, a memorial
of the dreams of kings.

THEODORA DEHON

206

THE NORTH WING OF THE PALACE, FROM
THE PARTERRE D'EAU, VERSAILLES

FRANCE

The Parterre de Latone, Versailles

TT has been said that in the vicinity of palaces
•*• water should be confined in marble, and trees
ranged like a guard lining the sovereign's path.
Such sentiments inspired Boyceau in designing
the pleasaunces for Louis XIII, and guided
Mansart and Lenotre in extending them to form
a setting worthy of the new chateau.

Formal avenues converged upon the palace
through smooth walls of verdure ; marble steps
ascended to it between sentinel yews, and water,
captive in noble basins, mirrored its grandeur.
Art forced nature to contribute to that ordered
magnificence which shielded the sanctuary of the
crown, till royal prestige received its death-blow
at the hands of the Revolution.

After the desecration of the palace, the park
was menaced with destruction. To Antoine

2 D 209

PARTERRE DE LATONE

Richard, the Queen's gardener at Trianon,
belongs the honour of having saved it. When
the local sections conceived the brilliant idea of
using Marsy's bronze masterpieces, ornamenting
the fountain of Latona, to make cannons for the
nation, and proposed parcelling out the gardens
among rapacious citizens, Richard made a crafty
suggestion. " Why not preserve the park," he
said, " to be a vegetable garden for the benefit of
patriots ? " And suiting his action to his words,
he began planting potatoes in the conspicuous
Parterre de Latone. His philanthropy was
approved, and, though the fashion for potatoes
has passed, the park remains.

Once more roses flourish in the borders, and
Latona still calls down the vengeance of the gods
upon the insolence of mortals.

THEODORA DEHON

210

THE PARTERRE DE LATONE, VERSAILLES

FRANCE

The Fountain of Diana ^ Versailles

summer holidays the gardens of Versailles
are thronged with pleasure-seekers. Gay
Parisian excursionists crowd the terraces ; per-
sonally conducted tourists are hurried from point
to point ; townsfolk camp under the chestnuts ;
children romp merrily ; and vendors of syrups,
cakes, and toys drive a brisk trade.

But when evening falls and the last visitors
have gone, the dim glades and darkling groves
become repeopled with a ghostly company. Old
myths grow real, forgotten scenes revive. Even
the statues, glimmering through the dusk, seem
to move as though Venus emerged from mists of
verdure, as once she rose from the foam of the
./Egean sea, or as if Diana prepared to descend
from her pedestal to bathe in the pool dedicated
to her name.

213

FOUNTAIN OF DIANA

Diana's Fountain, surrounded by the beautiful
sculptures of Marsy, Desjardins and Lehongre,
was a favourite rendezvous of the court in olden
days ; and there, more than elsewhere, the past
lingers, imprinted on the place for those who
have the faculty to see. For such, Louis XIII
rides forth to a phantom chase ; Louis XIV
appears in his incomparable pomp ; Louis XV
dallies in secluded groves, and Marie-Antoinette
plays hide-and-seek among the statues with her
light-hearted companions, unconscious of the
gathering storm.

But with the dawn the rustle of silks, the fall
of light footsteps, and murmur of voices pass
into the whispering of wind-stirred leaves ; the
wan procession of shadows fades, and a new day
brings fresh crowds of sightseers to Versailles.

THEODORA DEMON

214

THE FOUNTAIN OF DIANA, VERSAILLES

ITALY

The Boboli Gardens, Florence

TN i549BUONACCORSO PITTI,the great-

•*• grandson of Luca, the founder of the Pitti
Palace, sold the villa of Cyclopean walls, with its
surrounding orfo, to the Medici for a sum of nine
thousand golden florins, and in May 1 550 Cosimo
and Eleanora, with their seven young children
and Court, moved into residence in the palace.
The gardens, which took their name of Boboli
from the Boboli hill, on the side of which they
stood, were laid out by Tribolo and Buontalenti
in the same geometric pattern which we see to
this day.

And here Cosimo introduced the scientific
culture of fruit trees, while Eleanora had rare
plants and flowers brought from Naples and
Sicily, the homes of her childhood.

Very soon a real Italian garden sprang up

2 E 217

THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE

round the rustic palace. Lakes, grottoes,
fountains, terraces, statues — many of them
famous works of art — hedges of bay and cypress,
intricate labyrinths, wide via/i shaded by tall
trees, field and forest, all came into place and
being. And the large amphitheatre was built,
where so many gorgeous spectacles for Court
festivities and royal marriages have been given.
Succeeding Grand Dukes added to the extent of
the gardens, until they now cover the whole hill-
side, and occupy a space of 450,000 square metres,
which contain every variety of natural and arti-
ficial beauty, and command incomparable views
of city, plain, and mountain.

Names of the past still linger, and have a pathos
of their own. Giovanna's own little garden is
still called " Giardino Madama." Her portrait
was begun in Giambologna's " Abundance," but
left unfinished when Bianca's fairer face had stolen
Francesco's heart. The inscription on a fountain
is" 1 8 July 1618 when Serenissima's brother was
made King of Hungary " (Maria Maddelena's
brother Ferdinand II of Austria). The Casino
where Gian Gastone pursued his studies as a lad,
with its " Giardino del Cavalliero," are all there,
218

BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE

THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE

a beautiful setting to the phantasmagoria of the
past. Here too mingle memories of Austrian
and French occupation, of vanity and oppression,
making minor cadence to the C major melody
of to-day's United Italy. Shadow and substance
meet us in these royal gardens, where children
still play and lovers linger, and where poets
dream while history makes itself.

H. G.

221

ITALY

The Villa Petraja^ Florence

OOME THREE MILES outside Florence,
^ on the slopes of Monte Morello, are the
royal villas of Castello and Petraja, now some-
what fallen on sleep, but full of memories, and
beautiful in their setting of ilex trees, flowers,
and fountains.

The Villa of Petraja, successfully held in 1364
against Sir John Hawkwood by the Brunelleschi,
to whom it then belonged, passed later through
the Strozzi and Salutati families into the posses-
sion of the Medici, and remained the property,
of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany until, in 1859,
it, with Castello, merged into the civil list of
Italian Crown property.

Petraja was the favourite home of Ferdinand
the Cardinal, who employed Buontalenti to lay
out the gardens when his father Cosimo I retired
222

THE VILLA PETKAJA, FLORENCE

THE VILLA PETRAJA, FLORENCE

from office, and with his young second wife,
Camilla Martelli, went to live at Castello, where
he surrounded himself with learned and illustrious
friends, and spent his leisure in scientific and
agricultural pursuits alien to the tastes of the
young bride, who pined for the gayer doings
of the town, and the Court life in which her
haughty daughter-in-law, the Grand Duchess
Franna, denied her any part.

How often must poor Camilla have passed the
ilex-shaded path from Castello to Petraja looking
down, from its exquisite seclusion, upon the city
from which she felt herself an exile.

It was at Petraja that Ammirato, when a guest
of the Cardinal, wrote portions of his History of
Florence ; and later, when Ferdinand became
Grand Duke and married Christine of Lorraine,
they and their children constantly stayed at the
villa ; and it was at Castello, hard by, that
eventually Christine died after a two days' illness
— 1636.

In later years, Petraja was the home of Victor
Emmanuel and his morganatic wife, Rosina
Contessa Montefiori, and it was the King who
built the rustic stair round the trunk of the large

2 F 225

THE VILLA PETRAJA, FLORENCE

ilex tree, up to a platform constructed in its
branches, where he often dined, and which
commanded a view of entrancing loveliness over
the city below, and distant hills dotted with
villas and crowned with church towers.

The gardens, always well kept, are in their
season a riot of colour against the sober hues of
cypress and ilex groves. Terraces and fountains
abound. That of Tribolo on the east was
brought from Castello some 150 years ago, and
is a conspicuous ornament of the gardens. The
lofty bronze figure in the centre, wringing the
water from her long hair, is the work of Giam-
bologna, a Venus said to represent Florence.

The splash of water falling rhythmically from
basin to basin, the witchery of garden sounds
and scents, the golden light upon the old square
tower of the villa, cast a spell of quiet aloofness
upon the spot, in which the present seems to
fade away and the past to come into its own
again. And ghostly forms and voices pass before
our imagination where the English Condottiere
led his noisy men, and, as a child, Giovanni of
the Black Bands played, and rode his "little
horse " under the watchful eyes of Caterina,
226

THE VILLA PETRAJA, FLORENCE

ready to disguise her darling, and send him to
the nuns of Annalena, if danger threatened ;
where plot and counter-plot cast their shadow ;
and where the hero of united Italy rested after
laborious toil, his life's aim accomplished, the
true Re Galantuomo.

H. G.

227

ITALY

The Sunk Garden, The Vatican, Rome

VATICAN GARDEN, like the palace,
has grown gradually, and is the work of
successive pontiffs. There were the popes who
rebuilt St. Peter's, those who took pleasure in
the decoration of the palace, and those whose
energies were spent upon the gardens.

The planes and firs, avenues of ilex and clumps
of cypresses give coolness in the August heats,
the Pontiff passing his early mornings and sultry
afternoons within these shaded walks.

But his winter exercise is taken in the sunlit,
treeless garden, where a few palms cast no shade,
and where, between the carefully laid-out walks,
rare herbs are cultivated — medicinal herbs which
are given away to the poorer convents.

The larger, pompous fountains owe their being
to Paul V, and the earlier summer-house was
228

m

THE SUNK GARDEN,
TKE VATICAN, ROME

THE SUNK GARDEN, THE VATICAN
built for Pius IV by Pirro Ligorio, the architect
who built the Villa d'Este. The classical
gateway, with its two flights of steps and oval
fountain between them, was also made by order
of Pius IV, and may be his work. It is
possible that this pope may have laid out this
garden. Chattard, in a description of the Vatican
published in 1665, describes it much as it is to-
day, with its box-edges cut into quaint conceits
and its eighty odd pots of herbs.

The fountain is a very simple one of traver-
tine ; the four statues around it are ornamental
statues of no particular value, the only historical
detail is to be found in the flowery devices forming
the name and coat-of-arms of Pius IX.

The recent popes have made no innovations,
and perhaps the gardens are more suggestive as
they are, in their old-world taste, and with their
reminiscences of bygone centuries.

L. P. B.

231

ITALY

The Villa d'Este, Rome

BUILDING of country houses at
•*• Tivoli began in the last years of the
Republic. Roman citizens tried to escape the
heat on these wooded and well-watered slopes,
where the air is so pure that it is commonly
believed to whiten ivory.*

Humanism and the Renaissance brought a
return to classical habits, princes and prelates
vying with one another in the sumptuousness of
their villas.

It was the second Cardinal Hippolytus of Este,
son of the Grand Duke Alfonzo I, and friend of
Francis I, who decided to build a villa at Tivoli
and chose the present site. Where the villa now
stands were squalid streets, which had to be
thrown down, and where the gardens were to lie
stood great rocks, boulders and spurs of travertine,

* Martial, lib. 7, epis. 12.
232

THE VILLA D'ESTE, ROME

2 G

THE VILLA D'ESTE, ROME

all of which had to be levelled before the terraces
could be laid. The waters of the Rivellese, which
had been diverted from its course, were found to
be not nearly enough for the number of fountains
required, and Pirro Ligorio, the architect of the
villa, and Alberto Galvani, the designer of the
gardens, pierced a great tunnel into the heart of
the mountain, thus obtaining an inexhaustible
supply. The myriad fountains, with their rain-
bow spray, were enhanced by statues and orna-
mental basins, the work of a gang of artists and
craftsmen working under Galvani. The great
cypress trees were then planted,and in the archives
one reads how " Cardinal Hippolytus of Este took
possession of Tivoli in 1550 and in 1571 found
the garden and the palace finished, so that Pope
Gregory XIII could disport himself there."

The splendours of the villa lasted not quite a
century. Then war, neglect, and robbery com-
pleted its ruin, the last Dukes of Ferrara refusing
to make any repairs.

In 1850 it was bought from them by Cardinal
Hohenlohe, who did much to restore it, and at
his death it passed to the royal house of Austria.

L. P. B.

235

ITALY

Capo ai Monte \ Naples

'T^HE PALACE of Capo di Monte— now
•*• the residence of the Duke of Aosta, son of
Amadeus, who for a time was King of Spain-
was planned in 1738 by Charles III as a
summer home. The architect was the same
Medrano who built, also at Naples, the fine
theatre of San Carlo. The palace, however,
came to a standstill in the political upheavals,
and was not finished till Ferdinand II was
reigning, a hundred years later. It crowns the
superb city whose situation is the delight of the
world ; and from the windows, framed in mighty
blocks of grey stone, the eye wanders over the
bluest of all seas to the island of Capri swim-
ming in light, to the purple mountains of
Sorrento and Castellammare, Amalfi and Salerno,
and to the far-famed Corniche Road. Nearer,
236

CAPO DI MONTE, NAPLES

CAPO DI MONTE, NAPLES

great Vesuvius sends up his pillar of cloud by
day and of fire by night, a sight which, however
familiar, never fails to impress the imagination.

The charm of Capo di Monte Palace lies in its
beautiful grounds ; the famous Bosco, the gardens,
the pheasantry, the preserves and aviaries. There
are seldom many flowers in an Italian garden.
With so much colour in earth and heaven they
do not seem necessary as with us. Shaded alleys
of ilex and cypress, groves of stone pines —

Green dusk for dreams,
Moss for a pillow, —

these are all-sufficient. Here and there on some
broken column or bare tree stem, climbing roses
and clematis in tangled profusion seem half wild,
as if come by their own choice. Among the
monumental trees, the solemn evergreen of acan-
thus and box, are frequent bits of ruined pillars
and temples, and broken statues, relics of anti-
quity brought years ago from some perhaps
accidental excavations. Is it some strange
mental process, is it magic in nature, is it
universal genius for beauty which imbues this

239

CAPO DI MONTE, NAPLES

paradise on earth with its uncomprehended,
ineffaceable, ubiquitous charm ?

The Archduke Maximilian — afterwards Em-
peror of Mexico — in his memoirs gives an
interesting account of his visit in 1851 to his
aunt, the Princess of Salerno at Capo di Monte.
He speaks of the garden plots, originally laid
out by an English landscape gardener, where
the grass was hopelessly burned up ; but the
palms and oleanders, the long straight, high-
arched avenues of heavy green, the arrangement
partly artificial, partly irregular and wild, pleased
his northern eyes. Being something of a natu-
ralist he was interested in the abundant life, the
wild hares which crossed his path, the carefully
preserved pheasants ; nearer the house the pea-
cocks and tropical birds, the deer shut up sorrow-
fully in a small enclosure. Within he found
huge state rooms (now used as a museum) with
portico-like doors and windows in red frames,
what he calls brick floors, and scanty furniture.
He belonged to the Romantics and consequently
found the Empire style of these desolate apart-
ments, the long straight lines and conventional
ornaments, " as destitute of taste as of comfort,
240

CAPO DI MONTE, NAPLES

lacking the warm soul of past ages and spoiling
the fine proportions of the rooms themselves."
The Princess, not long widowed and in deepest
mourning, received him ceremoniously ; then
took him for a walk in the Bosco, and for a drive
along the beautiful wide roads.

HELEN HESTER COLVILL

2 H 241

SPAIN

La Granja

THE SUMMER PALACE of La Granja
or San Ildefonso, on the northern slopes of
the Guadarramas, was built in 1721—23 for
Philip V, the first Spanish Bourbon, by Theodor
Artmans, from plans of the Italians Tuvara and
Sachetti. It resembles Versailles, but its sur-
rounding scenery is far superior owing to its
background of mountains. An artificial lake
gives water for the fountains and cascades, which
are also more beautiful than those of Versailles.
Most of them were made by order of Philip V's
second wife, Isabel Farnese, in 1727. There are
twenty-six fountains designed by Dumandre,
Procaccini, and Sani. The most remarkable are
"Apollo killing the Python," "Andromeda,"
"Perseus and the Dragon," which latter jets
water thirty-one yards high ; " Basket of Fruit
242

LA GRANJA

LA GRANJA

and Flowers," with forty jets, highest jet twenty
yards. The water-jet of " La Fama " reaches
the height of thirty-five yards, and can be seen
from Segovia. " Diana's Baths " are a wonderful
medley of figures, sprays, and jets.

The fountains play on feast days in summer.
Crowds come to see them, particularly when
members of the royal family are in residence
there, as their Majesties and Court come and
walk among them. It is amusing when certain
of the fountains are suddenly without warning
turned on to their full force, when the spray
gushes right and left, drenching the most eager
of the sightseers, who had elbowed their way
into what they fondly thought the best place.

E. DELANEY

245

SPAIN

Aranjuez

ROYAL PALACE of Aranjuez (Pro-
•*• vince of Madrid), on the banks of the
Tagus and Jarama, was formerly the favourite
spring residence of the Spanish monarchs, and»is
still visited occasionally for short periods by the
King and Queen. The palace was built by
Philip II, as was also the lovely Island Garden
(Jardin de la Isla) in the Tagus, where the
principal scenes of Schiller's drama, " Don
Carlos," are laid. Schiller says, " Die schonen
Tage in Aranjuez sind nun zu Ende" But
although its gayest days seem over, its romantic
beauty remains. The gardens and grounds are
in French style, with clipped box edges, statues,
fountains, and a profusion of roses unequalled in
their beauty and luxuriance. One of the finest
of the fountains is " El Fuente de Hercules,"
246

ARANJUEZ

ARANJUEZ

with the pillars and inscription plus ultra^
and various scenes from the " Labours of Her-
cules." The palace is full of art treasures. The
Porcelain Room, constructed for Carlos III by
the Neapolitan Guiseppe Gricci, in 1763, is a
marvel. The walls are made of the famous
Buen Retiro porcelain, the manufactory of which
no longer exists, as it was destroyed by the
English soldiers when helping the Spaniards
against Napoleon.

The ceiling of the Moorish smoking-room is
copied from the Sala de las dos Hermanas in the
Alhambra.

It was in the Palace of Aranjuez that Carlos IV
was forced to sign his abdication in favour of
Ferdinand VII on the i9th March, 1808.

E. DELANEY

2 I 249

SPAIN

The Magnolia Tree^ *Aranjuez

\ RANJUEZ, the Roman Ara Jovis, is only a
•^ *• short distance from the frontier of La
Mancha, the high road into that province passing
directly through it. " A lovely spot," says George
Borrow, " is Aranjuez. Here the Tagus flows
through a delicious valley, perhaps the most fer-
tile in Spain, and here upsprang a little city with
a small but beautiful palace, shaded by enormous
trees, where Royalty delighted to forget its cares.
Here Ferdinand the Vllth spent his latter days,
surrounded by lovely senoras and Andalusian bull-
fighters." Here was heard the roar of Manchegan
bulls in the spacious circus, the tinkle of guitars
in the cool shaded retreats mingling with the
sound of running water and the songs of innumer-
able birds. Elms, introduced by Philip II from
England, grown in heat and moisture to an
250

THE MAGNOLIA TREE, ARANJUEZ

THE MAGNOLIA TREE, ARANJUEZ

immense size ; mighty cedars, plantains, palms,
oriental trees, pure white magnolias with glossy
dark foliage, magnificent roses, make a com-
bination of sweetness and grandeur seldom to be
found united. As the great heat of summer
advances, the garden is irrigated from the
fountains and river by streams flowing through
all the borders. Camels pass along slowly, baskets
of weeds on their backs, and kneeling down,
their loads are removed, and shot into the rapidly
flowing Tagus. The waters have the wonderful
colour of a river not far from its mountain sources,
and flow with a strong current immediately under
the walls of the palace, which is connected with
the garden by bridges, flanked with statues.

253

PORTUGAL

Necessidades Palace

ISBON is one of the fairest cities of Southern
••— ' Europe, with an incomparable position and
many fine buildings. Here reigned Dom Luiz,
born in 1838, son of Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-
Gotha and Queen Maria II da Gloria, daughter
of Dom Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil. Their son,
Dom Carlos, Due d'Oporto, was literary, artistic,
and a keen sailor ; he had already gone round
the world as captain of the corvette Bartolomeo
Diaz. He was called to the throne in 1861, and
gave himself up to music (astonishing Rossini
by his skill in playing on the 'cello), painting,
literature, astronomy, and mathematics. He
translated the best Shakespearean plays into
Portuguese, contriving to preserve the spirit and
atmosphere of the original text. In 1862 he
married i Maria Pia of Savoy, second daughter of

254

NECESSIDADES PALACE, LISBON

NECESSIDADES PALACE

Victor Emmanuel, aged fifteen. Their son, Dom
Carlos, Due de Braganza, went through a naval
and military course, also studying with the King
the art of ruling, and did not relinquish his work
till he had attained the age of twenty-three. He
was devoted to sport, intellectual, and an artist
whose pictures took a good place among those of
professionals. In May 1 887 he married Princesse
Amelie, eldest daughter of the Comte de Paris,
born in England, and now so well known there
where she has made her home. The wedding
took place with great pomp at Lisbon, the
Necessidades Palace being set apart for the
Orleans family on that occasion. Prince George
(now King George V) represented Queen Victoria.
The wedding carriage was drawn by eight white
mules through a city brilliant with flags and
garlands of flowers. The King, with the Crown
Prince's procession, started from the huge Palais
d'Ajuda. When the latter succeeded to the
Crown, Queen Amelie, attracted by the beauty
of the gardens, induced the King to move to
the Necessidades Palace.

Situated at the western extremity of the town,
this palace had more the air of an aristocratic

2 K 257

NECESSIDADES PALACE

and quiet home than a royal residence. It was,
according to tradition, an ancient convent trans-
formed into a chateau by King John V in 1750.
Its greatest charm was its park, with its fine trees,
and its elegant stone vases from which fresh
waters flowed, filling the air with coolness, and
keeping ever fresh the beautiful parterres of
flowers. Formerly stagnant water surrounded
these gardens, and the fever germs exhaling from
them killed two kings (Jean VI and Pedro V),
who contracted fever. This gave rise to the
strange fantasy of the " Medicis Poison," an
invention of the popular imagination, supposed
to be deadly in its effect and to have been poured
into the cups of the kings. The palace was
sumptuously furnished, and filled with artistic
objects, old furniture of great beauty, jewels, an
argenterie^ marvellous pieces of orfevren'f, and
unique ancient books. These treasures were
greatly appreciated by the Due d'Aumale, who
occasionally was lodged there. Among other
royal guests were the Duke of Edinburgh and
the Due de Montpensier.

RUSSIA

Peterhof

PETERHOF will ever be associated with
Peter the Great, one of the most romantic
figures in history, with faults as colossal and
as undisguised as the great qualities which made
him the creator of modern Russia, and enabled
him to raise his country from a condition of
semi-barbarism to equality with other nations.
He was a genius, and no one could influence
him without first gaining his affection. Peter
was born on May 2oth, 1672, and proclaimed
Tsar at the age of ten years. He took an
extraordinary interest in technical and mechanical
arts, and their application to military science;
mimic warfare being his favourite sport. Prince
Dolgorouki brought back with him to Russia
the first astrolabe ever seen there ; and Peter
was shown how to use it by a Dutchman,

259

PETERHOF

Franz Timmerman, who taught him geometry
and fortification. He also had an absorbing
interest in boats and boating, and having been
told of a wonderful English boat which could
sail against the wind as well as with it, he
never rested till he verified the statement. He
learned fencing and riding from the Dane
Butenant, and paid a visit to Archangel in
July 1693, where he helped to build a ship.
He sang there lustily in the Cathedral choir.
Having been caught in a bad storm, he received
the Sacrament from the Archbishop Athanasius.
To commemorate his escape he carved a large
wooden cross, which he planted on a hill over-
looking the sea, with this inscription in Dutch,
"Skipper Peter made this cross in the year of
Christ, 1694."

It was a Swiss, Fran9ois Lefort, who persuaded
Peter to undertake the expedition against Azov
in 1 695, and to go abroad to complete his educa-
tion. He commanded in person a bombardier
regiment against the Turks at Fort Azov.
His failure led to the beginning of his great
career. He sent to Austria and Prussia for
engineers, sappers, miners, and carpenters, getting
260

THE PALACE, PETERHOF

PETERHOF

a model galley from Holland. Twenty-two
copies were made from it ; twenty-six thousand
labourers working night and day. " We have
finished our task, because, like our father Adam,
we ate our bread in the sweat of our brow,"
said Peter, living in a two-roomed house
among his workmen. He commanded the
" Sea-Caravan " from his galley Principium,
which he made with his own hands. In the
end Azov was captured, the first triumph ever
won by the Muscovites over the Turks, and
a naval station was established there in 1696.

At Koppenburgh the Tsar met Sophia,
Electress of Hanover, and her daughter,
Charlotte of Brandenburg. He travelled by
the Rhine and Amsterdam to Zaandam. At
Utrecht he was introduced to William III. At
Amsterdam, where he spent four and a half
months, he learnt to engrave ; also he built and
launched his first frigate there. He went on from
Holland to England, where he studied naval con-
struction on geometrical principles, working at the
Royal Naval Docks, Deptford. Peter now re-
turned to Russia, and in May 1703 a little wooden
village began to rise up on the northern shore of

263

PETERHOF

the Neva ; Kronstadt being built on the adjacent
island Retusaari, from plans drawn by Peter
himself.

External security produced internal pros-
perity ; and in the year 1700 schools of
mathematics and navigation were established
at Moscow, three Englishmen being the first
teachers. The German pastor Gliick taught
another school, theatrical performances began,
and newspapers were founded. Peter spent
little or nothing on himself, but he sent to Paris,
Konon, Zotok, and Lefort, the son of his old
favourite ; Louis XIV being dead and exhaustion
following the Great Wars, masterpieces could be
obtained at prices far below their value. In 1719
a statue of Venus, unmutilated and recently
excavated, was purchased, also one hundred
thousand planks of the best Venetian walnut
for the Summer Palace, and the "Adam and
Eve," by Bonatsi. The Nevsky Prospect built
in stone, the Admiralty, the Bourse, and Post
Office were gradually completed, converting
Petersburgh into a city.

Catherine's receptions were held at five o'clock
in the gardens of the Summer Palace. She stood
264

THE FOUNTAINS, PETERHOF

2 L

PETERHOF

by one of the fountains, supported by her ladies,
in European costume. Every one drank to every
one else, great polish and civility being displayed.
Peter himself observed extreme military sim-
plicity, bringing to his guests wine and beer in
wooden beakers, and he was waited on by
orderlies. The bands of Preobrazhensky and
Semenovsky played, and dancing went on till
twelve in the open gallery overlooking the Neva,
the evening ending with fireworks.

No other great ruler was so faithfully patient
in the hour of adversity, so gratefully modest in
triumph. Though he was profoundly religious,
yet his rage was cyclonic, his banquets orgies,
his pastimes convulsions. He lived and loved
like one of the giants of old.

He saw what Russia needed and he gave it to
her ; he taught her in the slow, sure way ; not,
except in a few initial cases, by importing
Western officials, but by training natives. He
never lost sight of the idiosyncrasies and
peculiarities of the people he had to govern, or
destroyed anything he was not able to replace
by something better. He had within him a
strain of sublime nobility. To a new Ambassador

267

PETERHOF

he said : " God has set me over you, and it is
my duty to see that I do not give places to
incompetent, or take them away from competent
people. If you are a good man, you will be
doing good, not so much to me as to your
country. For I shall have to give an account of
all of you to God. I shall have to answer for
it before His Judgment Seat if I do harm by
promoting bad and foolish persons. Serve faith-
fully and justly, little brother, and first God, and
then I also, will never forsake you." Peter's
end was characteristic and glorious. Seeing a
boatload of soldiers drowning, he plunged into
the water to save them. The chill contracted
brought on a fatal illness, in which he suffered
agonies. His last words, almost inaudible, were,
" Forgive everything."

New Peterhof was founded by Peter the Great
in 1711. Here wealthy Petersburghers built
summer retreats. Peter built the Imperial
Palace in 1720 from plans by Leblond ; it was
enlarged in 1 746-5 1 by Rostrelli for the Empress
Elizabeth Petrovna, in imitation of Versailles.
The main building is in three stories, connected
with the wings by galleries. The roof is iron
268

THE TSAR'S CHURCH, PETERHOF

PETERHOF

with gilt domes. The Terrace, forty feet in
height, formed by the natural slope of ground
towards Neva Bay, commands a distant view of
the Finnish coast.

A cascade rushes down in two branches over
six wide steps of coloured marble, into a large
basin, in the centre of which rises Samson, a
statue of bronze-gilt by Kozlooski, forcing open
the jaws of a lion from which a jet of water
shoots up to sixty-nine feet ; forty-five gilded
statues, vases and the like, are grouped around
the steps and basin. The space between the
palace and beach, 330 yards in width, is laid
out as a park with paths running through it,
and is skirted by lofty pine trees. Twenty-
two fountains, rising out of marble basins,
eleven on each side, fall into the central canal,
leading to the sea. Military bands play in the
park daily, and when the Court is in residence
the Imperial Orchestra gives concerts three
times weekly. There is a bronze statue of
Francis I on the Petersburgh road. The
Neptune Fountain within the park, executed
by Ritter and Schweiger, Nuremberg, 1652—60,
was acquired by Paul I in 1797. The state

271

PETERHOF

rooms of the palace are on the first floor ; the
Portrait Room contains portraits of girls and
young women from all parts of Russia, painted by
Count Rotari during a journey of Catherine II.
In the Divan Room are portraits of the
Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine. In the
Boudoir Room there is a beautiful Italian
tortoiseshell cabinet. The Standard Room is
decorated with yellow silk, the Guest Chamber
with blue silk, the Cavalier Room with red
silk ; the last contains a portrait of Peter on the
Gulf of Finland, by Dobrovolski.

Eleven of the rooms were occupied by Queen
Olga of Wurtemberg, daughter of the Emperor
Nicholas I. The first and second Chinese rooms
are lacquered in black and gilt. The cabinet of
Nicholas I, in carved oak, contains a mosaic
portrait of Peter, by Jumevitch (1835). The
room of the Maids-of-Honour is in white and
gilt. The room of Peter contains tapestry after
Stenben, with the subject of Peter on Lake
Ladoga. The Saloon of the Guards contains
battle-pieces, and the Merchants' Room is very
large.

The church has five golden cupolas. It was
272

PETERHOF

built by Rastrelli. There is a bronze group by
Bernstaum, representing Peter holding little
King Louis XV in his arms. Marly, sur-
rounded by water, is a small two-storied white
house, built by Peter in 1714 ; a table made by
him, also his bed and dressing-gown, are preserved
here. The kitchen has old Delft tiles.

Near this is Marly Cascade, flowing over
twenty marble steps. The Hermitage, built by
Peter, another small palace, has a table con-
structed to sink to the floor below. On the
way to the Harbour Canal we pass the Lion
and Eve Fountains. The Adam Fountain is to
the east.

Mon Plaisir, built by Peter in the Dutch
style, has a fine view of the sea, and the dome of
St. Isaac's and Kronstadt. Peter's bedroom is
preserved there, with the beautiful old stuffs
upon it, and here, also, is the Dutch kitchen the
Empress Elizabeth used to cook in. There is a
bronze statue of Peter by Autokolski (1883).
In the birchwoods of Alexandra Park is a Swiss
chalet. The English Park, containing the Palais
Anglais by Quarenghi (1789), is of considerable
extent, as it contains the pheasantry and several

2 M 273

PETERHOF

large ponds. In the upper park are the imperial
villas of Babigon (where there are some beautiful
pictures of the French school, and some priceless
Sevres china) and Belvedere, built in the classic
style in the reign of Nicholas I (1856) from
designs by Stakenschneider. East of the lower
park we find Alexandria, including the farm,
the favourite resort of Alexander II. In its own
grounds, guarded by picturesque Cossacks, the
Emperor's bodyguard, is the Imperial Villa,
built in Gothic style by the Empress Alex-
andra Feodorovna ; the summer residence of
Nicholas II, and the beautiful little church of
St. Alexander Nevski, built by Schinkel in
1832. The villa stands almost on the edge of
the sea, and is surrounded by gay flower borders
and beautiful trees. The Empress's Cossacks,
in red and silver, and those of the Tsar, in blue
and silver, pace the drive. The hall-porter is
clad in a scarlet toga reaching to his feet. In
summer the other servants in the palace are
dressed in white. The rooms are lofty, hung
with water-colours, and bright with flowers and
English chintzes. In the outer park, round
the palace of Peterhof, are the houses set apart
274

PETERHOF

for officials and members of the Court, sur-
rounded with flowers, and painted terra-cotta
and white, the former a shade of colour only
used for the Peterhof Palaces. Though some
of these houses are made entirely of wood,
they successfully withstand the bitter winter
cold.

When the Court is in residence the neighbour-
hood of the palace and the park is full of brilliance.
In the hot summer sun of June and July, pro-
longed into the long northern evenings, Cossacks,
sometimes on horseback, pennons on their up-
lifted lances, ride two and two singing Cossack
melodies, round the palace enclosures, or small
bodies march through the grounds clad in their
long cloaks. The officers' uniforms are a blaze of
blue or scarlet, with exquisite silver embroidery.
In the evening ladies in the lightest silken and
gossamer garments, gossamer veils wound round
their hair, droshky drivers with their padded-out
figures, and gay silk rainbow-coloured sleeves,
officers and Court officials in uniform, pass
through the park or meet at the band, all the
fountains playing from 6 till 10 P.M. Close to
the palace, on evenings when the Tsar dines with

275

PETERHOF

his officers, the imperial servants in white silk and
scarlet, and the "black man" who opens the last
door when the Tsarina receives, wander about
among the fountains, being reflected in long streaks
of scarlet and white in the water. The Cossacks
on special duty step silently into their places, the
imperial motor glides up, the Guard turns out,
shouting with inexpressible fervour the Russian
soldier's good wishes, always repeated when a
general is saluted. The Emperor steps out
soldierly, fair, his generals greet him, and they
vanish into the palace.

276

GERMANY

Schloss Friedrichshof^ Cronberg-i.-Taunus

THIS BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY-HOUSE
was built at Cronberg, near Homburg, by
the late Empress Frederick of Germany, eldest
daughter of Queen Victoria, as a residence for
herself after the death of the Emperor Frederick.
The year after the Emperor's death, her Majesty
bought a small villa in Cronberg, and spent the
next six or seven years in transforming it into
one of the finest modern houses in Europe. Its
architectural style is adapted from that which was
characteristic of the dwellings of the wealthy land-
owners of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
in the districts of the Rhine and the Main, but
modern requirements of more light and air have
been provided for by the large mullioned and
bay windows. The small door by the side of
one of these on the first floor leads from the bed-

277

SCHLOSS FRIEDRICHSHOF

room of the late Empress on to a balcony where
she was very fond of standing on fine nights to
look at the expanse of country bathed in moon-
light, which slopes gently down to Frankfort,
whose thousands of lights can be seen sparkling
on the horizon. The interior of Friedrichshof
is a treasure-house of pictures and other works
of art, which the Empress Frederick had been
slowly collecting for many years in view of the
ideal country-house which she had long had in
mind. As is well known, she was an artist of
no mean order, and her cultivated knowledge
and sense of beauty well qualified her for the
task of creating a beautiful home.

M. E. GREEN

278

SCHLOSS FRIEDRICHSHOF

GERMANY

The Rose Garden at Schloss F riedrichshof,
Cronberg-i.- Taunus

ROSE GARDEN at Friedrichshof
-•• was made out of a potato field, and was
designed entirely by the late Empress Frederick
of Germany. The general scheme is that of an
Italian garden. It is on the slope of a hill, and
is laid out in shallow terraces connected by steps
in a centre line, and has a fountain in the middle
of it. The roses fill the beds on each terrace — -
some standards, some low-growing bushes — all
arranged after the English manner.

The Tower seen in the distance is the so-called
Freithurm of the old Castle of Cronberg. The
beginnings of this ancient fortress date, probably,
from the fourteenth century, and the vicissitudes
of its long existence had not only reduced it to
ruins, but degraded it and its surroundings to

2 N 281

THE ROSE GARDEN

many base and unsuitable uses. The Empress
devoted her store of knowledge, as well as much
money and patience, to the restoration of the old
castle to its original condition as far as possible,
collecting and placing in it ancient weapons and
furniture, contemporary with various periods of
its existence ; and this work has been continued
by her daughter and son-in-law, Prince and Prin-
cess Frederick Charles of Hesse, who are the
present owners of the property.

M. E. GREEN

282

THE ROSE GARDEN, FRIEDRICHSHOF

GERMANY

The Palace of Sans Souci ^ Potsdam

EVERYONE HAS HEARD of Sans Souci,
the " Country Cottage" which Frederick the
Great built near Potsdam as a refuge to which
he could retire from the restraint of official life,
and enjoy unfettered intercourse with his friends.
It is a one-storied building designed by the archi-
tect Knobelsdorf, and it stands on an eminence
in what is now the Park of Sans Souci. The
hill below it is cut into terraces which are reached
by flights of steps. The foundation stone of
the palace was laid on April 14, 1745, and
Frederick the Great gave a "House-warming"
to^celebrate its completion on May Day, 1747.
The name, Sans Souci, came by accident.
Frederick had prepared his tomb in the neigh-
bourhood of this new country-house, and one day,
when he was watching the construction of it, he

285

THE PALACE OF SANS SOUCI

remarked to his companion, d'Argenson : "Alors,
je serai sans souci" This remark was repeated,
and, taken in connexion with the evident object
of the " Cottage," the name was used by society
to designate it, so that eventually Frederick
adopted it, and had it inscribed in letters of gold
over the door. Frederick reserved three rooms
for himself, which are still kept much as they
were in his lifetime. In one of these is an alcove
containing the simple iron bedstead on which he
slept. At the other end of the building are the
rooms which were occupied by Voltaire, once
the most intimate and favoured friend of
Frederick the Great, and then, after they had
quarrelled, his bitter and malicious enemy. The
furniture of the sitting-room shows that Frederick
himself was not without spite, for during the
absence of Voltaire he had it covered with
tapestry representing apes, foxes, and peacocks,
which, he said, possessed the leading qualities of

Voltaire's character.

M. E. GREEN

286

THE PALACE, SANS Souci

GERMANY

The Mill of Sans Souci^ Potsdam

NEAR TO THE SITE chosen by Frederick
the Great for his " Country Cottage " of
Sans Souci there stood a flour-mill, which had
been in the possession of its owner and his
forbears for a long period. Frederick wanted
the ground on which it stood to throw into the
gardens of his new residence, and he sent his
agent to buy it from the miller, but the miller
refused to sell his patrimony at any price. " Not
at any price ? " exclaimed the agent, exasperated
by the man's obstinate refusal. " Cannot the
King take it from you for nothing if he chooses ? "
" Why," returned the miller, " are there not
courts in Berlin where we can obtain justice ? "
Frederick was so delighted at the man's confi-
dence in the uprightness of the judges of his
royal courts that he forbore to press him further

2 o 289

THE MILL OF SANS SOUCI

to sell his property, and the mill to this day
stands outside the precincts of Sans Souci.

The tunnel of clipped hornbeam is one of
many that are a special feature in the park of
Sans Souci. Near the New Palace, farther on
in the park, there is a complete arrangement of
these clipped hedges and tunnels, where they
serve as coulisses for an open-air theatre.

The New Palace was built by Frederick the
Great after the Seven Years War — out of
bravado, it was said, to show his enemies that he
had plenty of money left to spend. Another
and more laudable motive is attributed to him
also, namely, that he wanted, by undertaking
extensive building and planting, to give work to
as many as he could of his subjects who had
been brought to destitution by his wars.

M. E. GREEN

290

THE MILL, SANS Souci

GERMANY

The Clock Tower, W^olfsgarten

CLOCK TOWER at Wolfsgarten,
the summer residence of the Grand Duke
of Hesse and his family, is a very pleasant
feature among the different buildings that
enclose the square courtyard, which resembles
a delightful flower garden with its plots of
green lawn, groups of old trees, lovely flower-
beds and borders. In its centre is a very old
and picturesque well to which many a pleasant
legend is attached.

The Clock Tower rises from the middle of
the roof of a long wing that faces the handsome
main building, while to the right and left of it
there run some more wings to complete the
inner square ; these serve for the accommoda-
tion of the children of the house, the visitors,
and the ladies and gentlemen of the suite. At
either end of these wings there are wide gates

293

THE CLOCK TOWER, WOLFSGARTEN

that afford openings into the beautiful meadows
and woods that closely surround the whole of
this princely seat, which is thus kept retired and
private in character.

The Clock Tower is pretty high, and by its
big clock, with a sundial which is right below it,
the whole of the household is regulated. To
the back it faces the lovely rose-garden and
other flower gardens, that are laid out with
great skill and taste. Thus the Clock Tower
overlooks the courtyard, the gardens, the
meadows, and the fine woods, among which
the present Grand Duke, Ernst-Ludwig, and
his sisters, Princess Louis of Battenberg, the
Grand Duchess Serge of Russia, the Empress
Alexandra Feodorowna of Russia, and Princess
Henry of Prussia, spent the happy days of their
youth with their father, the late Grand Duke
Louis IV. It was he who, after Wolfsgarten had
not been much used for many a year, chose it
for a summer residence in 1 879 after the death
of his wife, instead of one of his other country
seats, to which he had generally gone in summer-
time. He did a great deal for the improvement
of the place, which his successor completed.
294

THE CLOCK TOWER, WOLFSGARTEN

GERMANY

The Pond^ Wolfsgarten

\ NOTHER very attractive spot at Wolfs-
•* ^ garten is the pond, which is situated at a
short distance from the Royal Manor. Pleasant
paths approach it, from one of which a fine
bridge leads across the water — a favourite spot
with the Grand Duke and the two young princes,
George and Ludwig, who love feeding the fishes
with which the pond abounds. The surface of
the water is covered with water-lilies and other
plants. A good many seats are placed on the
banks at different points ; from these one has a
charming view across the sheet of water, and
from each it seems as if a special picture unfolded
itself before the eye, so great is the variety of
sight and scene. The enlargement of the pond,
as well as a good many parts of the garden, have
gradually been cut out of the forest, and for some

2 p 297

THE POND, WOLFSGARTEN

bygone summers navvies and other labourers
were to be seen very busily engaged in either
irrigating or draining the meadows so as to con-
duct the water for use or ornament to the house,
and to guide it to different fountains which serve
as a great addition to the extensive grounds. All
these improvements owe their origin to the ideas
of the present owner. His mother the Grand
Duchess, Alice (1843—78), second daughter of
Queen Victoria, was much loved ; her memory
is ever green in the hearts of those who had
the privilege of knowing her ; she never actually
resided at Wolfsgarten, but she frequently visited
it ; she was very fond of Kranichstein, another
summer residence of the Royal Family of Hesse,
and she used to say that the park-like forests there
reminded her vividly of Windsor Forest. It was
only after her early death that the widowed
Grand Duke, Louis IV, chose to live there in
the summer-time, and thus it has developed into
a lovely spot, full of attraction and peace.

298

THE POND, WOLFSGARTEN

BAVARIA

Schloss Nymphenburg

OCHLOSS NYMPHENBURG dates from
^ the year 1668, when the reigning Kurfurst
(Elector of Bavaria), Ferdinand Maria, on the
birth of his eldest son, Max Emanuel, bought
the site as a gift to his consort, Adelaide of
Savoy, that she might have a summer schloss
built according to her taste and fancy. The
building was entrusted to a celebrated Bolognese
architect, Amadeo Castlemonte, and the gardens
were laid out in the stiff French style of the
period. The name, Nymphenburg (Burg of
the Nymphs) was given it by the Kurfiirstin
Adelaide.

After the death of Ferdinand Maria and
Adelaide, their son and successor, Max Emanuel,
made many extensions and improvements in the
schloss and gardens. He added the side wings

301

SCHLOSS NYMPHENBURG

to the middle pavilion finished by his mother,
and built the beautiful little pleasure Schlosser of
Badenburg and Pagodenburg, and the Magdalena
Kapelle. Here in Nymphenburg were cele-
brated with great magnificence the wedding
feasts of his son Carl Albert and the Austrian
Archduchess Maria Amalia, in 1722. Later,
when Carl Albert came to the throne, Nymphen-
burg became his favourite residence. He built
for his wife, who was passionately fond of hunt-
ing, the exquisite little rococo Schloss Amalien-
burg (called after her) as a rendez-vous de chasse.
Her portrait in hunting costume hangs there in
the charming yellow and silver salon.

Many changes were made in the gardens and
grounds in the reign of Kurfurst Max Joseph
(1804). The symmetrical French gardens were
transformed into the more modern park, much
as we see it to-day, with its blooming parterre,
its majestic alleys, and shady woods ; its cascades,
lakes, and graceful fountains.

E. DELANEY

302

SCHLOSS NYMPHENBURG

HOLLAND

Het Loo

T JET LOO, the Queen of Holland's summer
•*• •*• residence, is surrounded by shady woods,
and the park is a thing of joy to those who love
landscape gardening and flowers.

The flower garden is near the palace, and one of
its chief entrances is through a long, rose-covered
berceau^ a very bower of bliss ; at the end a
marble statue of Flora stands, surrounded by her
votaries, pink ramblers twine in garlands near a
little babbling brooklet ; on its banks purple iris
and forget-me-nots thrive ; while white, yellow,
and pink water-lilies lie on a little pond in dreamy
coolness, guarded by bulrushes and water-plants
which stand sentinel all round. Tall, rare trees
(the Sequoias, the Abies glauca, and a fine old
Pseudolarix Kaemferi) form a fitting background
for the glory of bright blossoms which fill the

2 Q 305

HET LOO

air with summer sweetness. Near an old wall
covered with purple clematis, a herbaceous border
charms the eye ; all the homely favourites are
there — gigantic sunflowers, foxgloves, stock roses,
larkspur and sweet lavender. Sweet-peas waft a
fragrant welcome, phlox and heliotrope, clematis,
jessamine and bright-hued tropeolum abound ;
while everywhere the queen of flowers, the rose,
sheds its delicate perfume on the balmy air and
blooms in perfect beauty.

The hothouses are on the north side of the
garden. One is entirely filled with towering palms,
tropical plants and ferns, many of which are used
to decorate the palace on festive occasions.

A euphorbia calls for attention ; its little red
flowers look so innocent, but its thorns warn one
to beware. The juice of the plant is a deadly
poison, and wild tribes of Indians poison their
arrows with it.

The beautiful cereus grandiflora cactus, which
only blossoms one night, is here too ; and round
one of the pillars which support the roof a
bougainvillea twines its purple leaf-flowers. In
the Orchid House there are fine specimens of
Laelia anceps, Cattleya Schroederi, Cattleya
306

THE BERCEAU, HEX Loo

THE PALACE GARDENS, HET Loo

HET LOO

mossiae and Cypripedium ; while an East Indian
plant, the Lycopodium squamosum, is the envy
of all connoisseurs.

When the azaleas are in bloom, fairyland reigns
in the hothouses, and again when the chrysan-
themum blows they are a vision of beauty and
delight.

In another hothouse we find beautifu velvety
gloxinias of rich vivid hues, cinerarias and pink
primula obconica, a charming new variety,
daintier in shade and larger in flower than its
much maligned pale mauve sister.

In midwinter, when the snow lies knee deep
in the woodlands, white and purple lilac, pink
prunus, tulips, hyacinths and daffodils, bloom as
harbingers of the coming spring ; all through
the year one bright blossom succeeds another,
and always there are beauty and fragrance in the
gardens and hothouses of Het Loo.

311

BELGIUM

The Orangery, Laeken

TS IT A VISION of strange and distant lands,
-*• as you stand gazing at the wealth of gorgeous
roses and scent the delicate perfumes gently
wafted towards you ? Such colouring, such a
mass of beauty, of perfect shapes, of wonderful
tints, from the faintest shades to the deeper ones,
and yet all in perfect harmony ! And as your
eyes wander over them, you catch sight of the
wonderful " Tour Chinoise," standing out against
the sky; this is a fancy of King Leopold II. It
adds to the charm and strangeness of that won-
derful garden, of those beautiful flowers. Your
thoughts wander towards visions of the Orient,
of warmth, of glorious sun.

By your side is the great glass " Orangerie,"
quite a feature of Laeken, in which feasts have
often been given. Laeken is full of memories.
312

THE ORANGERY, LAEKEN

2 R

THE ORANGERY, LAEKEN

Along its shady paths, among its perfumes and
its flowers, once walked a young couple, the
Prince of Wales and his bride-to-be, those who
were to become the well-beloved King Edward
VII, and his Queen, Alexandra, Queen indeed of
grace and charm !

Among the guests at that time were also
Queen Victoria and Prince and Princess Christian
of Denmark. In the summer of 1861, Queen
Alexandra, inspired by her surroundings, made
some delightful sketches, remembrances of those
happy days. In September of the same year she
visited the spot again, and shortly after her
engagement was announced. Thought lingers
on all these memories of a happy past, as one
stands alone in the peace and quiet of a waning
day, disturbed only by the twittering of the birds
and the murmur of the bees, and gazes at the
beauty of those ideal roses, gently drooping on
their stems.

COUNTESS MARGUERITE DE KERCHOVE

3'5

BELGIUM

The Covered Way to the Chapel^ Laeken

TS IT FAIRY-LAND or Flower-Land ? The
•*• two kingdoms border on one another, and
you are not quite sure of the one into which
you have penetrated as you step into the won-
derful gardens of Laeken. As you walk through
the different greenhouses you may in your reverie
believe yourself in some tropical climate or in
some new Garden of Eden ! The walls, covered
with geraniums of the richest red and faintest
pink, seem to be draped in soft velvet. If you
follow the long gallery lined by marvellous
colours on either side you find yourself surrounded
with a wealth of chrysanthemums, and further
on discover a carpet of unique colouring formed
by a mass of azaleas. Each plant is a wonder in
itself, and yet you wander on, feasting your eyes
on the glorious tints while the perfume of the
316

>

THE COVERED WAY TO
THE CHAPEL, LAEKEN

COVERED WAY TO THE CHAPEL

thousands of blossoms surrounds you, and you
rest at last under the mighty palm trees listening
to the crystal dropping of the little stream.

COUNTESS MARGUERITE DE KERCHOVE

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