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Title: Romantic castles and palaces
as seen and described by famous writers
Editor: Esther Singleton
Release date: December 5, 2025 [eBook #77405]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Dodd Mead & Company, 1901
Credits: Karin Spence and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROMANTIC CASTLES AND PALACES ***
Romantic Castles and Palaces
BOOKS BY MISS SINGLETON.
_FAMOUS PICTURES, SCENES AND
BUILDINGS DESCRIBED BY
GREAT WRITERS._
TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES.
GREAT PICTURES.
WONDERS OF NATURE.
ROMANTIC CASTLES AND PALACES.
FAMOUS PAINTINGS.
* * * * *
PARIS.
LONDON.
A GUIDE TO THE OPERA.
LOVE IN LITERATURE AND ART.
[Illustration: CONWAY CASTLE, WALES.]
Romantic
Castles and Palaces
As Seen and Described
by Famous Writers
EDITED AND TRANSLATED
BY ESTHER SINGLETON
AUTHOR OF “TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES,” “GREAT PICTURES,”
“WONDERS OF NATURE,” “PARIS,” AND “A GUIDE TO THE OPERA,”
AND TRANSLATOR OF “THE MUSIC DRAMAS OF RICHARD WAGNER”
_With Numerous Illustrations_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1911
_Copyright, 1901_
BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
First edition, published October, 1901.
Preface
In making a selection from the large number of castles and palaces that
might be included, I have endeavoured to choose those that would appeal
equally to the lovers of fine architecture and to the lovers of history
and legend.
There is probably no class of buildings that engages the interest of so
many different minds as the castle. To the architect, such strongholds
as Conway, Warwick, Arundel, Lambeth, Blois, Caernavon, Kronborg,
Windsor, Urbino, Berkeley, Amboise, Loches, etc., etc., are valuable
studies. For example, Conway, half castle, half palace, contains Early
Decorated architecture in Queen Eleanor’s Oratory and fine lancet
windows; the donjon of Arundel dates from the days of King Alfred;
Warwick, one of the few mediæval fortresses that has lasted unchanged
from the time of William the Conqueror to that of King Edward VII.,
shows us what Kenilworth and the other baronial castles of England
were like; the feudal stronghold of Berkeley has also preserved its
ancient appearance through seven centuries; Windsor retains its Norman
Keep and affords a splendid example of the dwelling-place of royalty;
the mediæval fortress of Amboise with its Flamboyant Gothic chapel
displays a wonderful contrast of styles; and at Blois four periods of
architecture may be contemplated side by side. Turning to palaces, it
is sufficient merely to name the Ducal Palace, the Alhambra, Hampton
Court Palace, Fontainebleau, Chenonceaux, Futtehpore-Sikri, and the
Palace of Shah Jehan to recall the wealth that exists in such vast
volumes of art and architecture. The Mikado’s Palace, and the Summer
Palace at Pekin transport us into another and mysterious world,
appealing strongly to our imagination.
The castle was built for defence as well as for a dwelling-place;
the palace, generally speaking, is the abode of monarchs or nobles;
and as both have been the scene of plots, imprisonments, murders,
entertainments, love-making, marriages, births and deaths, their
walls enclose innumerable memories of history and legend. As the most
brilliant displays of human pleasure and the blackest manifestations of
human conduct have occurred in their halls, towers and dungeons, the
phantoms of the most striking characters in history hover amid their
crumbling and ivy-clad stones.
In every castle there are one or two characters, events, or legends
that dominate all the others. For instance, in the Vaults of Kronborg
Holger Danske (Ogier le Danois, beloved of Morgan le Fay) sleeps; but
the better-remembered legend is that of the pale ghost that walks
the platform at Elsinore in the nipping and eager air of midnight.
Glamis is the supposed scene of Macbeth’s murder of Duncan; Warwick is
associated with the legendary Guy, the Wars of the Roses and the great
Earl, the “King-Maker;” Linlithgow is rich in Stuart memories,--it was
the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots; Caernavon was the birthplace of
the first Prince of Wales; Raby was the home of the famous Nevilles;
Harry Hotspur dwelt at Alnwick; the shadow of Louis XI. darkens
Plessis-les-Tours; Wyclif, Stephen Langton and the Lollards cling to
Lambeth; Futtehpore-Sikri recalls the splendours of the great Akbar;
Wolsey dominates Hampton Court Palace; Catherine de’Medici presides
over Chaumont; Charles VII., Joan of Arc and Agnes Sorel may be evoked
at Chinon; Berkeley was the scene of the murder of Edward II.; Agnes
Sorel is again at Loches; François I., Henri IV. and Diane de Poictiers
haunt Fontainebleau; the Riccardi is filled with Medici crimes; the
sombre Vecchio holds memories of the brilliant and wicked Cosmo I.;
and as the entire history of Florence may be read in the walls of the
latter palace, so all the events and phases of Venetian story are
centred in the Ducal Palace. Chenonceaux, “the fairy palace of Armida,”
and Kensington are exceptional in containing no stains of blood. Leigh
Hunt aptly remarks: “Windsor Castle is a place to receive monarchs in;
Buckingham Palace, to see fashions in; Kensington Palace a place to
drink tea in,” exhibiting “the domestic side of royalty.” Its gardens,
however, call up all the fashion, beauty and wit of the Eighteenth
Century.
We may suggest to the lovers of beautiful scenery that the pleasure
they experience is often largely due to the presence of the castle in
the landscape; and we may remind him, what an important feature Turner
made of the castle in his paintings. Sometimes, indeed, he went so far
as to introduce one when his artistic feeling told him that a peak
or crag was incomplete without its embattled towers. What would the
rock of Edinburgh be without “Auld Reekie,” or the parks of Arundel,
Berkeley, or Alnwick without their grey towers seen through vistas
framed in foliage? The Wartburg in the Thuringer Forest, and Stirling
and Conway, surrounded by the mountains of Scotland and Wales, are also
notable examples of the aid of the castle in completing the picturesque
effect of the landscape.
The translations have been made especially for this book; and in order
to give as much continuous history of each building as possible, I have
sometimes been compelled to cut. Otherwise, the essays remain
unchanged.
My thanks are extended to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for their
kind permission to reprint the selections from Hawthorne.
E. S.
NEW YORK, _August, 1901_.
Contents
CONWAY CASTLE 1
GRANT ALLEN.
THE DUCAL PALACE 8
THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 21
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
ARUNDEL CASTLE 32
ALICE MEYNELL.
PALAZZO VECCHIO 41
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
KENSINGTON PALACE 51
LEIGH HUNT.
THE MIKADO’S PALACE 61
PIERRE LOTI.
WARWICK CASTLE 68
LADY WARWICK.
THE ALHAMBRA 78
EDMONDO DE AMICIS.
LAMBETH PALACE 89
JOHN RICHARD GREEN.
CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS 99
JULES LOISELEUR.
FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 105
LOUIS ROUSSELET.
CAERNAVON CASTLE 115
WILLIAM HOWITT.
A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 124
THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
FONTAINEBLEAU 133
GRANT ALLEN.
THE RICCARDI PALACE 143
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
RABY CASTLE 153
WILLIAM HOWITT.
CASTLE DEL MONTE 162
I. EDWARD LEAR.
II. HENRY SWINBURNE.
THE GENERALIFE 169
THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX 174
JULES LOISELEUR.
DUBLIN CASTLE 179
LADY WILDE.
SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES 183
WILLIAM HOWITT.
WHITEHALL PALACE 190
LEIGH HUNT.
THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 199
HORACE MARRYAT.
CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE 210
JULES LOISELEUR.
WINDSOR CASTLE 217
THE MARQUIS OF LORNE.
THE PALACE OF URBINO 226
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
ALNWICK CASTLE 236
CUTHBERT BEDE.
THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 245
J. J. BOURRASSEE.
STIRLING CASTLE 254
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 259
THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 267
J. J. BOURRASSEE.
HAMPTON COURT PALACE 275
ERNEST LAW.
THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 285
BHOLANAUTH CHUNDER.
EDINBURGH CASTLE 295
I. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
II. JAMES NORRIS BREWER.
LAMBTON CASTLE 304
WILLIAM HOWITT.
ARANJUEZ 310
EDMONDO DE AMICIS.
GLAMIS CASTLE 314
LADY GLAMIS.
CHÂTEAU DE CHINON 321
J. J. BOURRASSEE.
THE SUMMER PALACE 329
MAURICE PALEOLOGUE.
BERKELEY CASTLE 337
ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN.
THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 346
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
ROCCA MALATESTIANA 354
CHARLES YRIARTE.
THE WARTBURG 360
L. PUTTICH.
CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE 367
JULES LOISELEUR.
BLARNEY CASTLE 375
MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL.
CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES 380
J. J. BOURRASSEE.
THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM 390
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
Illustrations
CONWAY CASTLE _Wales_ _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
THE DUCAL PALACE _Italy_ 8
PALACE OF LINLITHGOW _Scotland_ 21
ARUNDEL CASTLE _England_ 32
PALAZZO VECCHIO _Italy_ 41
KENSINGTON PALACE _England_ 51
THE MIKADO’S PALACE _Japan_ 61
WARWICK CASTLE _England_ 68
THE ALHAMBRA _Spain_ 78
LAMBETH PALACE _England_ 89
CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS _France_ 99
FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI _India_ 105
CAERNAVON CASTLE _Wales_ 115
WINTER PALACE _Russia_ 124
FONTAINEBLEAU _France_ 133
THE RICCARDI PALACE _Italy_ 143
RABY CASTLE _England_ 153
CASTEL DEL MONTE _Sicily_ 162
THE GENERALIFE _Spain_ 169
CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX _France_ 174
DUBLIN CASTLE _Ireland_ 179
SANS SOUCI _Germany_ 183
WHITEHALL PALACE _England_ 190
THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG _Denmark_ 199
CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE _France_ 210
WINDSOR CASTLE _England_ 217
THE PALACE OF URBINO _Italy_ 226
ALNWICK CASTLE _England_ 236
THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD _France_ 245
STIRLING CASTLE _Scotland_ 254
THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS _Turkey_ 259
PLESSIS-LES-TOURS _France_ 267
HAMPTON COURT PALACE _England_ 275
THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN _India_ 285
EDINBURGH CASTLE _Scotland_ 295
LAMBTON CASTLE _England_ 304
ARANJUEZ _Spain_ 310
GLAMIS CASTLE _Scotland_ 314
CHÂTEAU DE CHINON _France_ 321
THE SUMMER PALACE _China_ 329
BERKELEY CASTLE _England_ 337
THE CASTLE OF CHILLON _Switzerland_ 346
ROCCA MALATESTIANA _Italy_ 354
THE WARTBURG _Germany_ 360
CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE _France_ 367
BLARNEY CASTLE _Ireland_ 375
CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES _France_ 380
THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM _England_ 390
Castles and Palaces
CONWAY CASTLE
GRANT ALLEN
To call the town at the mouth of the Conway plain Conway is as absurd
as if we were to call the town at the mouth of the Tyne plain Tyne
instead of Tynemouth.
By whatever name we call it, however, Conway town itself is equally
interesting and equally beautiful. It still presents perhaps the best
specimen yet remaining in Britain of a mediæval borough, begirt to this
day with its Thirteenth Century walls, and overlooked by the towers of
its strong castle-fortress. Even Telford’s graceful suspension-bridge,
in admirable harmony of tone and plan with the surrounding buildings,
hardly detracts at all from the old-world character of the familiar
scene; nay, I am not sure that it does not even add somewhat to its
picturesqueness. As much cannot be said for the huge iron boxes of
Stephenson’s tubular bridge which carries the London and North-Western
line across the river on its way to Holyhead. But taken as a whole,
the mouth of the Conway, with its town and castle, has hardly an equal
perhaps in Britain, save the mouth of the Dart in the equally Celtic
Devonian uplands.
Yet to the Welshman, the towers of Conway, beautiful as they are from
every point of view, must long have seemed a badge of servitude. We
forget too often in looking at these picturesque relics of the lawless
days how stern and business-like they must once have appeared, how
suggestive of none but purely military and aggressive associations.
Time has softened the murderous effect of keep and bastion, and left us
nothing but the graceful tinge of poetic mediævalism. But when Edward
I. impressed into his service the unpaid labour of the conquered Welsh
to raise his great castles around the disaffected mountain land, he
did it with the distinct and deliberate purpose of holding in check
for the future all wild aspirations of the native race after Cymric
independence. The great triangle formed by the three strong castles of
Harlech, Caernavon, and Conway (like the famous Austrian quadrilateral
in North Italy) was a standing menace to the national movement and an
effectual curb upon the national desire to rise in revolt. The three
proud strongholds occupy the keys to the three chief routes into the
heart of Snowdonia. Harlech blocks the way by the Vale of Festiniog or
the Pass of Aberglaslyn: Caernavon guards the bare ravine of Llanberis:
Conway frowns down upon the Bettws road and stops the coast path by
Penmaenmawr and Bangor. Dominated and daunted by these three imposing
fortresses, so vastly superior in design and construction to the
little tower keeps of her native princelings, the mountain heart of
Gwynedd lay still for centuries, only galvanized for a moment once
into spasmodic life, during the troublous times of civil commotion in
England, by the adventurous spirit of that Deeside chief whose name
Englishmen travesty into Owen Glendower.
Nowhere is the genius of Edward’s great architect, Henry of Elreton,
more conspicuous than in this noble pile at Conway. Half castle,
half palace--for Edward meant to be king as well as conqueror--it
combined the military solidity of Anglo-Norman work with the domestic
magnificence of later Tudor mansions. Its great hall, in particular,
must have formed, when perfect, one of the most regal and splendid
reception rooms then existing in any part of England. The remaining
lancet windows of the royal private apartments, and the beautiful
early-decorated workmanship of Queen Eleanor’s oratory, survive to show
with what royal state Edward kept his court both here and at Caernavon.
For it is quite a mistake to regard the greatest of Plantagenets
as a mere savage conqueror--the “ruthless king” of Gray’s immortal
calumny. If Edward repressed sternly, he meant to reign peacefully.
The “massacre of the bards” and all the other poetical rubbish with
which Welsh legend has clouded the history of the national defeat, must
be relegated to the limbo of exploded fable. The plain truth is that,
when once Llewelyn and Dafydd were dead, Edward’s whole policy in the
Welsh question was a policy of conciliation. His object was to pacify
and Anglicize the disaffected uplands, to make communications safe
through what had once been the stronghold of Taffy, that typical robber
outlaw, and to reorganize the broken Celtic community on the familiar
model of the English kingdom. It was not in mere play, therefore,
that he presented to the Welsh his own eldest son, born by deliberate
arrangement an indigenous Welshman in Caernavon Castle, as the first
Prince of Wales of a new and more powerful line, or that he built and
decorated those great royal reception rooms in his Cambrian palaces,
where the chieftains of Gwynedd and the rude lords of Anglesey might
for the first time see and be duly impressed by the splendour and the
glitter of Anglo-Norman chivalry.
Viewed from this wider standpoint, the beautiful chain-bridge and the
ugly boxes of Stephenson’s iron monstrosity are themselves in a certain
sort the direct heirs and truest modern representatives of Edward’s
wise and necessary policy. So seen, they cease to interfere with the
unity of the view and merge into one with the great Plantagenet design
of the palace-castle. For both these important works, with their still
vaster and more wonderful sister-bridges over the Menai at Bangor,
form to this day the outer and visible sign of that coalescence of the
Celtic and Teutonic elements in Britain to which Edward devoted all
his life and energy. The first great roads made by the first great
road-makers in England were the roads that connected London, the centre
of the empire, with the Irish packets at Holyhead; and both those
roads, whether coastwise or internal, by Glan Ogwen or Penmaenmawr,
led through the wildest parts of Wild Wales. The greatest life task
of the greatest engineer before the railway period--Telford--was the
Holyhead road: the greatest life task of the inventor of the locomotive
and his still abler sons--George and Robert Stephenson--was the iron
line from London to Holyhead. In these gigantic undertakings, Celt and
Saxon were united for all, and the better day of fraternal friendship
was inaugurated in full sight of Edward’s threatening castle towers.
Dr. Arnold loved to look at the railway engine, snorting steam across
the midland acres, and think that feudalism was dead forever. It is
pleasant in like manner to look even at Stephenson’s hideous tubular
bridge, and think, that ill as it contrasts in beauty with the
Plantagenet turrets, it is nevertheless the symbol of that complete
fellowship between Saxon and Celt in this land of Britain which forms
the final goal and ideal of our national unity.
The vale of Conway does not stop abruptly at Conway town; it prolongs
itself seaward by gentle degrees far into the shallow waters of
Beaumaris Bay. On either side lie the wide tidal sandbanks, formed of
material which the river has washed down from the peaks of Snowdon,
Glyder, and the Carnedds, the very source from which they are derived
being often traceable in the mineralogical peculiarities of the
individual grains. About these sands the weird and melancholy Celtic
fancy has woven a variation on the common mournful Celtic legend of
the submerged country--the legend which meets us again under a hundred
disguises in the story of Sythenin Cardigan Bay, the floods of Sarn
Badrig, the lost land of Lyonesse, and the sunken city of Is on the
coasts of Brittany.
Wherever the Cymric Celt remains, there these stories survive and
accompany him. Perhaps they may inclose some true kernel of tradition
about the terrific submergence which undoubtedly once took place round
the coasts of the two Britains--the greater and the less--at the
period when the forest-bed of post-glacial date was swallowed up by
the devouring Atlantic. It seemed more probable, however, and it is
certainly far more comforting to believe that the vast earth-movement
took place so quietly, and was spread over so many peaceful centuries,
that it was no more recognized by the men who lived during its gradual
progress than the slow and gradual submergence of Scandinavia--an inch
at a time--is noticed in our own day by the Norwegian peasant. Rather
do these stories reflect and embody the gloomy fancy of a conquered
people, whose traditions of glory all referred to a remote and unreal
past, and who felt in their despair that the very elements themselves
had wrested from them those fertile lands which their fathers had never
really owned or cultivated.
Be this as it may, local legend declares that the Lavan sands--the
very name in Welsh means Banks of Lamentation--represent the relics
of a rich lowland hundred, engulfed by the sea at one wild swoop in
the early part of the Middle Ages. About a fathom deep, off Y Foel
Llus, lies a submarine bank still known as Llys Helig, or Helig’s
Palace. Here, according to tradition, stood the lofty castle of the
Cymric lord who owned for miles around the fertile plain; and Welsh
imagination still sees at low tide through the clear water of the bay
the boundary stones of the ancient road that passed from the British
stronghold at Rhuddlan to the fortress of Treganwy, now equally
overwhelmed beneath the sands of Beaumaris. It is a little unfortunate
for the truth of the tale that similar evidences of historical verity
are always produced in favour of Caer Is and all the other Celtic
buried cities--and that no Saxon eye has ever clearly beheld them.
THE DUCAL PALACE
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
The Ducal Palace as we see it to-day dates from Marino Faliero and is
the successor of an older one begun in 809 under Angelo Participazio
and carried on by the different Doges. It was Marino Faliero who caused
the two façades on the Mole and the Piazzetta to be built in 1355 as
they now are. This construction brought happiness neither to him who
ordered nor to the architect: the former was decapitated and the latter
hanged.
Into this strange edifice,--at once a palace, senate, tribunal and
prison under the government of the Republic,--we enter by a charming
door in St. Mark’s corner, between the pillars of St. John of Acre and
the great, thick column supporting the entire weight of the immense
white and rose marble wall that gives such an original aspect to the
ancient palace of the Doges.
[Illustration: THE DUCAL PALACE]
This door, called Della Carta, is in charming architectural taste,
adorned with little columns, trefoils and statues, without counting
the inevitable, indispensable winged lion of St. Mark, and leads into
the great interior court by a vaulted passage. This somewhat singular
arrangement of an entrance so to speak placed without the edifice to
which it leads has the advantage of not interfering in any way with
the unity of its façades, which are not broken by any projection except
that of their monumental windows.
Before passing under the arcade, let us glance over the exterior of
the palace to note a few of its interesting details. Above the thick
and robust column of which we have just spoken, there is a bas-relief
of savage aspect representing the _Judgment of Solomon_, with
mediæval costume and a certain barbarity of execution that renders it
hard to recognize the subject. This bas-relief opens into the long
twisted little columns that cordon each angle of the building.
On the façade of the Piazzetta, up on the second gallery, two columns
of red marble mark the place whence the death sentences were read,--a
custom that still exists to-day. All the capitals are in exquisite
taste and inexhaustible variety. Not one is a repetition. They contain
chimæræ, children, angels, fantastic animals, and sometimes Biblical or
historical subjects, mingled with foliage, acanthus, fruits and flowers
that forcibly show up the poverty of invention of our modern artists:
several bear half effaced inscriptions in Gothic characters, which in
order to be fluently read would require a skilful paleographer. There
are twenty-seven arcades on the Mole and eighteen on the Piazzetta.
The Porta della Carta leads you to the Giant’s Staircase, which is not
itself gigantic, but takes its name from the two colossi of Neptune
and Mars, a dozen feet in height, by Sansovino, standing on pedestals
at the top of the flight. This staircase, leading from the courtyard
to the second gallery that decks the interior as well as the exterior
of the palace, was raised during the dogedom of Agostino Barbarigo
by Antonio Rizzio. It is of white marble, decorated by Domenico and
Bernardo of Mantua with arabesques and trophies in very slight relief,
but of such perfection as to be the despair of all the ornamenters,
carvers and engravers in the world. It is no longer architecture, but
goldsmith’s work, such as Benvenuto Cellini and Vechte alone could
produce. Every morsel of this open balustrade is a world of invention;
the weapons and casques of every bas-relief, each one different, are of
the rarest fancy and the purest style; even the slabs of the steps are
ornamented with exquisite _niello_, and yet who knows anything of
Domenico and Bernardo of Mantua? The memory of mankind, already wearied
with a hundred illustrious names, refuses to retain any more, and
consigns to oblivion names that are deserving of all glory.
If we turn around on reaching the head of this staircase, we see the
inner side of the doorway of Bartolomeo, flowered over with volutes and
plated with little columns and statues, with remnants of blue painting
starred with gold in the tympanums of the arch. Among the statues, one
in particular is very remarkable: it is an Eve by Antonio Rizzio of
Verona, carved in 1471. The other side, facing the Wells, was built
in 1607 in the style of the Renaissance, with columns and niches full
of antique statues from Greece, representing warriors, orators, and
divinities. A clock and a statue of the Duke Urbino, carved by Gio
Bandini of Florence in 1625, complete this severe and classic front.
Letting your glance fall towards the middle of the court, you see
what look like magnificent bronze altars. They are the mouths of the
cisterns of Nicolo de’ Conti and Francesco Alberghetti. The first dates
from 1556, the second from 1559. Both are masterpieces. Besides the
obligatory accompaniment of griffins, sirens, and chimæræ, various
aquatic subjects taken from the Scriptures are represented in them. One
could not imagine such richness of invention, such exquisite taste,
such perfection of carving, nor such finished work as is displayed by
the kerbs of these wells enriched with the polish and verdigris of
time. Even the inside of the mouth is plated with thin sheets of bronze
branched with a damascene of arabesques. These two wells are said to
contain the best water in Venice.
Near the Giant’s Staircase is an inscription framed with ornaments
and figures by Alessandro Vittoria recalling the passage of Henry
III. through Venice; and farther on in the gallery at the approach to
the golden staircase are two statues by Antonio Aspetti,--Hercules
and Atlas bending beneath the starry firmament, the weight of which
the mighty hero is about to transfer to his own bull-neck. This
magnificent staircase, adorned with stuccos by Vittoria and paintings
by Giambatista, is by Sansovino, and leads to the library which now
occupies several rooms of the Palace of the Doges. To attempt to
describe them one by one would be a work of patience and erudition that
would require a whole volume.
The old hall of the Grand Council is one of the largest you could find
anywhere. The Court of Lions at the Alhambra would easily go inside it.
On entering, you stand still, struck with astonishment. By an effect
that is somewhat frequently found in architecture, this hall looks
much larger than the building that contains it. A sombre and severe
wainscoting, where bookcases have taken the place of the seats of the
old senators, serves as a plinth for immense paintings that extend all
around the walls, broken only by windows, below a line of portraits of
the Doges and a colossal gilded ceiling of incredible exuberance of
ornamentation, with great compartments, square, octagonal and oval,
with foliage, volutes, and rock-work in a taste scarcely appropriate
to the style of the palace, but so imposing and magnificent that you
are quite dazzled by it. Unfortunately, the pictures by Paul Veronese,
Tintoret, Palma the Younger, and other great masters, that filled these
superb frames have now been removed on account of indispensable repairs.
That side of the hall by which you enter is entirely occupied by
a gigantic _Paradise_ by Tintoret, which contains a world of
figures. It is a strong painting and it is a pity that time has so
greatly darkened it. The smoky shadows that cover it belong to a Hell
rather than to a Glory. Behind this canvas, a fact that we have not
been in a position to verify, it is said that there is an ancient
_Paradise_ painted in green camaïeu upon the wall by Guariento of
Padua in 1365. It would be curious to be able to compare this green
_Paradise_ with the black one. It is only Venice that has one
depth of painting below another.
This hall is a kind of Versailles museum of Venetian history, with
the difference that if the exploits are not so great, the painting
is far better. It is impossible to imagine a more wonderful effect
than is produced by this immense hall entirely covered by these
pompous paintings that excel in the Venetian genius. Above these great
historical scenes, is a row of portraits of the Doges by Tintoret,
Bassano, and other painters; as a rule, they have a smoky and bearded
appearance, although, contrary to the impression we form, they have no
beards. In one corner the eye is arrested at an empty and black frame
that makes a hole as dark as a tomb in this chronological gallery. It
is the space that should be occupied by the portrait of Marino Faliero,
as told by this inscription: _Locus Marini Phaletri, decapitati pro
criminibus_. All the effigies of Marino Faliero were also destroyed,
so that his portrait may be said to be undiscoverable. However, it is
pretended that there is one in the possession of an amateur at Verona.
The republic wanted to destroy the memory of this haughty old man who
brought it within an inch of ruin in revenge for a youth’s jest that
was sufficiently punished by a few months’ imprisonment. To finish with
Marino Faliero, let us note that he was not beheaded at the head of
the Giant’s Staircase, as is represented in several prints, since that
stairway was not built till a hundred and fifty years later, but in
the opposite corner at the other end of the gallery, upon the top of a
flight of steps since demolished.
We will now name the most celebrated chambers of the palace without
pretending to describe them in detail. In the chamber _dei
Scarlatti_, the chimney-piece is covered with marble reliefs of
the finest workmanship. On the impost also is seen a very curious
bas-relief in marble representing the Doge Loredan on his knees before
the Virgin and Child, accompanied by several saints,--an admirable
piece of work by an unknown artist. The Hall of the Shield: here the
arms of the living Doge were emblazoned. It is hung with geographical
charts by the Abbé Grisellini that trace the discoveries of Marco
Polo, so long treated as fabulous, and of other illustrious Venetian
travellers, such as Zeni and Cabota. Here also is kept a globe, found
on a Turkish galley, engraved upon wood and of strange configuration
being in accordance with Oriental ideas and covered with Arabic
characters cut with marvellous delicacy; also a great bird’s-eye view
of Venice by Albrecht Dürer, who made a long stay in the city of the
Doges. The aspect of the city is generally the same as to-day, since
for three centuries one stone has not been laid upon another in the
Italian cities.
In the Hall of the Philosophers, a very beautiful chimney-piece by
Pierre Lombard is to be noticed. The Hall of Stuccos, so called because
of its ornamentation, contains paintings by Salviati, Pordenone, and
Bassano: the _Virgin_, a _Descent from the Cross_, and the
_Nativity of Jesus Christ_. The banquet-hall is where the Doge
used to give certain feasts of etiquette,--diplomatic dinners, as we
should say to-day. Here we see a portrait of Henry III. by Tintoret,
very strong and very fine; and facing the door is the _Adoration
of the Magi_, a warm painting by Bonifazio, that great master of
whose work we possess scarcely anything in Paris. The Hall of the Four
Doors has a square anteroom, the ceiling of which, painted by Tintoret,
represents Justice giving the sword and scales to the Doge Priuli. The
four doors are adorned with statues of grand form by Guilio del Moro,
Francesco Caselli, Girolamo Campagna, and Alessandro Vittoria; the
paintings that enrich the room are masterpieces.
From this hall let us pass into the Anti-Collegio; it is the
waiting-room of the ambassadors, the architecture being by Scamozzi.
The envoys of the various powers who came to present their credentials
to the Most Serene Republic could scarcely have been in a hurry to
be introduced: the masterpieces crowded with such lavishness into
this splendid anteroom would induce anyone to be patient. The four
pictures near the door are by Tintoret, and among his best. These are
the subjects: _Mercury and the Graces_; _Vulcan’s Forge_;
_Pallas, accompanied by Joy and Abundance, chasing Mars_; and
_Ariadne consoled by Bacchus_. Apart from a few rather forced
foreshortenings and a few violent attitudes in which this master took
pleasure on account of their difficulty, we can do nothing but praise
the virile energy of touch, the warmth of colour, the truth of the
flesh, the lifelike power and that forceful and charming grace that
distinguishes mighty talents when they have to render sweet and gentle
subjects.
But the marvel of this sanctuary of art is the _Rape of Europa_,
by Paul Veronese. What lovely white shoulders! what blonde curling
tresses! what round and charming arms! what smiles of eternal youth
in this wonderful canvas in which Paul Veronese seems to have spoken
his final word! Sky, clouds, trees, flowers, meadows, seas, tints,
draperies, all seem bathed in the glow of an unknown Elysium. If we
had to choose one single example of all Paul Veronese’s work, this is
the one we should prefer: it is the most beautiful pearl in this rich
casket.
On the ceiling the great artist has seated his dear Venice on a golden
throne with that amplitude of drapery and that abundant grace of which
he possesses the secret. For this _Assumption_, in which Venice
takes the place of the Virgin, he always knows how to find fresh blues
and new radiance.
The magnificent chimney-piece by Aspetti, a stucco cornice by
Vittoria and Bombarda, blue camaïeu by Sebastian Rizzi and columns
of _verde antique_ and Cipolin marble framing the door complete
this marvellous decoration in which shines the most beautiful of all
luxuries,--that of genius.
The reception-hall, or the Collegio, comes next. Here we find
Tintoret and Paul Veronese, the former red and violent, the other
azure and calm; the first, suited to great expanses of wall, the
second, for immense ceilings. We will not speak of the camaïeu, the
_grisailles_, the columns of _verde antique_, the little
arches of flowered jasper and sculptures by G. Campagna: we should
never finish; and those are the ordinary sumptuous details in the
Palace of the Doges.
There are many other admirable rooms in the Ducal Palace that we
have not mentioned. The Hall of the Council of Ten, the Hall of the
Supreme Council, the Hall of the State Inquisitors, and many others.
Upon their walls and ceilings sit side by side the apotheosis of
Venice and the Assumption of the Virgin; the Doges on their knees
before some Madonna or other; and mythological heroes or fabulous
gods; the Lion of St. Mark and Jupiter’s Eagle; the Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa and a Neptune; Pope Alexander III. and a short-kilted
Allegory. Mix up stories from the Bible and holy Virgins beneath
baldaquins, captures of Zara embroidered with more numerous episodes
than one of Ariosto’s songs, and surprises of Candia with jumbles of
Turks; carve the door-cases; cover the cornices with mouldings and
stucco; set up statues in every corner; lay gold upon everything that
is not covered by the brush of a superior artist; say: “All those who
have laboured here, even the obscure, had twenty times as much talent
as our celebrities of the present day; and the greatest masters have
employed their lives here;” and then you will have a feeble idea
of all this magnificence that defies description. Painters, whose
names are not uttered once a century, here hold their place in most
terrible proximities. You would say that genius was in the air at that
climacteric epoch of human progress and that nothing was easier than
to produce masterpieces. The sculptors especially, of whom no one
ever speaks, display an extraordinary talent and are not in the least
inferior to the greatest painters.
Close to the door of one of these rooms we still see, though robbed of
all its prestige of terror, and reduced to the condition of an unused
letter-box, the ancient Lion’s Mouth to which the informers came to
cast in their denunciations. Nothing remains now but a hole in the
wall: the jaw has been removed. A sombre corridor leads you to the Hall
of the State Inquisitors, to the Leads, and to the Wells that have
served as a text for an infinity of sentimental declamation. Certainly
there are no beautiful prisons; but the truth is that the Leads were
large chambers covered with lead, a material with which the roofs
of most of the edifices of Venice are covered and which has nothing
particularly cruel about it; and that the Wells were not below the
level of the lagoon. We visited two or three of these cells. Covered
with wood on the inside, they had a low door and a little opening
facing the lamp fixed to the roof of the passage. A wooden camp-bed
occupied one of the corners.
It was black and stifling, but without any melodramatic accessories.
Upon the walls are decipherable several of those inscriptions that
prison weariness engraves with a nail upon the wall of the tomb:
signatures, dates, short sentences from the Bible, philosophical
reflections appropriate to the spot, a timid sigh for liberty,
sometimes the cause of the imprisonment, such as the inscription in
which a captive says that he has been incarcerated for sacrilege. At
the entrance to a corridor they showed us a stone seat on which those
who were secretly executed in the prison were made to sit. A slender
cord cast around the neck and twisted like a garotte strangled them
in the Turkish manner. These clandestine executions were only for
state prisoners convicted of political crimes. The deed being done,
the corpse was bundled into a gondola through a door opening on to the
Canal della Paglia and it was taken away to be sunk with a cannon-ball
or stone at the feet in the Orfanello Canal which is very deep and
where fishermen are forbidden to cast their nets.
Vulgar assassins are executed between the two columns at the entrance
of the Piazzetta. The Bridge of Sighs, which seen from the Paille
Bridge, looks like a cenotaph suspended over the water, has nothing
remarkable inside: it is a double corridor divided by a wall which
serves as a covered way from the Ducal Palace to the Prison, the severe
and solid edifice built by Antonio da Ponte, and situated on the other
side of the Canal facing the lateral façade of the Palace which is
supposed to have been built from the plans of Antonio Riccio. The name
of the Bridge of Sighs, given to that tomb that connects two prisons,
probably comes from the lamentations of the unfortunates going from
their cell to the tribunal and back again, broken by torture, or in
despair after condemnation. In the evening this Canal, squeezed between
the high walls of the two sombre edifices and illumined by some rare
gleam, has a very sinister and mysterious aspect, and the gondolas that
glide along there bearing some handsome pair of lovers going to get a
little fresh air on the lagoon, look as if they have a burden for the
Orfanello Canal.
We have also visited the ancient apartments of the Doge; nothing
remains of their primitive magnificence except a highly ornamental
ceiling divided into gilded and painted hexagonal compartments. In
these spaces, shielded by foliage and rosebushes, was an invisible hole
through which the State Inquisitors and the members of the Council of
Ten could spy upon what the Doge was doing at all hours of the day and
of the night. The walls, not content with listening by an ear, like the
prison of Denys the Tyrant, watched with an ever open eye, and the Doge
who had conquered at Zara or at Candia heard, like Angelo, “steps in
his walls” and felt a mysterious and jealous watch all about him.
PALACE OF LINLITHGOW
SIR WALTER SCOTT
Linlithgow, distinguished by the combined strength and beauty of its
situation, must have been early selected as a royal residence. David,
who bought the title of Saint by his liberality to the church, refers
several of his characters to his town of Linlithgow, and in that of
Holy Rood expressly bestows on the new monastery all the skins of the
rams, ewes, and lambs belonging to his Castle of Linlitcu which shall
die during the year.
The convenience afforded for the sport of falconry, which was so
great a favourite during the feudal ages, was probably one cause of
an attachment of the ancient Scottish monarchs to Linlithgow, and
its fine lake. The sport of hunting was also followed with success
in the neighbourhood, from which circumstance it probably arises
that the ancient arms of the city represent a black greyhound-bitch
tied to a tree. Tradition, however, ascribes other causes for this
remarkable emblem, but is, as usual, rather inconsistent in accounting
for it otherwise. One legend says simply, that such a hound was found
so tied on the small island on the east side of the loch. Another
tradition hints at a witch who used to assume this shape. A third more
ungallantly adopts a metaphorical meaning, and affirms that a mistress
of one of the kings was designated under this hieroglyphic. A Celt,
according to Chalmers, might plausibly derive the name of Linlithgow
from _Lin-liath-cu_, the Lake of the Greyhound. Chalmers himself, seems
to prefer the Gothic derivation of _Lin-lyth-gow_, or the Lake of the
Great Vale. _Non nostrum est._
[Illustration: PALACE OF LINLITHGOW, SCOTLAND.]
The Castle of Linlithgow is only mentioned as being a peel (a pile,
that is, an embattled tower surrounded by an outwork). In 1300 it was
rebuilt or repaired by Edward I., and used as one of the citadels by
which he hoped to maintain his usurped dominion in Scotland. It is
described by Barbour as “meihle and stark and stuffed weel.” Piers
Luband, a Gascoigne knight, was appointed the keeper, and appears to
have remained there until the autumn of 1313, when the Scots recovered
the Castle under the following interesting circumstances:--
There was, says our authority, Barbour, dwelling in the neighbourhood
of Linlithgow, a stout-hearted husbandman, named William Binnock,
who, observing that the Scots were on every hand recovering from the
English the castles and fortresses which the invaders possessed within
Scotland, could not brook that the peel in his vicinity, which was
large, strong, and well supplied with arms and garrisons, should remain
unassailed. He formed a stratagem, equally remarkable for ingenuity and
audacity. The garrison was usually supplied by Binnock with hay, and
they had lately required from him a fresh supply. He assured them of
the excellence of the forage, and undertook to send it in early in the
morning. But the hay was so arranged on the wain as to conceal eight
well-armed and determined men; the team was driven by a sturdy peasant,
who bore a sharp axe under his gaberdion. Binnock himself walked beside
the waggon, to superintend, as it seemed, the safe delivery of the
forage. The porter, on approach of Binnock, with his well-known wain,
lowered the drawbridge and raised the portcullis. Just at the very
gateway, the driver, as he had been instructed, drew his axe suddenly
and cut asunder the soam, or tackle, by which the oxen were attached
to the waggon. Binnock at the same instant struck the warder dead, and
shouted the signal word, which was “Call all, call all.” The assailants
jumped from amongst the hay, and attacked the astonished garrison.
The wain was so placed that neither could the gate be shut nor the
portcullis lowered, nor the bridge raised, and a party of Scots, who
were in ambush for the purpose, rushed in to second their forlorn hope,
and were soon masters of the place.
Bruce, faithful to his usual policy, caused the peel of Linlithgow to
be dismantled, and worthily rewarded William Binnock, who had behaved
with such gallantry on the occasion. From this bold yeoman the Binnies
of West Lothian are proud to trace their descent; and most, if not all
of them, bear in their arms something connected with the waggon, which
was the instrument of his stratagem.
When times of comparative peace returned, Linlithgow again became the
occasional residence of the sovereign. In 1411 the town was burned
by accident, and in 1414 was again subjected to the same calamity,
together with the Church and Palace of the King, as is expressly
mentioned by Bower.
The present Church, which is a fine specimen of Gothic architecture,
having a steeple surmounted by an imperial crown, was probably erected
soon after that calamity.
The Palace arose from its ashes with greater splendour than before; for
the family of Stuart, unhappy in so many respects, were all of them
fortunate in their taste for the fine arts, and particularly for that
of architecture. The Lordship of Linlithgow was settled as a dowry upon
Mary of Gueldres in 1449, and again upon Margaret of Denmark in 1468.
James the Fourth, as splendid a gallant, seems to have founded the most
magnificent part of Linlithgow Palace; together with the noble entrance
betwixt two flanking towers bearing on rich entablatures the royal arms
of Scotland, with the collar of the Order of the Thistle, Garter, and
Saint Michael.
James IV., also erected in the Church a throne for himself, and twelve
stalls for Knights Companions of the Thistle. It was sitting here, in
the time of public worship, and musing, perhaps, on his approaching
invasion of England, that he received a singular advice from a singular
personage, which we cannot express better than in the words of
Pitscottie:--
“At this time the King visited Linlithgow, where he was at the Council,
very sad and dolorous, making his prayers to God to send him a good
success in his voyage. And there came a man clad in a blue gown, belted
about him with a roll of lining, and a pair of _brottikines_ on
his feet, and all other things conform thereto. But he had nothing on
his head but side hair to his shoulders, and bald before. He seemed
to be a man of fifty years, and came fast forwards, crying among the
lords, and specially for the King, saying, that he desired to speak
with him; while at the last he came to the desk where the King was at
prayers. But when he saw the King, he gave him no due reverence nor
salutation, but leaned him down gruffly upon the desk, and said, ‘Sir
King, my mother has sent me to thee, desiring thee not to go where
thou art purposed, which if thou do, thou shalt not fare well in thy
journey, nor none that is with thee. Farther, she forbade thee, not
to mell nor use the counsel of women, which if thou do, thou wilt be
confounded and brought to shame.’ By [_the time_] this man had
spoken these words to the King, the even-song was near done, and the
King paused on these words, studying to him an answer. But in the
meantime, before the King’s eyes, and in presence of the whole lords
that were about him for the time, this man evanished away, and could no
more be seen. I heard Sir David Lindsay, Lyon-herald, and John Inglis,
the Marishall, who were at that time young men and special servants to
the King’s grace, thought to have taken this man, but they could not,
that they might have speired [_asked_] further tidings at him, but
they could not touch him.”
Buchanan confirms this strange story on the word of a spectator,
Sir David Lindsay, whose testimony he describes as unimpeachable.
Thus supported, we have only to choose betwixt a deception and
a supernatural appearance. The temper of James was one of those
described by the poet as being “of imagination all compact.” He was
amorous, devotional, and chivalrous. This renders it highly probable
that the simulated vision was contrived by some of the numerous party
who advised a continuance of peace with England, and who might be of
opinion that counsels conveyed in this mysterious manner might have
some effect on the romantic spirit of the King. It is usually supposed
that the vision was intended to represent Saint Andrew; but the use
of the words, “my mother,” seem rather to imply the Apostle John, who
indicated by that term the Virgin Mary.
The death of James IV. and rout of his army clouded for many a day the
glory of Scotland, and marred the mirth of her palaces.
James V. was much attached to Linlithgow, and added to the Palace
both the Chapel and Parliament Hall, the last of which is peculiarly
striking. So that when he brought his bride Mary of Guise there, amid
the festivities which accompanied their wedding, she might have more
reasons than mere complaisance for highly commending the edifice, and
saying that she never saw a more princely palace. It was long her
residence, and that of her royal husband, at Linlithgow. Mary was born
there in an apartment still shown; and the ill-fated father dying
within a few days of that event, left the ominous diadem which he wore
to the still more unfortunate infant.
It is remarkable that during this reign there was acted at Linlithgow,
in presence of the King, Queen, and whole court, and, so far as
appears, with great applause, a play, or theatrical presentation, by
Sir David Lindsay, called the _Satire of the Three Estates_, in
which much coarse and indelicate farce and buffoonery is intermixed
with the most pointed censure upon the affairs both of church and
state. The comic mummery was undoubtedly thrown in with the purpose
of Rabelais, to mitigate the edge of the satire, by representing the
whole as matter of idle and extravagant mirth. But when the serious
and direct tenor of the piece is considered, no one can doubt that the
Prince before whom it was acted, and by whom it seems to have been well
received, meditated reforms both in church and state, however diverted
from them by the arts of the churchmen.
In the subsequent reign of Queen Mary, Linlithgow was the scene of
several remarkable events; the most interesting of which was the
assassination of the Regent Murray by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. This
James VI. loved the royal residence of Linlithgow, and completed the
original plan of the Palace, closing the great square by a stately
range of apartments of great architectural beauty. He also made a
magnificent fountain in the Palace-yard, now ruinous, as are all the
buildings around. Another grotesque Gothic fountain adorns the street
of the town, which, with the number of fine springs, leads to the
popular rhyme:
_Linlithgow for wells,
Stirling for bells._
Among the attendants of James the Sixth was a distinguished personage
of a class which may be found in most places of public resort. This was
the celebrated Rob Gibb, the king’s fool or jester. Fool as he was,
Rob Gibb seems to have understood his own interest. Upon one occasion
it pleased his sapient Majesty King Jamie to instal Rob in his own
royal chair, the sport being to see how he would demean himself as
sovereign. The courtiers entered into the king’s humour, overwhelming
Rob Gibb with petitions for places, pensions, and benefices, not sorry
perhaps to have an opportunity of hinting, in the presence of the real
sovereign, secret hopes and wishes, which they might have no other
opportunity of expressing. But Rob Gibb sternly repelled the whole
supplicants together, as a set of unmercifully greedy sycophants, who
followed their worthy king only to see what they could make of him.
“Get ye hence, ye covetous selfish loons,” he exclaimed, “and bring to
me my own dear and trusty servant, Rob Gibb, that I may honour the only
one of my court who serves me for stark love and kindness.” It would
not have been unlike King Jamie to have answered, “that he was but a
fool, and knew no better.”
Rob’s presence of mind did not go unrewarded; for either on this or
some future occasion, he was in such “good foolery” as to get a grant
of a small estate in the vicinity of the burgh.
When the sceptre passed from Scotland, oblivion sat down in the
halls of Linlithgow; but her absolute desolation was reserved for
the memorable era of 1745–6 About the middle of January in that
year, General Hawley marched at the head of a strong army to raise
the siege of Stirling, then pressed by the Highland insurgents under
the adventurous Charles Edward. The English general had expressed
considerable contempt of his enemy, who, he affirmed, would not stand a
charge of cavalry. On the night of the 17th he returned to Linlithgow,
with all the marks of defeat, having burned his tents, and left his
artillery and baggage. His disordered troops were quartered in the
Palace, and began to make such great fires on the hearth as to endanger
the safety of the edifice. A lady of the Livingston family who had
apartments there, remonstrated with General Hawley, who treated her
fears with contempt. “I can run away from fire as fast as you can,
General,” answered the high-spirited dame, and with this sarcasm took
horse for Edinburgh. Very soon after her departure her apprehensions
were realized; the Palace of Linlithgow caught fire, and was burned to
the ground. The ruins alone remain to show its former splendour.
The situation of Linlithgow Palace is eminently beautiful. It stands on
a promontory of some elevation, which advances almost into the midst
of the lake. The form is that of a square court, composed of buildings
of four stories high, with towers at the angles. The fronts within the
square, and the windows, are highly ornamented, and the size of the
rooms, as well as the width and character of the staircases, are upon
a magnificent scale. One banquet-room is ninety-four feet long, thirty
feet wide, and thirty-three feet high, with a gallery for music. The
King’s wardrobe, or dressing-room, looking to the west, projects over
the walls so as to have a delicious prospect on three sides, and is one
of the most enviable boudoirs we have ever seen.
There were two main entrances to Linlithgow Palace. That from the south
ascends rather steeply from the town, and passes through a striking
Gothic archway, flanked by two round towers. The portal has been richly
adorned by sculpture, in which can be traced the arms of Scotland with
the collars of the Thistle, the Garter, and Saint Michael. This was the
work of James V., and is in a most beautiful character.
The other entrance is from the eastward. The gateway is at some height
from the foundation of the wall, and there are opposite to it the
remains of a _perron_, or ramp of mason-work, which those who
desired to enter must have ascended by steps. A drawbridge, which could
be raised at pleasure, united, when it was lowered, the ramp with the
threshold of the gateway, and when raised, left a gap between them,
which answered the purpose of a moat. On the inside of the eastern
gateway is a figure, much mutilated, said to have been that of Pope
Julius II., the same Pontiff who sent to James IV. the beautiful sword
which makes part of the Regalia.
“To what base offices we may return!” In the course of the last war,
those beautiful remains, so full of ancient remembrances, very narrowly
escaped being defaced and dishonoured, by an attempt to convert them
into barracks for French prisoners of war. The late President Blair,
as zealous a patriot as he was an excellent lawyer, had the merit of
averting this insult upon one of the most striking objects of antiquity
which Scotland yet affords. I am happy to add, that of late years the
Court of the Exchequer have, in this and similar cases, shown much zeal
to preserve our national antiquities, and stop the dilapidations which
were fast consuming them.
In coming to Linlithgow by the Edinburgh road, the first view of the
town, with its beautiful steeple, surmounted with a royal crown, and
the ruinous towers of the Palace arising out of a canopy of trees,
forms a most impressive object. All that is wanting is something of
more elevated dignity to the margin of the lake. But it is not easy to
satisfy the inconsistent wishes of amateurs.
We may in taking leave of this subject, use once more the words of old
Sir David of the Mount, in his Complaint of the Papingo:--
_Farewell Linlithgow, whose Palace of pleasaunce
Might be a pattern in Portugal or France._
ARUNDEL CASTLE
ALICE MEYNELL
Even pastoral England, which has a character of its own so different
from that of pastoral districts elsewhere--so much richer in its
details is it, and so much blunter and rounder in its forms, than
the pasture-lands and cornlands of Italy, or France, or Spain, or
Greece--even this distinctive and separated country has variations
within itself. The heart of England--the country of George Eliot and
the tract which lies within near or distant sight of the Malvern
Hills--has a drier, crisper beauty about its green fields and rich
woods. The great peaceful plain is broken by undulations, which are
lost from a distant view, and nowhere, not even by the brimming waters
of the Severn, are there such perfectly flat fields, pasture, marsh,
and cornfield lying together, even and low, as those into which the
gently raised tablelands of England subside between the downs of the
South Coast. Such lands lie about the feet of the Arundel hills, open
to a boundless sky, invested in light night mists, full of cattle,
watered by a little river and its streams which scarcely creep towards
the sea where it lies level with the land, or in some places level with
the hedgerows.
[Illustration: ARUNDEL CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
The aspect of things here is Tennysonian. Looking along the fields
towards Arundel where it curves into the arm of its hill, and from a
distance sufficient to lend enchantment to the mean details which mar
any English town upon a close sight, the place looks like the “dim rich
city” in Elaine. There might be a warder looking out from the castle
keep, a knight might be riding up to the walls in the twilight. Not
many years ago owls did hoot about that tower, but they died and were
stuffed. The peacefulness of the flat lowlands too, the richness of the
level pastures, in which the dark brown cattle stand knee-deep, the
softening haze of lowland mist, and the general prosperity of things,
all have something of the flavour of the same poetry. It is otherwise
when the hills are climbed, and the free breezy uplands of the park,
with the moory, dry, gay country towards Petworth, opens out. There we
have a beauty which suggests a less mild and meditative muse.
Arundel dates back to the most respectable antiquity, for King Alfred
bequeathed the Castle in his will, with the neighbouring lordships to
his nephew Athelm. It afterwards passed into the hands of the great
Earl Godwin and to his son, King Harold. And when William the Conqueror
was minded to reward his Normans for their services in his wars, the
Earldoms of Shrewsbury and of Arundel fell to the share of one Roger
de Montgomery, who rebuilt and enlarged the fortalice of Arundel. The
fair stronghold then went on changing hands, passing now to the kings
of England, and now forming the marriage dower of a princess. Among
its towers the Empress Maud found refuge from her enemy Stephen, and
was besieged; but as she was the guest of Adeliza, widow of Henry I.,
he courteously permitted her at last to depart in peace, for the love
of hospitality. The place was now the permanent property of Adeliza’s
second husband and of his heirs, and so, roughly speaking, it has
remained, the fifth in succession from him being the first who bore the
name of Fitzalan. The only interruptions of their tenure were temporary
ones, and consisted of two short forfeitures to the Crown, besides a
seizure by the capacious and rapacious hands of good Queen Bess, who
kept it until her death, when her successor restored it to its rightful
lord.
One Earl of Arundel lost his head for high treason against Richard
II. During the Civil Wars the Castle was besieged and besieged, being
first seized by the Parliamentarians in the absence of the owner, then
captured by the Royalists after three days’ fighting, and subsequently
retaken by the Parliamentarians under Waller, who laid siege on the
19th of December, 1643, and entered the Castle on the 6th of January,
1644. Upon this an order in Council commanded that the walls of the
town of Arundel and those of Chichester should be destroyed. Since more
peaceful times have reigned, within England at least, restoration has
been at work somewhat busily, and several Royal visits have wakened
“our loyal passion for our temperate Kings,” in the steep high-street
and in the public-houses of the borough. A borough, alas! it is no
longer. Having enjoyed, in the good old times, the luxury of a couple
of members, it was reduced to a pittance of one by the first Reform
Bill, and entirely disfranchised by the second.
The station lies in the valley at some little distance from the town;
as you follow the road from the rail you have Arundel and the Castle
before you, the principal object of the view being the great church
of St. Philip Neri, built by the present Duke of Norfolk some years
ago at a cost of £100,000. It is still new, inevitably new. That is a
fault which time will cure; but in the meanwhile no little disharmony
is created between the ancient ruddy colours of the old walls, of the
Castle with its town and the somewhat harsh whiteness of the church.
Its form, too, being upright, is not felicitous in its composition
with the lower and longer lines of antique English masonry. It may
not have been the Duke’s express purpose, when he built the “house
of God,” to dwarf his own hereditary home and fortress, as we once
heard a passenger in a railway-train passing the place declare; but if
that symbolic and ascetic intention was ever entertained, it has been
effectually fulfilled. The best consolation which we can offer to the
lovers of the past for the intrusion of the modern Gothic church, is
that the ruins which they admire were brand-new in the old times which
they cherish--strong, sharp, neat, and finished, with no ivy anywhere,
and no pleasing uncertainties of outline. As you draw near to the town
you see the rich woods which clothe the hillside trending off to the
right towards the Black Rabbit, where the winding lines of the lazy
Arun pass inland. To the left stretch the fields towards a little place
called Ford, and in front climbs the High-street. At the top of the
High-street is the Castle, and then the road turns to the left towards
this great dominating church of St. Philip.
The donjon is manifestly the most ancient part of the Castle. It dates
from Saxon times, and is traditionally believed to have been part of
the stronghold as it was in the days of Alfred the Great. It stands
on an artificial eminence, and from its ramparts the view is wide and
fair; westwards over the rich country, over the delicate distant spire
of Chichester, to the farther downs of the Isle of Wight; southwards
to the mouth of the little river Arun, and the port of Littlehampton
lying with sea-side pastures around it, level with the sea; eastwards
to the South Downs; and northwards over the home garden and the thick
woods of the lower park to Burpham, where British antiquities of no
small importance were at once discovered, amongst them a canoe with its
anchor--the relic of a probably half-civilized and Christian people,
compared to whom the invading English were savages of furious wildness.
At the top of the keep bide those stuffed owls which some years ago
flew about its battlements. The rest of the Castle is merely an antique
fortress dwelling-place, much restored in a jumble of styles, but with
a general picturesqueness of effect. The alterations which it is now
undergoing will doubtless much modify its details, if not its mass.
A little higher, and at some distance from the fortalice of Arundel,
is the parish church, a venerable fane, some parts of it dating five
hundred years back. Old and new are confused together in the place,
a Fourteenth Century font, some frescoes of approximately the same
date, and other precious antiquities being side by side with brilliant
windows of modern glass and in modern taste, and a number of energetic
“restorations.” From the tower the Parliamentarians poured shot and
bullet into the Royalist-guarded ramparts of the Castle. The “Fitzalan
Chapel,” properly the chancel of this church, has been the subject of
a sufficiently celebrated law-suit. Built in the Fourteenth Century
by an Earl of Arundel, it was turned to secular uses--to uses indeed
of the _most_ secular kind--at the time of the Reformation and
thereafter, and is now, of course, a monument and no more. As, however,
it contains the bones of their fathers, the Dukes of Norfolk have
naturally maintained their proprietorship and their interest in the
sometime sanctuary, and it was recently shut off from the body of
the church by the bricking up of the connecting doorway. The Vicar
thereupon committed the legal and formal trespass of removing a brick,
in order that the proprietorship of the Fitzalan Chapel might come
under the decision of the courts. That decision confirmed the Duke and
his rights, therefore the division remains; but the church is complete
and ample enough for all purposes as it now stands. The monuments in
the Fitzalan Chapel are of great interest and beauty. The earliest of
them are of the same period as the foundation; the most beautiful is
the chantry of William Fitzalan, with its fine and elaborate tracery;
and perhaps the most interesting is the tomb of John Fitzalan, which
was for centuries believed to be a cenotaph. The hero to whose memory
it was erected lost a leg at the battle of Gerberoy and died in France
thirteen months later, in 1435. He was buried in the Church of the Grey
Friars, at Beauvais, Normandy. Not very long ago a discovery was made,
in the Prerogative Court at Canterbury, of the will of one Fooke Eiton,
Esquire, which had been proved in 1454, and which stated that the
testator had ransomed the body of the Earl “oute of the frenchemennys
handes.” In 1857 search was made under the supposed cenotaph, and the
bones of a human body which had lost one leg were discovered. How or
when the pious and faithful “Fooke Eiton, Esquire,” had effected the
reburial by means of which the brave Fitzalan slept with his fathers,
there is no record to tell.
Quite near the grey and mouldering parish church, with its cemetery
and its yews, rises the great modern Roman Catholic church of which we
have already spoken. Close by is the park, to which we hasten, as the
glory of the country side. A narrow embowered road, entered by a little
gate, leads to the fair space of sward and tree, with its deep valleys
and sudden hills, one of the grandest parks in England; lacking, of
course, the charm and pathos, the nobility and humility, which the most
beautiful nature may gain from the signs of labour, agriculture, and
the poor; and yet not oppressive with too heavy verdure or any blank,
damp, over-green spaces of melancholy grass and sponge-like trees. The
soil of Arundel Park is composed chiefly of that great flower-bearer
chalk. It is so thin that it does not nourish gigantically heavy trees,
but lighter and gayer beeches. The ground is high and abruptly broken,
and the whole aspect of things needs only some sign of the peasant’s
life to be eminently paintable. Hill beyond hill rises in distance
behind distance. Under a fine sky the scene is so grand that, though
fresh from contemplating that panorama of the junction of the great
Rhine and the little Moselle among the hills at Coblentz--the landscape
which the late Lord Lytton pronounced the most beautiful in Europe--we
were constrained to think Arundel Park lovelier as we drove to Petworth
over its open hills. The orthodox deer are here, in pretty and
vivacious herds which number considerably over a thousand. A charming
little solitary lake, haunt of that shrill bird, the dab-chick, lies in
a hollow to the right; thence rises a thick beech wood, and the path
that curves round the base of the beech-hill leads to one of the local
lions, the dairy. The “tiled temple of cleanliness” is fascinating
enough to the lover of cream and curds, but it is hard to forgive the
demolition of a very ancient mill which stood on the same site. The
air about the dairy is heavy with the luxurious scent of the magnolias
which glow upon its walls.
The road is leading us round again out of the park towards the town;
and here is a relic of the past in the shape of a ruined Dominican
priory, which was built in 1396, and which gave a home to twenty poor
men living under the protection of a friar, until an end was put to the
charity at the dissolution of monasteries; and at the time of Waller’s
siege of the Castle, the priory was already in ruins. If instead of
winding back into the lower town of Arundel, whence we started, we
take the road away to the left, we shall reach the “Black Rabbit,”
already mentioned, where the dark, rich woods crowd the hillside, the
little Arun sauntering at its feet. The Castle looks well from this
side, where trees and not houses surround it.
PALAZZO VECCHIO
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
Grand as was the idea I had formed in advance of the Palazzo Vecchio,
I must confess that the realization was still grander. When I saw that
mass of stone so strongly rooted in the ground, surmounted by its tower
that threatens the heavens like the arm of a Titan, the whole of old
Florence, with her Guelphs, her Ghibelines, her balie, her priors, her
lords, her guilds, her _condottieri_, her turbulent mobs and her
haughty aristocracy appeared to me as though I were about to take part
in the exiling of Cosmo the Elder, or in the execution of Salviati. In
fact, four centuries of history and art are there on the right, on the
left, in front and behind, surrounding you on all sides and speaking at
once with their stone, marble and bronze of Nicholas d’Uzzano, Orcagna,
Rinaldo d’Albizzi, Donatello, Pazzi, Raphael, Lorenzo de’ Medici,
Flaminius Vacca, Savonarola, John of Bologna, Cosmo I. and Michelangelo.
The whole world may be searched in vain for a spot that brings such
names together, without counting those I have omitted! and some of the
omissions include Baccio Bandinelli, Ammanato, and Benvenuto Cellini.
I should much like to reduce this magnificent chaos to some sort of
order and chronologically classify the great men, the great works and
the great memories, but that is impossible. When you arrive at this
wonderful square, you must go where the eye carries you, or where
instinct guides you.
What first engrosses the attention of the artist, the poet, or the
archæologist, is the sombre Palazzo Vecchio, still blazoned with the
ancient arms of the republic, amid which glitter on the azure, like
stars in the sky, those innumerable fleurs-de-lys sown along the road
to Naples by Charles of Anjou.
Florence was hardly free before she wanted to have a town hall as
an abode for a chief magistrate and a belfry for calling the people
together. When a community is constituted in the North, or a republic
established in the South, the desire for a town-hall and a belfry is
always the first operation of its will, and the satisfaction of that
desire the first proof of its existence.
Thus in 1298, that is to say only sixteen years after the Florentines
had conquered their constitution, Arnolfo di Lapo received from the
rulers the order to build a palace for them.
[Illustration: PALAZZO VECCHIO, ITALY.]
Arnolfo di Lapo had visited the site reserved for him and had prepared
his plans accordingly. But at the moment of laying the foundations of
his edifice, the people loudly forbade him to place a single stone upon
the spot where the house of Farinata des Uberti had stood. Arnolfo di
Lapo was forced to bow to this popular clamour; he pushed his edifice
back into a corner and left the accursed spot unoccupied. Even to
the present time neither stones nor trees have planted their roots
there and nothing has intruded for more than six centuries where Guelph
vengeance drove the plough and sowed with salt.
This palace was the residence of a standard-bearer and eight priors,
two for each quarter of the city; their charge lasted for sixty
days and during that time they lived together, eating at the same
table and not being able to leave their residence: that is to say,
they were almost prisoners. Each had two domestics to serve him and
there was always a notary at their orders ready to write down their
deliberations: he ate with them and was a prisoner like themselves. As
a recompense for the sacrifice of his time and liberty that each prior
made for the republic, he received ten pounds a day, or nearly seven
francs of our money. At that day, private parsimony ruled in public
economy, and the government thus found itself in a position to execute
great things in art and in war. Thence resulted its surname of the
Magnificent Republic.
You enter the Palazzo Vecchio by a door situated about a third
of the way along the front and find yourself in a little square
court, surrounded by a portico supported by nine columns of Lombard
architecture embellished with applied ornaments. In the centre of this
court is a fountain surmounted by a rococo Cupid holding a fish and
reposing on a porphyry basin. At the time of Ferdinand’s marriage this
portico was adorned with fresco paintings representing bird’s-eye views
of the cities of Germany.
On the first floor is the great Council Hall, executed by the orders
of the Republic and at Savonarola’s suggestion. A thousand citizens
could deliberate there at their ease. Cronaca was the architect, and he
pushed the work so rapidly that Savonarola used to say that the angels
served as his masons.
Cronaca had need of haste, for three years later Savonarola was to die
and thirty years afterwards the Republic was to fall.
Therefore this immense hall has retained nothing of that period but
its original form: all of its ornamentation belongs to the time of the
principality; its frescoes and ceiling are by Vasari; its pictures by
Cigoli, Ligozzi and Passegnano; and its statues by Michelangelo, Baccio
Bandinelli and John of Bologna.
All is to the great glory of Cosmo I.
In fact, Cosmo I. is one of those gigantic statues that history raises
like a pyramid to mark the limit where one era ends and another begins.
Cosmo I. is at the same time the Augustus and the Tiberius of Tuscany,
and this is so much the more true in that at the moment when Alexander
fell beneath the poniard of Lorenzino, Florence found herself in the
same situation as Rome was after Cæsar’s death: “There was no longer a
tyrant, but there was no longer any liberty.”
At fifteen years of age his character was already outlined and those
who approached him could form an idea of what he would be later. His
appearance was grave and even severe; he was slow to form familiar
relations and would seldom allow any familiarities; but when he
granted this double concession it was a proof of his friendship, and
his friendship was sure; nevertheless, even with his friends he was
discreet in all his actions and did not want any one to know what he
intended to do until it was done. The result was that he always seemed
to be seeking some end contrary to his real one, which always rendered
his answers brief and sometimes obscure.
This was Cosmo when he learnt the news of the assassination of
Alexander and the flight of Lorenzino; this flight left him without a
competitor for the princedom and therefore his measures were quickly
taken. He gathered together a few friends on whom he could depend,
mounted his horse, and set out for Florence.
Cosmo was rewarded for his confidence by the welcome that he
received: he entered the city amid the joyous acclamations of all the
inhabitants. Two days after, he was named chief and governor of the
republic on four conditions:
To dispense justice indifferently to the rich and to the poor.
Never to consent to restore the authority of Charles the Fifth.
To avenge the death of Duke Alexander.
To treat well Giulio and Giula, the natural children of the latter.
Cosmo accepted this species of charter with humility and the people
accepted Cosmo with enthusiasm.
But there happened to the new grand duke what happens to all men of
genius who are raised to power by revolution. On the lowest step of
the throne they receive laws, from the top step they impose them.
The position was difficult, particularly for a youth of eighteen. It
was necessary to fight external and internal foes at the same time; to
substitute a firm government, a single power and a durable will for all
those flabby or tyrannical governments, for all those powers that were
opposed and consequently destructive to one another, and for all those
wills which sometimes starting from above and sometimes from below
caused a perpetual ebb and flow of aristocracy and democracy upon which
it was impossible to establish anything solid and durable. And yet with
all that it was necessary so to manage the liberties of this people
that neither nobles, citizens, nor artisans might feel the master. In
fact it was necessary to manage this horse, that was still rebellious
under tyranny, with an iron hand beneath a silken glove.
Cosmo was in every respect the man needed to carry through such a work.
As dissimulating as Louis the Eleventh, passionate as Henry the Eighth,
brave as Francis the First, persevering as Charles the Fifth and
magnificent as Leo the Tenth, he had all the vices that make private
life sombre and all the virtues that make public life brilliant.
Therefore his family was unhappy and his people happy.
Cosmo was one of the most learned men of his time. Among other things
he knew a great number of plants and the places where they grew, where
they lived the longest, where they had the strongest scent, where they
produced the most beautiful flowers, or bore the finest fruits, and
what were their virtues for curing the diseases or wounds of men and
animals; then, as he was an excellent chemist, with the plants he made
waters, essences, oils, medicaments, and balms, and gave his remedies
to all who asked for them whether they were rich or poor, Tuscan
subjects or foreigners, inhabitants of Florence or any other part of
Europe. Cosmo loved and protected letters. In 1541 he founded the
Florentine Academy which he called his “very dear and happy Academy”:
Plutarch and Dante were read and commented on there. The sessions were
first held in the Via Larga Palace and afterwards, so that it might
have more ease and freedom, he gave it the great council-room in the
Palazzo Vecchio. After the fall of the republic this great hall had
become useless.
Cosmo was an artist and it was not his fault if he arrived at the
moment when great men were departing. Of all that brilliant galaxy
that had illuminated the reigns of Julius the Second and Leo the
Tenth, Michelangelo alone remained. He did everything he could to get
the latter: he sent a cardinal and an embassy offering him any sum of
money he might name, the title of senator and any office he wished; but
Paul the Third kept him and would not give him up. Then, in default
of the Florentine giant, he gathered together the best he could find.
Ammanato, his engineer, built for him the fine bridge of the Trinity
after the plans of Michelangelo, and carved for him the marble Neptune
in the Palazzo Vecchio Square. He made Baccio Bandinelli produce the
statues of Pope Clement the Seventh, Duke Alexander, Giovanni de’
Medici, his father, and his own statue; the Loggia of the Mercato
Nuovo and the choir of the Cathedral. Benvenuto Cellini was recalled
from France to cast his _Perseus_ in bronze, to carve agate cups
and to engrave gold medals for him. Then as there had been found in
the environs of Arezzo a lot of little bronze figures, some of which
lacked the head, others the hands, and others the feet, Cosmo cleaned
them himself and carefully removed the rust so that they might not be
damaged.
By means of his chemical researches, Cosmo, with Francesco Ferruci of
Fiesole, recovered the art of cutting porphyry, which had been lost
since Roman times.
Lastly, he brought together in the Via Larga and Pitti Palaces all the
pictures, statues and medals, whether ancient or modern, that had been
painted, carved, engraved or discovered in excavations by Cosmo the
Elder, Lorenzino, and Duke Alexander, and that had twice been pillaged
and dispersed:--first, when Charles VIII. passed through, and again at
the assassination of Duke Alexander by Lorenzino.
Therefore the praise of his contemporaries outweighed the blame of
posterity: the dark side of his life was lost in the brilliant side,
and people forget that this protector of art, science and literature
slew one son, poisoned one daughter and violated another.
We see then that there was something of both Augustus and Tiberius in
Cosmo I.
Now let us return to the hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. The picture, not
the most remarkable from an artistic point of view, but certainly the
most extraordinary as a recorded fact, is one by Ligozzi representing
the reception given by Boniface VIII. to twelve ambassadors of twelve
powers, who were all found to be Florentines; so incontestable
throughout the world was the political genius of the Magnificent
Republic during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.
These twelve ambassadors were:
Muciato Franzizi for the King of France.
Ugolino di Vicchio for the King of England.
Raniere Langru for the King of Bohemia.
Vermiglio Alfani for the King of the Germans.
Simone Rossi for Rasca.
Bernardo Ervai for the Lord of Verona.
Guicardo Bastai for the Khan of Tartary.
Manno Fronte for the King of Naples.
Guido Tabanca for the King of Sicily.
Lapo Farinata des Uberti for Pisa.
Gino di Dietaselvi for the lord of Camerino.
Bencivenni Folchi for the Grand Master of the Hospital of Jerusalem.
It was this strange gathering that made Boniface VIII. say that a fifth
element had come into the world, and that the Florentines constituted
this element.
The enormous frescoes that cover the walls, as well as all the pictures
on the ceiling, are by Vasari. The frescoes represent the wars of
the Florentines against Siena and Pisa. It was for the latter that
Michelangelo prepared those beautiful cartoons that disappeared without
any one knowing what had become of them.
In the other chambers of the palace, which are the living-rooms, there
are also a considerable number of paintings of almost the same period.
One exception is a charming little chapel by Rodolfo Guirlandaio, the
restrained and religious execution of which forms a strange contrast to
the facile and pagan painting of the beginning of the Decadence.
Entirely upset as it was by the arrangements of Cosmo I., the Palazzo
Vecchio yet materially preserves one memory of the Republic: this
is the Barberia Tower in which Cosmo the Elder was confined, and
at the door of which, later during the Pazzi conspiracy, the brave
standard-bearer, Cesare Petrucci, mounted guard with a spit. In this
tower, Cosmo the Elder spent what were certainly the four worst days of
his long life, the fear of being poisoned by his enemies preventing him
from taking any nourishment.
KENSINGTON PALACE
LEIGH HUNT
It is not improbable that Kensington Palace and Gardens originated in
the royal nursery established in this district, for the benefit of
his children, by King Henry the Eighth. If so, here Queen Elizabeth
grew up awhile, as well as Queen Victoria, and here health was in vain
attempted to be given to the sicklier temperaments of Edward the Sixth,
who died young, and his sister, Queen Mary, who lived only to be an
unhappy bigot.
As the circumstance, however, does not appear ascertainable,
antiquaries must put up with the later and less illustrious origin
which has been found for these distinguished premises, in the house and
grounds belonging to the family of the Finches, Earls of Nottingham,
whether the tenement which they occupied had once been royal or not,
it seems to have been but a small mansion in their time; probably
consisting of nothing more than the now least-visible portion of it
north-west; and indeed, though it was subsequently enlarged under
almost every one of the sovereigns by whom it was occupied, it was
never, in one respect, anything but what it is still, namely, one of
the plainest and least pretending of princely abodes.
In vain we are told, that Wren is supposed to have built the south
front, and Kent (a man famous in his time) the east front. We can no
more get up any enthusiasm about it as a building, than if it were a
box, or a piece of cheese. But it possesses a Dutch solidity; it can
be imagined full of English comfort; it is quiet; it is a good air;
and though it is a palace, no tragical history is connected with it;
all which considerations give it a sort of homely, fireside character,
which seems to represent the domestic side of royalty itself, and
thus renders an interesting service to what is not always so well
recommended by cost and splendour. Windsor Castle is a place to
receive monarchs in; Buckingham Palace to see fashion in; Kensington
Palace seems a place to drink tea in; and this is by no means a state
of things, in which the idea of royalty comes least home to the good
wishes of the subjects. The reigns that flourished here, appositely
enough to this notion of the building, were all tea-drinking reigns--at
least, on the part of the ladies; and if the present queen does not
reign there, she was born and bred there, growing up quietly under the
care of a domestic mother; during which time, the pedestrian, as he now
goes quietly along the gardens, fancies no harsher sound to have been
heard from the Palace windows, than the “tuning of the tea-things,” or
the sound of a piano-forte.
[Illustration: KENSINGTON PALACE, ENGLAND.]
We may thus, in imagination, see the house and the gardens growing
larger with each successive proprietor. First, there is Heneage Finch,
the Speaker of the House of Commons, at the accession of Charles the
First; for he is the earliest occupant we can discover.
This gentleman possessed but fifteen acres of ground; which his son,
Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, increased by a grant
that was made him out of Hyde Park. To the Earl’s son and heir, Daniel,
succeeded King William the Third, who bought the house and grounds of
Daniel, and enlarged them both, the latter to the extent of twenty-six
acres. Anne added thirty acres; Queen Caroline, wife of George the
Second, added three hundred; and the house, which had been growing all
this time, was finally brought to its present size or appearance by the
late Duke of Sussex, who added or rebuilt the rooms, with their still
fresh-looking brick-work, that form the angle on the south-west.
The house nominally possesses gardens that are miles in circumference;
but these having become public every day in the week, which in the
early times of the Georges was not the case, it has, in reality, to
any sequestered purpose of enjoyment, no gardens at all, except at one
corner.
The gardens in the time of the Finches consisted of little but
the ground squaring with the north side of the Palace, laid out
in the first formal and sombre style of our native gardening, and
originating the still existing circle of yew trees, a disposition of
things congenial with the owners. Heneage Finch, the Speaker, and his
sons, the first and second Earls of Nottingham, were all lawyers and
statesmen; and though a clever, and upon the whole, a worthy, appear
to have been a melancholy race. The first Earl suffered under a long
depression of spirits before he died; the second was a man of so
atrabilarious a complexion that he was nicknamed Dismal; and Dismal’s
son, from a like swarthy appearance, and the way in which he neglected
his dress, was called the chimney-sweep. Hanbury Williams, the reigning
lampooner of the days of George the Second, designated the whole race
as the “black funereal Finches.”
These unusual “Finches of the Grove,” made way for a kind of Jupiter’s
bird in the eagle-nosed, hawk-eyed, gaunt little William the Third;
a personage as formal and melancholy as themselves, though not so
noisy (for Dismal, notwithstanding his formality, was a great talker);
and under William, the Gardens though they grew larger, did but
exchange English formality for Dutch. The walks became longer and
straighter, like canals; the yews were restrained and clipped; there
was, perhaps, a less number of flowers, comparatively; for the English
had always been fond of flowers, and the Dutch had not yet grown mad
(commercially) for tulips; in short, William the Third with a natural
love for his Dutch home, made the palace and gardens look as much like
it as he could.
And his Court, for the most part, was as gloomy as the gardens; for
William was not fond of his new subjects; did not choose to converse
with them; and was seldom visible but to his Dutch friends. Yet here
were occasionally to be seen some of the liveliest wits and courtiers
that have left a name in history, forsakers, indeed, of reserved and
despotic King James, rather than enthusiasts for the equally reserved
and hardly less power-loving King William, who had become, however, by
the force of circumstances, the instrument for securing freedom. Here
came the Earl of Dorset, Prior’s friend, who had been one of the wits
of the Court of Charles the Second; Prior, himself, who had stirred
William’s Dutch phlegm so agreeably as to be made one of the gentlemen
of his bedchamber; Congreve, whose plays Queen Mary admired; Halifax,
a minor wit, but no mean statesman; Sir William Temple, who combined
public with private life to so high a degree of wisdom and elegance;
Swift (probably) then a young man, whom Sir William made use of in
his communications with the king; Burnet, the gossiping historian,
sometimes wrong-headed, but generally right-hearted, whose officious
zeal for the Revolution had made him a bishop; the Earl of Devonshire,
whose nobler zeal had made him a duke, one of a family remarkable
for their constant and happy combination of popular politics with
all the graces of their rank; Lord Monmouth, afterwards the famous,
restless Earl of Peterborough, friend of Swift and Pope, conqueror of
Spain, and lover, at the age of seventy, of Lady Suffolk; Sheffield,
afterwards Duke of Buckinghamshire, a minor wit and poet, in love with
(the rank of) the Princess Anne; and last, not least in anything, but
good-breeding, and a decent command over his passions, Peter the Great,
semi-barbarian, the premature freer of Russian pseudo-civilization, who
came to England in order to import the art of ship-building into his
dominions, in his own proper mechanical person, and out of the five
months which he spent here, passed a good many days out of one of them
in interchanging visits with King William at Kensington. The only
distinct personal anecdote recorded of William the Third in connection
with Kensington will remind the reader of similar paternal stories of
Agesilaus and others.
A tap was heard one day, at his closet door, while his secretary was in
attendance.
“Who is there?” said the king.
“Lord Buck,” answered the little voice of a child of four years of age.
It was Lord Buckhurst, the son of his Majesty’s lord high chamberlain,
the Earl of Dorset.
“And what does Lord Buck want?” returned William, opening the door.
“You to be a horse to my coach,” rejoined the little magnate. “I’ve
wanted you a long time.”
William smiled upon his little friend, with an amiableness which
the secretary had never before thought his countenance capable of
expressing, and taking the string of the toy in his hand, dragged it up
and down the long gallery till his playfellow was satisfied.
The Court and Gardens of Kensington were not livelier in Queen Anne’s
time than in that of King William. Anne, as we have seen at Campden
House, was a dull woman with a dull husband. They had little to say
for themselves; their greatest pleasures were in eating and drinking;
the Queen was absurdly found of etiquette; and as there was nothing to
startle decorum in the court morals, the mistress in King William’s
time had given something of a livelier stir to the gossip. Swift
describes Anne in a circle of twenty visitors as sitting with her fan
in her mouth, saying about three words once a minute to some that were
near her, and then upon hearing that dinner was ready, going out. In
the evening she played at cards; which, long before, and afterwards,
was the usual court pastime at that hour.
She does not appear to have been fond of music, or pictures, or
books, or anything but what administered to the commonest animal
satisfactions, or which delivered her mind at all other times from its
tendency to irresolution and tedium.
Addison and Steele might have been occasionally seen at her Kensington
levees among the Whigs; and Swift, Prior, and Bolingbroke among the
Tories. Marlborough would be there also; ever courtly and smiling,
whether he was victorious as general and as the favourite Duchess’s
husband, or only bowing the more obsequiously alas! for fear of losing
his place and his perquisites.
Anne enlarged the Gardens, but she did not improve the style of
gardening. Addison in a paper of the _Spectator_, written during
the last year but one of her reign, catching the last glimpse of
a variation, speaks with rapture of the conversation of a disused
gravel-pit, which had been left remaining, into a cultivated dell;
but it would seem as if this exploit on the part of the gardeners was
rather in the hope of making the best of what they considered a bad
thing, than intended as an advance towards something better; for they
laid out the Queen’s additional acres in the same formal style as King
William’s.
Long, straight gravel-walks, and clipped hedges, prevailed throughout,
undiversified with the present mixture of freer growing wood. An
alcove or two, still existing, were added; and Anne exerted herself
to build a long kind of out-house, which still remains; and which
she intended, it is said, for the balls and suppers which certainly
took place in it; though we suspect, from the narrowness of its
construction, it never was designed for anything but what it is, a
green-house.
These most probably constituted all those “elegancies of art,” with
which a writer of the time gives her credit for improving the Gardens.
Such, at any rate, was the case in the more public portions of them;
and if the private ones enjoyed any others, we may guess what they
were, from Pope’s banter of the horticultural fashions of the day, in a
paper which he contributed to the _Guardian_, the year after the
appearance of that of Addison’s in the _Spectator_. The following
is a taste of them. The poet is giving a catalogue of plants that were
to be disposed of by auction:
“Adam and Eve in yew; Adam a little shattered by the fall of the Tree
of Knowledge in the great storm; Eve and the Serpent very flourishing.
“St. George in box; his arm scarce long enough, but will be in a
condition to stick the Dragon by next April.
“An old Maid of Honour in wormwood.
“A topping Ben Jonson in laurel.
“A quick-set hog, shot up into a porcupine, by its being forgot a week
in rainy weather.”
The Kensington Gardens were popular throughout the whole of the three
Georges’ reign, but flourished most, as far as names and fashions
are concerned, in those of the first and second. The space of time
includes half a century; and Walpole, Lady Suffolk, Beau Nash,
and Colley Cibber, lived through it all; the two last from a much
earlier period, and Walpole into a much later one, down to the French
Revolution. At the beginning of it, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, with
the wits of the Kit-Cat club about her, may be considered as having
been the reigning belle of the promenaders; to her, succeeded the
Bellendens and Lepells, with the same wits grown older; then came Lady
Townshend, with the new wits, Horace Walpole, Selwyn, Hanbury Williams,
and others; and then crowds were alternately drawn by the “Chudleigh”
and the Miss Gunnings.
With the decease of George the Second, glory departed from Kensington
as far as Courts were concerned. No reigning sovereign has resided
there since George the Third, who inheriting, perhaps, a dislike of
the place from his father, the Prince of Wales, appears to have taken
no notice of it, except in appointing the clever, but impudent quack,
Sir John Hill, its gardener, at the recommendation of Sir John’s then
omnipotent brother botanist, the Earl of Bute.
George the Fourth probably regarded the place as a homely concern,
quite out of his line. It might suit well enough the book-collecting
inclinations of his brother, the Duke of Sussex, with which he had
no sympathy; was not amiss as a means of affording a lodging to his
brother, the Duke of Kent, with whose habits of regularity, and
pardonable amount of debt, his sympathies were as little; and lastly
he was well content to think, that the staid-looking house and formal
gardens rendered the spot a good out-of-the-way sort of place enough,
for obscuring the growth and breeding of his niece, and probable
heiress, the Princess Victoria, whose life, under the guidance of a
wise mother, promised to furnish so estimable a contrast to his own. As
to his brother, King William the Fourth, though he too was a brother,
in most respects, very different from himself, we never heard his name
mentioned in any way whatever in connection with Kensington.
Adieu then, for the present, and for we know not how long a time
hereafter, to Court-holdings in the Palace; to Court splendours,
and Court scandals. Adieu Kings listening in closets, and Queens
calumniated by ungrateful biographers. Adieu even Maids of Honour. They
departed their life with George the Second, and went to live a terribly
dull one with his grandson’s Queen, Charlotte, who nearly tired Miss
Burney into a consumption.
THE MIKADO’S PALACE
PIERRE LOTI
An enclosure of large walls. My _djin_ stop in front of a first
gateway in the ancient severe and religious style: massive columns with
bases of bronze; a narrow frieze sculptured with strange ornaments; and
a heavy and enormous roof.
Then I walk into the vast deserted courtyards, planted with venerable
trees, to the branches of which they have given props like crutches
for old men. The immense buildings of the palace first appear to me in
a kind of disorder wherein I can discern no plan of unity. Everywhere
appear these high, monumental and heavy roofs, whose corners turn up in
Chinese curves and bristle with black ornaments.
Not seeing anyone, I walk on at random.
Here is arrested absolutely the smile, inseparable from modern Japan. I
have the impression of entering into the silence of an incomprehensible
Past, into the dead splendour of a civilization, whose architecture,
design, and æsthetic taste are to me strange and unknown.
A bonze guard who sees me, advances, and, making a bow, asks me for my
name and passport.
It is satisfactory: he will take me himself to see the entire palace
on condition that I will take off my shoes and remove my hat. He
brings me even velvet sandals which are offered to visitors. Thanks,
I prefer to walk with bare feet like himself and we begin our silent
walk through an interminable series of halls all lacquered in gold and
decorated with a rare and exquisite strangeness.
On the floor there is always and everywhere that eternal spread of
white matting, that one finds just as simple, as well kept, and as neat
in the homes of the emperors, in the temples, and among the middle
classes and the poor. No furniture anywhere, for this is something
unknown in Japan, or slightly known at most; the palace is entirely
empty. All the surprising magnificence is upon the walls and ceilings.
The precious golden lacquer is displayed uniformly on all sides, and
upon this background, Byzantine in effect, all the celebrated artists
of the great Japanese century have painted inimitable objects. Each
hall has been decorated by a different and illustrious painter, whose
name the bonze cited to me with respect. In one there are all the
known flowers; in another, all the birds of the air, and all the
beasts of the earth; or perhaps hunting-scenes and combats, where you
see warriors dressed in armour and terrifying helmets, on horseback
pursuing monsters and chimæras. The most peculiar one, assuredly,
is decorated entirely with fans,--fans of all forms and of all
colours, open, shut, and half open, thrown with extreme grace upon
the fine golden lacquer. The ceilings, also of golden lacquer are in
compartments, painted with the same care and the same art. What is,
perhaps, the most marvellous of all, is that series of high pierced
friezes that extends around all the ceilings; you think of generations
of patient workmen who have worn themselves out in chiselling such
delicate, almost transparent, things, in such thicknesses of wood:
sometimes there are rosebushes, sometimes entanglements of wistaria,
or sheaves of rice; elsewhere flights of storks that seem to cleave
the air with great velocity, forming with their thousands of claws,
extended necks, and feathers, a crowd so beautifully combined that
it is alive and scurrying away, nothing lags behind, nor falls into
confusion.
[Illustration: THE MIKADO’S PALACE, KIOTO.]
In this palace, which is windowless, it is dusky,--a half-darkness
favourable to enchantments. The greater number of these halls receive a
shimmering light from the outside verandas composed only of lacquered
columns, to which they are entirely open on one side; it is the subdued
light of deep sheds, or of markets. The more mysterious interior
apartments open on the first by other similar columns, and receive from
it a still more attenuated light; they can be shut at will by bamboo
curtains of an extreme delicacy, whose tissue in its transparency
imitates that of a wave, and which are raised to the ceiling by
enormous tassels of red silk. Communication is had by species of
doorways the forms of which are unusual and unexpected: sometimes
they are perfect circles and sometimes they are more complicated
figures, such as hexagons or stars. And all these secondary openings
have frame-works of black lacquer which stand out with an elegant
distinction upon the general background of the gold, and which bear
upon the corners ornaments of bronze marvellously chiselled by the
metal-workers of the past.
The centuries have embellished this palace, veiling a little the
glitter of the objects by blending all these harmonies of gold in a
kind of very gentle shadow; in its silence and solitude one might call
it the enchanted dwelling of some _Sleeping Beauty_, of a princess
of an unknown world, or of a planet that could not be our own.
We pass before some little interior gardens, which are, according
to the Japanese custom, miniature reductions of very wild
places,--unlooked-for contrasts in the centre of this golden palace.
Here also time has passed, throwing its emerald upon the little
rocks, the tiny lakes, and the small abysses; sterilizing the little
mountains, and giving an appearance of reality to all that is minute
and artificial. The trees, dwarfed by I know not what Japanese process,
have not grown larger; but they have taken on an air of extreme old
age. The _cycas_ have acquired many branches, because of their
hundreds of years; one would call the little palms of multiple trunks,
antidiluvian plants; or rather massive black candelabra, whose every
arm carries at its extremity a fresh bouquet of green plumes.
What also surprises us is the special apartment chosen by this
Taïko-Sama, who was both a great conqueror and a great emperor. It is
very small and very simple, and looks upon the tiniest and the most
artificial of the little gardens.
The Reception Hall, which they showed me last of all, is the largest
and the most magnificent. It is about fifty metres long, and,
naturally, all in golden lacquer, with a high and marvellous frieze.
Always no furniture; nothing but the stages of lacquer upon which the
handsome lords on arriving placed their arms. At the back, behind a
colonnade, is the platform, where Taïko-Sama held his audiences, at the
period of our Henri IV. Then it is that one dreams of these receptions,
of these entrances of brilliant noblemen, whose helmets are surmounted
by horns, snouts and grotesque figures; and all the unheard-of
ceremonial of this court. One may dream of all this, but he will not
clearly see it revive. Not only is the period too remote, but it is too
far away in grade among the races of the earth; it is too far outside
of our conceptions and the notions that we have inherited regarding
these things. It is the same in the old temples of this country; we
look at them without understanding, the symbols escape us. Between
Japan and ourselves the difference of origin has made a deep abyss.
“We shall cross another hall,” the bonze said to me, “and then a series
of passages that will lead us to the temple of the palace.”
In this last hall there are some people, which is a surprise, as all
the former ones were empty; but silence dwells there just the same.
The men squatting all around the walls seem very busy writing; they
are priests copying prayers with tiny pencils on rice-paper to sell
to the people. Here, upon the golden background of the walls, all the
paintings represent royal tigers, a little larger than their natural
size, in all attitudes of fury; of watching, of the hunt, of prowling,
or of sleep. Above these motionless bonzes they lift their great
heads, so expressive and wicked, showing their sharp teeth.
My guide bows on entering. As I am among the most polite people in the
world, I feel obliged to bow also. Then the reverence that is accorded
to me passes all along the hall, and we go through.
Passages obstructed with manuscripts and bales of prayers are passed,
and we are in the temple. It is, as I expected, of great magnificence.
Walls, ceilings, columns, all is in golden lacquer, the high frieze
representing leaves and bunches of enormous peonies very full-blown and
sculptured with so much skill that they seem ready to drop their leaves
at the least breath to fall in a golden shower upon the floor. Behind
a colonnade, in the darkest place, are the idols and emblems, in the
midst of all the rich collection of sacred vases, incense-burners, and
torch-bearers.
Just now it is the hour of Buddhist service. In one of the courts,
a gong, with the deep tones of a double-bass, begins to strike with
extreme deliberation. Some bonzes in robes of black gauze with green
surplices make a ritualistic entrance, the passes of which are very
complicated, and then they go and kneel in the centre of the sanctuary.
There are very few of the faithful; scarcely two or three groups, which
seem lost in this great temple. There are some women lying on the
matting, having brought their little smoking-boxes and their little
pipes; they are talking in very low voices and smothering the desire to
laugh.
However, the gong begins to sound more rapidly and the priests to make
low bows to their gods. It sounds still faster, and the bows of the
bonzes quicken, while the priests prostrate themselves upon their faces
upon the earth.
Then, in the mystic regions something happens that reminds me very much
of the elevation of the host in the Roman cult. Outside, the gong,
as if exasperated, sounds with rapid strokes, uninterruptedly and
frantically.
I believe that I have seen everything now in this palace; but I still
do not understand the disposition of the halls, the plan of the whole.
If alone, I should soon become lost in it, as if in a labyrinth.
Happily, my guide comes to take me out, after having put my shoes on me
himself. Across new halls of silence, passing by an old and gigantic
tree, which has miraculous properties, it seems, having for several
centuries protected this palace from fire, he conducts me through the
same gate by which I entered and where my _djin_ are waiting for
me.
WARWICK CASTLE
LADY WARWICK
The character of ancient buildings, the various styles of architecture
which they present to us, their beauties as well as their blemishes,
enable any one whose darkness may be lightened by the diviner radiance
of a happy power of imagination to recall the persons and the events
with which these buildings have been associated. The gloomy feudal
fortress carries the mind back to the Middle Ages; the abbey, with
its cloisters and windows and all the surroundings of a dim religious
light, reminds us of days when the Head of the Church was indeed
Christ’s Vicar here upon earth; while the palace suggests, side by side
with its stories of games played at that great game in which men are
but as pawns, pictures of gallant gentlemen and fair ladies who, though
being dead, yet live before us. England is not so rich in these varied
combinations of palace, abbey, and tower as is France, for instance,
and particularly Touraine. Many of our most famous mediæval castles
have been suffered to fall into decay, or, worse still, have been
improved into modern shape by the rash hand of idle innovators.
[Illustration: WARWICK CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
There is one among our castles, however, which neither Time’s defacing
fingers nor man’s innovating hand has despoiled--Warwick Castle.
Possibly there is no place of this sort so well known to the whole
English world over, situated as it is within that Shakespeare country
from which proceeded those melodious sounds that yet fill the world. It
has always been the Mecca of the best and noblest of literary pilgrims
from America. Nearly half a century ago Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote for
an American magazine a series of sketches, in one of which, entitled
“About Warwick,” he tells us how “through the vista of willows that
droop on either side into the water we behold the grey magnificence
of Warwick Castle uplifting itself among stately trees and rearing
its turrets above their loftiest branches. We can scarcely think the
scene real, so completely do the machicolated towers, the long line of
battlements, the massive buttresses, the high-windowed walls, shape out
our indistinct ideas of the antique time.”
After all a castle, even so famous a one as Warwick, is not so
interesting in itself as the scenes it has witnessed and the people
who have lived in it or have visited it. The history of Warwick
Castle, for the last three hundred and fifty years at least, has been
no small part of the history of England. Personal and local history
in England does not so much begin with the Reformation as it does
in other countries; but this one thing is certain, that between the
pre-Reformation world and ourselves there is a great gulf fixed which
the historian has tried in vain to bridge. Not that the place before
that could have been devoid of interest: no castle in the stormy times
of the Wars of the Roses could have enjoyed the happiness of having
no history; and, surely, if any did, Warwick was not one of them.
Its very position, situated in the heart of England, must, from the
time when the Great Alfred’s daughter built the keep (“the monument
of the wisdom and energy of the mighty Ethelfleda”), have been such
that, in all the numerous brawls and butcheries dignified by the name
of civil war, the possession of it must have been a matter of supreme
importance. And so it was nearly four centuries before the outbreak of
the Wars of the Roses that William the Conqueror had made Warwick the
base of his operations for his campaign in the North. The fortress he
built there has gone--not one stone left upon another, and so utterly
perished that the very site of it is pure guess-work. The legendary Guy
and all his feats may be dismissed from any account which makes any
pretence to be historical. There is a curious account of the garrison
of Warwick Castle in the time of Henry II., when all his legitimate
sons were in arms against him, and the two illegitimate sons of Fair
Rosamond alone remained faithful. It was occupied for the King; and the
sheriff’s account rendered for the victualling of the place was this:
“xi. _li._ xiii. _d._ for 20 quarters of Bread Corn; xx.
_s._ for 20 quarters of Malt; c. _s._ for 50 Biefs salted up;
xxx. _s._ for 90 cheeses; and xx. _s._ for salt then laid in
for the victualling thereof.”
Of the importance of Warwick Castle in the Middle Ages we can well form
an idea from Dugdale’s statement:--
“Of what regard it was in those times may be discerned by the King’s
precept to the Archbishop of York, for requiring good security of
Margery, sister and heir to Thomas, then Earl of Warwick, that she
should not take to husband any person whatsoever in whom the said King
could not repose trust as in his own self: the chief reason being given
in these words, ‘Because she has a Castle of immense strength, and
situated towards the Marshes.’”
No mention of Warwick Castle would be complete if it left out the
famous Earl--“the King-Maker,” and the “Last of the Barons.” Never
was the “Bear and Ragged Staff” held in such high esteem as between
1455 and 1470. And when, a few years after the King-Maker’s death, the
avaricious Henry VII. annexed his various manors to the Crown, he got
possession of over a hundred of them, to say nothing of the whole of
the Channel Islands. A contemporary tells us that “at the Earl’s house
in London six oxen were usually eaten at breakfast, and every tavern
was full of his meat, for he that had any acquaintance in his family
should have as much sodden--_i. e._, boiled--as he could carry on
a long dagger.”
The Castle had remained for a very considerable period in the
possession of the successive earls. It next passed to the ill-starred
George, Duke of Clarence, and upon his death, “being seized into the
King’s hands, it continued in the Crown a great while.”
When the famous John Dudley became Earl of Warwick, the Castle was
granted to him, as well as divers lands which had belonged to former
earls. Of his fate in connection with the unhappy Lady Jane Grey
there is no need to speak here. The Castle and all his estates, upon
his attainder, escheated to the Crown. Thanks to the favour with which
Robert Dudley, better known as the Earl of Leicester, was regarded by
Queen Elizabeth, his brother Ambrose received from that queen a grant
of Warwick Castle, together with the dignities of Earl of Warwick and
Baron de l’Isle, in 1561. Three years later his brother Robert became
Earl of Leicester.
There were other subjects beside Lord Burghley who groaned inwardly
under “the extraordinary chardg in Enterteynment of the Queen.”
Elizabeth had more than the ordinary passion of the time for “rich
shews, pleasant devices and all manner of sports that could be
devised.” Notwithstanding the extent of her various progresses east and
west and north and south, there seemed to be always something freshly
arranged for her entertainment. In 1572 on her way to Kenilworth,
she stayed at Warwick, and visited the Earl of Warwick at the Castle
she had granted him eleven years before. She came to Warwick “on the
12th day of August, after dinner, about three of the clock, with the
Countess in the same coach.”
Evelyn, as the author of _Silva_ well might do, did not think much
of the gardens in 1654. To bring them to perfection was reserved for
that luckless of the heads of the Grevilles, George, the second Baron,
who “planned the park by his taste and planted the trees with his
hand.” The second son, Robert, who became the fourth Lord Brooke, was
one of the six lords sent by the House of Peers, together with twelve
of the members of the House of Commons, to present to Charles II. at
the Hague, “the humble invitation and supplication of the Parliament:
That His Majesty would be pleased to return and take the government of
the Kingdom into his own hands.” He was made Recorder of Warwick, and
being a great traveller added much to the embellishment of the Castle.
It was to him that the fitting up of the state apartments is due, and
he worthily continued to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors
in the title. His successors from one generation to another took pride
above everything else in the adornment and beautification of their
castle. In 1746 the eighth Baron was created Earl Brooke, and in the
last year of the reign of George II. the Earldom of Warwick, which
had been conferred in 1618 on the family of Rich, becoming extinct,
devolved upon Lord Brooke. The son of this first Earl of Warwick was
one of the most reckless of all connoisseurs, and Warwick Castle is
indebted to him for many valuable gems which his uncle, Sir William
Hamilton, collected. Many of the finest specimens of artistic work
at Warwick bear testimony to his taste, but the enlargement and
improvement of the grounds about the Castle are his special work, and
he expended over £100,000 in beautifying the interior of his home.
The entrance to the Castle consists of a plain embattled gateway,
leading to a picturesque winding roadway, cut, for upwards of a hundred
yards, through the solid rock, and overhung with shrubs, creepers, and
trees. This roadway conducts to the outer court, where a grand view of
the outer walls suddenly bursts upon the visitor, the main features
of which are Guy’s Tower on the right, the Gateway in the middle, and
Cæsar’s Tower on the left.
Guy’s Tower, so named in honour of the legendary warrior, was built
by the second Thomas de Beauchamp in the reign of Richard II., being
completed in 1394. It is twelve-sided, thirty feet in diameter at the
base, with walls ten feet thick, and rises to a height of a hundred and
twenty-eight feet. This tower contains five floors, each floor having a
groined roof and being subdivided into one large and two small rooms,
the sides of which are pierced with numerous loopholes, commanding
in various directions the curtains which the tower was intended to
protect. A staircase of a hundred and thirty-three steps leads to the
summit, which is crowned by a machicolated parapet. The vault beneath
has been constructed of great strength, apparently for the purpose of
supporting on the roof some ponderous and powerful engine, calculated
to annihilate anything which could be brought against it. The details
of the Castle can be best observed from this tower, and it commands a
fine view of the surrounding country, extending for many miles. The
second-floor chamber, now used as a muniment room, was the place of
confinement of the Earl of Lindsey, who, with his father, was taken
prisoner at the battle of Edge Hill.
Cæsar’s Tower was erected between 1350 and 1370 by the first Thomas
de Beauchamp, and it is a marvel of constructive skill. It is an
irregular polygon, a hundred and forty-seven feet in height, containing
four stories, each with a groined roof, and is crowned by a boldly
projecting machicolation. The part facing outward forms three segments
of a circle, the general construction being such as to constitute
it a fortress of the most formidable character. It is built on the
solid rock, and was therefore impervious to the miner. The loopholes
throughout are most scientifically contrived, not being cut in the
centre of the merlons in each instance, but being pierced in positions
commanding the most advantageous situations, and being made available
for the long or crossbow. The lower edges of the loopholes are also
sloped at the exact angle requisite to clear the gallery below. The
archers were securely protected by wooden screens, termed mantlets, and
by leather curtains, as well as by the roofs above them. The sloping
base of the tower constituted another formidable medium for launching
missiles against the enemy, being so constructed that a stone or metal
projectile, launched from the machicolation above, would rebound with a
point blank aim into the breasts of the attacking force beneath.
The Gateway was constructed in the Fourteenth Century, and was in
ancient times approached by a drawbridge, which formerly spanned the
moat, but is now replaced by a stone arch. On the inner side of this
is the Barbican, projecting some fifty feet from the wall, and rising
two stories in height above the archway. It is flanked by two octagonal
turrets, loopholed for the purpose of defending the bridge and its
approaches. Within the drawbridge is a portcullis, and behind the
portcullis are four holes overhead, through which blazing pitch, hot
lead, or other scarifying compounds could be poured on the heads of
the assailants....
The spacious Inner Court is nearly two acres in extent. In front
stands the Mound or Keep, studded with trees and shrubs, and crossed
by the fortifications, in which the Northern Tower forms a prominent
object. On the right, connected by walls of enormous strength, are two
incomplete towers, termed the Bear and Clarence Towers, the former
begun by Richard III., and the latter probably by his brother, George,
Duke of Clarence. On the left, extending to the Hill Tower at the base
of the Mound, is the inhabited part of the Castle, altered and enlarged
at various times since it was first built, but with so much skill as to
be in perfect keeping with the general aspect of the whole.
A fortress is said to have existed here in Roman times; and Ethelfleda,
daughter of Alfred the Great, is stated to have erected a keep or
dungeon on the Mound in the year 915, and this again is stated to have
been enlarged in the time of the Conqueror.
Warwick Castle still stands by itself amongst English castles. It not
only brings before us the people whom it had witnessed itself, from
William the Conqueror down to Queen Victoria, but it enables us to
represent what the baronial castles--Kenilworth and a host of others,
which have fallen into decay--once were: by it we can reconstruct their
halls and their bowers, their chapels and their dungeons, and can
reproduce them to ourselves as they were when great kings and dukes and
lords, who have long since crumbled into dust, filled them with their
sound and fury, which now signifies nothing: we can see the Beauchamps
and the Nevills and the Plantagenets, and those that went before them
and those that came after them, pass through its galleries in knightly
procession: we can be present there with Queen Elizabeth and Lord
Leicester when all was revelry and mirth; or with the stout old Sir
Edmund Peto, in that dark hour when he hung out a cross with a flag
upon it in defiance of the Papists. As we walk from gallery to gallery,
and from apartment to apartment, we can see, as in some splendid
and stately museum, everything which has beautified and adorned the
lives of seven centuries of English nobles. Over and above all this,
we can see in Warwick Castle the continuity of English life, ever
changing but yet ever the same; and as we view objects which illustrate
the arts and fashions and tastes and fancies of a bygone world, we
can feel conscious of the debt we owe to those who, mindful of the
responsibility bequeathed to them, have not been backward in amassing
treasures to be an “everlasting possession, not a sight to be seen and
then forgotten.”
THE ALHAMBRA
EDMONDO DE AMICIS
We arrived before a great gateway that shut in the street; Gongora said
to me, “Here we are!” I entered.
I found myself in a great grove of trees of immeasurable height
inclining towards each other on both sides of a wide avenue that
ascends the hill and is lost in the shade; they are so close together
that a man can pass between them with difficulty and wherever you look,
you can see nothing but trunks so thickly set that they seem to shut
in the road like a continuous wall. The trees interlace their branches
above the avenue; not a ray of sunlight can penetrate the wood; the
shade is dense, and from every side the rivulets murmur and the
nightingales sing. You breathe here the freshness of spring.
“We are already in the Alhambra,” Gongora said to me, “turn around and
you will see the towers and the embattled walls of the enclosure.”
“But where is the palace?” I asked.
“That is a secret,” he answered, “let us walk on at random.”
We advanced by an avenue parallel to the great central road, and one
that wound towards the summit of the hill. The trees above our heads
formed a roof of verdure that hid the sky; and the grass, the
brushwood and the flowers made on both sides two charming espaliers of
brightness.
“Here is the gateway!” cried Gongora.
I turned around as if I had been pushed, and I saw a few steps before
me a large square tower, of a sombre red, crowned with embattlements,
and its door surmounted by a horseshoe arch upon which you saw
sculptured a key and a hand.
[Illustration: THE ALHAMBRA, SPAIN.]
My guide told me that it was the principal entrance to the Alhambra,
and that it was called the Gate of Justice, because the Arab Kings
were accustomed to pronounce their sentences beneath that arch. The
key means that this door is the key to the fortress, and the hand is
the symbol of the five principal precepts of Islam: Prayer, Fasting,
Benevolence, Holy War, and Pilgrimage to Mecca.
We passed under the gate, and continued to ascend by an embanked road:
finally we came to the top of the hill, in the middle of an esplanade
surrounded by a parapet and set with bushes and flowers. I was standing
before a great palace in the style of the Renaissance, half in ruins
and flanked by some small and miserable-looking houses.
We entered through a little doorway, crossed a corridor, and found
ourselves in a court.
We were in the _patio de los Arraynes_ (Court of the Myrtles),
which is the largest in the building, and which presents at once the
appearance of a court, a hall, and a garden. A large rectangular
basin, full of water, surrounded by a hedge of myrtle, extends from
one side to the other of the _patio_, and mirrors the arches,
the arabesques, and inscriptions of the walls. To the right of the
entrance are two rows of Moorish arches, placed one upon the other, and
upheld by light columns; and on the opposite side of the court rises
a tower with a door, through which may be seen the half-dark interior
halls and the tiny twin-windows, and beyond the windows the blue sky
and the peaks of the distant mountains. The walls are ornamented up to
a certain height with splendid mosaics, and from the mosaics upward to
the ceiling with arabesques of the most delicate design, which seem
to scintillate and change at every step; and here and there between
the arabesques and along the arches, Arabic inscriptions comprising
salutations, sentences, and proverbs wind about and interlace like
garlands.
Near the entrance one reads in Kufic characters: “Salvation
eternal!--Benediction!--Prosperity!--Felicity!--Praise be to God for
the welfare of Islam!”
In another place you see written: “I seek my refuge in the God of the
Dawn.” Elsewhere: “O God, to Thee we owe eternal thanks and undying
praise!”
In other places there are verses from the Koran, and entire poems in
praise of the caliphs.
We entered the tower called the Tower of Comares, or vulgarly, of the
Ambassadors.
The interior of the tower forms two halls; the first is called the
Hall of the Boat: some persons say because it is shaped like a boat;
others, because it was called by the Arabs Hall of the Baraka, or
benediction, a word which the ignorant have corrupted into that of
boat (_barca_). This hall does not seem of human workmanship; it
is nothing but a stupendous interlacing of embroideries in the form of
garlands, rose-work, branches, and leaves that cover the ceiling, the
arches, the walls, on all sides, and in every way, crowded together,
twisted, in net-work, one upon another, and combined in such a manner
that they are all seen in a single glance and present an astonishing
magnificence and an enchanting grace. I went up to one of the walls, I
fastened my gaze at the beginning of an arabesque and tried to follow
its twistings and windings: impossible! the eye loses itself, the mind
becomes confused, and all the arabesques from the pavement to the
ceiling seem to move and commingle to make you lose the thread of their
inextricable net-work. You may make an effort not to look around you,
concentrate your attention upon one little place of the wall, put your
very nose in it, and trace the design with your finger: it is useless;
in one minute the patterns become involved, a veil spreads between the
wall and yourself, and your arm falls. The wall seems to you to be
woven like a textile, crinkled like brocade, of open-work like lace,
and veined like a leaf; you cannot look at it closely, you cannot fix
the design in your mind,--that would be like counting the ants in an
ant-hill.
After having looked around me a little, Gongora pushed me into the
great Hall of the Ambassadors, which occupies the entire interior of
the tower, for the Hall of the Barca in reality belongs to a little
building, which although joined to the tower, is not a part of it.
The Hall is square, very spacious, and lighted by nine large arched
windows, in the form of doors, which present almost the aspect of
alcoves, so thick are the walls; and each one of them is divided in two
by a little column of marble that supports two elegant little arches,
surmounted in their turn by two little arched windows. The walls are
covered with mosaics and arabesques of an indescribable delicacy and
variety of form, and innumerable inscriptions that are spread out like
broad, embroidered ribbons over the arches of the windows, in the
corners, upon the friezes, and around the niches where they placed
vases filled with flowers and perfumed waters. The ceiling, which is
very high, is composed of pieces of cedar wood, white, gilt, and blue,
united in the form of circles, stars, and crowns; it forms a number of
little domes, cells, and tiny arched windows from which a soft light
falls; and from the cornice that joins the ceiling to the walls hang
bits of stucco cut in facets and worked like stalactites and bunches of
flowers. The throne stood in the centre before the window and opposite
the door of entrance. From the windows on this side, you enjoy a
magnificent view of the valley of the Darro; so deep and silent that it
seems as if it must be fascinated by the majestic Alhambra; from the
windows of the two other sides you see the walls of the enclosure and
the towers of the fortress; and from the side of the entrance, in the
distance, the light arches of the Court of Myrtles, and the waters of
the basin reflecting the azure of the sky.
We left the tower with rapid steps, crossed the Court of Myrtles,
and came in front of a little door opposite the entrance. We went
about fifteen steps and stopped. We were in the Court of the Lions.
If at this moment I had been forced to leave just as I had entered,
I do not know if I could have described what I had seen. A forest
of columns, a labyrinth of arches and embroideries, an indefinable
elegance, an unimaginable delicacy, a prodigious richness, and I don’t
know what that was aërial, transparent, and undulating, it was like a
great pavilion of lace; the appearance of a building that would fall
by a breath, a variety of lights, perspectives, mysterious shadows,
confusion, a capricious disorder of little things, the majesty
of a little palace, the gaiety of a kiosk, an amorous grace, an
extravagance, a delight, a phantasy of a young and passionate maiden,
an angel’s dream, a madness, a thing without a name; such is the first
effect of the Court of Lions.
This is a court larger than a great ball-room, rectangular in form,
with walls as high as one of the little Andalusian houses of one story.
A light portico runs around it supported by graceful little columns
of white marble, grouped in symmetrical disorder, by twos and threes
almost without a base so that they seem to be starting from the earth
like the trunks of trees, and adorned with varied capitals, tall and
delicate, in the form of little pillars upon which curve tiny arches
of the most graceful form. These arches seem not leaning upon, but
suspended over the columns: one might call them curtains arranged upon
the columns like ribbons or floating garlands. From the centre of the
shortest sides, there advance two groups of columns that form two
kinds of little square temples, each of nine arches, surmounted by a
little cupola of many colours. The walls of these little temples and
the outside wall of the portico are a veritable lace-work in stucco;
they are ornamented, embroidered, bordered, cut and perforated from
one side to the other, transparent as a web, and changing in design at
your approach; here, flowers are nestling in the arabesques; there,
stars; and farther away, bucklers, squares, and polygonal figures
covered with ornaments of an infinite delicacy. All this ends in
jagged points, in festoons, in ribbons fluttering around the arches,
in species of stalactites, fringes, pear-shaped drops and acorns, that
seem to undulate with the least breath of air. Long Arabic inscriptions
run the entire length of the four walls, above the arches, upon the
capitals, and upon the walls of the little temples. In the centre of
the court there rises a great marble basin, upheld by twelve lions,
and surrounded by a paved canal, from which gush four other small
canals, that, describing a cross between the four sides of the court,
cross the portico, dart into the neighbouring halls and unite with
the other conduits cutting through the entire edifice. Behind the two
little temples, and in the middle of the two other sides, there open
suites of halls with immense open doorways, that allow you to see the
dark background upon which the little white columns gleam as if they
stood before the mouth of a grotto. At every step one takes into the
court, this forest of columns seems to move and disarrange itself to
arrange itself in a new way; behind a column that seems to stand
alone, two, three, or sometimes a file of them, will show themselves;
others will disappear, others will approach each other, and others
will separate; in looking into the depths of one of these halls, you
see everything change: the arches on the opposite side seem to be far
away; the columns seem out of place, the little temples assume another
form; you see through the very walls, you discover new arches and new
columns, here in the bright sunlight, there in the shadow, elsewhere
half illuminated by the soft light that passes through the perforations
of the carving, and farther away they are lost in the darkness. Here is
a continual changing of perspectives, distances, deceptions, mysteries,
and optical illusions made by the architecture and the sunlight and
your own over-excited and burning imagination.
“What must this _patio_ have been,” said Gongora, “when the
interior walls of the portico were glistening with mosaics, the
capitals of the columns gleaming with gold, the ceilings and vaults
painted in a thousand colours, the doorways closed by hangings of silk,
and the niches filled with flowers; and when beneath the temples and
in the halls perfumed waters flowed, and when from the nostrils of the
lions dashed forth twelve jets of water that fell back into the basin,
and when the air was impregnated with the most delicious perfumes of
Arabia! You should come here at sunrise; you should also come here at
sunset and at moonlight to see the marvels of colour, light and shade!
It would turn your head!”
We went to see the halls. On the eastern side there is one called the
Hall of Justice, which you reach by passing under three large arches,
each one taking the place of a door opening into the court. It is a
long and narrow hall, of rich and bold architecture, the walls of
which are covered with very intricate arabesques and precious mosaics,
with points, bunches, and protuberances of stucco hanging from the
arches, which crowd together, drop, spring from, press upon, and are
superimposed upon each other, as if they disputed the very space, and
showing even now traces of ancient colours which must have given to
this ceiling the semblance of suspended fruits and flowers.
On the northern side of the court there is another hall called _de
las Hermanas_ (the Two Sisters) from two large slabs of marble
that are found in the pavement. It is the most gracious hall of the
Alhambra. It is small, square, and domed with one of those vaults in
the form of a cupola which the Spaniards call half-oranges, sustained
by little columns and arches arranged in a circle, all cut to resemble
a grotto of stalactites with an infinity of points and holes, coloured
and gilded and so light that they seem to the eye as if hanging in
the air: you would think that they would tremble like a curtain, at a
touch, or evaporate like a cloud, or vanish like a lot of soap-bubbles.
The walls of stucco, like those of the other halls, and covered with
arabesques, of an incredible delicacy, are among the most astonishing
productions of human fancy and patience.
We returned to the Court of the Myrtles, and visited the halls on the
other side of the Tower of Comares, most of them half ruined, others
transformed, some of them half bare, without either pavement or roof,
but all worthy of being seen because of the memories they awaken, and
also in order to understand the construction of the building. The old
mosque was converted into a chapel by Charles V. and a large Arabian
hall into an oratory; here and there you noticed the _débris_ of
arabesques and ceilings of carved cedar; the galleries, the courts, and
the vestibules seemed the remains of a palace devoured by fire.
At this point I truly thought that there was nothing more to be seen,
and I committed the fresh imprudence of saying so to Gongora. At this
blow he could no longer contain himself, and, leading me into the
vestibule of the Court of Myrtles, before a plan of the building that
hung upon the wall, he said:
“Look around you, and you will see that all the halls, all the courts,
and all the towers that we have visited up to now, only occupy the
twentieth part of the space enclosed by the walls of the Alhambra; you
see that we have not yet visited the remains of three other mosques,
the ruins of the Hall of the Cadi, the Water-Tower, the Tower of the
Infantas, the Tower of the Prisoner, the Tower of Candil, the Tower
of the Pico, the Tower of the Poignards, the Tower of the _Siete
Melos_, the Tower of the Captain, the Tower of the Sorcerer,
the Tower of the Heads, the Tower of the Weapons, the Tower of the
Hidalgos, the Tower of the Chickens, the Tower of the Dice, the Tower
of Homage, the Tower of the Vela, the Tower of the Powder, the ruins
of the house of Mondejar, the military quarters, the Iron Gate, the
interior walls, the cisterns, and the promenades; for you must know
that the Alhambra is not solely a palace, but a town, and that it would
take a lifetime to search for arabesques, to read inscriptions and to
discover each day some new view of the hills and mountains, falling
into an ecstasy once at least during the twenty-four hours!”
And I thought I had seen the Alhambra.
LAMBETH PALACE
JOHN RICHARD GREEN
A little higher up the river, but almost opposite to the huge mass of
the Houses of Parliament, lies a broken, irregular pile of buildings,
at whose angle, looking out over the Thames, is one grey weather-beaten
tower. The broken pile is the archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth; the
grey, weather-beaten building is its Lollards’ Tower. From this tower
the mansion itself stretches in a varied line; chapel and guard-room,
and gallery, and the stately buildings of the new house looking out
on the terrace and garden; while the Great Hall, in which the library
has now found a home, is the low picturesque building which reaches
southward along the river to the gate.
The story of each of these spots will interweave itself with the
thread of our narrative as we proceed; but I would warn my readers at
the outset that I do not propose to trace the history of Lambeth in
itself, or to attempt any architectural or picturesque description of
the place. What I attempt is simply to mark, in incident after incident
which has occurred within its walls, the relation of the house to the
primates whom it has sheltered for seven hundred years, and through
them to the literary, ecclesiastical, the political history of the
realm.
Nothing illustrates the last of these relations better than the
site of the house itself. It is doubtful whether we can date the
residence of the archbishops of Canterbury at Lambeth, which was then a
manor-house of the see of Rochester, earlier than the reign of Eadward
the Confessor. But there was a significance in the choice of the spot,
as there was a significance in the date at which the choice was made.
So long as the political head of the English people ruled, like Ælfred,
or Æthelstan, or Eadgar, from Winchester, the spiritual head of the
English people was content to rule from Canterbury. It was when the
piety of the Confessor and the political prescience of his successors
brought the kings finally to Westminster that the archbishops were
permanently drawn to their suffragan’s manor-house at Lambeth. The
Norman rule gave a fresh meaning to their position. In the new course
of national history which opened with the Conquest, the Church
was called to play a part greater than she had ever known before.
Hitherto the archbishop had been simply the head of the ecclesiastical
order--a representative of the moral and spiritual forces on which
the government was based. The Conquest, the cessation of the great
Witenagemotes in which the nation, however imperfectly, had till then
found a voice, turned him into a tribune of the people.
[Illustration: LAMBETH PALACE, ENGLAND.]
Foreigner though he might be, it was the primate’s part to speak for
the conquered race the words it could no longer utter. He was, in fact,
the permanent leader (to borrow a modern phrase) of a constitutional
opposition; and, in addition to the older religious forces which he
wielded, he wielded a popular and democratic force which held the
new king and the new baronage in check. It was he who received from
the sovereign whom he crowned the solemn oath that he would rule not
by his own will, but according to the customs, or, as we should say
now, the traditional constitution, of the realm. It was his to call
on the people to declare whether they chose him for their king; to
receive the thundered “Ay, ay,” of the crowd; to place the priestly
unction on shoulder and breast, the royal crown on brow. To watch over
the observance and order into religious duties; to uphold the custom
and law of the realm against personal tyranny; to guard, amidst the
darkness and brutality of the age, those interests of religion, of
morality, of intellectual life, which as yet lay peacefully together
beneath the wing of the Church--this was the political office of the
primate in the new order which the Conquest created; and it was this
office which expressed itself in the site of the house that fronted the
king’s house over Thames.
From the days of Archbishop Anselm, therefore, to the days of Stephen
Langton, Lambeth only fronted Westminster as the archbishop fronted the
king. Synod met over against council; the clerical court of the one
ruler rivaled in splendour, in actual influence, the baronial court
of the other. For more than a century of our history the great powers
which together were to make up the England of the future lay marshalled
over against each other on either side the water.
With the union of the English people, and the sudden arising of English
freedom, which followed the Great Charter, this peculiar attitude
of the archbishops passed necessarily away. When the people itself
spoke again, its voice was heard, not in the hall of Lambeth, but in
the Chapter-house which gave a home to the House of Commons in its
earlier sessions at Westminster. From the day of Stephen Langton the
nation has towered higher and higher above its mere ecclesiastical
organization, till the one stands dwarfed beside the other as Lambeth
now stands dwarfed before the mass of the Houses of Parliament. Nor
was the religious change less than the political. In the Church as
in the State, the archbishops suddenly fell into the rear. From the
days of the first English Parliament to the days of the Reformation,
they not only ceased to be representatives of the moral and religious
forces of the nation, but stand actually opposed to them. Nowhere is
this better brought out than in their house beside the Thames. The
political history of Lambeth lies spread over the whole of its site,
from the gateway of Morton to the garden where we shall see Cranmer
musing on the fate of Anne Boleyn. Its ecclesiastical interest, on
the other hand, is concentrated in a single spot. We must ask our
readers, therefore, to follow us beneath the groining of the Gate-house
into the quiet little court that lies on the river-side of the hall.
Passing over its trim grass-plot to a doorway at the angle of Lollards’
Tower, and mounting a few steps, they will find themselves in a
square antechamber, paved roughly with tiles, and with a single small
window looking out towards the Thames. The chamber is at the base of
Lollards’ Tower; in the centre stands a huge oaken pillar, to which the
room owes its name of the “Post-room,” and to which somewhat mythical
tradition asserts Lollards to have been tied when they were “examined”
by the whip. On its western side a doorway of the purest early English
work leads us directly into the palace chapel.
It is strange to stand at a single step in the very heart of the
ecclesiastical life of so many ages, within walls beneath which the
men in whose hands the fortunes of English religion have been placed
from the age of the Great Charter till to-day have come and gone; to
see the light falling through the tall windows with their marble shafts
on the spot where Wyclif fronted Sudbury, on the lowly tomb of Parker,
on the stately screen-work of Laud, on the altar where the last sad
communion of Sancroft originated the Non-jurors. It is strange to note
the very characteristics of the building itself, marred as it is by
modern restoration, and to feel how simply its stern, unadorned beauty,
the beauty of Salisbury and of Lincoln, expressed the very tone of the
Church that finds its centre there.
And hardly less strange it is to recall the odd, roistering figure
of the primate, to whom, if tradition be true, it owes this beauty.
Boniface of Savoy was the youngest of three brothers out of whom their
niece, Eleanor, the queen of Henry the Third, was striving to build up
a foreign party in the realm. Her uncle Amadeus was richly enfeossed
with English lands; the Savoy Palace in the Strand still recalls the
sentiment and the magnificence of her uncle Peter. For this third
and younger uncle she grasped at the highest post in the state save
the crown itself. “The handsome archbishop,” as his knights loved to
call him, was not merely a foreigner as Lanfranc and Anselm had been
foreigners--strange in manner or in speech to the flock whom they
ruled--he was foreign in the worst sense: strange to their freedom,
their sense of law, their reverence for piety. His first visit set
everything on fire. He retreated to Lyons to hold a commission in the
Pope’s bodyguard, but even Innocent was soon weary of his tyranny. When
the threat of sequestration recalled him after four years of absence
to his see, his hatred of England, his purpose soon to withdraw again
to his own sunny South, were seen in his refusal to furnish Lambeth.
Certainly he went the wrong way to stay here. The young primate brought
with him Savoyard fashions, strange enough to English folk. His armed
retainers, foreigners to a man, plundered the City markets. His own
archiepiscopal fist felled to the ground a prior who opposed his
visitation. It was the prior of St. Bartholomew’s by Smithfield; and
London, on the king’s refusal to grant redress, took the matter into
her own hands. The City bells swung out, and a noisy crowd of citizens
were soon swarming beneath the walls of the palace, shouting threats of
vengeance.
For shouts Boniface cared little. In the midst of the tumult he caused
the sentences of excommunication which he had fulminated to be legally
executed in the chapel of his house. But, bravado-like, this soon died
before the universal resentment, and “the handsome archbishop” fled
again to Lyons. How helpless the successor of Augustine really was, was
shown by a daring outrage perpetrated in his absence. Master Eustace,
his official, had thrown into prison the prior of St. Thomas’s Hospital
for some contempt of court; and the prior’s diocesan, the Bishop of
Winchester, a prelate as foreign and lawless as Boniface himself,
took up the injury as his own. A party of his knights appeared before
the house at Lambeth, tore the gates from their hinges, set Master
Eustace on horseback, and carried him off to the episcopal prison at
Farnham. At last Boniface bowed to submission, surrendered the points
at issue, recalled his excommunication, and was suffered to return. He
had learned his lesson well enough to remain from that time a quiet,
inactive man, with a dash of Continental frugality and wit about him.
Whether he built the chapel or not, he would probably have said of it
as he said of the Great Hall at Canterbury, “My predecessors built, and
I discharge the debt for their building. It seems to me that the true
builder is the man that pays the bill.”
From the moment when Wyclif stood in Lambeth Chapel the Church sunk,
ecclesiastically as well as politically, into non-existence. It
survived merely as a vast land-owner; while its primates, after a short
effort to resume their older position as real heads of their order,
dwindled into ministers and tools of the crown. The gate-tower of the
house, the grand mass of brick-work, whose dark-red tones are (or,
alas! were, till a year or two since) so exquisitely brought out by the
grey stone of its angles and the mullions of its broad arch-window,
recalls an age--that of its builder, Archbishop Morton--when Lambeth,
though the residence of the first minister of the crown, had really
lost all hold on the nobler elements of political life. It was raised
from this degradation by the efforts of a primate to whose merits
justice has hardly as yet been done. First in date among the genuine
portraits of the Archbishops of Canterbury which hang round the walls
of the Guard-room at Lambeth is the portrait of Archbishop Warham. The
plain, homely old man’s face still looks down on us, line for line,
as the “seeing eye” of Holbein gazed on it three centuries ago. “I
instance this picture,” says Mr. Wornum, in his life of the painter,
“as an illustration that Holbein had the power of seeing what he
looked on, and of perfectly transferring to his picture what he saw.”
Memorable in the annals of art as the first of that historic series
which brings home to us, as no age has ever been brought home to eyes
of after-time, the age of the English Reformation, it is even more
memorable as marking the close of the great intellectual movement which
the Reformation swept away.
With the Reformation, in its nobler and purer aspects, Lambeth, as we
have said, had little to do. Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Alasco gathered
there for a moment round Cranmer; but it was simply as a resting-place,
on their way to Cambridge, to Oxford, and to Austin Friars. Only one
of the symbols of the new Protestantism has any connection with it;
the Prayer-book was drawn up in the peaceful seclusion of Oxford. The
party conferences, the rival martyrdoms of the jarring creeds, took
place elsewhere. The memories of Cranmer which linger round Lambeth
are simply memories of degradation; and that the deepest degradation
of all, the degradation of those solemn influences which the primacy
embodies to the sanction of political infamy. It is fair, indeed, to
remember the bitterness of Cranmer’s suffering. Impassive as he seemed,
with a face that never changed, and sleep seldom known to be broken,
men saw little of the inner anguish with which the tool of Henry’s
injustice bent before that overmastering will.
None of the great theological impulses of this age or the last, it
is sometimes urged, came out of Lambeth. Little of the theological
bitterness, of the controversial narrowness of this age or the last, it
may fairly be answered, has ever entered its gates. Of Lambeth we may
say what Matthew Arnold says of Oxford, that many as are its faults,
it has never surrendered itself to ecclesiastical Philistines. In the
calm, genial silence of its courts, its library, its galleries, in
the presence of its venerable past, the virulence, the petty strife,
the tumult of religious fanaticism finds itself hushed. Among the
storms of the Wesleyan revival, of the Evangelical revival, of the
Puseyite revival, the voice of Lambeth has ever pleaded for a truth,
simpler, larger, more human than theirs. Amidst the deafening clamour
of Tractarian and Anti-Tractarian disputants, both sides united
in condemning the silence of Lambeth. Yet the one word that came
from Lambeth will still speak to men’s hearts when all their noisy
disputations are forgotten. “How,” a prelate, whose nearest relative
had joined the Church of Rome, asked Archbishop Howley, “how shall I
treat my brother?” “As a brother,” was the archbishop’s reply.
CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS
JULES LOISELEUR
The castle of Blois would be without a rival in France if Fontainebleau
did not exist. The first time we enter that interior court, the
four sides of which each tell the history of a great period of
architecture, we are dazzled by the throng of memories and ideas that
start from these four great pages. The obedient stone, in accordance
with the epoch, has recorded the suspicious precautions, the paternal
confidence, the chivalric enthusiasm and the majestic isolation of the
masters of this royal dwelling. Pure feudalism is written in the mighty
walls of the fortress of the Counts of Blois. The transitional style,
one of the most important examples of which is offered by this castle
of Louis XII., marks the change from the feudal system to the unitary
monarchy prepared by Louis XI. This youthful monarchy, already absolute
though tempered by the great aristocratic individualities, already
glitters and triumphs in this brilliant façade built by the young
victor of Marignan. By the side of this splendid façade, like a severe
master beside a turbulent pupil, the severe profile of the castle,
built by Mansart, suggests the absolute and uncounterpoised monarchy of
Louis XVI.;--unity without diversity, force without grace.
Thus the unknown architect who cut the walls of the mighty fortress
out of the rock for Thibault le Tricheur; and the artists, native in
all probability and therefore unknown, who drew the arabesques of
Francis the First’s stairway; and Joconde, the architect of Louis XII.;
and Mansart, the architect of Gaston of Orleans; and all those bold
stone-workers, unknown to themselves, doubtless, in those four façades
have shown the four chief phases of royal authority. “Monuments are the
true writings of the nations.”
Above the city of Blois, upon a triangular plateau, whence the view
embraces the vast panorama of the left bank of the Loire, formerly
stood a fortress, the origin of which is lost in the obscurity of ages.
It was one of those redoubtable holds in which the great feudal barons
watched for their prey and kept what they captured. It was one of the
most formidable of all, and it is stated that it was never reduced, nor
even besieged. Three narrow ascents, shadowed on either side by high
walls, gave access to it. A double ring of fortifications was in front
of the donjon, which, in case of siege, was the last resort of the
master of this formidable abode. The first enclosure, called the lower
court, or fore-court, to-day forms a courtyard of considerable size, at
the end of which rises the front built by Louis XII. Ruined towers with
thick walls still testify of the precautions taken to defend this first
circuit.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS, FRANCE.]
Immense offices, a church the foundation of which dates back from the
Eleventh Century, and which must not be confounded with the chapel that
is to be seen in the present castle-yard, and lodgings for the canons
and servants of this church formed a vast circle of buildings around
this first courtyard where also were to be seen the habitations of the
count’s principal officers. There, in succession, afterwards arose the
house from the window of which Georges d’Amboise, counsellor to Louis
XII., conversed with his master; the house of the Duc d’Epernon, who
favoured the flight of Marie de’Medicis; and that other mansion where,
on June 13th, 1626, Louis XIII. caused the arrest of the Prince de
Vendôme, accused of being concerned in the Chalais conspiracy.
The castle built by Louis XII. now stands on the spot where the second
enclosure began. Access to the latter was gained by a drawbridge thrown
across a moat between two strong towers. Close to this bridge was a
narrow passage communicating with the covered way called the Vault of
the Castle, which has lately disappeared and which led to the _Place
des Jésuites_. It would be rash to pretend exactly to reconstruct
the physiognomy which this second enclosure presented in the Twelfth
or Thirteenth Century. The buildings of the background, vast edifices
raised by the Counts of Blois, of the house of Châtillon, have
completely disappeared and are only visible to-day in the drawings of
de Cerceau. It is on the site of these buildings that Gaston d’Orléans
raised, about 1635, the cold and regular building that bears his name.
It was between the thick walls of this hall and the no less thick
walls of the _Tour des Moulins_ that Francis the First wedged
his _château_ in. If we leave the Hall of the Estates, deferring
till a little later a visit to the elegant edifice of that prince,
and go immediately to the tower that terminates it and connects the
_château_ of Francis the First with that of Gaston of Orleans,
we shall have traversed all that now remains standing of the ancient
strong castle of the Counts of Blois.
The _château_ built by Francis the First, by the abundance and
variety of its ornamentation, crushes the simple abode of Louis XII.
Beside this strong and severe building it produces the effect of a
young bride covered with laces beside the rich but serious and durable
robe of her grandmother.
It was Louis XII., however, who laid the foundations of Francis the
First’s wing. But these foundations had scarcely risen above the
ground when he died. The plan adopted at that time only required one
façade,--that of the courtyard. Francis the First had another building
joined to the original one. When the addition was made, the strong
partition-wall that terminated the first building and to-day separates
the two sides of the edifice was already far advanced, so that it was
necessary to pierce it with doorways that now allow us to appreciate
its thickness. We are told that three years sufficed for the young
victor of Marignan to carry this enterprise to the point at which we
see it to-day. The king’s plan was to add two other wings to the castle
that would thus have formed a perfect square. But Francis the First
lacked the money necessary for the execution of this colossal plan, as
Louis XIV. did afterwards for Versailles. The Field of the Cloth of
Gold and the Italian war had exhausted his resources. During the years
that followed, the many catastrophes that overwhelmed France--the loss
of Milan, the death of Bayard, the battle of Pavia, and finally the
captivity in Madrid,--destroyed Francis’s passion for building,--that
love of the square and trowel that was common to him and all the great
sovereigns of our country. When he returned from captivity, in 1526,
with his head full of fairy-like Arab and Moorish constructions, he
was already dreaming of Chambord, and neglected Blois, in which,
however, had been gathered the money for his ransom. The grand project,
conceived in 1516, was therefore abandoned, and the unfinished castle
of Blois remained as we see it to-day,--a curious and incoherent
assemblage of monuments of divers styles and periods.
We have heard nothing about the _château_ built by Gaston
of Orleans, not that that edifice is without merit, but its cold
regularity disagreeably contrasts with the Renaissance architecture,
so sparkling and prodigal of caprice. It was for the purpose of
completing that correct and wearisome monument that Gaston wanted to
destroy what remains of Francis the First’s wing. He would gladly
have said, like Louis XIV.: “Remove those grotesque piles.” For it
is a singular fact that at that time good taste joined in the same
condemnation the Middle Ages, whose wonders were considered barbarous,
and the Renaissance which had led the arts back to the purer forms of
antiquity. With bare stones and straight lines throughout, yet there
was something of the majestic gravity of Louis XIV. in the work of
his uncle Gaston. In order that the straight line may produce great
effects it must be developed over the immense surface of a Louvre or
a Versailles. At Blois it is only insignificant. This château would
serve for anything,--a museum, a library, or a tribunal, just as well
as the abode of a prince. In 1823, it had a narrow escape of becoming a
prefecture. They were going to pull down what they called the shanties
of Louis XII. and substitute a fine iron grille for them. Francis the
First’s wing found grace in the eyes of the destroyers on condition of
sheltering the household: the kitchens had to be placed somewhere! It
is true that this happened in 1823, only a few years after the Empire.
The work of a period of transition, when tranquillity was succeeding
agitation, this palace of the chief of the Fronde does not possess the
serene power and self-confidence that came afterwards, but we already
feel something in it of the imposing unity and the majestic ennui of
the great reign.
FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI
LOUIS ROUSSELET
The ruins of Futtehpore, the Versailles of the great Akbar, cover the
summit of a hill twelve miles from Bhurtpore. On leaving that town, we
travelled across a succession of monotonous plains alternately composed
of marshes and rocky deserts. The horizon was unbounded, except on the
east, where lay the hill of Futtehpore, the fantastic outline of which
caught the rays of the rising sun. Even from afar, the eye is struck by
the number and size of the buildings, which a royal caprice has erected
in the midst of this desert: one would take it for a large and populous
city. Those long lines of palaces with their gilded domes and pinnacles
could never have been built to be so soon abandoned to solitude. The
scene becomes grander the nearer you approach. On arriving at the foot
of the hill, the road passes under a majestic gateway, beyond which are
the long, silent streets; the palaces still standing perfect and entire
amidst the ruined dwellings of the people; with the fountains and the
magnificent gardens, wherein the pomegranates and the jessamine have
grown for centuries. The whole scene is of imposing grandeur; and the
hand of time has fallen so lightly upon it that one might take it for a
town very recently deserted by its inhabitants, or one of the enchanted
cities of Sinbad the Sailor.
The _bigarri_,[1] whom we had taken with us from the village of
Sikri, conducted us to a bungalow which is maintained by the English
Government for the accommodation of travellers. This bungalow, which
was once the ancient _kutchery_[2] of Akbar, is built of red
sandstone, and surrounded by a beautiful verandah supported by columns.
It is situated on the northern extremity of the plateau, and overlooks
the town on one side and the front of the zenanah on the other. An
old Sepoy is placed in charge of the edifice, which contains two
comfortably furnished apartments.
The foundations of Futtehpore, “the Town of Victory,” were laid by
Akbar in 1571, and the ramparts, city, and palace were all completed
with extraordinary rapidity. Akbar was attracted to this desert by the
sanctity of a Mussulman Anchorite, Selim Shisti, who inhabited one of
the caverns on the hill. Attracted by the situation, he built himself
a palace, and finally, being unwilling to give up the society of the
holy man, he resolved to establish there the capital of his empire. In
a few years this desert spot was transformed into a large and populous
city; but the death of Selim soon put an end to this prosperity. Akbar
then saw the folly of trying to place his capital in the midst of
these sterile plains, unapproached by any of the great rivers, more
especially as he possessed the unusually favourable situation of Agra.
His resolution was promptly taken. In 1584, he abandoned Futtehpore
with all its grandeur, and carried off the whole population to
people his new capital of Agra. The evacuation was complete; none of
the successors of Akbar cared to carry out his foolish project, and
very soon the only inhabitants of Futtehpore were wild animals and
a few anchorites. One is almost tempted to think that Akbar built
Futtehpore for the sole purpose of giving posterity some idea of his
greatness in leaving this monument of his capricious fancy.
[Illustration: FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI, INDIA.]
The fame of Selim still attracts thousands of pilgrims to his tomb,
where they assemble at certain seasons of the year; and, to supply
the wants of these devotees, two villages have sprung up on the site
of the deserted town, one called Futtehpore, and the other Sikri; and
it is by this double appellation of Futtehpore-Sikri that the ruins
are generally known. Apart from their beauty, which all must admire,
they are of special interest to the archæologist as being the work of
a single individual, and therefore a perfect specimen of the style of
architecture of his epoch. From their marvellous state of preservation,
you can trace, step by step, the mode of life of the great Akbar, and
can form a just idea of Indian manners and customs in the Sixteenth
Century. Everything still breathes of the magnificence of that
Eastern Court the fame of which was carried to Europe by contemporary
travellers, whose tales were looked upon as fables, and the wealth
and splendour of which excited later the avarice and cupidity of the
Western nations.
The tomb of Selim, the imperial palace, and some of the dwellings of
the Mogul grandees are almost entire. They form a compact group, one
mile in length, which occupies the summit of a hill 180 feet high. This
hill furnished the whole of the material of which they are built, which
is a fine sandstone, varying from purple to rose colour. The stone has
been left unornamented throughout; but the architects have avoided the
monotony of the colour by artistically arranging its various tints. The
mass is now softened by time; and one of its chief beauties is this
mellow colouring, which blends ground and building in one, making the
latter appear as though carved out of the peaks of the mountain.
The imperial palace lies to the east of the tomb. It is a vast
collection of separate buildings connected by galleries and courtyards,
and covering an area at least equal to that occupied by the Louvre and
the Tuileries.
The first building you come to on leaving the tomb used to contain
the private apartments of the emperor. It now goes by the name of
_tapili_, or guard-house, from the fact of its being inhabited by
the handful of soldiers who are employed to keep off marauders from
the ruins. The palace is built with great simplicity, its exterior
being nothing but a blank wall, with a small court in its centre, into
which the galleries on the different stories open. On one side is a
colonnade, profusely ornamented in the Hindoo style; this was the
verandah of the apartment of Akbar’s favourite wife, and the mother of
Jehanghir: and at the end of an open space which extends in front of
the palace is the _kutchery_, now converted into a bungalow for
travellers.
A ruined gallery leads from the _tapili_ to the Imperial zenanah,
which is surrounded by a high wall. Each princess was allotted a
separate palace in this enclosure, with its own gardens, etc.,
constructed according to her own taste and wishes. The first of these
was the palace of the Queen Mary, a Portuguese lady whom Akbar had
espoused; in the apartments of which are numerous frescoes, amongst
others one representing the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. It is
a matter of surprise to find a Mussulman prince, in the Sixteenth
Century, with such tolerant views as to allow in his palace a thing so
opposed to the principles of his religion; but it does not astonish
one in such an enlightened man as the great Akbar. Wishing to put
an end forever to the subjects of discord which divided the nations
of his empire, he devised the plan of creating a new religion which
should unite the sympathies of all. For this purpose he assembled a
general council which was attended by the priests of all the religious
denominations of India, and even by some of the Christian missionaries
from Goa; and to them he submitted his project: but nothing resulted
from the discussion. In spite of this the emperor compiled a voluminous
work on the different religions of the world, viz., Christianity,
Judaism, Islamism, and the various Hindoo sects, in which he displayed
very liberal and enlightened views.
From the palace of Queen Mary you enter a court, surrounded by
apartments, and almost entirely occupied by a basin of vast dimensions,
in the centre of which is an island built on a terrace, and reached
by four stone foot-bridges. At the extremity of this court, there is
a pavilion, the walls and pillars of which are enriched with fine
sculptures; its rooms overlooking on one side the ornamental tank, and
on the other a garden still ornamented with shrubberies and fine trees.
This was the abode of one of Akbar’s wives, the Roumi Sultani, daughter
of one of the Sultans of Constantinople.
On a high terrace, to the right of this palace, is the emperor’s
sleeping-apartment; the ground-floor containing a spacious hall with
sculptured columns, which is half filled up with rubbish.
On the west of the zenanah, rises a fanciful construction, called
_Pânch Mahal_--“the Five Palaces,”--which consists of four
terraces, supported by galleries rising one above another, and
gradually diminishing in size towards the top, where they terminate in
a dome sustained by four columns. It resembles the half of a pyramid,
and has a very curious effect. The thirty-five pillars which support
the second terrace are all different, comprising almost every style
and some very remarkable specimens of original architecture. It is a
valuable architectural collection. There has been much discussion as to
the design of the building, since the open galleries could not possibly
have been intended for habitation. Its position against the walls of
the zenanah, the interior of which it overlooks and communicates with,
leads to the supposition that it was assigned to the eunuchs; but in
any case it was a fanciful idea of the architect. In the little court
which surrounds the _Pânch Mahal_ are some very curious detached
buildings for the accommodation of the servants of the harem. The
architect evidently wished to give them an appearance most befitting
their use; and, as there was no wood at his disposal, he minutely
copied in stone those light constructions which serve in the palaces
of India as a shelter for the lower servants. The roof, formed of
slabs of stone, is carved to imitate thatch, and is supported by the
same net-work of beams which would be used for a lighter material than
sandstone. In a word, they are sheds built of sculptured stone.
After passing through the galleries of the _Pânch Mahal_, you come
out upon the principal court of the palace, called the Court of the
Pucheesee; on one side of which are the walls of the zenanah, and on
the other the apartments of the ministers and the audience-chambers.
Pucheesee is a game of great antiquity, which the Indians have always
been passionately fond of; and it is played with pawns on chess-boards
greatly resembling those used in Europe. There are four players, with
four pawns apiece; and the moves are regulated by throwing the dice,
the object being to get your four pawns into the centre of the board.
The game of pucheesee was played by Akbar in a truly regal manner; the
court itself, divided into red and white squares, being the board, and
an enormous stone, raised on four feet, representing the central point.
It was here that Akbar and his courtiers played this game; sixteen
young slaves from the harem, wearing the players’ colours, themselves
represented the pieces, and moved to the squares according to the
throw of the dice. It is said that the emperor took such a fancy to
playing the game on this grand scale that he had a court for pucheesee
constructed in all his palaces; and traces of such are still visible
at Agra[3] and Allahabad.
To the north of this court and on the same side as the _Pânch
Mahal_ is a palace, built with great simplicity, and in such a
good state of preservation that you might mistake it for a modern
building. One wing is a perfect labyrinth of corridors and passages, in
which the ladies of the Court amused themselves with their favourite
games of “aukh-matchorli,” or blind-man’s-buff, and hide-and-seek;
and before it rises a kiosk of Hindoo architecture, called the
_Gooroo-ka-Mundil_, “Temple of the Mendicant.” The emperor, in
order to show his regard for the religion of the majority of his
subjects, entertained at his Court a Gooroo, or religious mendicant
of the Saïva sect, and even had this temple built for him and his
co-religionists.
A little farther on and facing the zenanah is one of the most
beautiful buildings of Futtehpore, consisting of a graceful
pavilion of one story, surmounted by four light cupolas. This is the
_Dewani-Khas_, or Palace of the Council of State. The simplicity
of its outline, its square windows and handsome balcony, remind one
of our modern buildings. It is, however, quite in accordance with
the character of Akbar, who, as well in architecture as in religion
and government, never copied his predecessors. The interior of the
_Dewani-Khas_ is a large hall the whole height of the edifice,
in the centre of which is an enormous column of red sandstone, which
terminates at some distance from the ceiling in a large capital
magnificently sculptured. This capital forms a platform, encircled by
a light balustrade, from which diverge four stone bridges, leading to
four niches in the corners of the building; and a staircase hidden in
the wall leads to a secret corridor, which communicates with the niche.
It is one of the strangest fancies of the architect of Futtehpore.
On the occasion of a council being assembled, the emperor took his
place on the platform, his ministers occupying the niches; while the
ambassadors and other personages who were called into their presence
remained in the hall at the foot of the column, and were unable to
judge of the impression which their communication produced on the
council.
A long gallery, partly in ruins, leads from the _Dewani-Khas_ to
the _Dewani-Am_, or Palace of the Public Audiences. It is a small
building, one side of which overlooks the Court of the Pucheesee, and
the other a large court surrounded by colonnades.
The chronicler Aboul Fazel says that at certain hours the people were
admitted into this court. After the council the emperor repaired to the
_Dewani-Am_, where, after having put on his robes of state, he
seated himself on a tribune overlooking the court. Here he remained for
some time, inquiring into and redressing the grievances of the people,
and receiving the strangers who flocked to his court. According to
tradition, it was here that he received the Jesuits of Goa, who brought
him the leaves and seeds of tobacco; and it was at Futtehpore that
Hakim Aboul Futteh Ghilani, one of Akbar’s physicians, is supposed to
have invented the hookah, the pipe of India.
It would take too long to describe every part of this vast palace in
detail, for, besides what I have already noticed, there are the baths,
the mint, the barracks, and numerous other buildings, all in ruins.
CAERNAVON CASTLE
WILLIAM HOWITT
The castles of Caernavon, Beaumaris, and Conway, all on this north-west
coast of Wales, are monuments of the subjection of the Principality by
Edward I. Other castles on this coast he took and strengthened, for
instance those of Flint and Rhuddlan, as yokes on the necks of the
North Welsh; these three he built expressly for that purpose, and,
though all now more or less in ruin, they remain splendid evidences
of his power, and of the architectural taste of the age. We have no
finer specimens of castellated buildings than in the fortresses of
Caernavon and Conway, and what remains of the extensive castle of
Beaumaris shows what it once was. Even the Welsh, who do not forget
the object of their erection, yet regard them with pride. Edward I.,
a warrior and statesman of the first rank, cherished, as the great
purpose of his life, the reduction of the whole of the magnificent
island of Great Britain into one compact and noble kingdom. This could
not be done without invading the country and constitutions of Wales and
Scotland, which had as much right to maintain their own independence,
their own laws and customs as England had. But warriors by nature and
possession think little of such rights, and readily persuade themselves
that the project which aggrandizes their own country sanctifies the
most flagrant usurpations, and renders innocent all the bloodshed and
the crimes which irresistibly attend such enterprises. At the present
day, the general sense of both England and Scotland, if not of Wales,
would refuse to pronounce on Edward I. any other verdict than that of
a great benefactor to his nation for what he did, and even for what he
attempted yet failed in, towards the consolidation of Great Britain
under one crown.
Whilst, however, he endeavored to mollify the spirit of the Welsh by
the extension to them of civil, social, and commercial advantages, he
did not trust by any means to these, but planned the erection of a
chain of strong fortresses which should command the north as completely
as the south was commanded by the same means. And thus arose, with
others, the three princely strongholds of Conway, Beaumaris, and
Caernavon.
The Castle of Conway seems to have been commenced a couple of years
later than Caernavon Castle,--Caernavon being begun immediately on the
defeat and death of Llewellyn, that is, in 1282, or in the spring of
1283. Conway was not commenced till the following year, 1284, when,
finding that these two castles were not sufficient to keep the Welsh
in check, Edward erected the Castle of Beaumaris in 1295. There is
a great resemblance in the style of the two castles of Conway and
Beaumaris--they have round towers; whilst Caernavon has octagonal,
hexagonal, and pentagonal ones.
[Illustration: CAERNAVON CASTLE, WALES.]
The Castle of Caernavon, which is the one now engaging our
attention, differs greatly from these other two; and if not more
striking in appearance than that of Conway,--than which Pennant says
“one more beautiful never arose,”--it is equal in grandeur, and has,
in truth, a royal and more stately air. Its situation is very fine;
for, though it stands in the not very splendid town of Caernavon, it
is placed on the shore of the Menai Straits; and, looked down upon
from a rocky eminence called Fort Hill, a good view is obtained of it
and the town, of Menai Straits, the opposite shore of Anglesea, with
the distant summits of the Holyhead and Parys hills, the blue peaks
of the Eiflridge, in the promontory of Lleyn, the group of mountains
surrounding Snowdon, and on a clear day the far off heights of Wicklow
in Ireland. The architect employed by Edward I., in its erection, was
Henry Ellerton, or de Elreton; and, according to tradition, many of the
materials were brought from Segontium, or the old Caernavon, and much
of the limestone of which it is built came from Twr-Celyn, in Anglesea;
and of the gritstone from Vaenol, in the county of Caernavon; the Menai
facilitating the carriage from both places.
The foundations of this castle are surrounded on three sides by water.
It is bounded on one side by the Menai Straits, on another by the
estuary of the Seoint, the river which runs hither from the Lake of
Llanberis. As you approach the castle, its walls and towers have an
air of lightness, which deceives you completely as to its strength,
for these walls are immensely thick and strong. The doorways in the
gateway towers and the windows are more lofty and graceful than
the doors and windows generally in castles of that age. The walls
enclose an area of about three acres, and are themselves from seven
to nine feet thick. They have within them each a gallery, with slips
for the discharge of arrows, and are flanked by thirteen towers, all
angular, but differing in the number of their angles. The very massive
pentagonal tower, called the Eagle Tower, guards the south of the
Seoint, and is so called from a now shapeless figure of that bird, said
to have been brought from the ruins of the neighbouring Roman station
of Segontium, but probably placed there simply as being one of Edward
I.’s crests. This majestic tower has three turrets, and its battlements
display a mutilated series of armour heads of the time of Edward II.
This tower is the only one of which the staircase remains perfect,
and by 158 stone steps you may ascend to the summit, and obtain a
splendid view thence over the straits, the town, and the surrounding
country. In the lower part of this tower is shown a small, dark room,
measuring twelve feet by eight feet, in which Edward II. was born.
That unfortunate prince was most probably born in the castle; but it
has been endeavoured to be shown that it could not possibly be in
this tower, as it would appear not to have been built for some years
afterwards, and, indeed, only to have been finished by Edward II. after
he became king of England. The Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, of Cogenhoe,
in Northamptonshire, asserted at the annual meeting of the Cambrian
Archæological Society, held in Caernavon in September, 1848, that this
castle, instead of being built, as Pennant and others represent,
in about two years, was not completed in less than thirty-eight
years--that it was begun in 1284, and only completed in 1322.
As Edward first entered the town of Caernavon on the 1st of April,
1284, and his son was born on the 25th of the same month, twenty-four
days only are left for the building of the Eagle Tower, which would
be work, not for English or Welsh builders, but for the Afrits of
the _Arabian Nights_, and would seem to put an end to the whole
tradition of Edward of Caernavon having been born in the room assigned
him by popular affection. And yet tradition so often maintains itself
against statistics, and against theories started long afterwards, that
we should not be surprised if, after all, the first Prince of Wales
was actually born in that little, dismal room. In the then disturbed
condition of North Wales; amid the intense indignation of the Welsh
at the murder of their beloved prince, and the barbarous execution
of his brother David; under the well-known spirit of revolt and
revenge which was fiercely fermenting in the minds of the natives,
it is not likely that Edward would risk the safety of his wife and
his infant in the open town. No doubt he had ordered the erection of
a stronghold here immediately on the fall of Llewellyn. This was in
the autumn of 1282, and Edward was born, it is said, in the Castle of
Caernavon, on the 25th of April, 1284. Here was a good part of two
years in which a strong building might have been raised sufficient
for a stout defence: and this is probably what is meant when it is
said by the historians that Edward commenced this castle in A.
D. 1282–3, and completed it in two or three years. It is most
probable that he did commence and complete such a castle as answered
his immediate purpose, and that in this Castle his son Edward was born;
that Edward I., however, contemplated and erected a much larger and
more imposing castle on the spot--the present structure; and that he
caused the part in which his son’s birth took place to be incased in
the larger building, and that it forms an internal part of the present
Eagle Tower, just as the poet Thomson’s cottage at Richmond now forms
a portion of the larger villa of the Earl of Shaftesbury. It may be
remarked that there is no appearance of any different masonry on the
exterior of this part of the Eagle Tower. Of course not. The architect
would new-front that part in uniformity with the rest; but that need
not in the least disturb the existence of this room.
That is our opinion of the real fact; and it is the one which at once
reconciles the tradition and the proofs that the present splendid
fabric was not completed in two years, but in two reigns. All Mr.
Hartshorne’s statistical facts may be fully admitted, and the tradition
of the place remain untouched. We ourselves have just as much, or
rather more, faith in tradition, than in statistics; for, in scores
of cases, tradition has asserted itself successfully against apparent
facts, and, in scores of cases, statistics have proved very delusive.
That Edward I. would be very sure to preserve the _locale_ of his
son’s birth, and that the Welsh would vividly retain a knowledge of
it, may be inferred from the part which Edward meant to play with his
son, and the delusive hope which his plan excited in the minds of the
Welsh. He presented this infant son to them, and told them that they
should have a native Welshman for their prince. As Alphonso, Edward’s
eldest son, was still living, the Welsh, in their ardent patriotism,
fondly jumped to the idea that they would have their own principality
under a prince of their own. Alphonso died, Edward of Caernavon became
King of England, and that hope was at once sternly quenched. Under
such circumstances, the Welsh were not likely to forget the spot where
the prince on whom such hopes were hinged first saw the light. We may,
therefore, without much chance of mistake, accept at once the facts
that Edward II. was born in this very tower, and yet that the Eagle
Tower was not completed till the tenth year of the second Edward’s
reign.
The main gateway of the Castle is flanked by lofty towers of vast
strength. Over the grand entrance arch stands, in a niche, a mutilated
statue of Edward I., with his hand upon a half-drawn sword, as if to
intimate that he was equally prepared to pluck it forth on any menace
of resistance, or to sheathe it at the desire for peace. In the archway
beneath are grooves for four portcullises. The entrance on the east
side is called the Queen’s Gate, because Eleanor is said by tradition
to have entered the Castle by it. On passing into the interior you
observe the traces, on the two opposite buildings, of a partition wall
having formerly divided it into two courts. Much of the interior is
cleared away, leaving exposed one of the fine corridors, which led
from one part of the castle to another. On the south-east side is some
modern building, which has been raised within the old walls. Several
of the dungeons are yet visible; and in one of these was confined, in
the reign of Charles I., the celebrated William Prynne.
No more zealous, fiery, and yet honest spirit, certainly was ever
confined here than Prynne. He was at once a lawyer of Lincoln’s Inn,
and a determined Puritan. His famous _Histriomastix, or a Scourge
for Stage Players_, being supposed to reflect on Henrietta, the
Queen of Charles I., who had herself acted in a pastoral at Somerset
House, Prynne was prosecuted in the Star Chamber; and his sentence and
its rigid execution are a striking proof of the savage spirit of the
age, though it was already in the middle of the Seventeenth Century,
namely, in 1634. He was fined £3,000, expelled from the University of
Oxford, and the Society of Lincoln’s Inn, degraded from the bar, set
in the pillory, both his ears cut off, his book burnt publicly by the
hangman, and himself condemned to perpetual imprisonment. But no amount
of cruelty could tame that daring soul. Whilst still imprisoned in the
Tower, and after three years’ durance, he launched forth another book,
reflecting severely on the hierarchy generally, and particularly on the
popish follies and political despotism of Archbishop Laud. For this he
was further sentenced by the infamous Star Chamber to be fined £5,000,
to be again set in the pillory, to be branded on both cheeks with the
letters S and L, for Seditious Libeller, to have the very roots of his
ears dug out by the hangman, and to be imprisoned in this Castle of
Caernavon.
But the event showed that there was a spirit afloat which these
fierce barbarities of regal tyranny were only rousing into a degree
of fury which would sweep both church and throne from the land. The
Puritan friends of Prynne flocked to Caernavon Castle in such numbers,
that the poor mutilated prisoner sate more like a monarch holding a
perpetual levee than a convict who had endured the vilest insults and
the savagest brutalities of the law. Only ten weeks had elapsed since
Prynne was brought to this royal stronghold when he was illegally
removed by a warrant from the Lords of the Council, and removed to the
Castle of Mount Orgueil, in the island of Jersey.
There is no reminiscence more lively than that of the short
incarceration of Prynne in this castle. One of its earliest historical
events was the surprise of it by Madoc, a natural son of Llewellyn,
in 1295, and his retention of it till Edward I. expelled him from it.
In 1402, Owen Glendower made a successful attempt to seize several of
the Welsh castles, but was repulsed from the gates of this stronghold.
In the Wars of the Roses it repeatedly changed masters, and, in 1644,
Cromwell’s forces obtained possession of it, made 400 of the garrison
prisoners, and enriched themselves with much spoil. Lord Byron soon
after retook it for the king; but in 1646 the Parliament regained it.
In 1660, the first year of Charles II., an order was issued for the
demolition of the Castle; but, fortunately, it was not completely
carried out. The property still continues in the possession of the
Crown; and the Marquis of Anglesea holds the office of constable of it,
as well as that of Mayor of the town and ranger of Snowdon Forest.
A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
I am going to tell you about a _fête_ at which I was present
without being there, from which my body was absent but to which my eye
was invited--a court ball! Invisible, I saw everything, and, moreover,
I did not have upon my finger the Ring of Gyges, nor upon my head the
green felt cap of a Kobold, nor any other talisman.
Upon the Alexander Square, covered with its carpet of snow, numerous
carriages were stationed although the cold would freeze Parisian
coachmen and horses, but which did not seem sufficiently rigorous
for the Russians to have the braziers lighted under the iron kiosks
with Chinese roofs in the vicinity of the Winter Palace. The trees
of the Admiralty, diamonded with hoar-frost, looked like great white
plumes planted in the earth, and the Triumphal Column had candied its
rose granite with a layer of ice resembling sugar; the moon, that
rose pure and bright, poured its dead light upon all this nocturnal
whiteness, turned the shadows to blue, and gave a fantastic appearance
to the motionless silhouettes of the equipages whose frosted lanterns
punctuated the immense expanse with yellowish points like polar stars.
In the background, the colossal Winter Palace flamed at all its
windows, like a mountain pierced with holes and lighted by an internal
fire.
[Illustration: THE WINTER PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG.]
Absolute silence reigned over the square; the rigour of the temperature
kept away the curious, who in Paris would not have neglected flocking
together for the spectacle of such a _fête_, although watched from
a distance and from the outside; and if there had been a crowd, the
approaches to the palace are so vast that it would have been scattered
and lost in that enormous space which only an army could fill.
A sleigh crossed diagonally the great white cloth upon which was
extended the shadow of the Alexandrine Column and lost itself in the
dark street that separates the Winter Palace from the Hermitage, and
that gains from its aërial bridge some resemblance to the Canal della
Paglia at Venice.
A few minutes later, an eye, which you may consider as separated from
the body, sped along a cornice supported by the portico of a gallery
of the palace; rows of wax-candles planted in the mouldings of the
entablature hid it behind a hedge of fire and allowed no one from below
to perceive its feeble gleam. The light hid it better than shadow could
have done; it was lost in the dazzling brilliancy.
The gallery seen from there extended long and deep with its polished
columns, its mirror-like inlaid floor full of gliding reflections
of gold candlelight, its pictures filling the spaces between the
columns, the foreshortening of which prevented the subjects from being
discerned. Already brilliant uniforms were promenading and ample court
robes were trailing their waves of material there. Little by little,
the crowd increased and, like a river, variegated and shining, filled
the bed of the gallery which, notwithstanding its great width, had
already become too narrow.
Every eye of this crowd was turned towards the door through which the
emperor must enter. The folding doors opened: the emperor, the empress,
and the grand-dukes traversed the gallery between two suddenly-formed
hedges of the invited guests, addressing a few words with gracious and
noble familiarity to personages of distinction stationed along their
way. Then the imperial group disappeared through the door directly
opposite, followed at a respectful distance by the grand dignitaries of
State, the diplomatic body, the generals, and the courtiers.
The procession had scarcely entered the ball-room before the eye was
installed there, equipped this time with a good opera-glass. It was
like a furnace of light and heat, a blaze so intense as to seem almost
like a conflagration. Cordons of fire ran along the cornices; in the
spaces between the windows high stands, with a thousand arms each,
blazed like burning bushes; hundreds of chandeliers hung from the
ceilings, like fiery constellations in the midst of a phosphorescent
fog. And all these lights, interlacing their rays, made a most dazzling
illumination.
The first impression, especially at this height on leaning over this
gulf of light, is a sort of vertigo; at first, across the waves of
light from the mirrors, the glitter of the gold, the sparkle of the
diamonds, the flash of the jewels, and the sheen of rich material,
nothing can be distinguished. A swarmlike scintillation prevents
you from seizing any forms; then soon the pupil grows accustomed to
the dazzle and chases the black butterflies that flutter before it
as after looking at the sun; from one end to the other, it embraces
this gigantic hall all in marble and white stucco, the polished walls
of which shine like the jaspers and porphyries in the Babylonian
architecture of Martin’s engravings, vaguely reflecting lights and
objects.
The kaleidoscope, with its falling apart of coloured particles that
ceaselessly re-form in new figures; or the chromatrope, with its
expansions and contractions, where a painting becomes a flower, then
changes its petals for the points of a crown, and ends by whirling into
a sun, passing from a ruby to an emerald, from a topaz to an amethyst
around a diamond centre, can alone, thousands of times enlarged, give
an idea of this moving parterre of gold, precious stones, and flowers,
changing its glittering arabesques by means of its perpetual agitation.
At the entrance of the imperial family, this moving effulgence came to
rest, and you could distinguish faces and persons across the subdued
scintillation.
In Russia, the court balls open with what is called a polonaise:
this is not a dance, but a sort of a parade, a procession, a
_torch-march_. Those who take part in it divide in such a way as
to leave in the centre of the ball-room a sort of avenue of which they
form the hedges. When everybody is in place, the orchestra plays an air
in a majestic and slow rhythm, and the promenade begins; it is led by
the Emperor, who gives his hand to a princess, or a lady whom he wishes
to honour.
Behind the imperial family, come the high officers of the army and
palace, the grand dignitaries each giving a hand to a lady.
The procession continues to march and is recruited on the way: a
gentleman leaves the hedge and offers his hand to a lady placed
opposite to him, and this new couple joins the others and takes its
place in the line, with rhythmic steps slowing up or accelerating
according to the movement of the head. It cannot be an easy thing
to march thus, holding merely by the finger-tips under the fire of
a thousand readily ironical glances: the least _gaucherie_ of
countenance, the slightest awkwardness with the feet, an almost
imperceptible fault in the time would be noticed. Military habits help
many of the men, but how difficult for the women! The majority of them
acquit themselves admirably, and of more than one of them you could
say: _Et vera incessu patuit dea!_ They pass along lightly beneath
their plumes, their flowers, and their diamonds, modestly lowering
their eyes or letting them wander with an air of perfect innocence,
manœuvring their waves of silk and lace with a movement of the body or
a little stroke of the heel, refreshing themselves with a flutter of
the fan, as much at ease as if they were walking in the solitary avenue
of a park.
More than one great actress has never learnt how to move in so noble,
graceful and simple a manner while the world is gazing at her.
When the polonaise has traversed the salon and the gallery, the ball
begins. The dances have nothing characteristic in them; they are
quadrilles, waltzes, and redowas as in Paris, London, Madrid, Vienna,
and everywhere else in the fashionable world; except, however, the
mazourka which is danced at St. Petersburg with a perfection and
elegance unknown elsewhere. Local customs are everywhere disappearing
and first of all they desert the upper ranks of society. To find them
anew, one must withdraw from the centres of civilization and descend to
the depths of the people!
The general effect, however, was charming: the dance formed amid the
splendid crowd which arranged itself symmetrically to make room for it;
the whirl of the waltz distended the robes like the skirts of whirling
dervishes, and the rapid motion lengthened out the strings of diamonds
and the swords of gold and silver in serpentine gleams like flashes of
lightning; and the little gloved hands resting on the epaulettes of the
waltzers looked like white camellias in vases of massive gold.
After an hour or two of bird’s eye observation, the eye transported
itself beneath the arches of another hall through mysterious and
labyrinth-like passages, where the distant sounds of the orchestra
and the _fête_ died away in indistinct murmurings. A comparative
darkness reigned in this enormous hall: it was here that the supper
was to take place. Many cathedrals are less vast. In the background,
through the shadows, the white lines of the tables were outlined;
in the corners vaguely glimmered gigantic blocks of indistinct
_orfévrerie_ sharply spangled flashing back a ray coming I know
not whence: these were the sideboards. A velvet platform revealed
steps leading to a table formed like a horseshoe. In silent activity
came and went lackeys in full livery, major-domos, and gastronomic
officials, putting the last touch to the viands. A few stray lights
spotted this dark background, like sparks upon burning paper.
However, innumerable candles filled the chandeliers and followed the
cordons of the friezes and the outlines of the arcades. They sprang
up white from their bunched candelabra like pistils in the calixes
of flowers, but not the slightest luminous star trembled at their
tips. One might have called them frozen stalactites; and already was
heard, like the rush of overflowing waters, the heavy sound of the
approaching throng.--The Emperor appeared at the threshold: it was like
a _fiat lux_. A subtle flame ran from one candle to another, as
quick as lightning: everything became illuminated at a single stroke
and a flood of light suddenly filled the immense hall, aglow as if
by magic. This sudden transition from penumbra to the most brilliant
light was truly fairy-like. In our prosaic century every wonder must be
explained: threads of gun-cotton connected all the wicks soaked with
an inflammable essence, and a light applied in seven or eight places,
propagated itself instantly. With gas-lights lowered and raised one
could produce an analogous effect; but gas, as we know, is not used at
the Winter Palace. They burn nothing but candles of the purest wax. It
is in Russia only that the bees now contribute to illumination. The
Empress took her place with several personages of high distinction upon
the platform where stood the horseshoe table. Behind her gilt arm-chair
unfolded, like a gigantic floral firework, an immense sheaf of white
and pink camellias piled against the marble wall. Twelve negroes of
large size chosen from among the best specimens of the African race,
dressed _à la mameluk_,--a white turban twisted and rolled, a
green round jacket with golden coins, full trousers of red held by a
belt of cashmire, the whole braided and embroidered on all the seams,
descended and mounted the steps of the platform, handing the plates to
the lackeys or taking them from their hands with movements full of the
grace and dignity peculiar to Eastern races, although their employment
was servile. These Orientals having forgotten Desdemona, did their
duties with a majestic air and gave to this European _fête_ an
Asiatic _cachet_ in the best taste.
Without being shown to their places, the invited guests placed
themselves at the tables intended for them. Rich _épergnes_,
silvered and gilt, representing groups of figures, or flowers, or
mythological or fantastical ornaments, garnished the centres; and
candelabra alternated with pyramids of fruits and set pieces. Regarded
from a height, the brilliant symmetry of the crystals and porcelains,
the silver and the flowers, was understood better than from below. A
double row of women’s necks glittering with diamonds, and framed in
lace, ranged the whole length of the tablecloths, disclosing their
beauties to the invisible eye, whose glance could also wander among the
flowers, the leaves, the feathers, and the jewels.
The Emperor visited the tables, addressing a few words to those he
wished to distinguish, sitting down sometimes and moistening his lips
with a glass of champagne, then withdrawing to do the same elsewhere.
These stops of a few moments are considered a great mark of favour.
After supper, the dances were resumed; but the night was drawing on.
It was time to leave; the _fête_ could only repeat itself, and
for a purely ocular enjoyment it no longer offered the same interest.
The sleigh that had crossed the square to stop at a little door in the
alley separating the Winter Palace from the Hermitage, reappeared,
making its way to the side of St. Isaac’s Church, and bringing a
_pelisse_ and a fur cap which completely covered the face. As if
the sky wished to rival the splendours of the earth, an aurora borealis
threw into the night its polar fireworks with rockets of silver,
gold, purple, and mother-of-pearl, extinguishing the stars with its
phosphorescent irradiations.
FONTAINEBLEAU
GRANT ALLEN
What Versailles is to the Augustan age of Louis Quatorze, that and more
is Fontainebleau to the French Renaissance. As the Palace in the Marsh
reflects and preserves for us the glories of the Grand Monarch, so the
Palace in the Forest reflects and preserves for us the glories of the
gay and splendour-loving kings from François Premier to Henri Quatre.
It embodies in itself at a single glance what may fairly be called the
age of the Médici in France, and shows us at one _coup d’œil_ the
entire history and development of Renaissance architecture among the
French people. Its great halls and long galleries are replete to this
day with memories of the giddy butterfly throng which crowded the court
of “the kings who amused themselves.”
From a very early period, a Château of the French kings occupied the
site of the existing palace. But of this building not a single relic
now shows externally in any part of the façade, with the solitary
exception of one mediæval turret, assigned to Saint Louis, and still
adjoining the Cour Ovale of the modern palace. The origin of the first
Château was simple and natural enough. It existed as a hunting tower in
the midst of a royal forest. In our own day, that wild woodland region
with its strange sandstone rocks and deep parallel valleys envisages
itself to most of us as a mere appanage of the great mansion which
skirts its fringe. But, in reality, it is the forest, of course, which
created the palace, and not the palace which created the forest. Some
thirty and five miles south-east of Paris, the Seine bends round and
partly traverses a remarkable district of long sandy ridges, tilted
up at an angle as the last subsiding ripple of that great secular
earth-wave which produced through slow ages the elevation of the
central European axis in the Alpine region. From time immemorial, this
light and somewhat sterile soil has been covered by a thick growth of
native oaks and beeches. The maritime pines and Riga spruces, indeed,
which add so greatly to the picturesque effect of the woodland at the
present day, are but recent introductions from the Mediterranean and
Baltic shore; and the whole forest as we now know it, has been trimmed
and dressed by the obtrusive art of the modern planter, out of all
similitude to its antique self. But the deciduous trees are for the
most part indigenous; and the few stags and wild boars still carefully
preserved by the game-keepers of the Republic represent the descendants
of a far wilder fauna which Merwing and Carling may well have hunted a
dozen centuries since under the spreading boughs of those ancient oaks
that bear to-day the quaint names of Pharamond and of Charlemagne.
[Illustration: FONTAINEBLEAU, FRANCE.]
The original Château, of which St. Louis’s bedchamber forms the chief
remaining portion, was probably founded under Louis VII. in the Twelfth
Century. The Chapel of Saint Saturnin, the first predecessor of the
existing church, has for Englishmen indeed a special interest from
the fact that it was consecrated by Thomas à Becket during his period
of exile from the anger of Henry at the French Court. The Château was a
favourite residence of the saintly Louis IX. whose name still clings to
the arcade of the Cour Ovale, though scarcely a trace of his buildings
has survived the complete reconstruction of the exterior front under
François Premier. The Fontainebleau of those days, in fact, was a
feudal castle of the frowning type with which we are all so familiar
along the banks of the Loire or among the dales of Normandy. Nothing
could be more different than its gloomy turrets, its narrow windows,
its airless halls, and its mediæval tortuousness, from the light, the
space, the air, the brightness of its Renaissance successor.
At last, however, François I. came. By his time, the character of the
French monarchy--the character of the French nation--had undergone
a complete and lasting change. Louis Onze had done his cruel work
both wisely and well. The feudal spirit was half broken; the task of
Richelieu was more than half begun. Unification and absolutism were the
order of the day all over Europe. Artillery had destroyed the power
of the great nobles in their massive castles. The introduction of
gunpowder, it has been well said, ruined feudalism. Fortresses which
had been impregnable against the attacks of the Middle Ages, crumbled
to pieces before one volley of the royal cannon. Throughout Europe, the
crown became everywhere irresistible. As a natural result of this great
social revolution, a Renaissance in architecture became inevitable
in the west, the kings and rulers of France and England exchanged the
gloomy darkness of the mediæval stronghold for the light and air and
spaciousness of the Italian mansion. The merchant republics of Italy
were already familiar with great princely palaces like the Pitti, and
the Strozzi, or the magnificent mansions which line the long curve of
the Grand Canal. Peace under the strong hand of the royal despot, were
he Valois or Tudor, made the imitation of these great houses possible
in the north and west. Threatening walls and serried battlements gave
way as if by magic to the pomp and grace of the Italianate mansion.
Knowle and Longleat, Burleigh and Hatfield, Hardwick and Audley End,
are familiar instances in England of the newer style. The high roofed
gables, the long lines of wide windows, the jutting oriels that look
down on the terraced Italian gardens, the vases and fountains, the
formal walks and parterres, all mark the arrival of a new epoch. The
mediæval castle was in essence a fortress adapted mainly for defence;
the Italian mansion is in essence a residence, adapted mainly for the
display of magnificence and wealth.
In France, this great revolution goes directly back to the influence
of the Medici. François Premier began the Louvre and began
Fontainebleau. With Louis XIII., the son of a Medici mother, both were
practically complete. The long succession of high Mansard roofs and
connecting galleries marks the very spirit and ideal of the French
Renaissance--its splendour, its grandeur, its vastness of aim, its want
of picturesque feeling, its love of the magnificent, its contempt of
the simple, the natural, the merely beautiful. Imposing Fontainebleau
extorts one’s admiration, it never attracts one’s love.
The nucleus of the existing building thus dates back practically to the
gay days of François Premier. It was he who rebuilt the chapel of Saint
Saturnin, and erected that magnificent pile of the Porte Dorée, whose
lavish display of glass in its broad-bayed windows looks like a modern
protest against the loopholes and embrasures of the Middle Ages. It was
he, too, who began the great Galerie des Fêtes, afterwards completed by
Henri II., whose name it now bears, as well as the Galerie d’Ulysse,
pulled down at a later date by Louis XV., to make room for the too
numerous ladies of his Sybaritic court. It is to François equally that
we owe the Cour Ovale, and the splendid Porte Dauphine or Baptistery,
which serves as its gateway. The initial _F_, so familiar to all
of us on the exquisite façade of the oldest portion of the Louvre,
reappears in many places on the gallery of the Cour de la Fontaine.
The only part of the gardens, recalling the Boboli or the villas of
Florence, which can with certainty be ascribed to this earliest date,
is that known as the Orangerie and the Parterre du Tibre. But the
grotto of what is now the Jardin Anglais was built by François as a
Salle de Bain for his favourite, the Duchesse d’Étampes. Nothing now
remains of that voluptuous retreat except the satyrs of the doorway and
some torsos of rough sandstone worn out of all semblance of human limbs
and muscles, and relegated to a place in the existing stables.
As yet, however, the artistic impulse came entirely from Italy. Serlio,
the architect, superintended the design; painters and sculptors from
beyond the Alps contributed the decorations. French art in those days
was still feeble and nascent. Florence sent Leonardo da Vinci and
Andrea del Sarto to the new palace at Fontainebleau; the rising school
of Primaticcio and Niccolo dell’ Abbate, whose artistic existence
almost sums itself up in the work they performed here. Indeed, it is
not too much to say that the pupils of Giulio Romano produced the
profoundest effects upon the French Renaissance, and influenced every
work of art of the entire period from the gallery of François Premier
to the Rubens’s in the Louvre.
The F. and the Salamander of the founder of the palace are to be found
abundantly on many portions of his magnificent erection. But the finest
hall of all, the Salle des Fêtes, bears now the name of Galerie de
Henri II., though built by François, because Henri decorated it in the
garish taste of the time to meet the wishes of his mistress, Diane de
Poitiers. This hall still remains the glory of Fontainebleau. Ninety
feet long by thirty broad, and profusely decorated, it speaks in every
part the taste of that gay and fantastic epoch. Ten colossal round
arches form the bays of the windows; five give upon the parterre, and
five on the Cour Ovale. The ornate ceiling is divided into octagonal
panels, richly wrought in architrave, frieze, and cornice, and bearing
in relief the intertwined initials of Henri himself and of the frail
Diane. Primaticcio and Niccolo supplied the frescoes; nameless Italian
artists moulded the stucco fretwork. The parquetry of the floor vies
with the roof in magnificence. This gorgeous apartment may well recall
the rooms of the gods in the Pitti Palace, and is only surpassed in
elaborate over-ornamentation and profuseness of handicraft by the gaudy
Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre.
When Henri II. died, mortally wounded in a tournament in the Palace
Courts, many things fell with him--tournaments themselves amongst
others, and mediævalism in France, and Diane de Poitiers. Catherine
de’ Medici sent the favourite packing to her Château d’Anet, and bore
rule herself in her stead in the half completed palace. The new king,
François II., was a true son of Fontainebleau. Here he was born in
1543, and here, a boy of seventeen, he married Mary Stuart, whom he
left a girl-widow so shortly after, to exchange the luxurious joys of
Fontainebleau for the cramped closets of Holyrood and the austerities
of John Knox and his brother Calvinists. Under Charles IX., the work
still went forward as before, and Primaticcio in his old age painted
the frescoes of the Galerie d’Ulysse, afterwards ruthlessly destroyed
under Louis XV.
Beyond being born in the palace, Henri III. contributed as little to
the history of Fontainebleau as to that of his dominions generally.
But Henri IV. left no small mark of his masterful hand on the great
growing pile whose overgrown area he well-nigh doubled. The Cour des
Offices, the Cour des Princes, the Galerie de Diane, the balustrades in
the Fountain Court, the decorations in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity,
the park with its grand canal and its ornamental waters, all date from
the days of the greatest of the Bourbons. But the French Renaissance
was not at its zenith. Married though he was to an Italian princess,
Henri entrusted his work for the most part to native workmen. Paul Bril
and Ambroise Dubois painted and decorated the greater part of the new
halls; the heads of Mercury, in the courtyard which still bears the
name of Henri Quatre are from the chisel of a later French sculptor,
Gilles Guérin; while the simple but noble doorway which opens upon the
Place d’Armes is the work of a local architect, François Jamin of Avon.
It was at Fontainebleau that Marie de’ Medici gave birth to Louis
XIII., who was baptized with his sisters under the quaint and ornate
cupola of the Porte Dauphine, known ever since from that cause by the
name of the Baptistery. To this one of its sons the palace owes its
latest main additions. He it was who built the handsome horseshoe
staircase in the Cour des Adieux, the masterpiece of Lemercier. With
that addition, the history of Fontainebleau practically ends. Events of
importance in the annals of France took place there later; but they are
not events in the annals of Fontainebleau. The great pile as we know it
was then really complete; it remains to us a vast museum of Renaissance
art and Renaissance feeling. Subsequent ages have destroyed, or
restored, or renovated, or tampered with it, but they have not added to
it, and the reason is clear. Louis Quatorze created Versailles; and the
rise of Versailles was the downfall of Fontainebleau.
Some few landmarks of its subsequent vicissitudes, however, are well
known to most of us. Louis Quatorze gilded it up, of course--what did
not Louis gild? Le Notre laid out the gardens--where did not Le Notre
spread his devastating gravel? Henrietta Maria of England took refuge
here among her own people when Charles had lost his head; Christina
of Sweden had made use of its hospitality as a capital opportunity to
murder Monaldeschi. Few buildings, indeed, have seen so many historic
events; for here Louis Quatorze signed the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes which deprived France at one blow of a million of citizens;
here Condé died; here James II. consoled himself with the consolations
of a heavenly crown for the loss of an earthly one; and here Peter
of Muscovy got royally drunk after his wont with all his suite, and
indulged in Russian horse-play in the ponds and gardens. Under Louis
Quinze, of funest memory, the decadence began; but still, as of old,
princes feasted and drank, married and were given in marriage, under
the high roofs of the palace. The king himself was united here to
Maria Leczinska. But the earthquake was at hand, for Voltaire came to
stay, and Jean Jacques Rousseau heard the court applaud his _Devin
du Village_. Louis Seize, good honest man, came often to hunt, but
the Revolution came too and gutted the Palace. During Napoleon’s wars,
it served as a barrack for prisoners. When Monarchy revived, Napoleon
spent ten millions of francs in restoring and refurnishing it. Later on
he used it as a prison for his spiritual father, Pius the Seventh; here
he divorced Josephine, and here he lived with Marie Louise of Austria.
Here too he signed his famous abdication, and reviewed a year later,
in the self-same court, the grenadiers of the Hundred Days who bore him
back to the Tuileries. There its memories end. What need to speak of
lesser things that have happened since, and obscure the recollection of
those great days in its history?
THE RICCARDI PALACE
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
The Riccardi Palace was built by Cosmo the Elder, whom his country
turned out twice as a beginning and ended by calling him its father.
Cosmo arrived at one of those happy epochs at which everything in
a nation tends to expand at once, and a man of genius has every
facility for being great. In fact, the brilliant era of the republic
had arrived with him: the arts were making their appearance on every
side. Brunelleschi was building his churches, Donatello was carving
his statues and Orcagna his porticos, Masaccio was covering the walls
with his frescoes, and finally public prosperity, keeping pace with
the progress of the arts, rendered Tuscany, situated between Lombardy,
the States of the Church and the Venetian Republic, not only the most
powerful but also the happiest in Italy.
Cosmo was born to immense wealth which he had almost doubled, and
without being anything more than a citizen he had acquired a strange
influence. Being outside the government, he made no attacks upon it,
but neither did he flatter it. If the government followed the right
path it was sure of his praise; if it departed from the right way it
did not escape his blame; and the praise or blame of Cosmo the Elder
was of supreme importance, for his weight, his wealth and his clients
gave to Cosmo the rank of a public man. He was not yet the head of the
government, but he was already more than that;--he was its censor.
Thus we can understand what a tempest must be secretly brewing for
such a man. Cosmo heard it muttering and saw it coming; but, entirely
occupied with the vast works that concealed his great projects, he
did not even turn his head towards the rising storm, but finished the
chapel of St. Lorenzo, built the church of the Dominican convent of
St. Mark, erected the monastery of S. Frediano, and, finally, laid the
foundations of the beautiful Palace of the Via Larga, now called the
Riccardi Palace. Only, when his enemies threatened him too openly,
since the time for struggle had not yet arrived for him, he left
Florence and went to Bugallo, the cradle of his race, to build the
convents of Bosco and St. Francis; returned under the pretext of having
a look at his novitiate chapel of the Fathers of the Holy Cross and
of the Camandule Convent of the Angels; then again departed to press
forward the work on his villas of Careggi, Caffaggio, Fiesole and
Tribbio; and founded a hospital for poor pilgrims at Jerusalem. This
being done, he returned to see in what condition the affairs of the
republic were, and to look after his palace of the Via Larga.
And all these immense buildings arose from the ground at once,
occupying a whole world of labourers, workmen and architects; and five
million crowns were spent upon them without the luxurious citizen’s
appearing in the slightest degree impoverished by this constant and
royal expenditure.
[Illustration: THE RICCARDI PALACE, ITALY.]
This was because Cosmo was, in fact, wealthier than many of the kings
of the day, his father Giovanni had possessed nearly four millions in
cash and eight or ten in paper, and by banking operations he had more
than quintupled that sum. In various parts of Europe, he had sixteen
active banking-houses either in his own name or in those of his agents.
In Florence, everybody was in his debt, for his purse was open to all,
and this generosity was in some people’s eyes so clearly the result of
calculation that it was asserted that it was his custom to advise war
so as to force the ruined citizens to have recourse to him.
But it was a protracted struggle: Cosmo, driven from Florence, left as
a prescribed man and returned a triumpher. Thenceforward Cosmo adopted
that policy that his grandson Lorenzo followed afterwards: he devoted
himself to his commerce, his exchanges and his monuments, leaving his
vengeance to the care of his partisans who were then in power. The
proscriptions were so long and the executions so numerous that one of
his most intimate and faithful friends thought he ought to go and tell
him that he was depopulating the city. Cosmo raised his eyes from an
exchange calculation on which he was engaged, laid his hand on the
shoulder of the messenger of mercy, gazed at him fixedly and said with
an imperceptible smile: “I would rather depopulate than lose it.” And
then the inflexible arithmetician returned to his work.
Thus he grew old; rich and honoured, but struck by the hand of God
within his own family. By his wife he had had several children, only
one of whom survived him. Therefore, broken down and impotent, when
he had himself carried through the vast halls of his immense palace
to inspect the sculptures, gilding, and frescoes, he sadly shook his
head and said: “Alas! alas! this is a very large house for such a small
family!”
In fact, he left, as sole heir to his name, his possessions, and his
power, Pietro de’Medici, who, coming between Cosmo the Father of his
Country and Lorenzo the Magnificent, obtained as his only surname that
of Pietro the Gouty.
The refuge of the Greek savants driven from Constantinople, the
cradle of the renaissance of the arts during the Fourteenth and the
Fifteenth Century, and now the seat of the meetings of the Della Crusca
Academy, the Riccardi Palace was successively occupied by Pietro the
Gouty and by Lorenzo the Magnificent who retired thither after the
Pazzi conspiracy as his grandfather had done after his exile. Lorenzo
bequeathed the palace with his immense collection of precious stones,
antique cameos, splendid armour and original manuscripts to his son
Pietro who deserved the title not of Pietro the Gouty, but Pietro the
Mad.
It was the latter who opened the gates of Florence to Charles VIII. and
delivered to him the keys of Sarzane, Pietra-Santa, Pisa, Libra-Fatta,
and Livorno, and who undertook to make the Republic pay him as a
subsidy the sum of two hundred thousand florins.
Besides this, in his palace of Via Larga he offered a hospitality that
the King of France was quite disposed to take even if it had not been
offered. In fact, as everybody knows, Charles VIII. entered Florence
as a conqueror and not as an ally, mounted on his battle-horse, with
lance in rest and visor lowered: thus he traversed the whole city from
the San Friano gate to Pietro’s palace, the latter and his followers
having been driven from the city by the Florentine lords the day before.
The Riccardi Palace was the scene of the discussion of the treaty
concluded by Charles VIII. and Pietro in the name of the republic,--a
treaty that the republic was unwilling to recognize. Matters went to
extremes and the parties were on the verge of taking up arms, for the
deputies having been introduced into this great hall in the presence of
Charles VIII. who received them seated and without removing his hat,
the royal secretary, standing beside the throne, began to read the
conditions of this treaty article by article, and as each new article
created fresh discussion, Charles VIII. impatiently exclaimed: “It
shall be so, however, or I will have my trumpets sounded!” “Very well,”
replied Pietro Capponi, the Secretary of the Republic, snatching the
parchment from the hands of the reader and tearing it to pieces, “very
well, Sire, have your trumpets sounded and we will have our bells rung!”
That rejoinder saved Florence. The King of France believed that the
Republic was as powerful as she was proud. Pietro Capponi had already
dashed out of the room: Charles had him called back and then presented
other conditions that were accepted.
Eleven days later, the King left Florence for Naples, letting his
soldiers devastate treasures, galleries, collections and libraries.
The Riccardi Palace remained empty for eighteen years, while the exile
of the Medicis lasted; at length, at the end of that period, they
returned, brought back by the Spaniards, and notwithstanding this
powerful aid, they reentered, said the capitulation, not as princes,
but as simple citizens.
But at length the gigantic trunk had put forth such mighty branches
that its sap began to dry up and the tree gradually to wither. In fact,
when Lorenzo II. was dead and laid in his tomb that was sculptured by
Michelangelo, only three bastards remained of all the race of Cosmo the
Elder: Hippolyte, bastard of Julian II., a cardinal; Julio, bastard of
Julio the Elder who had been assassinated by the Pazzi, who became Pope
under the name of Clement VII.; and finally Alexander, Duke of Tuscany,
bastard of Julian II., or Clement VII., it is not clear which. As they
stayed all once for an instant in Florence, lodging on the same square,
it received the mocking name of the Square of the Three Mules.
To the same degree that the Medicis of the elder branch had at first
been held in honour, so it had become execrated and fallen into
contempt at this period. Therefore the Florentines only awaited an
opportunity to drive Alexander and Hippolyte out of Florence; but their
uncle Clement VII. on the pontifical throne afforded them too potent
a support for the last remnants of the republican party to dare to
undertake anything against them.
The sack of Rome by the soldiers of the Constable of Bourbon, and the
imprisonment of the Pope in the Castle of St. Angelo afforded the
Florentines the opportunity they awaited. They immediately seized
it, and the Medicis went into exile for the third time. Clement VII.
who was a man of much resource, extricated himself from the affair
by selling seven cardinals’ hats, with the proceeds of which he paid
part of his ransom, and by pledging five more as guarantee for the
remainder. Then, as on account of this guarantee he was allowed a
little more liberty, he took advantage of it to escape from Rome
disguised as a valet, and gained Orvieto. The Florentines were
therefore quite tranquil as to the future on seeing Charles the Fifth a
conqueror and the Pope a fugitive.
Unfortunately, Charles the Fifth had been elected Emperor in 1519, and
he needed to be crowned. Interest thus brought together those whom it
had separated. Clement VII. undertook to crown Charles the Fifth; and
the latter promised to capture Florence and to make it the dowry of his
natural daughter, Margaret of Austria, who was affianced to Alexander.
The two promises were religiously kept. Charles the Fifth was crowned
at Bologna, for in his new tenderness for the Pope he did not want
to see the ravage done by his troops in the holy city; and after a
terrible siege in which Florence was defended by Michelangelo and
capitulated by Malatesta, July 30, 1531, Alexander made his solemn
entry into the future capital of his duchy.
Alexander had almost all the vices of his epoch and very few of the
virtues of his race. The son of a Moorish woman, he had inherited
ardent passions. Constant in hatred and inconstant in love, he tried
to have Pietro Strozzi assassinated and caused his cousin, Cardinal
Hippolyte to be poisoned.
Therefore, there were numerous conspiracies against him during his
reign of six years.
Pietro Strozzi placed an immense sum in the hands of a Dominican friar
of Naples, who was said to have great influence with Charles the Fifth,
to induce him to get Charles the Fifth to restore liberty to Florence.
Jean Baptiste Cibo, Archbishop of Marseilles, tried to profit from
Alexander’s amour with his brother’s wife, who was separated from
her husband and lived in the Pazzi palace, by having him slain one
day when he should come to see her in that palace; and since he knew
that Alexander usually wore beneath his clothes a coat of mail so
marvellously made that it was proof against sword and dagger, he had a
chest, upon which the duke was accustomed to sit when he came to visit
the marquise, filled with powder, and this was to be exploded. But this
conspiracy was discovered, as well as all others that followed with one
exception. In the latter case, success was due to the fact that there
was only one conspirator who accomplished everything for himself. That
conspirator was Lorenzo de’Medici, the eldest scion of that younger
branch that sprang from the paternal trunk with Lorenzo, the next
brother of Cosmo the Father of his country.
Lorenzo was born in Florence, March 25, 1514, of Pietro Francisco
de’Medici, a double nephew of Lorenzo, Cosmo’s brother, and Maria
Soderini, a woman of exemplary goodness and recognized prudence.
Lorenzo lost his father early, and, as he was scarcely nine years of
age, his first instruction was given under his mother’s supervision.
But as the child learned with great facility, this education was very
soon ended, and he left this female tutelage for that of Philippe
Strozzi, where his strange character developed. He was a strange medley
of mockery, restlessness, desire, suspicion, impiety, humility and
pride; whence it resulted that, unless he had motives to conceal, his
most intimate friends never saw him twice in the same mood. He was one
of those hermaphrodite beings that capricious Nature produces in her
periods of dissolution.
It was in a house adjoining the Riccardi Palace that Lorenzo, aided
by the Spadassin Scoronconcolo, poniarded Duke Alexander, the natural
brother of Catherine de’Medici, first Duke of Florence and last
descendant of Cosmo the Father of the Country, for Pope Clement
VII. had died in 1534 and Cardinal Hippolyte in 1535; and on his
assassination a singular thing was noticed, namely the six-fold
combination of the number six. Alexander was assassinated in the year
1536, at the age of twenty-six, on the 6th day of January, at six
o’clock at night, with six wounds, after having reigned six years.
The house in which he was assassinated was situated on the spot where
the stables now stand.
The proverb of the evangelist: “They that take the sword shall perish
with the sword” was applied to Lorenzo in its rigorous exactitude.
Lorenzo, who had slain with the poignard, died by the poignard in
Venice about the year 1557 without any one knowing for certain what
hand struck the blow; it was only remembered that when Cosmo the First
mounted the throne he swore not to leave the murder of Duke Alexander
unpunished.
The murder of Alexander was the last important event that happened in
this beautiful palace. Abandoned by Cosmo I. in 1540, when he resolved
to live in the Palazzo Vecchio, it was sold to the Riccardi family,
whose name it has kept, although I believe it came again into the
possession of the Medicis under the reign of Ferdinand II.
To-day the famous Della Crusca Academy holds its sessions there: there
they sift adverbs and shell participles, as our good and witty Charles
Nodier says.
It is not so poetic, but it is more moral.
RABY CASTLE
WILLIAM HOWITT
As we proceed towards Barnard Castle, we suddenly come into view of the
Castle of Raby. The road brings us within a few hundred yards of it.
Its grey extent of towers rises before us, with its park, well peopled
with herds of deer, stretching around it. Comparatively flat again as
is the situation, and which would seem to have been better liked by
the Nevilles than more hilly and romantic ones, there is nothing that
we recollect to have seen anywhere which impresses us at the first
view with a stronger feeling of the old feudal grandeur. It stands in
its antiquity and vastness, the fitting abode of the mighty Nevilles.
We can almost imagine that we shall find them still inhabiting it.
The royal Joan, walking with her maidens on the green terrace that
surrounds it, or the first great Earl of Westmoreland setting out with
all his train, to scour its wide chases and dales for the deer, or
to proceed to the Marches to chastise the boldness of the Scots. The
exterior of the whole place has been well preserved in its true ancient
character; it is the great, grey, and stately feudal castle,
“With all its lands and towers.”
Pennant, when he visited it, had a proper feeling of its exterior.
“It is a noble massy building of its kind, uninjured by any modern
strokes inconsistent with the general taste of the edifice; but, simply
magnificent, it strikes by its magnitude, and that idea of strength
and command naturally annexed to the view of vast walls, lofty towers,
battlements, and the surrounding outworks of an old baron’s residence.
The building itself, besides the courts, covers an acre of land; the
size may from this be concluded. The south front is very beautiful; the
centre is from a design of Inigo Jones; nothing in the Gothic taste can
be more elegant than the style and proportion of the windows. The rooms
are very numerous, and more modern in their proportion and distribution
than one would easily conceive to be possible within the walls of so
ancient a building; but by means of numerous passages and closets,
many of which have been scooped out of the walls, and back-stairs, the
apartments are extremely convenient, well connected, and at the same
time perfectly distinct. Several improvements have been lately made,
which add greatly to the spaciousness and convenience of the apartments
in general. The bed-chambers and dressing-rooms are of a good size
and proportion, and some of the lower apartments large, and elegantly
fitted up. One of the drawing-rooms is thirty feet by twenty, and the
adjoining dining-room is fifty-one by twenty-one; the windows of both
of plate glass, and in the smallest and lightest of brass frames,” etc.
[Illustration: RABY CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
It is, in fact, this complete adaptation to modern uses and splendour,
which disappoints one in the interior of Raby. The exterior is so
fine, so feudal, so antiquely great, that when we step in and find
ourselves at once in modern drawing-rooms, with silken couches and
gilt cornices, the Nevilles and their times vanish. We forget again
that we are at Raby, the Castle of the victims of Neville’s Cross, and
of Joan, the daughter of John of Gaunt, and feel that we are only in
the saloons of the modern Duke of Cleveland. We revert to the quaint
description of Leland, and wish that we could see it as he did. “Raby
is the largest castel of logginges in all the north countery, and is of
a strong building; but not set either on hill, or very strong ground.
As I enterid by a causey into it, there was a litle stayre on the right
honde; and in the first area, were but two towers on a ech ende as
entres, and no other buildid. In the 2 area, as in entring was a great
gate of iren, with a tour, and 2 or 3 mo on the right hond. These were
all the three toures of the 3 court, as in the hart of the castel.
The haul and al the houses of office be large and stately, and in the
haul I saw an incredible great leame of an hart. The great chambre was
exceeding large, but now it is fals rofid, and divided into 2 or 3
partes. I saw ther a litle chambre wherein was in windowes of colorid
glasse al the petigre of the Nevilles; but it is now taken down and
glasid with clere glasse. Ther is a tour in the castel having the mark
of 2 capital Bs for Bertram Bulmer. Ther is another towr bering the
name of Jane, bastard sister to Henry IV., and wife to Rafe Neville,
the first Erl of Westmerland. Ther ’long 3 parkes to Raby, whereof 2 be
plenished with dere. The midle park hath a lodge in it; and thereby is
a chace, bering the name of Langeley, and hath fallowe dere. It is a 3
miles in length.”
It is, in fact, these old towers; these old courts; this great
baronial hall, and the kitchen, that are objects of real interest
in Raby; remnants of its antiquity, the co-temporaries of those who
stamped them with the feeling of belonging to them and their fortunes.
The Cliffords’ tower, and the tower of Bertram Bulmer, let us ascend to
them, and gaze over the parks and glades of Raby, to the far distant
scenes that once formed the princely possessions of the Nevilles. Near
the top of this tower, which stands separated from the rest of the
building, and to which you ascend by eighty-nine steps, are raised
those old letters, the initials of Bertram Bulmer, mentioned by Leland,
and a splendid prospect south eastward lies before you. Conscliff,
Darlington, Sadberge, Long-Newton, Stockton, with the Cleveland Hills
and “Black” Hamilton. From other points of the castle you catch equally
noble and far views--the distant mountains of Hope and Arkendale, and
westward the vale filled with the woods of Streatlam and Lady Close.
Carriages can pass through the large Gothic saloon, or entrance hall
into the interior court. Above the saloon is the old baronial hall,
which forms one side of the square of the inner area. It is of the
most magnificent proportions--ninety feet in length, thirty-six in
breadth, and thirty-four in height. The roof is flat and made of
wood; the joints ornamented with shields of arms of the family of the
Nevilles. Here, it is said, assembled in their time, 700 knights who
held of that family. A gallery of stone crosses the west end of this
room used in ancient times for music, and that mimicry with which our
ancestors were so much pleased. Unfortunately, here again our notions
of the old times are completely disturbed. This roof, which no doubt is
of real oak, is now smartly painted oak; and this hall, which should
only display massy furniture, suits of armour, and arms and banners
properly disposed, is converted into a museum of stuffed birds, Indian
dresses, and a heap of things which may be better and more numerously
seen elsewhere. In fact, any ordinary room of this many-roomed castle
might have served this need. The kitchen, however, remains in all its
huge and unalloyed antiquity. “It is,” says Pennant, “a magnificent
and lofty square; has three chimneys--one for the grate, a second for
stoves, the third for the great cauldrons. The top is arched, and
a small cupola lights it in the centre; but on the sides are five
windows, with a gallery passing all round before them, and four steps
from each pointing down into the kitchen, but ending a great height
above the floor. There have been many conjectures respecting their use,
but they certainly must have been in some manner for the conveying away
of viands. From the floor is another staircase, that conducts to the
great hall, but the passage is now stopped. What hecatombs must have
been carried that way!” To this account must be added, that the kitchen
is a square of thirty feet; the side where no chimney is, opens into
the larders; opposite to the grate, the steps descend to the floor,
and are wide enough for three persons abreast. On each of the other
sides, to the right and left of the grate, are two windows, with five
steps descending, but not low enough to enable the persons who should
stand thereon to receive anything from those in the kitchen. There are
narrow passages channeled in the walls, but not capacious enough, we
conceive, to allow a person to bear a dish of provisions for the 700
knights and retainers of the Nevilles. Yet we may very well imagine,
that in the hurry and confusion of such a dining, those windows and
descending steps might be very serviceable for the delivery of orders,
and the passages in the walls for enabling one bustling person to avoid
another. Besides, they might have some contrivance by a pulley or so,
to raise the dishes to the person on the steps. Be that as it may, the
kitchen is a right ancient and singular relic of the genuine baronial
time.
The park has many fine woods, glades, and lawns, and gives prospects of
far beauty, but its aspect partakes of the character of the interior of
the castle--newness. We are surprised to see so little timber bearing
a relative antiquity to the castle. The trees are comparatively young.
You see groups and plantations of a very modern date. The whole has
the air rather of a place new made, than of one old as the days of
Canute, who is said to have built some part of the original house.
You do not see those old, grey, and gnarled oaks around you that you
see in the forests of Sherwood, Needwood--Chartley and other parks.
It seems as if some great revolution, as is the fact, has passed over
it; and that in its days of change, the axe of the spoiler has laid
low its ancient forests. The castle looks like a grey patriarch left
amid a more juvenile race. Let us rejoice that the strong wall of the
stout old Nevilles have defied the ravages of politics as well as of
time, and that future generations may see in them a fine example of
what the habitation of the great old English noble was. For my part,
I looked on the old house with eyes of affection. It had, through the
beautiful ballad of the _Hermit of Warkworth_, been to me a dream
of youthful poetry. I was carried back into the days when at school we
chanted that lovely poem over, day by day, under sunny walls and in our
walks, and even at night when we should have been asleep. There was
in it a spirit so pure, so refined, so delicate, so full of beauty,
of love, and of heroic magnanimity, that it mingled itself entirely
with the pulses of our hearts, because our hearts were then like it
in soul, in temperament, and in imaginative freedom. What dales of
Northumberland--what mountains, and glens, and chieftains’ towers of
Scotland, did it not bring to our spirits’ vision! With what eagerness
did we follow the forlorn Sir Bertram and his brother, in their
northern quest for the lost fair Isabel of Widrington. How did we weep
over the catastrophe!--and when the young Earl Percy and his lovely
bride, of the house of Neville, appeared for our comfort, how earnestly
did we follow the venerable prior who, to propitiate the princely
parents of Eleanor,
“Then straight to Raby’s distant walls
Did kindly wend his way.”
And how many times did we clap our hands as we learnt that
“Meantime their suit such favour found
At Raby’s stately hall;
Earl Neville and his princely spouse
Now gladly pardon all.
She, suppliant at her nephew’s throne,
The royal grace implored;
To all the honours of his race
The Percy was restored!”
Mr. Surtees has written a ballad full of the true spirit of that
composition, suggested by a scene in Raby Park--Langley Dale; a
beautiful dale and ancient chase, belonging to Raby Castle. An old
tower, close by the park, is said to have been the residence of a
mistress of the last Earl of Westmoreland. Mr. Surtees’s ballad,
however, rather connects itself with the general circumstances of “The
Rising of the North” than with this particular incident, and, like “The
Flowers of the Forest,” perpetuates a natural and beautiful sentiment,
which must have been deeply and long felt, on beholding Raby after that
fatal event. With this poem we will close our visit to Raby.
LANGLEY DALE.
As I down Raby Park did pass,
I heard a fair maid weep and wail,
The chiefest of her song it was,
Farewell the sweets of Langley Dale.
The bonny mavis cheers his love,
The throstlecock sings in the glen;
But I must never hope to rove
Within the sweet Langley Dale again.
The wild-rose blushes in the brae,
The primrose shows its blossom pale;
But I must bid adieu for aye,
To all the joys of Langley Dale.
The days of mirth and peace are fled,
Youth’s golden locks to silver turn;
Each northern flowret droops its head
By Marwood Chase and Langley Burn.
False Southrons crop each lovely flower,
And throw their blossoms to the gale;
Our foes have spoilt the sweetest bower--
Alas! for bonny Langley Dale.
CASTEL DEL MONTE
EDWARD LEAR
To the south, on a spur of the hills overlooking the maritime part
of the province of Basilicata and Capitanata, stands Minervino, and
thither we directed our course, over undulating green meadows which
descend to the plain, and we arrived about an hour before sunset at
the foot of the height on which the town is situated. Minervino enjoys
a noble prospect northward, over the level of Cannæ to the bay and
mountain of Gargano, at which distance the outspread breadth of plain
is so beautifully delicate in its infinity of clear lines, as to
resemble sea more than earth. The town is a large clean and thriving
place, with several streets flanked by loggie, and altogether different
in its appearance and in its population from Abruzzese or Calabrese
towns. The repose, or to speak more plainly, the stagnation of the
latter, contrasts very decidedly with these communities of Apulia--all
bustle and animation--where well-paved streets, good houses, and
strings of laden mules, proclaim an advance in commercial civilization.
[Illustration: CASTLE DEL MONTE, SICILY.]
We encountered in the street Don Vincenzino Todeschi, who on reading a
letter of introduction, given to us for him by Signor Manassei, seemed
to consider our dwelling with him as a matter of course, and shaking
hands with us heartily, begged us to go to his house and use it as our
own; he was busy then, but would join us at supper....
P---- and I are not a little perplexed as to what we shall do
to-morrow, for, owing to time running short, we have but one day left
ere we return towards Naples. Canosa (ancient Cannæ) and Castel del
Monte, are the two points, either of which we could be content to
reach, but as each demands a hard day’s work, we finally resolve to
divide them, P---- choosing Canosa, and I the old castle of Frederick
Barbarossa, of which I had heard so much as one of the wonders of
Apulia.
_September 23._--Before daylight each of us set off on his
separate journey on horseback,--P---- with the bulky Don Sebastiano to
Canosa, I to the Castel del Monte, with a guardiano of Don Vincenzino’s
family. Oh me! what a day of fatigue and tiresome labour! Almost
immediately on leaving Minervino we came to the dullest possible
country,--elevated stony plains--weariest of barren undulations
stretching in unbroken ugliness towards Altamura and Gravina. Much of
this hideous tract is ploughed earth, and here and there we encountered
a farm house with its fountain: no distant prospect ever relieves these
dismal shrubless Murgie (for so is this part of the province of Bari
called), and flights of “calendroni,” with a few skylarks above, and
scattered crocuses below, alone vary the sameness of the journey. At
length, after nearly five hours of slow riding, we came in sight of the
castle, which was the object of my journey; it is built at the edge of
these plains on one of the highest, but gradually rising eminences,
and looks over a prospect perfectly amazing as to its immense extent
and singular character. One vast pale pink map, stretching to
Monte Gargano, and the plains of Foggia, northward is at your feet;
southward, Terra di Bari, and Terra di Otranto, fade into the horizon;
and eastward, the boundary of this extensive level is always the blue
Adriatic, along which, or near its shore, you see, as in a chart, all
the maritime towns of Puglia in succession, from Barletta southward
towards Brindisi.
The barren stony hill from which you behold all this extraordinary
outspread of plain, has upon it one solitary and remarkable building,
the great hunting palace, called Castel del Monte, erected in the
Twelfth Century by the Emperor Barbarossa, or Frederick II. Its
attractions at first sight are those of position and singularity of
form, which is that of an octagon, with a tower on each of the eight
corners. But to an architect, the beautiful masonry and exquisite
detail of the edifice (although it was never completed, and has been
robbed of its fine carved-work for the purpose of ornamenting churches
on the plain), render it an object of the highest curiosity and
interest.
The interior of this ancient building is also extremely striking;
the inner courtyard and great Gothic Hall, invested with the sombre
mystery of partial decay, the eight rooms above, the numerous windows,
all would repay a long visit from any one to whom the details of such
architecture are desiderata.
Confining myself to making drawings of the general appearance of this
celebrated castle, I had hardly time to complete two careful sketches
of it, when the day was so far advanced that my guardiano recommended a
speedy return, and by the time I had overcome the five hours of stony
“murgie” I confess to having thought that any thing less interesting
than Castel del Monte would hardly have compensated for the day’s
labour. I reached Minervino at one hour of the night, and found P----
just arrived from his giro to Canosa.
While riding over the Murgie, slowly pacing over those stony hills,
my guide indulged me with a legend of the old castle, which is worth
recording, be it authentic or imaginary. The Emperor Frederick II.,
having resolved to build the magnificent residence on the site it now
occupies, employed one of the first architects of the day to erect it;
and during its progress despatched one of his courtiers to inspect the
work, and to bring him a report of its character and appearance. The
courtier set out; but on passing through Melfi, halted to rest at the
house of a friend, where he became enamoured of a beautiful damesel,
whose eyes caused him to forget Castel del Monte and his sovereign,
and induced him to linger in the Norman city until a messenger arrived
there charged by the Emperor to bring him immediately to the Court,
then at Naples. At that period it was by no means probable that
Barbarossa, engaged in different warlike schemes, would ever have
leisure to visit his new castle, and the courtier, fearful of delay,
resolved to hurry into the presence and risk a description of the
building which he had not seen, rather than confess his neglect of
duty. Accordingly he denounced the commencement of the Castel del Monte
as a total failure, both as to beauty and utility, and the architect
as an impostor; on hearing which the Emperor sent immediately to the
unfortunate builder, the messenger carrying an order for his disgrace,
and a requisition for his instant appearance in the capital. “Suffer me
to take leave of my wife and children,” said the despairing architect,
and shutting himself in one of the upper rooms, he forthwith destroyed
his whole family and himself, rather than fall into the hands of a
monarch notorious for his severity.
The tidings of this event was, however, brought to the Emperor’s ears,
and with characteristic impetuosity, he set off for Apulia directly,
taking with him the first courtier-messenger, doubtless sufficiently
ill at ease, from anticipations of the results about to follow his
duplicity. What was Barbarossa’s indignation at beholding one of
the most beautiful buildings doomed, through the falsehood of his
messenger, to remain incomplete, and polluted by the blood of his most
skilful subject, and that of his innocent family!
Foaming with rage, he dragged the offender by the hair of his head to
the top of the highest tower, and with his own hands threw him down as
a sacrifice to the memory of the architect and his family, so cruelly
and wantonly destroyed.
_September 24._--Having risen before sunrise, the energetic
and practical Don Vincenzino gave us coffee by the aid of a spirit
lamp, and we passed some hours in drawing the town of Minervino, the
sparkling lights and delicate grey tints of whose buildings blended
charmingly with the vast pale rosy plains of Apulia in the far
distance. At nine we returned to a substantial _déjeûner_, and at
half-past ten took leave of our thoroughly hospitable and good-natured
host.
CASTEL DEL MONTE
HENRY SWINBURNE
A most disagreeable stony road brought us to Ruvo, through a vine
country. The pomegranate hedges in flower, and the holme oak loaded
with kermes, enlivened the prospect, which otherwise would have
been very dull.... I here quitted the Roman way, and rode fifteen
miles westward to Castel del Monte. The country I traversed is open,
uneven and dry. The castle is a landmark, and stands on the brow of a
very high hill, the extremity of a ridge that branches out from the
Apennine. The ascent to it is near half a mile long, and very steep;
the view from its terrace most extensive. A vast reach of sea and plain
on one side, and mountains on the other; not a city in the province but
is distinguishable; yet the barrenness of the foreground takes off a
great deal of the beauty of the picture. The building is octangular,
in a plain solid style; the walls are raised with reddish and white
stones, ten feet six inches thick; the great gate is of marble, cut
into very intricate ornaments, after the manner of the Arabians; on
the balustrade of the steps lie two enormous lions of marble, their
bushy manes nicely, though barbarously, expressed; the court, which is
in the centre of the edifice, contains an octangular marble bason of
a surprising diameter. To carry it to the summit of such a hill must
have cost an infinite deal of labour. Two hundred steps lead up to
the top of the castle, which consists of two stories. In each of them
are fifteen saloons of great dimensions, cased throughout with various
and valuable marbles; the ceilings are supported by triple clustered
columns of a single block of white marble, the capitals extremely
simple. Various have been the opinions concerning the founder of this
castle; but the best grounded ascribe it to Frederick of Swabia. I
dined and spent the hot hours with great comfort under the porch, which
commands a noble view of the Adriatic.
In the evening I descended the mountain, and rode nine miles to Andria,
a large feudal city, east of the Roman road.
THE GENERALIFE
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
The Generalife is situated not far from the Alhambra on a spur of the
same mountain. You get to it by a kind of dug out road that traverses
the ravine of Los Molinos, which is bordered all the way with fig-trees
of enormous glistening leaves, green oaks, pistachio-trees, laurels,
and rock roses of a remarkably exuberant vegetation. The ground on
which you walk is composed of yellow sand oozing with water, wonderful
in its fecundity. Nothing is more delightful than to follow this
road, which has the appearance of running through a virgin forest of
America, so thickly is it choked with foliage and flowers, and so great
is the overwhelming scent of the aromatic plants you inhale there.
Vines spring through the cracks of the broken walls, and hang from all
their branches fantastic tendrils and leaves resembling the tracery
of Arabian ornaments; the aloe opens its fan of bluish blades and the
orange trees twist their knotty trunks and cling with fang-like roots
to the rents in the steep slopes. Everything flourishes and blooms
in a tangled disorder full of the most charming effects of chance. A
straying branch of jasmin mingles its white stars with the scarlet
flowers of the pomegranate, and a laurel leaps from one side of the
road to the other to embrace a cactus, notwithstanding its thorns.
Nature, left to herself, seems to take pride in her coquetry, and
wishes to show how far she surpasses even the most exquisite and
finished art.
After a quarter of an hour’s walk, you come to the Generalife, which
is, in some sense, nothing but the _casa de campo_, the country
house, of the Alhambra. The exterior, like that of all oriental
buildings, is very simple: it consists of large walls without windows
and surmounted by a terrace with a gallery divided into arcades,
the whole being crowned with a little modern belvedere. Of the
Generalife nothing now remains but some arcades and some large panels
of arabesques, unfortunately plastered over with layers of whitewash
that have been applied again and again with all the obstinacy of a
dispiriting cleanliness. Little by little the delicate sculptures and
the marvellous guilloches of this fairy-like architecture have been
obliterated, filled up, and engulfed. What is at present nothing more
than a faintly-vermiculated wall, was formerly open lace-work as fine
as those ivory leaves which the patience of the Chinese carves for
fans. The brush of the whitewasher has caused more _chefs d’œuvre_
to disappear than the scythe of Time, if I may be allowed to use that
superannuated, mythological expression. In a fairly well preserved
hall, you notice a series of smoky portraits of the kings of Spain, but
these have only a chronological value.
[Illustration: THE GENERALIFE, SPAIN.]
The real charm of the Generalife consists in its gardens and waters. A
canal paved with marble runs through the whole length of the enclosure,
and rolls its abundant and rapid waves under a series of leafy arches,
formed by yews curiously bent and clipped. Orange-trees and
cypresses are planted on each border; it was at the foot of one of
these cypresses, of a prodigious size, and which dates from the time of
the Moors, that the favourite of Boabdil, if we may believe the legend,
often proved that bolts and grilles are but slight protectors of the
virtue of sultanas. One thing, at least, is certain,--that the yew is
very large and very old.
The perspective is terminated by a porticoed gallery, ornamented
with fountains and marble columns, like the Patio of Myrtles in the
Alhambra. The canal turns sharply and you then enter other enclosures
ornamented with water-works and whose walls still retain traces of the
frescoes of the Sixteenth Century representing rustic architecture
and distant views. In the centre of one of these basins of water, a
gigantic oleander of a singular brilliancy and incomparable beauty
rises like an immense basket of flowers. At the time that I saw it,
it seemed like an explosion of blossoms, or a bouquet of vegetable
fireworks; its ruddy hue was so splendid and vigorous,--indeed almost
clamorous, if one may apply that word to colours,--as to dim the hue of
the most vermilion rose. Its lovely flowers leaped with all the ardour
of desire towards the pure light of the sky; and its noble leaves,
shaped expressly by nature for a crown of glory and sprinkled by the
spray of the fountain, sparkled in the sunshine like emeralds. Never
did anything inspire me with a higher sentiment of the beautiful than
this rose-bay of the Generalife.
The water is brought to the gardens down a very steep inclined plane,
bordered by little walls, forming on each side a kind of parapet,
supporting canals hollowed out and lined with large tiles through which
the water runs beneath the open sky with the gayest and liveliest
chatter in the world. At yard intervals, well-supplied water-jets
burst forth from the centre of little basins and shoot their crystal
aigrettes into the thick foliage of the groves of laurels whose
branches interlace above them. The mountain gushes with water on every
side; at each step a spring starts out, and you continually hear at
your side the murmuring of some rivulet turned from its course, and
going to supply a fountain, or to carry refreshment to the foot of
some tree. The Arabs have carried the art of irrigation to the highest
degree; their hydraulic-works attest the most advanced state of
civilization; these works still exist to-day, and it is to them that
Grenada owes the reputation it has of being the Paradise of Spain, and
of enjoying eternal spring in an African climate. An arm of the Darro
has been turned out of its course by the Arabs and carried for more
than two leagues along the hill of the Alhambra.
From the Belvedere of the Generalife you can clearly see the outline
of the Alhambra with its enclosure of reddish, half-ruined towers, and
its pieces of wall which rise and fall with the undulations of the
mountain. The Palace of Charles V., which is not visible from the side
of the city, stands out with its square and heavy mass, gilded with a
pale reflection of sunlight, upon the damask-like slopes of the Sierra
Nevada, whose white ridges are strongly notched against the sky. The
bell-tower of Saint-Marie lifts its Christian silhouette above the
Moorish battlements. A few cypresses thrust their sorrowful leaves
through the crevices in the walls, in the midst of all this light and
azure sky, like a melancholy thought at a joyous festival. The slopes
of the hill running down towards the Darro and the ravine of Los
Molinos disappear beneath an ocean of verdure. It is one of the most
beautiful views that can be imagined.
On the other side, as if to form a contrast with so much verdure, there
rises an uncultivated, scorched, tawny mountain with patches of ocre
and burnt Sienna which is called La Silla del Moro, on account of some
ruins of buildings upon its summit. It was from here that King Boabdil
used to view the Arabian horsemen jousting in the Vega with Christian
knights. The memory of the Moors is still vivid in Grenada. You would
think that they left the city only yesterday, and, if we should judge
of them by their traces, it is a pity that they ever left it at all.
What southern Spain requires is African civilization and not the
civilization of Europe, which is not in sympathy with the heat of the
climate, or the passions it inspires.
CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX
JULES LOISELEUR
Unlike so many other _châteaux_ of Blaissons and Touraine,
Chenonceaux awakens only gay and happy thoughts. Chambord possesses the
calm gravity of a monastery; Ambroise is a prison; Blois bears upon
its face its blot of blood. All the other retreats of the royal Valois
and all the _châteaux_ of their courtiers, grouped in such number
upon the banks of the Cher, the Vienne, and the Loire--Loches, Chinon,
Plessis-lez-Tours, Luynes, Saumur, Brissac,--speak of treachery,
perfidy, revenge, conspiracy and all the wicked tendencies of human
nature. Chenonceaux alone recalls only memories of youth, elegance,
poetry, and love. There is no blood upon its stones. The gentlest and
the most charming figures of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century,
Diane de Poitiers, Mary Stuart, Gabrielle and Françoise de’Mercœur come
in succession to animate that smiling nature and to reflect their fair
faces in its clear waters. Catherine de Medicis, in passing through
this beautiful place, here dropped a little of her cold and imperious
gravity: she has left only the memory of that orgy-like and splendid
banquet that cost more than a million of our money, and where Madame de
Sauve, half naked, was the stewardess.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE CHENONCEAUX, FRANCE.]
The widow of Henri III., promenading in her long robes of mourning,
lent it another charm,--that of melancholy; and when Rousseau, at last
raised that voice there which could gather together tempests, it was
not philosophy, nor social conditions, nor the rights of man of which
he spoke: it was still love and poetry.
Chenonceaux, by means of its position, its architecture, and its
history, is so near the other _châteaux_ on the banks of the
Loire, neighbouring and contemporary pearls, that it is impossible to
detach it from that jewel-case. However, it is not on the Loire, the
river of severe horizons and majestic wearisomeness; it is on a less
proud and more smiling little river, the Cher, three leagues from
Amboise, that this palace of Armida was built. It rears itself upon the
bosom of this charming stream which stops here in a lazy curve as if
to linger and bathe its walls, delighting in reflecting those graceful
towers and enchanted gardens in its liquid depths. No other palace that
I know rises thus, like Venus from the breast of the waves, without any
link to the earth save a single bridge at one of its extremities. It
was a woman who had this charming idea that gives to the _château_
a somewhat fairy-like and supernatural effect: for Chenonceaux is not,
as is too often believed, the work of Thomas Bohier, but of his wife,
who consecrated to this work, conceived in love, the treasures that
her husband sent her from Italy. There are two other women, Diane de
Poitiers and Catherine de’Medici who completed while enlarging the
thought of Catherine Briçonnet. It seems that women only could possess
a sufficiently light hand to touch such a delicate work and to design
the plan.
It was at the north-east corner of the court of honour, between the
stream and the gardener’s house, that MM. Sechan and Déplechein placed
themselves to paint the picture used for the scenery in the second act
of _Les Huguenots_. This choice proved a familiar general view. No
other spot shows Chenonceaux in a more complete and picturesque aspect.
Seen from this point, the _château_ presents itself obliquely,
which enables the eye to embrace at the same time the principal façade
and the entire construction of the western side, from the apsis of the
chapel to the end of the gallery that crosses the Cher.
The foreground of the picture is charming.
At the right and in the corner, the court of honour precedes its royal
avenue of plantains and ends with its stone balustrades. Behind this
balustrade, stands the beautiful tower with a roof like a pepper box,
which is used as the porter’s lodge, and which, built upon the firm
ground, seems like a timid sister watching her big sisters bathing
their feet in the river without daring to follow them.
In the middle distance, is the bridge with its three unequal arches
and its heavy buttresses alongside of their half moons in brackets.
Beyond the bridge, is the principal façade, flanked with two corbelled
towers presenting under a flying buttress its large caryatides, its
two balconies in hemicycle, and three charming dormer windows that
crown it. Farther along in the centre of the picture, is the apsis of
the chapel with its long lancets flaming in the sun, supported, like
the principal front, by those heavy courses of stone in which are the
kitchen offices of the castle; then comes the beautiful eastern front
that surmounts the great arch and occupies the centre of the stream
which, as well as the whole corresponding western front, must certainly
be attributed to Diane de Poitiers, for its windows, its architrave and
all the details of its entablature bear the mark of the reign of Henri
II.
Finally, to the left of the picture, are the five arches of the
bridge built for Diane to connect the left bank of the Cher with the
great pavilion and, above this bridge, the two stages of galleries
constructed by Androuet du Cerceau for Catherine de’Medici, with their
little turrets with arched windows corresponding to the peers, and
forming so many terraces for the second gallery.
All this, with the river for the foreground and with the large trees on
both banks for a frame, and the trees of the gardens for perspective,
and the tops, formerly gilded, of the gallery and the large pavilion,
the ornamented chimneys, the peaked roofs and the vanes of the
turrets, peaks, dormer windows, chimneys and weather-vanes, vaporously
melting into the beautiful sky of Touraine; all this, I say, forms a
complete whole that would ravish any painter and one that in truth is
worthy of the honour paid to it by M. Scribe at the Opéra. No false
tone and no ungraceful nor violent line disturbs the harmony of this
beautiful picture. Minds that love parallelism and symmetry may regret
undoubtedly that the enthusiasm of political life did not permit
Catherine de’Medici to complete that beautiful conception and build
upon the left bank of the Cher a large pavilion similar to that on the
right bank: the gallery, which does not come to-day any further than
the steep bank of the river, would then have occupied the centre of the
building. But, perhaps, there is in this incompleteness of Chenonceaux,
which permits everybody to finish it in dreams according to his
pleasure, something that saves it from banality; perhaps it gains,
instead of losing, by exciting that admiration mingled with regrets and
also with criticism which the greater number of men, by an inherent
weakness of nature, prefer to the enthusiasm without reservation that
is the right of a perfect work.
DUBLIN CASTLE
LADY WILDE
Few amongst us who tread the Dublin of the present in all its beauty,
think of the Dublin of the past in all its contrasted insignificance.
True, the eternal features are the same; the landscape setting of the
city is coeval with creation. Tyrian, Dane, and Norman have looked as
we look, and with hearts as responsive to Nature’s loveliness, upon the
emerald plains, the winding rivers, the hills draperied in violet and
gold, the mountain gorges, thunder-riven, half veiled by the foam of
the waterfall, and the eternal ocean encircling all; scenes where God
said a city should arise, and the mountain and the ocean are still, as
of old, the magnificent heritage of beauty conferred on our metropolis.
But the early races, whether from the southern sea or northern
plain, did little to aid the beauty of nature with the products of
human intellect. Dublin, under the Danish rule, consisted only of
a fortress, a church, and one rude street. Under the rule of the
Normans, those great civilizers of the western world, those grand
energetic organizers, temple and tower builders, it rose gradually
into a beautiful capital, the chief city of Ireland, the second city
of the empire. At first the rudimental metropolis gathered round the
castle, as nebulæ round a central sun, and from this point it radiated
westward and southward; the O’Briens on the south, the O’Connors on the
west, the O’Neils on the north, perpetually hovering on the borders,
but never able to regain the city, never able to dislodge the brave
Norman garrison who had planted their banners on the castle walls.
In that castle, during the seven hundred years of its existence, no
Irishman of the old race has ever held rule for a single hour.
And what a history it has of tragedies and splendours; crowned and
discrowned monarchs flit across the scene, and tragic destinies,
likewise, may be recorded of many a viceroy! Piers Gaveston, Lord
Lieutenant of King Edward, murdered; Roger Mortimer--“The Gentle
Mortimer”--hanged at Tyburn; the Lord Deputy of King Richard II.
murdered by the O’Briens; whereupon the King came over to avenge his
death, just a year before he himself was so ruthlessly murdered at
Pomfret Castle. Two viceroys died of the plague; how many more were
plagued to death, history leaves unrecorded; one was beheaded at
Drogheda; three were beheaded on Tower Hill. Amongst the names of
illustrious Dublin rulers may be found those of Prince John, the boy
Deputy of thirteen; Prince Lionel, son of Edward III., who claimed
Clare in right of his wife, and assumed the title of Clarence from
having conquered it from the O’Briens.
[Illustration: DUBLIN CASTLE, IRELAND.]
The great Oliver Cromwell was the Lord-Lieutenant of the Parliament,
and he in turn appointed his son Henry to succeed him. Dire are
the memories connected with Cromwell’s reign here, both to his own
party and to Ireland. Ireton died of the plague after the siege
of Limerick; General Jones died of the plague after the surrender of
Dungarvon; a thousand of Cromwell’s men died of the plague before
Waterford. The climate, in its effect upon English constitutions, seems
to be the great Nemesis of Ireland’s wrongs.
Strange scenes, dark, secret, and cruel, have been enacted in that
gloomy pile. No one has told the full story yet. It will be a Ratcliffe
romance of dungeons and treacheries, of swift death or slow murder.
God and St. Mary were invoked in vain for the luckless Irish prince
or chieftain that was caught in that Norman stronghold; but that was
in the old time--long, long ago. Now the castle courts are crowded
only with loyal and courtly crowds, gathered to pay homage to the
illustrious successor of a hundred viceroys.
The strangest scene, perhaps, in the annals of viceroyalty, was
when Thomas Fitzgerald (Silken Thomas), son of the Earl of Kildare,
and Lord-Lieutenant in his father’s absence, took up arms for Irish
independence. He rode through the city with seven score horsemen, in
shirts of mail and silken fringe on their head-pieces (hence the name
Silken Thomas), to St. Mary’s Abbey, and there entering the council
chamber, he flung down the sword of state upon the table, and bade
defiance to the king and his ministers; then hastening to raise an
army, he laid siege to Dublin Castle, but with no success. Silken
Thomas and five uncles were sent to London, and there executed; and
sixteen Fitzgeralds were hanged and quartered at Dublin. By a singular
fatality, no plot laid against Dublin Castle ever succeeded; though to
obtain possession of this foreign fortress was the paramount wish of
all Irish rebel leaders. This was the object with Lord Maguire and his
papists, with Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his republicans, with Emmet
and his enthusiasts, with Smith O’Brien and his nationalists--yet they
all failed. Once only, during seven centuries, the green flag waved
over Dublin Castle, with the motto--“Now or Never! Now and for Ever!”
It was when Tyrconnel held it for King James.
In the ancient stormy times of Norman rule, the nobility naturally
gathered round the Castle. Skinner’s Row was the “May Fair” of mediæval
Dublin, Hoey’s Court, Castle Street, Cook Street, Fishamble Street,
Bridge Street, Werburgh Street, High Street, Golden Lane, Back Lane,
etc., were the fashionable localities inhabited by lords and bishops,
chancellors and judges; and Thomas Street was the grand prado where
viceregal pomp and Norman pride were oftenest exhibited.
SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES
WILLIAM HOWITT
Berlin has its public gardens, and its popular music and dances, as
well as any other German city; but they who do not care to visit these
will find pleasure in walking as far as the Kreutzberg, a little
eminence, a novelty here, at a little distance from the city, on which
is erected a Gothic cross or monument of metal, in memory of those who
died in the war; and figures of the chief leaders in it occupy niches,
and the names of all the great battles in which the Prussians were
engaged, are exhibited on the different sides. Charlottenburg, a few
miles from Berlin, is also not only a charming palace in extensive and
pleasant gardens, but of great interest from the reposing statue of
the amiable Queen Louise, by Rauch, which is in a little temple in the
garden.
But Potsdam is the great paradise of this neighbourhood, as we may be
allowed to call it, for though nearly twenty English miles distant, a
railway conveys you there in forty minutes. Here the scene is indeed
changed! Here, instead of sand and monotony, you have hills, water,
woods, every thing which is attractive in nature. What a splendid
situation were this for a capital! The city on the plain, backed by
these beautiful hills, with every possible variety of site for villas
and pleasure gardens. What woods and hills, and the beautiful river
Havell spreading itself broad and winding, like a succession of fine
lakes! Why was not Berlin placed where Potsdam is? Possibly the Havell,
broad as it looks, may not be so navigable as the Sprey, and there may
lie the secret, or what a capital would it be here!
[Illustration: SANS SOUCI, GERMANY.]
Frederick the Great, however, duly appreciated the beauty of this
neighbourhood. Here he delighted to retire. Steam has now converted
Potsdam into a suburb of Berlin, and pours on all holidays its
thousands into it, without which Potsdam were a retirement and a
solitude still, for grass grows in its streets. But who cares for
Potsdam itself, as it lies in its hollow, with its great old palace,
and great old public buildings and barracks, and avenues of great
trees, except that its old church contains the tomb of Frederick the
Great, on which Napoleon heaped the incense of his praise, and from
which he stole the old warrior’s sword. But the hills on the Havell,
and the views of the Havell from them, the rich meadows, the wild
forest scenes--these are what justify Frederick’s fondness for this
spot, and who can enough enjoy them? That Frederick enjoyed them, the
palaces which he has scattered through them with an extraordinary
prodigality, sufficiently testify: the Palace in Potsdam, the Palace
of Sans Souci, the Marble Palace, the New Palaces. That the present
race enjoy them, various lovely villas, as the Charlottenhof, Grünecke,
and others shew. That the last king enjoyed them, the Pfauen-Insel is
a charming proof. If any one wishes to find the lost fairy-land, he
must steer his course along the Havell, through a wilderness of pine
woods to the Pfauen-Insel, and there he will acknowledge that he
has discovered it. Around amid hills shaggy with forests the Havell
pours its deep and dark waters like an inland sea. The world is shut
out by the bosky shores and deep pine woods of unknown regions, and
in the embracing floods lies the most delicious region which a poet’s
fancy could conjure up, or which nature and art, in mutual labour,
can construct from the ordinary materials of the earth. Shores of
softest green, most ravishing lawns, flowers of superbest dyes and in
gorgeous masses, trees of stateliest growth and gracefullest beauty
of pendant boughs, invite you ever to scenes where you may wander for
hours, and every few moments encounter some new surprise. Here feudal
towers rise above the flood, with heraldic banners flapping over the
battlements; here stately barge and light shallop lie anchored in some
lonely creek; here slope sunny uplands under scattered oaks, where the
shepherd watches his flock. Here you come upon a noble conservatory,
beautiful with the palms and dates and glorious blossoms of tropical
regions, and aromatic with their odours. If you would have any illusion
to persuade you, beyond the charms of nature and of summer, that you
are in a region of enchantment, you have it. You hear the roar of the
lion, the cry of the jackal, and the scream of birds unknown in these
climates. You imagine that some scene in Tasso or Ariosto is about to
be repeated, and find actually wild beasts of all sorts in different
dens and cages in various parts of the island. Such were the amusements
of a king here, after he had helped to bind the great wild beast of
the age on the rocks of St. Helena; and a more enchanting scene for a
day’s excursion he could not have left for the pleasure of his subjects.
Amongst the numerous royal palaces we must say a good word for the New
Palace, as it is called, although it has been often and much abused. If
not in the purest taste, it still possesses a certain grandeur in its
enormous extent, and prodigality of colonnades, porticoes, and statues
connected with it. It lies low, in the meadow below Potsdam, but has
a fine solitude of woods and quaint gardens about it. It is itself a
good and cheerful house, and contains many paintings of much merit and
beauty. It has also a theatre, in which have recently been represented,
before the court, some of the dramatic pieces of Tieck. If this palace
were inhabited by the king, with a full and gay court, it would, with
the necessary life and bustle about it, produce far from a despicable
impression.
Then there is, in the wood near, that little temple containing the
second and most beautiful reposing figure of the late Queen by Rauch.
We had heard this effigy much praised for its beauty; but the beauty
is that of mind and heart. Representatives of far higher physical
beauty we have often seen. The somewhat high cheek bones, the shape of
the nose, and the general contour indeed of the countenance, depart
from the pure ideal of personal beauty, but a still higher beauty
distinguishes this charming statue. It is that perfect sweetness of
disposition; that spirit baptized in heavenly affection; that wife-like
devotion; that high and dauntless, and holy patriotism, dwelling in a
meek and lowly nature, which made this excellent queen adored by the
people when alive, and which glorify her image here in the cold stone.
Not far from this palace is Charlottenhof, the beautiful little villa
in the Herculaneum style built by the present king, when Crown-Prince,
for himself. It is fitted up with a simplicity befitting a private
gentleman, but with a classical purity of taste which makes all
beautiful. But Sans Souci is the great attraction of the neighbourhood.
It is a mere villa perched on a hill just above Potsdam, and surrounded
by the most lovely views over the meadows and wild woody banks of
the Havell. The hill on which it stands is crowned with gardens in
successive terraces. As you approach through the fine meadows and
beneath a noble avenue of trees, broad flights of steps, ascending from
terrace to terrace up to the house, and the lower part of the house
half concealed from view by the swell of the hill, give a very singular
appearance to the whole. It seems as if the house was surrounded by a
piazza, and that those flights of steps ascended to the top, instead
of to the bottom of the building. As we ascended these long flights
of steps, successive terraces of the garden shewed themselves right
and left, with their vines and fig-trees loaded with fruit, and with
quantities of golden gourds, each perfectly round, large enough to fill
a wheelbarrow, lying about; and flowers, in richest autumnal hues,
glowed around. Arrived on the summit, nothing can be conceived more
delicious. The fine views over the lovely country; the gardens all
below you; the space before the palace full of beds of gayest flowers,
and orange trees standing everywhere in blossom, diffusing through
the whole air their delicious aroma. Trees of splendid growth added
their beauty to the spot; the mill of the sturdy old miller shewing
itself amongst them; and from a circular colonnade, on the other side
of the house, a brownish, wildish, burnt-up sort of a country, with
wind-mills, and an artificial ruin of a Grecian temple on a woody hill
opposite, constructed with better effect than such things generally
are, presented a fit landscape for an old painter.
Every part of this place abounds with recollections of the victorious
old Fritz. At each end of the garden, in a green plot, are the graves
of his horse and dogs, eleven in number, he having ordered himself to
be laid there to complete the dozen; an order not complied with. In
the house remain many memorials of him; ’mongst them the clock, which
stopped exactly as he died, and his library, in which his own works are
conspicuous. One volume of his poems stood open at this curious passage:
Mais, quels sont ces cries d’ Alegresse!
Quels Chants! Quelles acclamations!
Les Français plein de son yvresse
Semble vainqueur des Nations.
Il l’ est; et voilà qui s’ avance
La Pompe du jeune Louis:
L’Anglais a perdu sa Balance,
L’Autricien, son insolence,
Et la Balave encore surpris
En grondant bénit La Clemence
De ce Héros, dont l’ indulgence----
The wall of the room occupied here by Voltaire is painted all over
monkeys and parrots. They tell you that Frederick, being desirous
to have a portrait of the ugly old Frenchman, to which he would not
consent, the king employed a painter to observe him by stealth from the
next room whenever the door was opened, which Voltaire becoming aware
of, clapped a screen before his table; and Frederick to mortify him,
caused the whole of the walls of his room, the first opportunity, to be
thus adorned with monkeys and parrots, as indicative of his person and
loquacity. Poor Frederick paid dearly in his lifetime, in annoyance,
for his propensity to French philosophy; and his country paid still
more so for it after his death.
WHITEHALL PALACE
LEIGH HUNT
The whole district containing all that collection of streets and
houses, which extends from Scotland Yard to Parliament Street, and
from the river side, with its wharfs, to St. James’s Park, and which
is still known by the general appellation of Whitehall, was formerly
occupied by a sumptuous palace and its appurtenances, the only relics
of which, perhaps the noblest specimen, is the beautiful edifice built
by Inigo Jones, and retaining its old name of the Banqueting-House.
As this palace was the abode of a series of English sovereigns,
beginning with Henry the Eighth, who took it from Wolsey, and
terminating with James the Second, on whose downfall it was destroyed
by fire, we are now in the very thick of the air of royalty.
[Illustration: WHITEHALL PALACE, ENGLAND.]
The site of Whitehall was originally occupied by a mansion built by
Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent and Chief Justice of England in the reign
of Henry the Third, one of the ancestors of the present Marquess of
Clanricarde. De Burgh bequeathed it to the brotherhood of the Black
Friars, near “Oldborne,” in whose church he was buried; the Brotherhood
sold it to Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, who left it to his
successors in that see as the archiepiscopal residence, which procured
it the name of York Place; and under that name, two centuries and a
half afterwards, it became celebrated for the pomp and splendour of the
“full-blown” priest, Wolsey, the magnificent butcher’s son. Wolsey, on
highly probable evidence, is thought to have so improved and enlarged
the mansion of his predecessors, as to have in a manner rebuilt it, and
given it its first royalty of aspect: but, as we shall see by and by,
it was not called Whitehall, nor occupied anything like the space it
did afterwards, till its seizure by the Cardinal’s master.
On the Cardinal’s downfall, Henry seized his house and goods, and
converted York Place into a royal residence, under the title of
Westminster Place, then, for the first time, called also Whitehall.
“It is not impossible,” says Mr. Brayley (Londiniana Vol. II., p. 27),
“that the Whitehall, properly so called, was erected by Wolsey, and
obtained its name from the newness and freshness of its appearance,
when compared with the ancient buildings of York Place. Shakespeare in
his play of _King Henry VIII._, makes one of the interlocutors
say, in describing the coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn:--
‘So she parted,
And with the same full state paced back again
To York Place, where the feast is held.’
To this is replied--
‘Sir, you
Must no more call it York Place--that is past.
For since the Cardinal fell, that title’s lost.
’Tis now the King’s, and called Whitehall.’”
It was in Whitehall that Henry made his ill-assorted marriage with
Anne Boleyn; Dr. Lingard says in a “garret”; Stowe says in the royal
“closet.” It is likely enough that the ceremony was hurried and
sudden;--a fit of will, perhaps, during his wine; and if the closet was
not ready, the garret was. The clergyman who officiated was shortly
afterwards made a bishop.
Henry died in Whitehall; so fat, that he was lifted in and out his
chamber and sitting-room by means of machinery.
“He was “_somewhat_ gross, or, as we tearme it, bourlie,” says
time-serving Holinshed.
He _laboured_ under the burden of an extreme fit and unwieldy
body,” says noble Herbert of Cherbury.
It was under this Prince (as already noticed) that the palace of the
Archbishop of York first became the “King’s Palace at Westminster,” and
expanded into that mass of houses which stretched to St. James’s Park.
He built a gate-house which stood across what is now the open street,
and a gallery connecting the two places, and overlooking a tilt-yard;
and on the park-side he built a cockpit, a tennis-court, and alleys
for bowling; for although he put women to death, he was fond of manly
sports. He was also a patron of the fine arts, and gave an annuity and
rooms in the palace to the celebrated Holbein, who is said to have
designed the gate, as well as decorated the interior.
The reader is to bear in mind that the street in front of the
modern Banqueting-House was always open, as it is now, from Charing
Cross to King Street, narrowing opposite to the south end of the
Banqueting-House, at which point the gate looked up it towards the
Cross. Just opposite the Banqueting-House on the site of the present
Horse-Guards, was the Tilt-yard. The whole mass of houses and gardens
on the river side comprised the royal residence. Down this open street,
then, just as people walk now, we may picture to ourselves Henry
coming with his regal pomp, and Wolsey with his priestly; Sir Thomas
More strolling thoughtfully, perhaps talking with quiet-faced Erasmus;
Holbein, looking about him with an artist’s eyes; Surrey coming
gallantly in his cloak and feather, as Holbein has painted him; and a
succession of Henry’s wives, with their flitting groups on horseback or
under canopy;--handsome, stately Catherine of Arragon; laughing Anne
Boleyn; quiet Jane Seymour; gross-bodied but sensible Anne of Cleves;
demure Catherine Howard, who played such pranks before marriage; and
disputatious yet buxom Catherine Parr, who survived one tyrant to
become the broken-hearted wife of a smaller one. Down this road, also
came gallant companies of knights and squires, to the tilting-yard; but
of them we shall have more to say in the time of Elizabeth.
We see little of Edward the Sixth, and less of Lady Jane Grey and Queen
Mary, in connection with Whitehall. Edward once held the Parliament
there, on account of his sickly condition; and he used to hear Latimer
preach in the Privy Garden (still so called), where a pulpit was
erected for him on purpose. As there are gardens there still to the
houses erected on the spot, one may stand by the rails, and fancy we
hear the voice of the rustical but eloquent and honest prelate, rising
through the trees.
It was under Elizabeth that Whitehall shone out in all its romantic
splendour. It was no longer the splendour of Wolsey alone, nor of Henry
alone, or with a great name by his side now and then; but of a Queen,
surrounded and worshipped through a long reign by a galaxy of the
brightest minds and most chivalrous persons ever assembled in English
history.
Here she comes, turning the corner from the Strand, under a canopy of
state, leaving the noisier, huzzaing multitude behind the barriers
that mark the precincts of the palace, and bending her eyes hither
and thither, in acknowledgment of the kneeling obeisances of the
courtiers. Beside her are Cecil and Knolles, and Northampton, and
Bacon’s father; or, later in life, Leicester, and Burleigh, and Sir
Philip Sydney, and Greville, and Sir Francis Drake, (and Spenser is
looking on); or, later still, Essex and Raleigh, and Bacon himself,
and Southampton, Shakespeare’s friend, with Shakespeare among the
spectators. We shall see her, by and by, at that period, as brought to
life to us in the description of Hentzner the traveller. At present
(as we have her at this moment in our eye) she is younger, of a large
and tall, but well-made figure, with fine eyes, and finer hands, which
she is fond of displaying. We are too apt to think of Elizabeth as
thin and elderly, and patched up; but for a good period of her life
she was plump and personable, warranting the history of the robust
romps of the Lord Admiral, Seymour; and till her latter days (and even
then, as far as her powers went), we are always to fancy her at once
spirited and stately of carriage, impulsive (except on occasions of
ordinary ceremony), and ready to manifest her emotions in look and
voice, whether as woman or Queen; in a word, a sort of Henry the Eighth
corrected by a female nature and a better understanding--or perhaps
an Anne Boleyn, enlarged, and made less feminine by the father’s
grossness. The Protestants have represented her as too staid, and
the Catholics as too violent and sensual. According to the latter,
Whitehall was a mere sink of iniquity. It was not likely to be so,
for many reasons; but neither, on the other hand, do we take it to
have been anything like the pattern of self-denial which some fond
writers have supposed. Where there is power, and leisure, and luxury,
though of the most legitimate kind, and refinement, though of the most
intellectual, self-denial on the side of enjoyment is not apt to be
the reigning philosophy; nor would it reasonably be looked for in any
court, at all living in wealth and splendour.
Imagine the sensations of Elizabeth, when she first set down in the
palace at Whitehall, after escaping the perils of imputed illegitimacy,
of confinement for party’s sake and for religion’s, and all the other
terrors of her father’s reign and of Mary’s, danger of death itself not
excepted. She was a young Queen of twenty-five years of age, healthy,
sprightly, good-looking, with plenty of will, power, and imagination;
and the gallantest spirits of the age were at her feet.
The Court of James the First was a great falling off from that of
Elizabeth, in point of decency. It was Sir Toby keeping house after the
death of Olivia; or a fox-hunting squire succeeding to the estate of
some courtly dame and mingling low life with high.
We have seen court mummeries in the time of Henry the Eighth and
pageants in that of Elizabeth. In the time of James, the masquings
of the one, and the gorgeous shows of the other, combined to produce
the Masque, in its latest and best acceptation; that is, a dramatic
exhibition of some brief fable or allegory, uniting the most fanciful
poetry and scenery, and generally heightened with a contrast of humour,
or an anti-masque. Ben Jonson was their great poetical master in the
court of James and Inigo Jones claimed to be their no less masterly
and important setter-forth in scene and show. The poet and artist had
a quarrel upon this issue, and Inigo’s’ memory suffers from divers
biting libels in the works of his adversary. The noble Banqueting-House
remains to show that the architect might have had some right to dispute
pretensions, even with the author of the _Alchemist_ and the
_Sad Shepherd_; for it is a piece of the very music of his art
(if we may so speak)--the harmony of proportion. Within these walls,
as we now see them, rose, “like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,”
the elegant lines of Ben Jonson, breathing court flowers,--the clouds
and painted columns of Jones--and the fair faces, gorgeous dresses, and
dances, of the beauties that dazzled the young eyesight of the Miltons
and Wallers. Ben’s burly body would then break out, as it were, after
his more refined soul, in some burlesque anti-masque, now and then not
a little coarse; and the sovereign and the poet most probably concluded
the night in the same manner, though not at the same table in filling
their skins with wine.
The Court of Charles I. was decorum and virtue itself in comparison
with that of James. Drunkenness disappeared; there were no scandalous
favourites; Buckingham alone retained his ascendency as the friend and
assistant; and the king manifested his notions of the royal dignity by
a stately reserve. Little remained externally of the old Court but its
splendour; and to this a new lustre was given by a taste for painting
and the patronage of Rubens and Vandyke. Charles was a great collector
of pictures. He was still fonder of poetry than his father, retained
Ben Jonson as his laureate, encouraged Sandys, and May, and Carew, and
was a fond reader of Spenser and Shakespeare. It was, upon the whole a
grave and graceful court, not without an undercurrent of intrigue.
It seems ridiculous to talk of the court of Oliver Cromwell, who had
so many severe matters to attend to in order to keep himself on his
throne; but he had a court, nevertheless; and however jealously it was
watched by the most influential of his adherents, it grew more courtly
as his protectorate advanced.
But how shall we speak of the court of Charles II.? of that unblushing
seminary for the misdirection of young ladies, which, occupying the
ground now inhabited by all which is proper, rendered the mass of
buildings by the water’s side, from Charing Cross to the Parliament,
one vast--what are we to call it?--
“Chi mi darà le voci e le parole
Convenienti a sì nobil soggetto?”
Let Mr. Pepys explain. Let Clarendon explain. Let all the world
explain, who equally reprobate the place and its master, and yet
somehow are so willing to hear it reprobated, that they read endless
accounts of it, old and new, from the not very bashful _exposé_
of the Count de Grammont, down to the blushing deprecations of Mrs.
Jameson.
The Court of James II. is hardly worth mention. It lasted less
than four years, and was as dull as himself. The most remarkable
circumstance attending it was the sight of friars and confessors, and
the brief restoration of Popery. Waller, too, was once seen there;
the _fourth_ court of his visiting. There was a poetess also,
who appears to have been attached by regard as well as office to the
Court of James--Anne Kingswill, better known by her subsequent title of
Countess of Winchelsea. The attachment was most probably one of feeling
only and good nature, for she had no bigotry of any sort. Dryden,
furthermore, was laureate to King James; and in a fit of politic,
perhaps real, regret, turned round upon the late court in his famous
comparison of it with its predecessor.
James fled from England in December, 1688, and the history of Whitehall
terminates with its conflagration ten years afterwards.
THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG
HORACE MARRYAT
The walks in the neighbourhood of Elsinore are charming, particularly
that along the Strandrei, by the shore of the Sound--a succession of
country houses and fishing villages, and well-kept gardens bright with
flowers: they have a well-to-do prosperous air, as everything has in
Denmark. An hour’s walk brings you to a maisonette called Dahlsborg,
beyond which you turn to enter the forest of Egebæksvang, a favourite
summer drive of the Elsinorians.
A ten minutes’ walk, avoiding all dusty roads across the common or
waste land which runs down to the seashore--in England it would
have been the paradise of geese, cricketers and donkeys, but
here it is deserted, except by the sharpshooters, who keep up a
cross-fire, practising their targets from eight o’clock till six of an
evening--brings us to the Castle of Kronborg.
The road lies between two dirty stagnant ponds, dignified by the
appellation of Holger Dansk’s Spectacles: if they fitted his face,
he must have had one eye considerably larger than the other. Instead
of snoring away his time within the dungeons of Kronborg--his beard
growing into the marble table--he had far better employ his leisure
moments in cleaning out and sweetening his “brille”; but he only
appears, they say, when Mr. Sorensen (the Danish John Bull or Brother
Jonathan) really requires his services. Effectual drainage and sanitary
reforms are sadly behind-hand, and looked upon as new-fangled vagaries
by the inhabitants of the island of Zealand.
If in your early youth you have devoured the _Fabliaux et Contes_,
_King Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table_, and other
legends of old Romaunce, you will recognize in Holger Dansk,[4] or
rather Augier le Danois, an old and favourite acquaintance. Some few
years since I brushed him up when I visited the ruins of _La Joyeuse
Garde_ and the classic sands of Avalon, on the coast of Brittany.
The French romancers assert him to be still confined at Avalon,
together with King Arthur, held in durance vile by the enchantments of
the fay Morgana. Occasionally she removes from his brow the Lethæan
crown, when his services are required to fight against the Paynim for
the good and welfare of Christendom.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG, DENMARK.]
Morgana, she of the Fata, was own sister to our good King Arthur. With
other mighty fairies, she assisted at the birth of Holger the Dane;
later she loved him. Seduced by her blandishments, he espoused her:
no good ever comes of marrying an old woman, be she mortal or fairy.
Holger the Dane slumbers in the dungeons of Kronborg, not at Avalon,
as the French would have it, no more than King Arthur, who we all
know received Christian burial at Glastonbury; but French romancers
do tell such wicked stories. Endless are the traditions, numerous the
ballads, of the exploits of this the favourite hero of Danish story:
when invoked, after much pressing, and, I must own it, exacting first
the promise of “a good dinner and plenty to drink,” he has frequently
come to the assistance of fair maidens in their trouble and distress,
and fought their battles with his enchanted sword, mounted on his good
steed, “Papillon.” Morgana, the fay, has never deserted entirely the
country of her beloved: she still sports and exercises her witcheries
to favoured mortals, when least expected, among the barren heaths and
wide-spreading moors of the ancient provinces of Jutland.
I have no intention, however, of visiting his prison down below: the
wind is cast, my limbs are rheumatic--let younger people be more
adventurous. But we pass the drawbridge and enter the second gate
of the castle. Verses in the Danish tongue by the Scotchman, Bishop
Kingo, and the more illustrious pen of Tycho Brahe, adorn the portals
and celebrate the erection of the buildings. There is one thing sure
in this world--monarchs never allowed their good works to be hid
in secret: on every side you see inscriptions, in letters of gold,
announcing how Christian V. restored this, and Frederic IV. whitewashed
that. But I must give you some account of the history of the castle.
There is no doubt but, from the earliest period of history, a castle of
some kind, built for the protection of the Sound, existed on the site
or near where the Kronborg now stands. In the year 1238 the preceding
fortress of Flynderborg--situated at the other end of the town, near
the Strandvei, named after the flounders, of which quantities are
taken in front of the batteries--was in a state of excellent repair.
This fortress being found unsuited to the exigencies of the times,
King Frederic II. determined to rebuild it on a scale of unprecedented
grandeur: the whole of the expenses were to be discharged from his
privy purse, and the building was to cost his subjects “not one penny.”
This was more easy of execution to Frederic, first crowned Protestant
sovereign of Denmark, than it would have proved to later monarchs. He
had made a good haul of suppressed monasteries, church lands, plate,
and treasure--was flush of money, and did not mind spending it. The
existing castle was then commenced in the year 1577, and completed in
the course of nine years. Bishop Kingo and Tycho Brahe both sung its
praises, and the talents of Rubens were called into play--somewhat
later I imagine--for the decoration of the chapel. The castle is
strongly fortified with double-bastion, moat, and rampart, after the
manner of preceding ages.
Kronborg possesses one great advantage over the other Danish buildings
of the Sixteenth Century: it is built of fine sandstone, the only
specimen in the kingdom. Though quadrangular and four-towered, it
is relieved from all appearance of formality by the quaint onion
pagoda-like minarets by which its towers are surmounted. The lofty
clock turret[5] too, rising from the centre, higher than those which
flank the corners, adds to the dignity of the building. Few castles in
the space of three hundred years have suffered so little from modern
additions and improvement: one tower has unfortunately been destroyed.
In an old engraving from Puffendorf of 1688, I see the original had
already been altered: it was an eyesore, but, in accordance with the
style of the remainder, capped and ornamented. It, however, fell into
decay during the reign of Frederic VI., at that unfortunate epoch
when taste was bad taste, and art atrocity: it was repaired--square
and hideous--a fearful monument of the age. Formerly it served as a
telegraph, now as a powder magazine; and unless it be blown up, or
the powder becomes damp, will, I fear, remain untouched. You enter
the interior court through a richly ornamented gateway, guarded by
statues and overhung by a beautiful oriel window, enriched with the
arms and ciphers of the founder. Opposite to you stands the chapel
(the works of Rubens have long since disappeared); the fittings of
the time of Christian IV. have been lately restored, but not too
carefully. It is curious to trace, as you can by the turret to the
right of the clock, the gradual transition from the Gothic to the
Renaissance. The whole of the ornaments are of the latter period; but
there is still occasionally a sort of feeling as if the architect was
not quite decided in his views: whether he was or not, Kronborg is
one of the most perfect specimens of its era--unspoiled, untouched,
and unrepaired--to be met with in Europe. It has long ceased to be
occupied as a royal residence. One side is alone retained for the use
of His Majesty; the rest is occupied by the General Commandant, the
officers, and the garrison. Above the entrance of the clock-tower,
surmounting the ornaments, appears the head of a huge mastiff, holding
in his fore-paws a heart-like shield, with the cipher of Frederic II.,
and below the favourite device of the King, “T. I. W. B., _Treu ist
Wiltbratt_.” The same Wildbratt, whose portrait is above, was the
favourite of King Frederic, and bit everybody save his royal master.
Over the other door appears the device of his good queen--good Queen
Sophia of Mecklenburg--“_Meine Hoffnung zu Gott allein_” (My hope
is in God alone). Within the dungeon of the corner tower, that of
the restoration--adjoining the wine-cellars of Christian IV., where
a jolly fat tun carved in stone above the entrance leaves no doubt
of its identity--was situated the torture-chamber in days gone by:
none of your papistical virgins, who enticed you to their arms, and
larded like a fricandeau, then stuck you brimful of pen-knives, but
good wholesome Protestant thumbscrews, boots, and wooden horses, and
scavengers’ daughters, such as Queen Bess of glorious memory, and
our earlier Tudor sovereigns, to say nothing of later Stuarts loved
to employ on their rebellious subjects who refused to convict their
masters, rightfully or wrongfully, and bring them to the block--and
very persuasive implements they were, I doubt not. In the centre of
the court once stood a fountain, tossing the water high in the air:
judging from the old engravings, it must have been very ornamental.
Some thirty or forty iron hooks, fastened into the wall, remain, once
the larder of King Frederic, hung, when game abounded, with deer, hare,
and capercailzie--like Bolton Abbey in the olden time--a pretty scene,
only too near the torture-chamber. After the peace of 1659, when Skaane
was lost to Denmark forever, the windows of Kronborg Castle, which
commanded a view of the Swedish coast, were walled up, to exclude a
sight which caused so many heart-burnings.
In 1588 was celebrated in the Castle of Kronborg the marriage by
procuration of King James VI. of Scotland with Anne, daughter of King
Frederic II. of Denmark. Anne was then in her fifteenth year. Marshal
Earl Keith acted as proxy. This marriage settled the vexed question of
the Orkney and Shetland Islands, pawned to Scotland when the Princess
Margaret married King James III. Christian III. meditated an expedition
against Mary of Guise, then Regent of Scotland, for their recovery
and later offered to repay the 50,000 florins for which they had been
pawned; but Dantzay, by order of Catherine de’Medici, put a spoke
into the arrangement, and they were never redeemed. We all know the
history of King James’s adventures, and how the real marriage took
place at Agershuus, in Norway. The royal couple then visited Denmark
and passed a month in the Castle of Kronborg, where they assisted
at the nuptials, 19th April, 1590, of the queen’s elder sister, the
Princess Elizabeth, with Henry Duke of Brunswick. Which were the
apartments occupied by King James and his bride during his residence
no one can say--the interior of the building has been much altered
since that period, the stories divided for the occupation of the
garrison--but in all probability it was the suite called the apartments
of Christian IV., now set apart for his present Majesty. They are not
remarkable for their size, but contain fine chimney-pieces, with the
cipher of the sovereign, and the doorways are ornamented with marble
and richly-carved ebony. Tales are still current in Elsinore of the
drinking-bouts held by King James and his brother-in-law, Prince
Christian in the halls of Kronborg--how they fell intoxicated under the
table, rolled into the ditch, etc.
On the exterior of the castle, called Frederic III.’s battery, under
the windows of the upper story, runs a cornice richly ornamented in the
style of the earlier part of the Seventeenth Century, in the divisions
of which are represented medallion portraits of certain personages of
the royal family of Denmark. Among them that of King James himself,
with his peaked beard side by side with the full features of his
consort Queen Anne: in the divisions of each side are sculptured two
Tudor roses, and in the ornamentation of the cornice is constantly
introduced the portcullis of the same family. The date of this cornice
is unknown; but it was in all probability put up to commemorate the
nuptials of the King of Scots with the Princess Anne of Denmark.
Luckily for James was it that the embassy of Lord Willoughby to
Kronborg took place some few years before his marriage, and that this
Scottish assumption of the English badge came not to the ears of the
Virgin Queen. Tudor he was in all right by his ancestress Margaret, in
the female line, and nearest heir to the English throne; but Elizabeth,
when the succession was mooted, brooked no child’s-play. How she would
have stormed had she known it, and sent a fleet perchance to intercept
the return of James to his dominions! and the youthful Anne might
have found a prison in Fotheringay, and a jailer in that exceedingly
unpleasant individual Sir Amyas Paulet. Such are the souvenirs of King
James I have met with in the chronicles of Kronborg.
One day, when on an excursion to the back slums of the town of
Elsinore, I came on a small narrow lane, dignified with the
appellation--in honour, I suppose, of the royal marriage--of Anna Queen
Street.
Having finished with pompous pageants and royal nuptials, we come to
a sadder period of Kronborg story. Scotland still mourns the fate,
and proclaims the innocence of Mary Stuart, the murdered Queen;
had she not been a Papist, England--yes, intolerant England--would
have long since done her justice. France, who, in the last century,
vented her venom, her calumny, against the Autrichienne, now exalts
the memory of Marie Antoinette to that of a saint and martyr. So, in
Denmark, all voices proclaim together the innocence, and deplore the
fate, of the youthful Queen of Christian VII., our English princess
Caroline Matilda. Here in Kronborg she was confined a prisoner, torn
from her palace in Copenhagen, half-dressed, in the middle of the
night, expecting daily to suffer the fate of Struensee and Brandt,
until the arrival of a fleet from England effected her liberation.
Accompanied by the Commandant one morning (General Lunding, the hero
of Fredericia--military men will tell you all about it), I visited the
apartments in which she was confined on her arrival--two small rooms on
the ground-floor, one overshadowed by the bastion, the other looking on
the courtyard of the castle. Later, I believe, the Commandant placed
his own apartment at her disposal; and in the small octagon closet of
the lighthouse turret, which terminates the apartments of Christian
IV., it is related how the captive queen passed hours and days with
anxious brow and straining eye, gazing at the waters of the Sound, in
momentary expectation of the appearance of the fleet from England, she
having received some secret tidings of its coming. No relics of her
incarceration here remain: the ancient furniture of the palace was
unluckily removed, destroyed, and neglected in Frederic VI.’s reign. He
detested Kronborg, and never visited Elsinore; these recollections of
his mother’s imprisonment were odious to him, and the royal apartments
fell into decay.
The ramparts of Kronborg are charming: before them the fishers
everlastingly ply their trade--flounders, and a fish called
“green-bone,” a horn-fish, are their prey. Had Shakespeare searched the
world round he never could have selected so fitting a locality for the
ghost-scene. I can see the ghost myself--pale moon, clouds flitting
o’er her, frowning castle, and the space necessary to follow him; but
the romance of Kronborg is over; her bastions are redolent with deep
purple violets, and the roseate buds of a statice--Krigskarl, or the
Warrior, they here call it--which looks as if it should be something
better, but will, I dare say, turn out common thrift after all. When
the fishing-boats return at sunset, a little girl runs down to the
shore side, and waits; as they pass by, a small flounder is thrown to
her from each boat; she gathers them up in her apron, and then returns
to the castle.
CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE
JULES LOISELEUR
Those whose natures are sufficiently artistic to seek that intimate
and sympathetic accord that exists between human monuments and their
natural surroundings will do well to visit Chaumont on a fine summer’s
day under the rays of a scorching sun. Those strong towers built
to withstand a siege, and those towers still so white after four
centuries, should stand out strongly against the deep blue of a July
sky in order to produce their full effect. Then that gleaming mount
from which the ancient castle took its name, those great trees that
frame it, and that lazy stream sleeping at its feet attain their full
value. There is no discordant tone, nor any noise of man or beast, to
disturb the majestic unity of this beautiful spectacle.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU SUR LOIRE, FRANCE.]
Seated on the opposite bank, on that embankment of the Loire that
goes back to the time of Louis le Débonnaire, at one glance the
traveller sees a picture that would enchant a painter, from the Loire
that ripples at his feet, the white houses of the little village of
Chaumont extending like a boa at the foot of the castle, pressed in as
it is between the hill and the river, and the stone stairway which by
a hundred and sixty steps ascends the side of the hill that broadens
towards its summit to give room for the little church of the bourg as
well as for the giant elm planted by Catherine de’Medici, to the
castle terrace hanging two hundred feet above the gorge, the carved
buttresses of the chapel in which George Amboise dreamed of the papacy,
and the vanes of the tower from which the widow of Henry II. questioned
the stars. At this noon-day hour when all nature is silent, the sun
that turns the sands of the stream into beds of gold, and picks out
ruby aigrettes in the rose windows of the chapel, casts the silhouettes
of pilasters that support it on the wall of the gallery that terminates
the courtyard of the castle, giving an infinite charm to the semi-gloom
of that gallery and to the beneficently shaded steps that must be
mounted to arrive there.
Those who love to arrange effects and not include an entire monument
in a single glance but allow it time to some extent to present itself
to the view and successively reveal the various features of its
physiognomy, will do well to avoid the rude stone stairway cut in the
rock and rather take the verdurous avenue that leaves the road and
leads by a lessened though still steep slope to the platform on which
the castle stands. By this means, they will see it rise progressively
through the openings of a clump of ancient elms called the Queen’s Mall.
Approached on this side, Chaumont presents itself at an angle and
spreads out in the form of a fan. At the extremity of each of the two
ribs of this fan rises a great tower, and the bottom of the fan which
is cant-shaped is guarded by two somewhat smaller towers between which
is the main entrance.
From this disposition, it results that from the angle occupied by this
gateway the visitor may include the four towers of the castle in one
field of vision: to the left is the Amboise tower, which is the highest
and the best preserved; to the right is that of Catherine de’Medici,
with its battlements still imprinted with cabalistic signs; and in
front are the two towers of the gateway. On these towers and on the
walls that connect them, about one-third of the way up, is a belt of
carving alternately framing a mountain with flames issuing from its top
and two C’s back to back, ϽC. These carvings present a somewhat curious
archæological puzzle.
The outer moat, at the present day largely filled up and replaced by a
flowery sward, somewhat relieves the heavy character of the drawbridge
that defends the entrance to the castle. We must halt upon this
drawbridge to examine the details of the thick oaken door, on which are
carved the Twelve Apostles, and the stone medallion that decorates the
archway. This medallion, which has recently been restored, offers a
remarkable exception to the rule generally followed in the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Century, when it was customary to carve above the
principal gateway the arms of the family to whom the castle belonged,
and sometimes the statue of its founder. Here, framed by delicate
ornamentation, we see the initials of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany,
his second wife: the L on a ground sewn with _fleurs de lis_ and
the A among the arms of Brittany. On a level with this medallion, arms
are incrusted on the towers guarding the gateway: on that on the right
are the arms of Georges d’Amboise surmounted by the cardinal’s hat; on
the tower on the left are those of his nephew, Charles of Chaumont,
Admiral and Grand Master of France. It is doubtless the latter to whom
all these sculptures should be attributed. It is presumable that on his
return from Nantes, where he had just espoused the widow of Charles
VIII., Louis XII. stopped at Chaumont in company with his new wife and
his minister, and that the Maréchal de Chaumont, to do honour to his
uncle and the royal pair, had this medallion and these arms carved on
the gateway and towers, and therefore they date from the year 1499.
We pass the drawbridge and the gate, leaving on our left a painted
gallery full of luminous shadow, and find ourselves in a vast
quadrilateral court of honour surrounded on three sides by bodies of
buildings and having the fourth open on immensity. Like the others,
this fourth side was once enclosed by buildings and flanked by two
towers commanding the Loire. These constructions were razed four
hundred years ago by a counsellor of the Parliament of Paris, named
Bertin de Vaugien, who at that time was the owner of the Castle. This
man did an intelligent thing in this, but probably without suspecting
it: by chance it happened that vandalism had good taste for once.
Leaning on the iron railing that has taken the place of this fourth
body of buildings, the visitor gazes over an immense horizon line and
a landscape “made for the delight of the eyes.” In the foreground are
terraces thick with flowers; a little lower down, through the stunted
trees that have thrust themselves through the clefts in the rock, peep
the sharp and symmetrical roofs of the little village of Chaumont;
behind this village is the Loire; behind the Loire stands the hamlet of
Escures; farther away is the railroad, the black and wearisome lines of
which lengthen out on their gravel bed; in the background appear the
church of the large town of Onzain and the ruins of the old castle in
which Voltaire wrote _La Pucelle_. There is no monument, however
fairy-like it might be imagined, that would not be crushed by such a
frame. Therefore Chaumont suffers by being viewed close at hand, from
the height of this magic balcony whence the work of divinity reveals
itself with a splendour that effaces the finest conceptions of man.
The great hall that comes after the anteroom contains nothing
remarkable but a long chest of carved wood set against the wall, and a
niche around which are reproduced the names or arms of all the lords of
Chaumont from Eudes I., Count of Blois, who lived at the close of the
Tenth Century and who consequently had no arms, to Vincent Walsh, whose
arms are three lance-heads.
A curtain over a door is raised and we are in the bedchamber of
Catherine de’Medici. Here the work of restoration is happy and
sufficiently complete. Here is the bed of the ambitious Florentine, a
bed with torso columns the carved top of which supports a royal crown.
On one side is the Queen’s _prie-dieu_ with her Hours open; on the
other is her toilette-table with her opiate boxes; the whole is framed
in tapestries of high gloss which give to this chamber the sombre and
somewhat sinister character that befits it. These curious tapestries
were certainly made for Chaumont, since we see the Castle reproduced
in one of their panels. We suppose that they date back to Charles
d’Amboise who rebuilt Chaumont towards the end of the reign of Louis
XI., or at least to his son, Marshal Chaumont, the friend and companion
of Louis XII.
Catherine was in possession of Chaumont for nine years, from 1550 to
1559, that is to say, during almost the entire reign of her husband.
This was the difficult and humiliating period of her life; that of her
struggle with the Constable Montmorency and Diana of Poitiers. The
curious _bahut_ that is admired in this chamber must have had many
state secrets concealed in its innumerable drawers, including many
plots, baffled or prepared, and many formidable projects. This chamber,
in which Catherine nursed her troubles as a queen and an outraged
woman, possessed one great advantage for her. She had at hand her two
guides, her two customary consolations,--Astrology and Religion. By
that door she could penetrate into the tower where she cast horoscopes
in company with Ruggieri; by the other one she could enter directly
into the chapel.
This pretty chapel forms a striking contrast with its neighbouring
tower. Just in proportion as the chamber in the tower is deaf, cold and
dumb, and admits a sinister light by its single window, pierced in a
wall of more than three metres’ thickness, to the same degree is the
chapel elegant, coquettish and smiling. Windows of bold contours pour a
flood of rosy light upon the choir, tiled with white faïence sewn with
blue crosses, producing a charming effect. Pretty bas-reliefs in oak
upon a gold background form the base of the altar. A tall and fine oak
chair, carved and emblazoned, which is said to have belonged to Georges
d’Amboise, stands beside the sanctuary. A red cardinal’s hat, attached
to the vault, hangs above this arm-chair.
This chapel terminates the edifice most happily. The apartments that
precede it have seen many masters pass through; they recall many
perfidies, struggles, and illustrious and unfortunate existences.
After all this tumult of glorious or withered memories, our mind, like
our eyes, finds grateful repose in the smiling and calm sanctuary. It
reaches God by an insensible and natural law of contrast as the sole
master who has not changed in this abode, the sole guest who has never
left behind him anything but good memories and consolation.
The Castle of Chaumont, as it has come down to us, is a building of the
Fifteenth Century. It was erected by Charles Amboise on the ruins of a
more ancient fortress razed by order of Louis XI. and which itself had
been built about 1159 on the remains of a strong castle destroyed by
Thibault V., Count of Blois and Champagne. The first and most ancient
of these constructions had been built about 908 by Eudes I., Count of
Blois, the eldest son of the celebrated Thibault the Trickster.
WINDSOR CASTLE
THE MARQUIS OF LORNE
From out the dimness of England’s ancient story, Windsor and
Winchester, and Camelot and Caerleon are raised aloft, lit with the
light of the romance of Arthur. Warwick, Dover, and Belvoir, and
Alnwick and Conway and Caernarvon, the tower of London and again
Windsor, rise from the times of the Norman dominion. Edinburgh,
Kenilworth, Penshurst, and Naworth; Carisbrooke, and again Windsor,
remain in our sight to recall most forcibly the period when “our loyal
passion for our temperate kings” began to make these castle-landmarks
of our story scarcer in the land.
Through all the long review of points of time that challenge
observation, Windsor stands the most enduring and the most majestic of
the places around which gather the memories of all ages of England’s
greatness.
In the valley of England’s famous river the Normans built two strong
towers, that of London and that of Windsor. This stream nursed the
cradle of Norman power, and saw the renewed birth of English liberty,
when the stranger-barons, whose fathers subdued England, wrung from
their king the great charter of the rights of the subject.
No wonder William found the hill a good place, for there is no fairer
view in England. That from Richmond is not so extensive; and at Windsor
he possessed besides, a grand forest country for his sports. His men
could put off their chain-mail and pointed helmets with the straight
face-guards, and give chase to the red deer, which then abounded all
over the country, the hunters having no metal about them except the
sharp, plain Norman spur on their heels, and the iron on the tips of
their arrows.
Now the distant smoke of the mightiest city in the world can be
descried on the horizon. In those days so rarely was smoke visible,
that signals were transmitted by kindling fires at market-places,
and the clear air knew not the fumes that make the white river-fogs
dark-yellow in colour, and stifling to breathe. The chequered
appearance of the nearer landscape, divided by hedgerow and field to
the north and east, is modern; but to the south and west the woods of
oak must present much their appearance of the olden days. No engineer
has altered the river, or been able even to abate its occasional winter
floods, which turn the banks above Windsor into a shallow lake. The
further landscape is still what it was. It is still a wooded land.
There are no sterile patches, no ugly intervals, no naked tracts of
sand or earth. All is green, and better than in the early days in
this--that the cheerfulness of peace is on it, and the “stately homes”
are more frequent, and the villages need no rampart, but expand in
security, and, it must be added, often with a system of architecture to
which distance alone can lend enchantment.
[Illustration: WINDSOR CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
The Castle was very strong. These keeps were built so that there was
no chance of a surprise. Massive gates placed in security beyond deep
ditches were let into the walls, well defended by battlement and
flanking towers. Drawbridges and portcullises might be forced, but
there the enemy only found himself at the beginning of his work.
Narrow passages led to other defences, and the keep itself was reached
by a stair so narrow that one man only could enter at a time.
The walls of the lowest story showed only tiny shot- or loopholes. The
second story showed more of these, but so narrow that no torch could be
thrown in. The third story had windows so high in the wall that arrows
or bolts shot from below could only hit the arch of the opening, to
fall back harmless.
The top stories were filled with weapons that could throw darts,
stones, and heavy balls, so assailants could not easily take a Norman
keep.
The Normans had taste as well as strength, and gradually the whole
neighbourhood was made more beautiful. During reign after reign the
kings showered favours on their finest possession.
Around the Keep arose a Central Ward--that is the space outside was
enclosed with towers and walls and gardens. Then lower down the ridge
another king built a church, and beyond it again other great towers, as
the town arose, under the Castle’s shelter and protection. This part
was again flanked and made strong, and called the Lower Ward. The
church was dedicated first to St. Edmond, and then to St. George.
But on the other side of the Keep the monarchs built themselves
something in the way of lodging far better than the small rooms of
the Keep, for a wide range of palace apartments existed there before
even the days of the Tudors. These were extended and improved from the
days of Queen Elizabeth to the days of Queen Victoria. These buildings
formed the Upper Ward.
The effect of this mass of buildings, dominated by the Round Tower, is
very fine, and no better example exists of the feudal fortress. Whether
seen from the river, with the red-roofed houses of the town clustered
below the great white walls, or from the park, where Windsor rises like
an enchanted castle above the wide greensward, which is varied with the
groves of ancient oak and beech, there is nothing to compare with it.
All who speak the English tongue may be equally proud of the palace
strength of their great forefathers.
Chambers built over castle gateways were often used as prisons for
those whose lot was not to be made too hard. For the unfortunates who
were to be severely dealt with, a far more horrible prison was provided
in the shape of a dungeon with a narrow orifice above, through which
the victim was let down with cords into a vault, having often no
windows. Places like this must have soon become foul and fatal to the
captives.
At Windsor there is a very fair prison above the gateway, through which
you must pass before entering the great stair that climbs the mound
of the Keep. Although the windows are narrow they give light enough,
and on the walls are the names of the men who here, in their durance
vile, amused themselves by writing their name or making their mark by
scratches on the stone. Sometimes they added a little tracing of their
arms.
These small rooms are among the few which remain exactly as they
existed in the Middle Ages. In other apartments there has been much
alteration. Most of the ceilings of Verrio are gone, the ancient
tapestries have been removed, the heavy ornamentation of the times of
the Georges, and almost all the still ponderous yet better decorations
of Jacobean times, have disappeared.
But the towers which held celebrated prisoners of State are yet
pointed out. The two most notable are just under the hill on which
the great round Keep is built. One of these has been raised high, and
a very narrow stair communicates with each of its little rooms. Here
King John of France had many a long hour in which to repent of his
bad generalship at Poitiers, where the young Black Prince took him
prisoner. Here he was brought after that ride through the streets of
London, which must have been to him so humiliating, although he was
shown much courtesy by his captor.
It was the opposite tower across the Upper Ward, with better
accommodations that Henry V. of England assigned to the use of the
young King of Scotland, who had been illegally captured during a time
of truce. Young James of Scotland’s uncle, the old Duke of Albany,
was not supposed to be particularly sorry to have his sovereign and
nephew kept in England, for it gave Albany all power in Scotland. So
at Windsor James remained for nearly twenty years, becoming expert in
literature and in knightly exercises.
The English were kind to him, and it was from this building of his
captivity, now called Edward the Third’s Tower, that he saw his future
Queen, a daughter of the House of Beaufort, walking in the garden at
the base of the Keep.
His long residence in England was beneficial to James in many ways,
and when he was at last allowed to return to his northern kingdom,
he entered it the most accomplished knight of his time. He was much
beloved by the English, with whom he managed, when on the throne, to
keep on fair terms. His reign was illustrious, and worthy of a better
close than that of the tragic assassination by which it was ended.
We need not think of all the terrible things that have happened at
Windsor Castle--of prisoners dying by inches in dark dungeons; of men
mutilated for treason, like the Earl of Eu; of the rare attacks the
Castle has been called to endure; of the ruin wrought in glorious
chapel and halls by Cromwell’s soldiery. For Windsor has chiefly been
associated with the brighter and more cheery events of the national
life.
Here, more often than in any other royal home, were the joy-bells rung
for the births and marriages of our princes; although here, too, the
funeral knell has also been often heard; for it is the tomb, as it is
the dwelling-place, of the monarchs of England.
The most daring and most romantic of the Constables of the Round Tower,
the fiery Prince Rupert, made his rooms beautiful with pictures, with
tapestry, and with ornament. At once an artist and a warrior, such as
few countries have produced, he lived to see the palace a prey to the
spoiler.
Earlier as well as later days are recalled by the buildings below,
which are now devoted to the library. They overlook the Thames and
England’s great school of Eton. From their windows one gazes across
the river far below, on the roofs and towers of the college founded by
Henry VI.
Between the groups of houses and the thickly-scattered trees one may
catch glimpses of bands of boys in the distance playing football or
cricket, or rowing on the Thames. The poet Gray, looking on the same
cheerful scene, wrote gloomily, “Alas! regardless of their doom, the
little victims play.” Well, they are fortunate victims, and the men who
have been at school there would gladly live over again the years they
spent at Eton.
It was in this part of the Castle that Queen Elizabeth lived and moved
and had her imperious being. It was in a little chamber in a turret
here that Queen Anne received the despatch from Marlborough wishing her
joy on the victory of Blenheim. He wrote on a scrap of paper from the
field, “Your Majesty’s troops have had a great victory, and Marshall
Tallard is in my coach.” He had, with Prince Eugene, achieved one of
the most fruitful successes of that reign of victories.
The old look of a fortress has given way to that of the palace, fearing
no foeman; and long may this be so! But the Castle could be made strong
against everything save long-range artillery. The walls could contain
a large force, and its underground apartments have the solidity of
bomb-proof. Sentries pace its ramparts, and a regiment of guards is
also at hand.
Nor is it dependent for water on river or outside supply. Not long ago
a room in the Round Tower was complained of as always cold. The floor
was taken up, and there lay a vast circular stone with great iron
rings. By these it was lifted, and a deep, carefully-constructed Norman
well was discovered, going down to the level of the Thames itself.
The interior of the group of rooms extending from the north side of
the Norman Gate to the angle at which the red-coated porters await
visitors, now devoted to a fine library, is not always shown. But
for those who have leave, a most interesting collection of medals,
illuminated manuscripts, ancient buildings, and Oriental miniatures,
is displayed. Handsome Elizabethan chimney-pieces, on one of which the
great Queen herself is represented, warm the north wall. The windows
on the other, embayed in presses full of well-arranged literature,
look out towards that far-off church, the spire of which is easily
recognised through glass, where Gray wrote his immortal _Elegy_.
One little room is that in which Queen Anne was sitting when
Marlborough’s despatch announcing the victory of Blenheim was brought
to her.
Where the library ends is the first of a set of splendid apartments,
used only by the public and the greatest sovereigns. Paintings by
Zuccarelli, who, at his best, is always most pleasing, are hung over
cabinets containing very beautiful porcelain. Onwards, on the north
side, room after room can be most profitably examined, for the pictures
are of particular interest, either on account of their history or their
art. Formerly the Sovereign’s family lived in this part of the Castle.
Now they live on the southern side of the Upper Ward, where dwelt in
other days the great officers of state.
THE PALACE OF URBINO
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
The sunset was almost spent, and a four days’ moon hung above the
Western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is
a fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like
some castle reared by Atlante’s magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero,
or palace sought in fairy-land by Astolf winding his enchanted horn.
Where shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed
battlemented bulk of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies,
suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses?
This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of
the time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto--or
more exactly with Boiardo’s epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace
at Urbino just at the moment when the Count of Scandiano had begun
to chaunt his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry,
transmuted by the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint,
survived as a frail work of art. The man-at-arms of the Condottieri
still glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumes and
bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; their velvet
caps with medals bearing legendary emblems. The pomp and circumstance
of feudal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of the Gascon or the
Switzer’s pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions had not begun
for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII.’s holiday excursion would
reveal the internal rottenness and weakness of her rival states, and
the peninsula for half a century to come would be drenched in the blood
of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, fighting for her cities as their
prey. But now Lorenzo de’Medici was still alive. The famous policy
which bears his name held Italy suspended for a golden time in false
tranquillity and independence. The princes who shared his culture and
his love of art were gradually passing into modern noblemen, abandoning
the savage feuds and passions of more virile centuries, yielding to
luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The castles were becoming courts, and
despotisms won by force were settling into dynasties.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF URBINO, ITALY.]
It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle at
Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, one
of the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined
in himself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And
these he impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to
the mediæval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it
the just embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfect
analogue of the “_Orlando Innamorato_.” By comparing it with the
castle of the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas
at Mantua, we place it in its right position between mediæval and
Renaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the
ruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynastic
under Spain.
The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give
the building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed
_loggie_ and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the
city ramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep
ravine which separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take
our station near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can
appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group it
forms with the cathedral dome and tower and square masses of numerous
outbuildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, though baffling
to a close observer of its details, is one of singular advantage to its
inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino’s towering eminence, it fronts
a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits towards the rising
and the setting sun. There is nothing but illimitable air between the
terraces and loggias of the Duchess’s apartments and the spreading
pyramid of Monte Catria.
A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this,
which Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his
_Cortegiano_. To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular
how the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring
back the antique life, and link the present with the past--a hint,
perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies
of the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising
to the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when
one of them exclaimed, “The day has broken!” “He pointed to the light
which was beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon
we flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which looks
towards the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of
rosy hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had
vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the
border-lands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though
a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness,
and waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the
sweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds.”
Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still
only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian, and the
beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the construction,
was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like the Istrian
stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel mark with
wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must have had
the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in scroll
or foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves each
cusp and angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispness and
the sharpness of a crystal. When wrought by a clever craftsman, its
surface has neither the waxiness of the Parian, nor the brittle edge
of Carrara marble; and it resists weather better than marble of the
choicest quality. This may be observed in many monuments of Venice,
where the stone has been long exposed to sea-air. These qualities
of the Dalmatian limestone, no less than its agreeable creamy hue
and smooth dull polish, adapt it to decoration in dull relief. The
most attractive details in the palace at Urbino are friezes carved
of this material in choice designs of early Renaissance dignity and
grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli Angeli deserves special
comment. A frieze of dancing Cupids, with gilt hair and wings, their
naked bodies left white on a ground of ultramarine, is supported by
broad flat pilasters. These are engraved with children holding pots
of flowers; roses on one side, carnations on the other. Above the
frieze another pair of angels, one at each end, hold lighted torches;
and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is carved with two more, flying,
and supporting the eagle of the Montefeltri on a raised medallion.
Throughout the palace we notice emblems appropriate to the Houses of
Montefeltro and Della Rovere: their arms, three golden bends upon
a field of azure: the Imperial eagle, granted when Montefeltro was
made a fief of the Empire: The Garter of England, worn by the Dukes
Federigo and Guidobaldo: The ermine of Naples: the _ventosa_, or
cupping-glass, adopted for a private badge by Frederick: the golden
oak-tree on an azure field of Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent
beneath a block of stone, with its accompanying motto, _Inclinata
Resurgam_: the cipher, FE DX. Profile medallions of Federigo
and Guidobaldo, wrought in the lowest possible relief, adorn the
staircases. Round the great courtyard runs a frieze of military engines
and ensigns, trophies, machines, and implements of war, alluding to
Duke Frederick’s profession of Condottiere. The doorways are enriched
with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, acanthus foliage, honey-suckles,
ivy-berries, birds and boys and sphinxes, in all the riot of
Renaissance fancy.
This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains
to show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione,
writing in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that “in the opinion of many
it is the fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well
with all things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a
palace than a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use,
vessels of silver, the trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold
and silk, and such-like furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze
and marble statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of
all sorts. There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent
quality to be seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast
cost a large number of the best and rarest books on Greek, Latin, and
Hebrew, all of which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them
the chiefest treasure of his spacious palace.” When Cesare Borgia
entered Urbino as conqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off
loot to the value of 150,000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a
million sterling.
The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in
its length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How
shall we reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with
sound, the splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted
here? It is not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with
liveried servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair
escapes from tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even
replace the tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again
the sideboards with their embossed gilded plate. But are these
chambers really those where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo
and Castiglione; where Bibbiena’s witticisms and Fra Serafino’s
pranks raised smiles on courtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, “the
Unique,” declaimed his verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible
that into yonder hall, where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone
on staring desolation, strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war,
a gilded glittering dragon, and from the daïs tore the Montefeltri’s
throne, and from the arras stripped their ensigns, replacing those
with his own Bull and Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for
Francesco Maria’s wedding-feast and read _Aminta_ to Lucrezia
d’Este. Here Guidobaldo listened to the jests and whispered scandals
of the Aretine. Here Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy
Raphael, cap in hand, took, signed and sealed credentials from his
Duchess to the Gonfalonier of Florence. Somewhere in these huge
chambers, the courtiers sat before a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena’s
_Calandria_ and Castiglione’s _Tirsi_, with their miracles
of masques and mummers, whiled the night away. Somewhere, we know
not where, Guiliano de’Medici made love in these bare rooms to that
mysterious mother of ill-fated Cardinal Ippolito; somewhere, in some
darker nook, the bastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned
life of tyranny and license, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a
traitor’s poignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many men, illustrious for
arts and letters, memorable by their virtues or their crimes, have
trod these silent corridors, from the great Pope Julius down to James
III., self-titled King of England, who tarried here with Clementina
Sobieski through some twelve months of his ex-royal exile! The memories
of all this folk, flown guests and masters of the still-abiding
palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry through. They are but filmy
shadows. We cannot grasp them, localize them, people surrounding
emptiness with more than withering cobweb forms.
It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling
round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and
the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into
harmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted
balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye,
and lends itself as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Once
more imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio ware
upon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay--the pavement
paced in these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets--that
pavement where Monsignor Bembo courted “dear dead women” with Platonic
phrase, smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce culled from
Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, lifted above
the garden and the court, two lovers are in earnest converse. They
lean beneath the coffered arch, against the marble of the balustrade,
he fingering his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing
with a clove carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea,
broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo’s favourite and
carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of Rome’s Prefect,
widow of Venanzio Verano, whom the Borgia strangled. On their discourse
a tale will hang of a woman’s frailty and a man’s boldness--Camerino’s
Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor’s stalwart charms. And more will
follow, when that lady’s brother, furious Francesco Maria della Rovere,
shall stab the bravo in torch-litten palace-rooms with twenty poignard
strokes ’twixt waist and throat, and their Pandarus shall be sent down
to his account by a varlet’s _coltellata_ through the midriff.
Imagination shifts the scene, and shows in that same loggia Rome’s
warlike Pope, attended by his cardinals and all Urbino’s chivalry. The
snowy beard of Julius flows down upon his breast, where jewels clasp
the crimson mantle, as in Raphael’s picture. His eyes are bright with
wine; for he has come to gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber and to
watch the line of lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice
in his honour. Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a
conqueror to Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bold
man, close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine features carved
in purest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he
tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand.
This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young
wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant’s round
of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean brained superstition. He
drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his
line by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the
bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of the
Church reverts Urbino’s lordship, and even now he meditates the terms
of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort for
the ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See.
Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us
at the inn. His horses sleek, well-fed, and rested, toss their heads
impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a
sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections,
and are half-way on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and whir
of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. There is
just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We stand bareheaded
to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. Then the
open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement.
ALNWICK CASTLE
CUTHBERT BEDE
Alnwick is built on the summit of the southern bank of the Aln,
on a plateau of five acres of ground, walled round with strong
fortifications, defended by sixteen towers, and divided into two large
courtyards, with the Keep in the midst. The Keep is polygonal in form,
faced by nine towers, and is built round a third, or inner court. We
have the northern side of the second courtyard, with the Round (or
Record) Tower; next to that is the abutment, called the Ravine Tower,
in whose recess is the stone seat called “Hotspur’s Chair,” and between
which and the Record Tower is “the Bloody Gap,”--a name given to
that part of the curtain-wall from a breach being there made by the
Scots during some Border war, in a vain effort to capture the castle.
Three hundred Scots are said to have fallen there, and the extent of
“the Bloody Gap” is plainly to be discerned from the variations in
the masonry. We then come to the Constable’s Tower, and the Postern
Tower, or Sally Port, and then to the Keep itself, which was protected
by a low curtain-wall, carried in a semicircle to the Armourer’s
Tower and the Falconer’s Tower. These are the two towers lately swept
away (together with their curtain-wall) in order to accommodate the
arrangements consequent upon the erection of the Prudhoe Tower, for
which also the two north-western round towers of the Keep were also
destroyed. One of these towers contains the ancient banqueting-hall of
the Percies; and the successive sacrifice of these four towers with
their many interesting evidences of feudal times, in order that the
modern Italian interior of the castle might not be interfered with,
has raised a storm of discussion among such distinguished architects
as Scott, Cockerell, Donaldson, Godwin, Pocock, Ferguson, and Salvin,
under whom the recently completed works have been carried out, chiefly
from the designs of Commendatore Canina. These works have been hailed
with applause, and hailed upon with disapprobation. It is an example
of one of those Sir Roger de Coverley cases, where much may be said
on both sides. In the last six years these works have magically
transformed the interior of the feudal castle of the chivalrous Earls
of Northumberland (much debased, it is true, by Batty-Langley and
Strawberry-Hill Gothic) into a Roman palazzo, with the most gorgeous
and costly decorations of the Renaissance. For six years have two
hundred workmen been employed in these alterations; much has been done
at Rome, and much on the spot, especially by the twenty-seven native
wood-carvers. There are no shams in the decorations; the ceilings
and cornices are carved, and not cast or moulded: the walnut and
maple-woods are what they pretend to be; and, to such an extent has
this Ruskinism “conscientiousness of art” been carried that, in this
age of _papier-mâché_, _carton-pierre_, gutta-percha, and the
like, there are several _miles_ of the egg-ornament laboriously
carved by hand, while a door panel has occupied its carver four months,
and a shutter-panel, a twelvemonth. This modern sumptuousness of
decoration is a remarkable contrast to that peculiar species of economy
imposed upon the proud Percies of three centuries back, when Clarkson’s
report (in 1567) advised the taking out of the glass windows whenever
my lord and his friends were not there, and laying them up in safety
until their return, justifying this economical act by the “decaye and
waste” of the windows “throwe extreme winds.”
[Illustration: ALNWICK CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
Next to these now destroyed Armourer’s and Falconer’s Towers, comes the
Abbot’s Tower (the large corner one), where the abbot had apartments,
whenever choice or necessity caused him to leave his abbey, snugly
situated down in the wooded valley by the river-side. Beyond this is
seen the West Garret, and the outer of “Utter Ward,” with its square
and octagonal towers, and its advanced barbican, forming a picturesque
mass of great size and strength, and a noble entrance to a noble castle.
Walking along the parapets from the Round Tower, we pass East Garret.
Beginning at the left hand, we first come to the Guard House, and the
Auditor’s Tower, which flank the southern gate. The south wall is then
continued to the Middle Ward, which, as being the second great entrance
to the castle, is a building of great size and strength. Over it was
the chapel, approached from the library,--a noble room that occupied
the greater part of this block of building--but which has now been
converted into the private apartments of the Duke and Duchess. This
block of building divides the two courtyards, and is terminated in the
Keep, whose two semi-octagonal towers were added, in advance, to the
old square Norman tower, by the second Lord Percy, about the year 1350.
A series of escutcheons on the upper part of the towers helps us to
the date of their erection; and though we know not their architect,
we have full proof that he did his work well, for the towers have not
needed repairs up to this day, and even a rector’s legal adviser would
experience some difficulty in awarding dilapidations. The moat and
drawbridge that guarded the entrance to the Keep have long since passed
away; but, at the time of my visit, a field-piece, backed up by a
pyramidal pile of cannon balls, did harmless duty on either side of the
gateway, and playfully menaced the Auditor’s Tower and the Guard House
on the opposite side of the courtyard.
The ground-floor of the octagonal towers of the Keep is lighted by
long arrow slits that admit a thin wedge of light to the wine-cellar,
on the left hand, and to the chief dungeon, on the right. Each of the
lodges at the various gates was furnished with dungeons; but this was
the chief dungeon for the State offenders. Its size is eleven feet four
inches, by ten feet four inches. In the floor is an iron grating, over
a pit; and, a light being lowered into this for the depth of eleven
feet, discloses a horrible grave (worthy of Naples and the dark ages)
nine feet by eight, into which the wretched prisoner was lowered, or
shot like a sack of coals. Let us thank Heaven that such a place can
now only be shown as a curiosity. The breakfast-room was over the
gateway: we see one of its windows over the mound of the Keep. The
windows in the first round tower, and the windows in the flat wall to
the left, lighted the old dining-room. The next round tower contained
the old drawing-room whose interior shape was that of the ace of clubs.
A portion of the low curtain-wall is seen at the base of the Keep
mound; and then, immediately on the right is the postern tower, or
sally-port. In the lower part was a laboratory; in the upper part, a
collection of old armour, and a museum of miscellaneous antiquities;
Roman remains; small cannon, used at the first invention of gunpowder;
and the old standard bushel of Northumberland, and a chain of several
links, that could be bound around an arm, like an iron chain, and was
carved out of a solid block of stone.
Let us now pass between those two great octagonal towers, and up the
long dark tunnel that will lead us into the heart of the Keep, the
third, or inner court; the carriages rattle under that dark archway
with a peculiar dull sound, for its pavement is of wood, as is
also the pavement of the inner court. It is a polygon, having nine
sides of various dimensions, besides other little angles, and it is
about a hundred feet across from the one side to the other; and,
as it is walled in with high towers on every side, it has somewhat
of a well-like aspect. Its two great architectural and antiquarian
curiosities are the Saxon (or Norman, if you are a great stickler for
this point) mouldings on the inner face of the archway, presenting a
great diversity of enrichments--and the old draw-well, for the use of
the castle during a siege. This is built in the thickness of the wall,
with three pointed arches, surmounted by one large discharging arch, on
the point of which is a humorous-looking corbel, supporting the figure
of a priest, who is in the attitude of blessing the water. The old
axle, with its pegged hand-wheels, still remains, and this interesting
draw-well has not been interfered with in the recent alterations,
though the aspect of the Inner Court has been altered by the addition
of the covered drive.
The limits of this paper do not allow me to say more of Alnwick Castle,
or to touch upon the varied events that have befallen it and its
owners, from those early Percy days when--
“in the Conqueror’s fleet
Lord William shipp’d his powers,”
(as one of the family has told us in his ballad of the _Hermit of
Warkworth_) down to those later times of handsome Hugh Smithson,
the London apothecary, and his descendants, when, as the American
poet Halleck sings in that ballad, which is not so well known (in its
entirety) as it deserves to be:--
“The present representatives
Of Hotspur and his gentle Kate,
Are some half-dozen serving-men,
In the drab coats of William Penn--”
who will bow you
“From donjon vault, to turret wall,
For ten-and-sixpence sterling.”
I have not space to dwell upon these matters, although there is very
much to interest us in the records of the Castle and its owners,
and much for salient anecdote and gossip, not only as to the people
but also their manners and customs. As, for example, that curious
manuscript book, dated 1512, which tells us how the fifth Earl and his
family lived; they had fresh meat from Midsummer to Michaelmas, and
salt meat for all the rest of the year; how the servants rarely had
anything else than salt meat, with few or no vegetables (the roast beef
of Old England being a mere Jack-o’-Lantern to them); how my lord and
lady had no sheets to their bed, and only washed their tablecloths once
a month; how they rose at six, breakfasted at seven on a quart of beer,
a quart of wine, two pieces of salt fish, six red herrings, four white
herrings, and a dish of sprats--half a chyne of mutton and a chyne
of boiled beef being added on flesh days; how they dined at ten and
supped at four, and went to bed at nine; how there were only two cooks,
with two assistants to provide for a household of two hundred and
twenty-three, and how the head cook was so great a monarch that when
he gives an order for the making of mustard it bears this preamble:
“It seemeth good to us and our council;” how the players at Christmas
had twenty-pence for every play, and the rockers in the nursery had as
many shillings each year; how, in the winter, only a peck of coals were
allowed for each fire, and no fires after Lady-day, except half-fires
for my lord and lady, and the nursery. There is all this, and very
much more, that is both curious and interesting, but space, and not
material, fails me.
Nor can I speak of the out-of-door lions of Alnwick,--the park, the
gardens, the model farm, the Duchess’s dairy, the ruins of Alnwick
Abbey, down in the sequestered dell by the river, the ruins of Hulne
Abbey upon the slope of the hill over against the Castle--Brislee
Tower, a Strawberry-hill erection eighty feet high, called by Mr.
Walter White “an elegant structure”; but, in my humble opinion, a
very hideous affair, and a fit companion to Kew Pagoda; and more
useful than ornamental, for the summit commands a glorious view;--the
monument to commemorate the capture of William the Lion, and the cross
to commemorate the death of King Malcolm. It bears the following
inscriptions: “Malcolm III., King of Scotland, besieging Alnwick
Castle, was slain here, Nov. XIII., an. MXCIII.--K. Malcolm’s cross,
decayed by time, was restored by his descendant, Eliz. Dutchess of
Northumberland, MDCCLXXIV.” It is distant about three-quarters of a
mile from the castle, on the opposite side of the river; but, from
what the ancient chartulary of Alnwick Abbey says, the spot where
Malcolm died was two or three hundred yards nearer to the castle,
where Malcolm’s Well now is. Malcolm was ravaging Northumberland with
fire and sword, and, in due course, laid siege to Alnwick, which was
stoutly defended by Moroll of Bamburgh. When the garrison could hold
out no longer, a certain man rode forth to Malcolm, bearing the keys
of the castle tied to the end of his spear, and presented himself in a
suppliant posture, as being come to surrender up possession. Malcolm
advanced to receive the keys, when the soldier pierced him with a
mortal wound, and, dashing through the swollen river, escaped by the
fleetness of his horse. Malcolm dropped dead; a panic arose among the
Scots, and the desperate defenders of Alnwick made a successful sortie,
and put their enemy to the rout. Prince Edward, Malcolm’s eldest son,
received mortal wounds in this fight. The old Abbey chronicle says that
the soldier’s name was Hammond, and the place where he swam the river
was called “Hammond’s Ford.” But Hector Bœtius has improved the story
into a legend, and says the soldier’s name was Mowbray, and that he
pierced Malcolm through the eye, and from that circumstance acquired
the name of Pierce-eye, and became the founder of the proud family of
Percy, Earls of Northumberland. A very pretty legend, but somewhat
damaged by obtrusive facts, especially by that fact that the ancestor
of the family was that William de Percy, of the town of Percy in Lower
Normandy, who was one of the Norman chieftains who came over with the
Conqueror, and whose name is recorded in the rolls of Battle Abbey.
THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD
J. J. BOURRASSÉE.
The name Saint-Cloud involuntarily carries us back to one of the most
agitated epochs of our history and recalls a scene of savage violence.
Clodowald, son of Clodomir, King of Orleans, saw his two brothers
assassinated before his eyes: the executioners were his two uncles.
The cruel spectacle was never effaced from his memory. Clodowald
himself cut off his long hair, the emblem of his illustrious origin,
preferring the humility of the cloister to the splendour of a crown.
His pious self-abnegation received its reward even in this world. The
village of Nogent took the name of its patron who was included in the
list of saints: history has connected the name of Saint-Cloud with
events that fill the universe. Here Henri III. fell beneath the blade
of an assassin, and with him the Valois branch ended. Here suddenly
died, not without suspicions of poison, the witty and brilliant
Henrietta of England, wife of Louis the Fourteenth’s brother. In this
same spot Marie Antoinette was preparing the most charming of royal
residences when the Revolution came to drag her to the scaffold. Here
the Revolution of Brumaire XVIII. overturned the French republic. In
1815, the foreigners, with Wellington and Blücher at their head, are
at Saint-Cloud, where the capitulation of Paris is signed on July
3d. Here, on July 28th, 1830, Charles X. signs the fatal orders which
are immediately followed by a new revolution. This prince leaves
Saint-Cloud on July 30th, at 3 A. M., to go into exile where
he is to find his tomb.
The purity of the air, the abundance of water, the freshness of
the landscape and the beauty of the banks of the Seine have always
attracted the dwellers of Paris to Saint-Cloud. Nobles of the court,
members of the parliament and men of finance built elegant country
houses here. The masses, following a tradition which has not yet
disappeared, went out there to take breath at liberty, to stroll about
in the shade and to play their gambols.
It must be confessed that at the gates of Paris one could not find
a more agreeable promenade nor a more attractive dwelling-place.
Consequently, at the period of our internecine wars, the possession
of it was bitterly wanted. In 1346 Saint-Cloud was revisited by the
English, and its inhabitants were so fortunate as to drive them off.
But in 1358, after the fatal battle of Poitiers, the English took
the place and pillaged and reduced it to ashes without sparing the
pleasure-houses established in the vicinity. Under the reign of the
unfortunate Charles VI., the Armagnacs and Bourguignons alternately
fell upon the village and ravaged the countryside. These multiplied
disasters were promptly repaired and the hills of Saint-Cloud again
adorned themselves with elegant abodes framed in verdure.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD, FRANCE.]
The house that served as the kernel of the royal castle of Saint-Cloud
first belonged to Jérôme Gonde. He was an Italian who came to
France in the suite of Catherine de’ Medici. Like several of his
fellow-countrymen, he succeeded in amassing a considerable fortune
here. More fortunate than some of them, he kept in favour with the
Queen Mother. It was in this house, August 1st, 1589, that Henri III.
was assassinated by Jacques Clément. Devoted servants saluted Henri
IV. as King of France: he was at Saint-Cloud in the Tillet house. This
house, the witness of the accession to the throne of the Bourbon line,
has since disappeared: its site is marked in the gardens of the castle
by the Tillet alley.
The grandson of Henri IV., so passionate for the grandeur of his house,
bought Saint-Cloud for Philip of Orleans, his brother, generally
called _Monsieur_. Various acquisitions were successively made to
complete this beautiful demesne: the castle was rebuilt by Lepautre,
and the gardens laid out by Le Nôtre. Saint-Cloud for a long time
remained the favourite residence of the Dukes of Orleans. Henrietta
of England with her gay spirit, her beautiful manners, her love of
_fêtes_, her taste for pomp, her engaging character, her discreet
advances, and the friendship shown for her by her brother-in-law,
rendered it the most elegant abode, the centre of the most select
gatherings, and the palace of decent and delicate pleasures.
Alas! these brilliant entertainments of fashion were very soon to
be interrupted by a terrible blow which fell suddenly like a clap
of thunder. Henrietta returned from England whither she had been,
charged by Louis XIV. with the negotiation of a secret treaty with
her brother, Charles II. Arriving in the beginning of June, 1670,
she was quietly resting at Saint-Cloud, when, on the twenty-ninth of
the same month, suddenly in the castle in the middle of the night the
terrible cry was heard: “Madame is dying!” and, eight hours later:
“Madame is dead!” This princess was twenty-six years old. The disease
declared itself by frightful agony the moment after drinking a glass
of chicory water. At first she declared that she had been poisoned;
if she retracted this afterwards, it was under the apprehension of
the terrible consequences that a false declaration might entail. Her
suspicions have been shared by historians, who briefly add that Louis
XIV. was happy to learn that his brother was innocent of this crime.
Monsieur showed his grief by grand funeral ceremonies. What makes the
memory of these obsequies notable is the funeral oration delivered by
Bossuet. It is one of the masterpieces of pulpit eloquence.
The tears, feigned or genuine, were scarcely dry before they began to
think of filling the place left empty by death. The King made overtures
on this subject to Mademoiselle, daughter of Gaston of Orleans, the
brother of Louis XIII.; but this princess at that time was occupied
with a project that became the torment of her life; she wanted to marry
the Comte de Lauzun.
Four months after the death of the gentle and witty Henrietta of
England, Monsieur married the Princess Palatine, the daughter of the
Elector Palatine. A robust German with strongly marked features, an
enemy to ceremony, detesting entertainments on account of impatience
with constraint, holding the toilette in aversion because it
interfered with her usual habits, the Princess Palatine formed a
complete contrast to the lively and delicate Henrietta. She abjured
Lutheranism on the eve of her marriage. From this we may judge of
the changes that followed at first in the customs of the castle of
Saint-Cloud. But they did not last long. Philip of Orleans loved to
hold a court and he was anxious to see it constantly filled with
people who could amuse themselves. High play occurred there and many
ladies came, who, says Saint Simon, “would scarcely have been received
elsewhere.” At Saint-Cloud, as at the Palais Royale, there was an
uninterrupted succession of entertainments. Madame often sulked at the
company. She spent the greatest part of the day in her cabinet. Her
husband allowed her every liberty and freely used his own, without
concerning himself about her in any way.
In 1701, Philip of Orleans, the King’s brother, died at Saint-Cloud.
The Princess Palatine also breathed her last gasp there. This
magnificent residence continued to be occupied with the same
sumptuousness and luxury by the new owners; these were the Duke of
Chartres who, on his father’s death, took the title of Duke of Orleans,
and his wife, Mlle. de Blois, daughter of Louis XIV. This princess
wanted to hold a court there that would do sufficient honour to the
first prince of the blood. The King approved, provided that she took
care to gather together a distinguished company free from the confused
and objectionable mixture that had defiled the society of the late
Duke of Orleans. The beginnings of this new court were admirable.
Families of the best positions in the realm crowded into the receptions
at Saint-Cloud. The drawing-rooms and gardens were filled with
personages belonging to the most illustrious houses. Since Louis XIV.
was old and Versailles did not always afford much pleasure, the young
generation gladly turned to Saint-Cloud where politeness, liberality,
magnificence, fine manners and an amiable freedom attracted and held
everybody.
In 1752, Louis Philippe of Orleans, grandson of the Regent, gave a
splendid _fête_ at Saint-Cloud, a detailed description of which
was given by the writers of the time with great gusto. It was remarked
that the populace was admitted to take part in it. This remark, which
was dwelt on with a kind of affectation, shows the influence of new
ideas. In 1759, this prince lost his wife, Louise Henriette de Bourbon
Conti, and in 1773 he secretly married the Marquise de Montesson.
The latter, desiring a modest abode, induced the Duke of Orleans to
sell the castle of Saint-Cloud. In 1785, this beautiful residence was
purchased by Queen Marie Antoinette for six millions. By the Queen’s
orders numerous changes were made. The new chapel was built at that
time, and on the site of the old one a staircase of honour was built,
leading to the grand apartments. Considerable additions were made
to the buildings by doubling two bodies of outbuildings. The works
were carried forward rapidly; but events were marching still faster;
they were not yet completed when the Revolution burst. The palace was
abandoned; the gardens were reserved for the pleasure of the citizens.
A great political event was soon to happen at Saint-Cloud. After
horrible and sterile agitation like that of a tempest, the Directory,
far from healing France of the excesses of anarchy, was impotent,
and its weakness, not less than the light conduct of the Directors,
caused it to fall into discredit. All was ready for a new revolution,
and it came on the 18th of Brumaire (Nov. 9th, 1799). The legislative
body had been transferred to the castle of Saint-Cloud. The victor of
Lodi and Arcola, having recently returned from Egypt, was ripe for
new destinies. Surrounded by a crowd of superior officers determined
to put an end to the _government of lawyers_, it was necessary
to act. So he went to Saint-Cloud after having taken his measures in
Paris.... At the sight of the grenadiers advancing with fixed bayonets,
the terrified members of the council dispersed in flight through the
passages, or jumping out of the windows. A new era was about to open;
Napoleon Bonaparte is nominated First Consul, Consul for ten years,
Consul for life, and lastly, Emperor.
From the year 1800, the royal residences had been placed at the
disposal of the new representative of sovereign authority in France,
and he chose the castle of Saint-Cloud for his summer residence. It was
here that he received the decree that proclaimed him Emperor of the
French. Napoleon often came here for repose after his victories. Here,
in quiet, he planned new conquests, and more especially he elaborated
those regulations of public administration that, together with the code
that bears his name, perhaps constitute his best title to glory in the
eyes of posterity.
In 1810, on April 1st, the marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise was
celebrated in the chapel of Saint-Cloud. The castle and gardens then
witnessed rejoicings that seemed as if they could never be saddened by
any cloud. In 1815, alas! the scene has greatly changed. Saint Cloud
is invaded by a horde of foreigners. The conqueror wants to dishonour
the palace of the hero whom Fortune has betrayed. Troops are encamped
in the gardens; horses are watered in the park fountains. Nothing is
respected, not even the private chamber of the Empress. A pack of
hounds is put there; the furniture is soiled and torn books litter the
floor. A soldier sleeps in his uniform in Napoleon’s bed and amuses
himself with tearing the imperial draperies with his spurs. Those were
days of mourning for Saint-Cloud and for France! The capitulation of
Paris was signed at Saint-Cloud, July 3d, 1813.
Fifteen years later, also in the month of July, another revolution
chased Charles X. from Saint-Cloud. It was here that that prince signed
the orders of July 24, 1830. Six days later, the royal family of
Bourbon was on the road of exile! The government of the Restoration had
various embellishments done to the palace and gardens of Saint-Cloud.
We owe to Charles X. the construction of the building for the
accommodation of the servants of his establishment, as well as a fine
barracks, situated in the gardens of the lower park, for his bodyguard.
Louis Philippe did not forget Saint-Cloud which recalled youthful
memories. The apartments were renovated and richly furnished, and new
distributions still further improved this beautiful residence.
Notwithstanding the considerable works undertaken at different periods,
it was easy to recognize the modern works from the ancient parts. The
front on the court of honour was executed after the plans of Gerard;
the two pavilions were by the architect Lepautre. The apartments of
Napoleon III. and the Empress were situated on the first story in the
left wing. Queen Marie Antoinette, the Empress Marie Louise and the
Duchess of Angoulême occupied this part of the castle. The Apollo
Gallery, inaugurated by a splendid _fête_ given by Philip of
Orleans to his brother, Louis XIV., was on the first story of the right
wing. Under the Directory, this gallery was used for the sittings of
the council of the _Anciens_. The emperor’s vestibule was in the
centre of the façade, with the staircase built on the site of the old
chapel. The internal decoration of the palace was of the greatest
magnificence; the paintings on the ceilings were by illustrious
artists, and the furniture, renewed several times, was of rare elegance
and dazzling richness.
The heir of Napoleon I. was soon to reappear there: it was at
Saint-Cloud, Dec. 2, 1852, that the Empire was restored.
The palace of Saint-Cloud was burnt during the siege of Paris by the
German army in 1870–1871.
STIRLING CASTLE
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
We passed through the outer rampart of Queen Anne; through the old
round gate-tower of an earlier day, and beneath the vacant arch where
the portcullis used to fall, thus reaching the inner region, where
stand the old palace on one side and the old Parliament House on the
other. The former looks aged, ragged and rusty, but makes a good
appearance enough pictorially, being adorned all round about with
statues, which may have been white marble once, but are as grey as
weather-beaten granite now, and look down from beneath the windows
above the basement story. A photograph would give the idea of very rich
antiquity, but as it really stands, looking on a gravelled courtyard,
and with “Canteen” painted on one of its doors, the spectator does
not find it very impressive. The great hall of this palace is now
partitioned off into two or three rooms, and the whole edifice
is arranged to serve as barracks. Of course, no trace of ancient
magnificence, if anywise destructible, can be left in the interior. We
were not shown into this palace, nor into the Parliament House, nor
into the tower, where King James stabbed the Earl of Douglas. When I
was here a year ago, I went up the old staircase and into the room
where the murder was committed, although it had recently been the scene
of a fire which consumed as much of it as was inflammable. The
window whence the Earl’s body was thrown then remained; but now the
whole tower seems to have been removed, leaving only the mullions of
the historic window.
[Illustration: STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND.]
We merely looked up at the new, light-coloured freestone of the
restored tower in passing, and ascended to the ramparts, where we found
one of the most splendid views, morally and materially, that this
world can show. Indeed, I think there cannot be such a landscape as
the Carse of Stirling, set in such a frame as it is,--the Highlands,
comprehending our friends Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, Ben An, and the whole
Ben brotherhood, with the Grampians surrounding it to the westward and
northward, and in other directions some range of prominent objects to
shut it in; and the plain itself, so worthy of the richest setting, so
fertile, so beautiful, so written over and over again with histories.
The silver Links of Forth are as sweet and gently picturesque an object
as a man sees in a lifetime. I do not wonder that Providence caused
great things to happen on this plain; it was like choosing a good piece
of canvas to paint a great picture upon. The battle of Bannockburn
(which we saw beneath us, with the Gillie’s Hill on the right) could
not have been fought upon a meaner plain, nor Wallace’s victory gained;
and if any other great historic act still remains to be done in this
country, I should imagine the Carse of Stirling to be the future scene
of it. Scott seems to me hardly to have done justice to this landscape,
or to have bestowed pains enough to put it in strong relief before the
world; although it is from the lights shed on it, and so much other
Scottish scenery, by his mind, that we chiefly see it and take an
interest in it.
I do not remember seeing the hill of execution before,--a mound on
the same level as the castle’s base, looking towards the Highlands. A
solitary cow was now feeding upon it. I should imagine that no person
could ever have been unjustly executed there; the spot is too much in
the sight of heaven and earth to countenance injustice.
Descending from the ramparts, we went into the Armoury, which I did
not see on my former visit. The superintendent of this department is
an old soldier of very great intelligence and vast communicativeness,
and quite absorbed in thinking of and handling weapons; for he is a
practical armourer. He had a few things to show us that were very
interesting,--a helmet or two, a bomb and grenade from the Crimea;
also some muskets from the same quarter, one of which, with a sword at
the end, he spoke of admiringly, as the best weapon in the collection,
its only fault being its extreme weight. He showed us, too, some Minie
rifles, and whole ranges of the old-fashioned Brown Bess, which had
helped to win Wellington’s victories; also the halberts of sergeants,
now laid aside, and some swords that had been used at the battle of
Sheriffmuir. These latter were very short, not reaching to the floor,
when I held one of them point downward, in my hand. The shortness of
the blade and consequent closeness of the encounter, must have given
the weapon a most dagger-like murderousness. Hanging in the hall of
arms, there were two tattered banners that had gone through the
Peninsular battles, one of them belonged to the gallant 42d Regiment.
The armourer gave my wife a rag from each of these banners, consecrated
by so much battle smoke; also a piece of old oak, half-burned to
charcoal, which had been rescued from the panelling of the Douglas
Tower. We saw better things, moreover, than all these rusty weapons
and ragged flags; namely, the pulpit and communion-table of John Knox.
The frame of the former, if I remember aright, is complete; but one
or two of the panels are knocked out and lost, and, on the whole, it
looks as if it had been shaken to pieces by the thunder of his holdings
forth,--much worm-eaten, too, is the old oak wood, as well it may be,
for the letters MD (1500) are carved on its front. The communion table
is polished, and in much better preservation.
Then the armourer showed us a Damascus blade, of the kind that will cut
a delicate silk handkerchief while floating in the air; and some inlaid
match-lock guns. A child’s little toy-gun was lying on a work-bench
among all this array of weapons; and when I took it up and smiled, he
said it was his son’s. So he called in a little fellow of four years
old, who was playing in the castle yard, and made him go through the
musketry exercise which he did with great good-will. This small Son
of a Gun, the father assured us, cares for nothing but arms, and
has attained all his skill with the musket merely by looking at the
soldiers on parade.
Our soldier, who had resigned the care of us to the armourer, met us
again at the door, and led us round the remainder of the ramparts,
dismissing us finally at the gate by which we entered. All the time
we were in the castle, there had been a great discordance of drums
and fifes, caused by the musicians who were practicing just under the
walls; likewise the sergeants were drilling their squads of men, and
putting them through strange gymnastic motions. Most, if not all, of
the garrison belongs to a Highland regiment, and those whom we saw on
duty in full costume looked very martial and gallant. Emerging from the
Castle, we took the broad and pleasant footpath, which circles it about
midway on the grassy steep which descends from the rocky precipice on
which the walls are built. This is a very beautiful walk, and affords
a most striking view of the Castle, right above our heads, the height
of its wall forming one line with the precipice. The grassy hillside
is almost as precipitous as the dark grey rock that rises out of it,
to form the foundations of the Castle; but wild rosebushes, both of a
white and red variety, are abundant here, and all in bloom; nor are
these the only flowers. There is also shrubbery in some spots, tossing
up green waves against the precipice; and broad sheets of ivy here and
there mantle the head-long rock, which also has a growth of weeds in
its crevices. The Castle walls above, however, are quite bare of any
such growth. Thus, looking up at the old storied fortress, and looking
down over the wide, historic plain, we wandered half-way round the
Castle, and then, retracing our steps, entered the town close by an old
hospital.
THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
When in your caïque upon the Bosphorus you have passed the Tower of
Leander,[6] you see opposite Scutari an immense, unfinished palace
that bathes its white feet in the blue and rapid waters. There is a
superstition in the East, supported by the architects, that no one
dies while the house he is having built is uncompleted; therefore the
Sultans always take care to have some palace on hand.
As a rare instance among the Turks, who consecrate solid and precious
materials to the house of God and erect for the transitory habitation
of man only wooden kiosks hardly more enduring than himself, this
palace is all of marble and built for eternity. It is composed of one
great body and two wings. To say to what order of architecture it
belongs would be difficult; it is not Greek, nor Roman, nor Gothic, nor
Renaissance, nor Saracen, nor Arab, nor Turkish; it approaches that
style which the Spaniards call _plateresco_, and which makes the
façade of a building resemble a great piece of goldsmith’s work owing
to the complicated wealth of its ornaments and the maddening mass of
the details.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS, TURKEY.]
Windows with open-work balconies, small enwreathed columns, ribbed
trefoils, festooned frames, and intervening spaces crowded with
sculpture and arabesques, recall the Lombard style and make you think
of the ancient palaces of Venice; only there is the same difference
between the Palace Dario or Casa d’oro and the Sultan’s Palace as
between the Grand Canal and the Bosphorus.
This enormous building of Marmora marble, of a bluish white that seems
a little cold owing to the sharp glitter from its newness, produces a
very majestic effect between the blue of the sky and the blue of the
sea; it will produce a better one when the warm sun of Asia shall have
gilded it with its rays which are received direct and at first-hand.
Vignola, doubtless, would not know what to make of this hybrid façade
where the styles of all periods and all countries form a composite
order which he did not foresee. But one cannot deny that this multitude
of flowers, foliage, and rose-work, carved like jewels of precious
material possesses a tufted and complicated appearance, gorgeous and
delightful to the eye. It is a palace that might have been made by an
ornament-worker who was not an architect, and who spared neither the
work of his hands, nor time, nor money. Such as it is, I prefer it
to those horrid, classic reproductions, so beastly, so flat, so cold
and so tiresome, such as are built by pedants and those who like to
be conventional, and I greatly prefer these gay, ornamental masses of
foliage interlacing with fantastic elegance, to a triangular pediment
or a horizontal attic, resting on six or eight lean columns.
This naïve ignorance displayed upon so gigantic a scale has its charm;
it is probable that the bold builders of our cathedrals knew little
more, and their works are not the less admirable for that.
Along the whole length of the palace, there runs a platform, bordered
on the side of the Bosphorus with monumental pillars linked together by
grilles of beautiful and charming wrought-iron, where the iron curves
in a thousand flowered arabesques, resembling the flourishes of a bold
pen sweeping the paper. These gilded grilles form an extremely rich
balustrade.
The two wings, built at a different period, are very much too low for
the body of the principal dwelling, with which they have, moreover, no
harmony of style or form. Imagine a double row of Odéons or Chambers of
Deputies in miniature, following each other in wearisome alternation
and presenting to the eye a line of slender little columns that seem to
be of wood, although they are of marble.
In passing and repassing before this palace, the desire to visit it
had come to me many times. In Italy nothing would have been simpler;
but to bring your caïque to an imperial landing-place in Turkey, would
be a grave performance that might bring serious consequences. Happily,
through the agency of a friend, I was put into communication with the
architect, M. Balyan, a young Armenian of great intelligence, and who
spoke French.
M. Balyan had the kindness to take me in his boat of three pairs of
oars, and made me enter first an old kiosk, a remnant of the former
palace, where we were served with pipes, coffee, and sherbet flavoured
with rose; then he conducted me himself through the apartments with a
kindness and charming politeness for which I thank him here, hoping
that one day his eye will fall upon these lines.
The interior has not been entirely finished yet, but, nevertheless, you
can get an idea of the future splendour of the whole. The religious
ideas of the Turks debar from their ornamentation a host of happy
motives and restrict considerably the fancy of the artist, who must
carefully abstain from mingling with his arabesques the representation
of any living objects:--thus, there are no statues, no bas-reliefs, no
masks, no chimæras, no griffins, no dolphins, no birds, no sphinxes, no
serpents, no butterflies, no little figures half-woman and half-flower,
no heraldic monsters, and none of those strange creatures that compose
the fabulous zoölogy of ornamentation, and of which Raphael has made
such marvellous use in the galleries of the Vatican.
The Arabian style, with its interruptions, distortions and its
broken lines, its lace of stucco cut out with a punch, its ceilings
of stalactites, its bee-hive niches, its marble perforated like the
lid of a perfume-box, its mottos in florid Cufic, and its colourings
of green, white and red, discretely enhanced with gold, would have
afforded natural resources for the decoration of an oriental palace;
but the Sultan, with the same caprice that makes us build Alhambras in
Paris, wished to have a palace in the modern taste. One is astonished
at first at his caprice, but, upon reflection, nothing is more natural.
Having so few motives at his disposition, M. Balyan has needed a rare
fertility of imagination in order to decorate in different ways more
than three hundred halls or chambers.
The general arrangement is very simple: the rooms follow each other in
succession, or open upon a large corridor; the harem, among others,
is so arranged. The apartment of each woman opens by a single door
into a vast passage, like the cells of nuns in a cloister. At each
end, a guard of eunuchs, or _bostangis_, can be posted. From the
threshold, I threw a glance over this retreat of secret pleasure, which
resembles a convent or a boarding-school much more than one would
imagine. Here are extinguished, without having shone upon the outside
world, the stars of beauty unknown, but the eye of the master has
rested upon them, for one minute perhaps, and that is enough.
The apartment of the Sultana-Validé, composed of lofty rooms looking
upon the Bosphorus, is remarkable for its ceilings painted in fresco
with an incomparable elegance and freshness. I do not know who are
the workmen that made these marvels, but Diaz would not find upon
his palette finer, more vaporous, more tender and, at the same time,
richer tones. Sometimes they are skies of turquoise sown with light
clouds floating in incredible depths, sometimes immense lace veils of
marvellous figures, then a great shell of mother-of-pearl irised with
all the hues of the prism, or still again of imaginary flowers hanging
their corollas and leaves upon golden trellises; other chambers are
similarly ornamented; sometimes a casket whose jewels are scattered
about in playful disorder, necklaces whose pearls have broken from
their strings and roll about like raindrops, a rillet of diamonds,
sapphires and rubies forming the _motif_ of the decoration; golden
boxes painted upon the cornices allow the bluish smoke of perfumes
to escape and compose a ceiling with their transparent haze. Here
Phingari through a rift in the cloud shows his silver crescent, so
dear to the Mussulman; there modest Aurora colours a morning sky with
rose, like the cheeks of virgin; farther away a large piece of brocade
streaked with light glittering like cloth of gold, and held up by a
clasp of carbuncles, reveals a corner of blue. Arabesques with infinite
interlacings, sculptured compartments, golden rose-work, and bouquets
of imaginary or real flowers, blue lilies of Iran, or roses of Schiraz,
come to vary these themes, the chief of which I have cited, without
attempting to enter into impossible details, and which the imagination
of the reader must supplement.
The Sultan’s apartments are in the style of Louis XIV. Orientalized,
where one feels an intentional imitation of the splendours of
Versailles, the doors, the windows, and their frames are of cedar,
mahogany, massive violet-ebony, exquisitely carved, and fastening
by rich bolts gilded in ormoulu. From the windows you have the most
marvellous view in the world: a panorama without a rival, and such as
never sovereign had before in front of his palace. The coast of Asia,
where upon an immense curtain of black cypress Scutari stands out, with
its picturesque landing-place crowded with vessels, its pink houses,
its white mosques among which are distinguished Buyuck-Djami and
Sultan-Selim; and the Bosphorus with its rapid and transparent waters
furrowed with the perpetual going and coming of the sailing-vessels,
steam-boats, feluccas, prames, boats from Ismid and Trebizond, with
antique shapes, peculiar sails, canoes, and caïques, above which fly
the familiar swarms of sea-mews and gulls. If you lean out a little,
you can discern upon the two shores a succession of summer homes and
kiosks, painted in flesh colours that form a double key of palaces
for this marvellous marine river. Add to this the thousand accidents
of lights, the effects of sun and moon, and you will have a spectacle
which imagination could not surpass.
One of the peculiarities of the palace is a large hall roofed with a
dome of red glass. When the sun shines through this dome of rubies,
everything assumes strange hues; the air seems to be in flames, and you
seem to breathe fire; the columns seem like torch-lights, the marble
pavement reddens into a floor of lava; a pink fire devours the walls;
you fancy yourself in the reception-hall of a palace of salamanders
built of metal in fusion; your eyes glitter like red spangles and your
clothes become vestments of purple. An operatic hell, lighted with
Bengal fire, can alone give an idea of this peculiar effect, of a
questionable taste, perhaps, but very striking, nevertheless.
A little marvel which would not mar the most fairy-like architecture of
the Thousand and One Nights, is the Sultan’s hall of baths. It is in
the Moorish style, of veined Egyptian alabaster, and seems to have been
cut out of one block of precious stone, with its columns, its splayed
capitals, its heart-shaped arcades, and its ceiling constellated with
crystal eyes that shine like diamonds. To what luxury might the body
abandon itself upon these flags, transparent as agates, surrendering
its flexible limbs to the skilful manipulations of the _tellacks_
in the midst of a cloud of perfumed vapour and under a shower of
rose-water and balsam!
Tired of these marvels and fatigued with admiration, I thanked M.
Balyan, who made me come out through the court of honour, the gate
of which is a kind of triumphal arch of white marble of a very
rich and florid ornamentation, and which forms on the land side an
entrance quite worthy of this sumptuous palace. Then, as I was dying
of hunger, I went into a fruiterer’s shop and was served with two
_brochettes_ of _kabobs_, wrapped in a thick pancake, which
I moistened with a glass of sherbet,--a very sober and entirely local
repast.
PLESSIS-LES-TOURS
J. J. BOURRASSÉE
The castle of Plessis stands to the west of the city of Tours in a vast
plain watered by the Loire and Cher. To reach it, you follow a road
bordered with old mulberry-trees, the remains or heirs of those planted
by Henri IV. in 1607, and renewed in 1690 by Louvois. Impressed by
the terrible memories of Louis XI., turn not your head towards those
trees to look for those hanged by Messire Tristan L’Hermite. Neither be
afraid of finding beneath your feet those man-traps that were planted
in the vicinity of the Castle to catch the curious and the rustics
who ventured upon the lands of His Majesty. To-day the country is
safe and there is nothing to be feared from the Castle, even if it is
not attractive; but, in the Fifteenth Century, a safe-conduct and an
experienced guide were necessary for crossing this dangerous region.
Plessis did not play any part in our national history until the reign
of Louis XI. Until then, it was only an obscure lordship with a little
castle on one of those rocky hillocks that still exist in the vale.
This spot pleasing him much more than the castles of Amboise, Loches,
or Chinon, the King bought it from his chamberlain, Hardouin de Maillé,
in 1463, for the sum of 5,500 gold crowns, and abolished its old name
of Montils. Here he built a castle in the Fifteenth-Century taste,
simple and even severe, for brick largely figured in it, and with a
glass gallery on the interior façade: a dwelling more worthy of a rich
citizen than a King of France. Here, after his accession, Louis XI.
spent the greater part of his life.
Towards the end of the year 1464, the King gathered together the
prelates and principal lords of the realm at Plessis with the pretext
of seeking their advice as to the means of remedying the discontent
that was beginning to break out. In this assembly, Charles, Duke of
Orleans, thought it his duty to hazard a few remonstrances; but Louis
XI. replied to the duke in such harsh and offensive language that the
unfortunate prince died of chagrin at Amboise a few days later. This
attitude of the King drew the nobles into the League of Public Welfare,
and the Duke of Berri placed himself at the head of the discontented.
In order to try to calm them, the King was obliged to call together the
States-General at Tours in 1468.
[Illustration: PLESSIS-LES-TOURS, FRANCE.]
The opposition of the nobles drove Louis XI. towards the middle
classes, not that he had the least democratic tendencies, but because
he felt more at ease among these small people, whose situation rendered
them supple and easy. He always liked to have them about him, and
raised them to the highest dignities, in hatred and defiance of the
high nobility, because they were broken into the practice of affairs
by commerce, and possessed the art, always prized by governments, of
managing the finances skilfully and creating resources at critical
moments. His selections were not always happy: witness La Balue,
whom from a simple clerk he raised to the rank of bishop and even
cardinal, and who betrayed him to the profit of the Duke of Burgundy.
Louis XI., carrying a certain refinement of cruelty even into his most
legitimate vengeance, had the cardinal confined in an iron cage. It is
said that this odious invention was due to La Balue himself, and that
he was the first on whom it was tried. After languishing for some time
in one of the cells at Plessis, the cardinal was transferred to Loches
and then to Montbazon: he did not recover his liberty till 1480, after
a long and hard captivity.
Notwithstanding the success of his policy, Louis XI. had a sad and
morose old age. Separated from his wife and son, more suspicious of
everybody than ever, he shut himself up closely at Plessis and there
redoubled his minute precautions. But two terrible guests whom the
“guard that keeps watch at the barriers of the Louvre” can never stop,
disease and death, soon came to seek him. When he felt the first pangs
of the disease that was to carry him off, he multiplied his vows, acts
of devotion and pilgrimages. Then he sent and fetched all the way from
Calabria a poor hermit named Francisco Paolo, with the hope that the
holy man’s prayers would obtain his recovery. As soon as the King was
informed of his arrival, he ordered the Dauphin to go to meet him with
the chief lords of the court and to receive him with all the respect
due to so saintly a personage; he himself did not think he could do
the saint too much honour and lodged him with his companions in the
castle; but dwelling in the court ill suited the pious hermit and so
they gave him a lodging in the Plessis courtyard. So many precautions
and so many prayers failed to bend Heaven; even the holy ampulla was
powerless. Louis XI. died at the Castle of Plessis, August 30th,
1483, aged sixty, after reigning twenty-two years. His body was first
taken from Plessis to the church of St. Martin of Tours, where it lay
in state for eight days; then it was taken to Notre Dame de Cléry,
the spot which he himself had chosen for his burial. St. Francis had
not been able to perform the miracle of curing the King; but he had
prepared him for his approaching death, and it must be acknowledged
that with a man like Louis XI. this was no small prodigy.
On the death of Louis XI. the court was installed at Plessis for some
time. The Dauphin Charles, born at the Castle of Amboise in 1470,
had reached his legal majority; but intelligence was very slightly
developed in this puny and deformed child. His sister, Anne de Beaujeu,
“fine and subtle, if any one ever was,” says Brantôme, “and the very
image of her father in everything,” unhesitatingly took the regency,
and, to resist the malcontents who wanted to deprive her of it, she
convoked the States-General at Tours for January 1st, 1484. This
celebrated assembly gave firm and vigilant attention to all the affairs
of the realm and obtained quite a sensible reduction of taxes.
Amid the shock of intrigues and diverse ambitions, the lady of Beaujeu
conducted herself with so much address and prudence, that the States
confirmed the last wishes of Louis XI. in her favour.
The little King, as he was called, was not long in shaking off his
sister’s yoke, and began his reign with an act of magnanimity by
himself going in despite of his council and breaking the chains of
the Duke of Orleans. Since the battle of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier, that
prince had been confined in the great tower of Bourges. One evening
with a small suite the young King set out, or rather fled, from the
Castle of Plessis under the pretext of a hunting-party, and went to
free his prisoner. The Regent thought that Charles VIII. was going to
return at the head of her enemies to proscribe her in turn. Happily she
was mistaken. The reconciliation took place at Plessis, and from that
day Louis of Orleans became the most faithful subject of his King.
The Castle of Plessis was a fortunate place for the Duke of Orleans.
After the death of Charles VIII., he was proclaimed King under the
title of Louis XII. and visited Touraine several times and stayed at
the castle where his reconciliation with Anne de Beaujeu had been
effected. There he convoked the States General in 1506, and the
opening of this assembly took place in the great hall of Plessis on
the fourteenth of May. The purpose of this assembly was to free the
King’s word and by the intervention of the nation to break the treaty,
impolitic as well as onerous to France, that had been signed at Lyons
in 1503 and by which Louis XII. had promised to give his daughter
Claude, then only seven years of age, in marriage to Charles of
Luxembourg, who afterwards became the Emperor Charles V. and to whom
she was to take as a dowry the duchies of Milan and Brittany and the
county of Blois. It was a veritable dismemberment of France and the
ruin of that wise policy which by the two marriages of the Duchess
Anne with Charles VIII. and Louis XII. had secured Brittany to France.
The States rose in force against the treaty and demanded the marriage
of François of Valois, then twelve years old, with Claude of France.
These wishes were favourably received, and Cardinal Georges d’Amboise
proceeded to the ceremony of betrothal on the twentieth of May, in the
great hall of Plessis.
Beginning with Francis the First, the court made only rare appearances
at Plessis: the more splendid castles of Chenonceaux, Amboise, Blois,
Chambord, and Fontainebleau received the preference. Henry III.,
however, when tossed about by events, found himself there; and when
Paris embraced the cause of the League, he transferred his little court
thither in 1589. Mayenne followed to attack him. The King of Navarre,
who had recently signed a truce with Henry III., hastened to help him,
and set his troops in battle array on the right bank of the Loire near
Saint Cyr. Thence he sent to say that if His Majesty would deign to
come as far as the faubourg, he would kiss His Majesty’s hands and take
his orders. Henry III., not thinking it wise to go, invited the King
of Navarre to pass the Loire and come to visit him at Plessis. Some of
the Huguenot captains feared a snare; but the Béarnais, as loyal as
he was brave, did not hesitate for a moment and set out accompanied
by his nobles. The interview took place in the great alley of the
park of Plessis, and the crowd was so great that the two kings, with
outstretched arms, had great trouble to approach each other. At last,
having embraced, they mutually exchanged evidences of the most sincere
affection. This touching scene occurred amid the liveliest acclamations
of the public, who saw in this reconciliation of the two princes the
end of the evils of the civil war. The two kings afterwards held a two
hours’ council, and, when the King of Navarre departed, Henry III.
accompanied him as far as the St. Anne bridge.
This was the last memorable event that occurred at Plessis.
Pre-occupied with the ever-increasing political importance of Paris,
Henry IV. left Touraine for good, and transported his court to the
capital, so as to be at hand to supervise and direct its movements.
For a century and a half, the royal garden of Plessis, under the
management of able gardeners, has been the most active and fruitful
school of French horticulture. Here have been produced the “good
Christian pear,” the Queen Claude plum dedicated to the wife of Francis
the First, and doubtless a host of other excellent fruits and charming
flowers. In the Seventeenth Century, the gardens were abandoned, or
transformed into mulberry nurseries: they no longer gave impulse
to local horticulture, but they contributed in another way to the
prosperity of the province. From 1744 to 1762, the Plessis nurseries
distributed not less than four hundred thousand feet of mulberry trees
in Touraine, and which gave a vigorous impulse to the silk industry.
The castle underwent a new transformation in 1778, became a place of
confinement for vagrants. Finally, it was alienated in the Revolution
and partly demolished. By the cruel irony of Fate, the terrible abode
of Louis XI. has become a depot for fertilizers!
HAMPTON COURT PALACE
ERNEST LAW
Among the many places of interest that lie within easy reach of London,
there is none, if we except Windsor Castle, that can be held to vie in
historic and artistic charms with the Queen’s magnificent palace at
Hampton Court.
Nowhere else do we meet with attractions so uncommon, and yet so
varied, as those which are to be found within its precincts. There we
may behold a building, which still remains, altered and restored though
it has been, an almost perfect specimen of Tudor palatial architecture,
side by side with the best example existing in England of the debased
classic of Louis XIV., namely Wren’s State Apartments. There, too, we
may feel, in a more than ordinary degree, amid its red-brick courts,
solemn cloisters, picturesque gables, towers, turrets, embattled
parapets, and mullioned and latticed windows, that indescribable charm
which invests all ancient and historic places. While walking through
Wolsey’s courts we may recall the splendour and wealth of the mighty
Cardinal; and while standing in Henry VIII.’s chapel, or his gorgeous
Gothic hall, ponder on the many thrilling events within the palace
in the days of the Tudors and Stuarts--the birth of Edward VI. and
the death of Jane Seymour; the marriages of Catherine Howard and
Catherine Parr; the honeymoons of Philip of Spain and Mary Tudor, and
of Charles II. and Catherine of Braganza; James I.’s conference with
the Puritans; and Cromwell’s sojourn here in almost regal splendour.
And while passing through William III.’s splendid suite of rooms, with
their painted ceilings, carved cornices, tapestried and oak-panelled
walls, we may mentally people them again with the kings and queens,
and statesmen and courtiers, who thronged them in the last century.
Moreover, by the aid of an unbroken series of historical pictures and
portraits, illustrative of three centuries of English history, we may
recall the past with a vividness that no books can ever excite.
And then, when satiated with art and archæology, we can relax the
mind by wandering beneath the shade of Queen Anne’s stately avenues
of chestnut and lime; strolling in the ever delightful gardens where
Wolsey paced in anxious meditation a few weeks before his fall;
where Henry VIII. made love to Anne Boleyn and to Catherine Howard;
along the paths where Queen Elizabeth took her daily morning walk;
past the tennis-court where Charles I. played his last game on the
day he escaped from the palace; beneath the bower where Queen Mary
sat at needlework with her maids of honour; along the terrace to the
bowling-green and pavilions where George II. made love to Mrs. Howard
and Mary Bellenden; under the lime-groves which sheltered from the sun
Pope and Hervey, Swift and Addison, Walpole and Bolingbroke.
[Illustration: HAMPTON COURT PALACE, ENGLAND.]
Yet, strange to say, though Hampton Court is so rich in historic
associations, it has found no writer to investigate and chronicle
its past. Any one curious as to its history must make researches for
himself, or be content with the scanty and often misleading information
supplied in old country histories and topographical works.
In the same way its architecture, which is particularly characteristic
of the Tudor period, and in many points most unique and instructive to
the student of ancient manners, has to a great extent been overlooked
in books where these topics are treated of.
The whole domain, consisting now of about 1,900 acres, has been
divided, probably ever since Saxon times, into two parts by the highway
from Kingston and Hampton Wick to Hampton, which passes in front of
the garden gates, within 250 yards of the palace. To the north of this
road lies Bushey Park, which, with its appurtenances, is fringed on
its western, northern, and eastern sides by the districts of Hampton,
Teddington, and Hampton Wick; while to the south of the Kingston road
lies the House or Home Park, bounded on its three sides by the Thames
and the palace, with its various subsidiary buildings, courtyards,
gardens, and grounds.
The natural features of the country in which Hampton Court is situated,
are not particularly striking. The ground is flat, with scarcely an
undulation rising more than twenty feet above the dead level, and
the soil, though light and gravelly, supports very little indigenous
timber. Indeed, in primeval times, the whole district of Hampton
appears to have been an open track, forming part of the famous Hounslow
Heath, to which it immediately adjoins; and the thorns in Bushey Park,
with a few ancient gigantic elms and oaks in the Home Park, are the
still surviving remnants or traces of its original state. One of the
oaks, which is believed to be the largest in England, is as much as
thirty-seven feet in girth at the waist; and there is a magnificent
elm, of which the smallest girth is twenty-three feet, and which is
known as “The Two Sisters,” or “King Charles’s Swing.”
Nevertheless, the surrounding prospect must, from the earliest times,
have been not unpleasing. The stretch of the river opposite Hampton
Court--studded with eyots, and bordered with luxuriant meadows fringed
with willows--is one of the prettiest in the lower Thames; and the
stream, which is particularly clear and swift at this point, is always
lively with boats and barges. When we add, that the view from the
palace extends, across the river, over a wide expanse of
“Meads forever crowned with flowers,”
clusters of trees, flowery hedgerows, and broad undulating heath-clad
commons,--
“To Claremont’s terraced height and Esher’s groves,
By the soft windings of the silent Mole,----”
and that in the distance can be traced the dim blue outline of the
Surrey hills; while on another side appear the crowded gables and the
picturesque old church-tower of Kingston, we have enumerated all the
natural and local amenities of Hampton Court.
Several motives probably weighed with Wolsey in fixing on Hampton
Court as a residence. In the first place, he was in need of a secluded
country place, within easy access of London, whither he could withdraw
occasionally for rest and quiet, without being too far from the centre
of affairs--as he would certainly have been, had he retired to his
diocesan palaces of York, Lincoln, or Durham. At the same time he
was anxious to select a place where his health, which suffered much
from the fogs and smoke of London, might be recruited in fresh and
pure air. We may presume, too, that he was not regardless of the
advantage attaching to a site on the banks of the Thames, in days when,
on account of the badness and danger of the roads, no route was so
safe, convenient and expeditious as the “silent highway” of a river.
Indeed it would take Wolsey scarcely more time to be rowed down, by
eight stout oarsmen from Hampton Court to the stairs of his palace at
Whitehall, than it now takes one to go up to Waterloo Station by the
South Western trains.
Wolsey had no sooner entered into possession of Hampton Court, than he
began with characteristic energy to plan the erection of a vast and
sumptuous edifice, commensurate with the dignity and wealth he had just
attained to. He was then on the threshold of his career of greatness,
and already receiving enormous revenues.
The old manor-house already stood in the midst of an extensive domain
of pasture land, consisting of some two thousand acres. All this he
proceeded to convert into two parks, fencing them partly with paling,
and partly enclosing them with a stout red-brick buttressed wall,
a great part of which remains to this day, and may be identified by
its deep crimson colour, toned here and there with chequered lines of
black, burnt bricks. There may be found, too, inserted in this wall
of Wolsey’s, in the Kingston road near the Paddock, a curious device
of these black bricks, disposed in the form of a cross evidently an
allusion to his ecclesiastical character; and similar crosses may be
observed on an old tower, standing near a piece of ground which was
formerly the Cardinal’s orchard, and on one of the turrets in the Clock
Court. At the same time he surrounded the house and gardens with a
great moat--a precaution which is noticeable as the mediæval custom of
so defending dwelling-places had generally died out, since the Wars of
the Roses, and Wolsey’s moat here must have been one of the last made.
It remained as a prominent feature in front of the palace till the time
of William III., and traces of it still exist on the north side of the
palace.
His gardens, also, were to be an appanage in every way worthy of the
princely residence he was projecting.
The general plan and scope of the building were, no doubt, determined
by the Cardinal himself, whose style was so distinct, both in this
palace and in his other edifices, from the ordinary ecclesiastical
Gothic, as to be often designated by the term, “The Wolsey
Architecture.”
The material selected was red brick, stone being employed for the
windows, the doorways, the copings of the parapets and turrets, the
string courses, and the various ornamental details--such as pinnacles,
gargoyles, and heraldic beasts, on gables and elsewhere.
The first portion taken in hand was, doubtless, the great west front
of the building, which extends, with its two wings, from north to
south, 400 feet. This façade, though only two stories in height, has
considerable beauty about it, and the picturesque turrets at the angles
of the building, the embrasured parapet, the chimneys of carved and
twisted brick, the graceful gables with their gargoyles and pinnacles,
and the varied mullioned windows, form an admirable specimen of
Tudor domestic architecture. It still preserves much of the charm of
old work, although it has frequently been subjected to repairs and
alterations; but the effect is marred by the absence from the numerous
turrets of the leaden cupolas (or “types” to use the correct old
English term) which, with their crockets, pinnacles, and gilded vanes,
formerly gave so uniquely picturesque an appearance to this part of the
building.
An especially striking feature in Wolsey’s west front, as in other
parts of the Tudor building, is the delicately moulded forms of the
chimney shafts which rise in variously grouped clusters, like slender
turrets above the battlements and gables. They are all of red brick,
constructed on many varieties of plan, and wrought and rubbed, with the
greatest nicety, into different decorative patterns. Some are circular,
some square (but set diagonally), and some octagonal; and they are
grouped together in twos or fours, with their shafts sometimes carried
up solid, and sometimes separate.
Another charm is the deep crimson of the bricks, approximating often
to a rich purple, which contrasts favourably with the staring scarlet
of modern red-brick work. This is particularly the case in the south
or right-hand wing, one of the most picturesque portions of the whole
palace.
By the month of May, 1516, the building had so far advanced that Wolsey
was able to receive the King and Queen at dinner in his new abode. This
was a time when Henry delighted to honour with his company his “awne
goode Cardinall,” as he termed him, at pleasant little entertainments,
when he could throw off the restraints of royalty, and join in
unconventional intercourse with his personal friends. During dinner or
supper the minstrels usually played music, and afterwards the King and
a few intimate friends took part in a masquerade or an impromptu dance.
Sometimes he “would oblige the company with a song,” accompanying
himself on the harpsichord or lute. At other times the King would visit
the Cardinal in state accompanied by his whole court.
After Wolsey’s return from the meeting at the “Field of the Cloth of
Gold,” in 1520, he appears to have made more prolonged stays than
heretofore at Hampton Court, which had now nearly arrived at that stage
of completion in which he left it. We are not able exactly to define
the limits of the Cardinal’s palace, for after his death Henry VIII.
carried out many alterations and additions, which in their turn have
been subsequently modified; but we can form a rough idea of its extent.
We have already noticed the West Front as being entirely Wolsey’s; the
same may be said of the First Court, otherwise called the Base Court,
or Utter (that is _Outer_) Court, which is the largest courtyard
in the palace, being 167 feet from north to south, and 142 from east
to west. It gives us no mean idea of Tudor palatial architecture; and
when we restore in imagination the green turf which originally covered
the area, the cupolas on the turrets, and the latticed windows, we
see it as it appeared to the great Cardinal when riding through it on
his mule. It has a look of warmth and comfort and repose, and an air
of picturesque gloom which is in pleasing contrast with the staring
vulgarities of the “cheerful” cockney buildings of the present day.
The Clock Court, access to which is had from the First Court through
the archway of the Clock Tower, formed the inner and principal part of
Wolsey’s original palace; but the alterations that it has undergone
since his time cause it to present a very different appearance now. In
the first place, the present Great Hall, which occupies the whole of
its north side, though often called Wolsey’s hall, was not erected by
him, but, after his death, by Henry VIII., though it doubtless stands
on the site of the smaller and older hall of the Cardinal’s building.
Then half of the east side of the court was rebuilt by George II.,
while the original south range is almost entirely obscured from view by
the Ionic colonnade of Sir Christopher Wren. Here, however, we are in
one of the most interesting corners of Hampton Court; for behind this
colonnade remains the original range of buildings in which are situated
the very rooms occupied by Cardinal Wolsey himself.
Attached to this corner was one of the Cardinal’s galleries, in which
he used to pace, meditating on his political plans, on his chances for
the popedom, and on the failing favour of the King. To this, which must
have been demolished by William III., and to the other long galleries
in the First Court, Cavendish makes reference in his metrical life of
his master:
“My gallories were fayer, both large and long
To walk in them when that it lyked me best.”
On the north side of the last two mentioned courts is a long intricate
range of buildings, enclosing various smaller courts, and containing
kitchens and other offices and bedrooms for the numerous members of
his household. Much of this part of the building, together with the
cloisters and courts to the north-east, called the Round Kitchen and
Chapel Courts, seem also to have been the work of the great Cardinal.
The chapel, however, was remodelled, if not entirely rebuilt, by Henry
VIII., though we may assume that it occupies the same site as that of
Wolsey and the ancient one of the Knights Hospitallers, whose tombs
perhaps lie beneath the kitchens and other offices contiguous to the
Chapel Court.
When, therefore, we take into consideration William III.’s demolitions,
which included some of the Cardinal’s original structure as well as
Henry VIII.’s additions, we may conclude that Wolsey’s palace cannot
have been very much smaller than the existing one, which covers eight
acres, and has a thousand rooms.
THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN
BHOLANAUTH CHUNDER
Our next excursion was to the Fort, or Palace of Shah Jehan, which
resembles a city on a miniature scale. In circuit, the high red walls
encompassing it are a mile and a half. The space enclosed is 600,000
yards. There is no wall on the river-face. Bernier’s account holds true
to the present day, so far as the walls are five to six feet thick,
forty to fifty feet high, and flanked with turrets and cupolas at
intervals, similar to those on the walls of the city. They are built of
granite, but possess no more the beauty of polished marble. The wide
and deep moat round the walls, that he describes as full of water,
and abounding with fish, is now all dry--the freestone pavement being
beat upon by the sun. No longer, also, beyond the moat, are there any
gardens extending to the skirts of the royal abode.
Facing the _Nowbut-Khanna_ on the inside about a hundred and
twenty yards distant, is the first suite of the royal buildings, styled
the _Dewanni-anum_, or the hall of public audience. The ranges
of two-storied buildings, once about this place, with their walls and
arches adorned with a profusion of the richest tapestries, velvets,
and silks, have all disappeared. The _Dewanni-anum_ of Shah Jehan
is considerably larger and loftier than the building of the same name
at Agra. It is a quadrangular hall, open at three sides, the roof of
which is supported upon four rows of tall redstone pillars, formerly
ornamented with gilt arabesque paintings of flowers, but now covered
with the eternal whitewash. The building was now occupied by the
troops, and it was a great disappointment for us to miss the celebrated
Marble Throne which all travellers speak of with admiration,--though
it was in a state, we were told, that did not make it a very great
curiosity. The throne is in an elevated recess, or niche in the
back-wall, from which it projects into the hall, in front of the large
central arch. There is a staircase to get up to it, the seat being
raised ten feet from the floor. The size of the throne is about ten
feet, and over it is a marble canopy supported on four marble pillars,
all beautifully inlaid with mosaic work exquisitely finished, but now
much dilapidated. In the wall behind is a doorway, by which the emperor
entered from his apartments in the harem. This wall is covered with
mosaic paintings in precious stones of various birds, beasts, fruits,
and flowers. Many of them are executed in a very natural manner,
and represent the birds and beasts of the several countries ruled
over by Shah Jehan. On the upper part, in the centre of the wall “is
represented, in the same precious stones, and in the graceful attitude,
the figure of an European in a kind of Spanish costume, who is playing
upon his guitar.” This has been interpreted into a group of Orpheus,
charming the birds and beasts with his music, and is what decides the
work to be from the hands of a French artist, mentioned by Bernier
under the name of La Grange, _alias_ Austin de Bordeaux.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN, INDIA.]
Upon this throne did Shah Jehan seat himself every day at noon, to
receive the compliments or petitions of his subjects. He appeared
on such occasions in great state, preceded by a _cortège_ of
mace-bearers, bearing silver figures upon silver sticks. His sons sat
on each side of him, decked in costly apparel and jewels. Behind them
stood in array eunuchs in rich liveries. Some of them drove off flies
by moving _chowries_ made of peacocks’ feathers. Others waved
fans of coloured silk or velvet, embroidered with gold and precious
stones. The _chobdars_ and other messengers waited next in
respectful silence to receive the commands of the sovereign. On a fine
large slab of white marble, raised some three feet above the ground,
and fenced with silver rails, stood the vizier and other secretaries,
in front of the throne, to hand up petitions to their master, and to
receive and convey his imperial commands. Next to them stood in humble
attendance tributary Rajahs, dependent chiefs, and ambassadors from
foreign princes. Beyond them was the place for the _Munsubdars_,
who showed themselves in the same attitude of respect and humility
that marked the demeanour of the other attendants in the hall. In
the furthermost part of the building, as well as in the outer court
in front of it, thronged all sorts of people and visitants in one
promiscuous crowd.
Thus hedged round by divinity, sat Shah Jehan, as the Vicegerent of God
upon earth, with his face turned towards Mecca.
The next suite of apartments is the _Dewanni-Khas_, or hall of
private audience. There is certainly much to admire in this building,
but the expectations raised by reading are not half fulfilled. In
richness of materials it may stand unrivalled, but in point of
architectural design it does not possess more than ordinary excellence.
Rising from a terrace, elevated some four to five feet from the ground,
the _Dewanni-Khas_ forms an oblong-shaped pavilion, which measures
one hundred and fifty feet in length, by forty feet in breadth. The
height is well proportioned to these dimensions. The building has a
flat roof, supported upon ranges of massive arcaded pillars, all of a
rich bluish-white marble. Between each of the front row of pillars is
a balustrade of the same material, chastely carved in various designs
of perforated work. The cornices and borders are decorated with a
great quantity of frieze and sculptured work. The top is ornamented
with four elegant marble pavilions, with gilt cupolas. In short,
the _Dewanni-Khas_ is an open, airy, and lightsome building,
possessing in the highest degree all those features which, suggested
by local climate form the peculiarity of Indian architecture. It is
advantageously situated near the river, and affords, on a sultry night,
the best place for delicious zephyrs to fan you to sleep.
Nothing that is recorded in fiction or fact comes up to the
magnificence of this hall. There traces remaining of that magnificence
are enough to show that the reality of wealth develops those ideas
of grandeur, which surpass all the imaginings of imagination. The
gorgeous Pandemonium of Milton, of which the idea may have been
taken from Bernier’s account of the Mogul court, is eclipsed by the
_Dewanni-Khas_, the grandeur of which is not apocryphal, but a
realized fact. That “jasper pavement,” which the mighty poet deemed
to be so rich as to adorn the court of heaven, is seen here by every
individual with his eyes broadly open. The pillars and arches are
ornamented with tendrils of bright flowers and wreaths of bloodstone,
agate, jasper, cornelian, and amethyst, that seem “snatched as it
were from the garden, and pressed into the snowy blocks.” There was a
rich foliage of silver filagree work covering the entire ceiling. The
Mahrattas in 1759, under their celebrated General Bhao, tore this down,
and melted it into seventeen lacs of rupees. It has been replaced by
one of gilt copper worked in a flower pattern. Never could the gorgeous
splendour of this hall have been more emphatically summed up than in
the inscription which is sculptured in letters of gold in the cornices
of the interior room--“If there is a paradise upon earth, it is this,
it is this, it is this.”
In this hall was the _Tukt Taous_, or the famous _Peacock
Throne_. It was so called from its having the figures of two
peacocks, with their tails spread, that were so naturally executed
in sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other precious stones of
appropriate colours, as to represent life, and strike every beholder
with the most dazzling splendour. “The throne itself was six feet long
by four feet broad; it stood on six massive feet, which, with the body,
were of solid gold, inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. It
was surmounted by a canopy of gold supported by twelve pillars, all
richly emblazoned with costly gems, and a fringe of pearls ornamented
the borders of the canopy. Between the two peacocks stood the figure
of a parrot of the ordinary size, said to have been carved out of a
single emerald (?). On either side of the throne stood a _chatta_
or umbrella, one of the Oriental emblems of royalty; they were formed
of crimson velvet, richly embroidered and fringed with pearls,
the handles were eight feet high, of solid gold, and studded with
diamonds.” Tavernier, a jeweller by profession, and who saw this superb
throne, estimates the cost of it at six and a half millions sterling,
or six crores of rupees. The device was not original; it seems to
have been taken from a representation of the Karteek of the Hindoos.
The umbrella, also, was one of the insignia of Hindoo royalty. It was
on the birthday of Soliman Sheko that the joy of a grandfather had
been especially manifested by Shah Jehan’s first mounting the _Tukt
Taous_.
It is recorded by Bernier, that the “King appeared seated upon this
throne at one extremity of the great hall of the _Am-Khas_,
splendidly attired, his garment being of white flowered satin, richly
embroidered, his turban of gold cloth, having an aigrette worked upon
it, the feet of which were studded with diamonds of extraordinary
lustre and value, and in the centre was a beautiful Oriental topaz
of matchless size and splendour, shining like a little sun: round
his neck was a string of pearls, of great value, which hung down to
his waist. The throne on which he sat was supported by six pillars
of massive gold, enriched with a profusion of rubies, emeralds,
and diamonds, and his other insignia of state were embellished
with equal grandeur.... The pillars of the hall were magnificently
ornamented with gold tapestry, and the ceiling was covered over with
beautiful flowered satin, fastened with red silk cords, having at
each corner festoons with gold tassels. Below nothing was to be seen
but rich silk tapestries of extraordinary dimensions. In the court,
at a little distance, was pitched a tent called the _Aspek_,
which in length and breadth somewhat exceeded the hall, and reached
almost to the centre of the court. It was likewise surrounded with
a large balustrade of solid silver, and supported by three poles,
of the height and thickness of a large mast, and by several smaller
ones,--covered with plates of silver. The outside was red, and the
lining within of beautiful chintz, manufactured expressly for the
purpose at Masulipatam, representing a hundred different flowers, so
naturally done, and the colours so vivid, that one would imagine it to
be a hanging parterre.” No mention of the Koh-i-noor appears in this
account--it must have been somewhere, either in the Peacock Throne, or
on the arm or turban of the monarch. Possibly, the string of pearls
spoken of was the same that Runjeet Sing afterwards wore around his
waist. The cynicism of a poet may style all this as “barbaric pearl and
gold,” but it is what, after all, quiets the yearnings of all civilized
men.
The Peacock Throne no longer exists. It was carried off as a trophy
by Nadir Shah, and had to be broken up in all probability, into ten
thousand pieces of stone, now scattered all over the world. In its
place is a simple marble throne that by itself is not an ordinary
piece of workmanship. In strolling through the hall we paused before
this throne; and as a monument of fallen greatness it failed not
to affect us with the usual sentiment of “all is vanity under the
sun.” It may be looked upon almost as the seat of Shah Jehan, and
Aurungzebe, and Shah Alum,--and raises a host of associations that
come rapping at the door of memory. Here stood the graceful Soliman,
his hands bound in gilded fetters, entreating in the most pathetic
language to be put to death at once, rather than be sentenced to die
by slow poison,--thereby affecting many of the courtiers to tears, and
making the ladies of the harem to weep aloud from behind the screens.
Here Sevajee in expectation of an honourable reception, but finding
himself to be treated with studied neglect, could not control his
feelings of indignation, changed colour, and sank to the ground in
a swoon,--while a daughter of Aurungzebe, seeing the young stranger
from behind a curtain, became enamoured of him. Here sat Mahomed Shah
bandying compliments with Nadir Shah, and sipping coffee, while the
corpses of a hundred thousand slaughtered Delhi-ites tainted the air.
It is related “that the coffee was delivered to the two sovereigns in
this room upon a gold salver, by the most polished gentleman of the
court. His motions, as he entered the gorgeous apartment, amidst the
splendid trains of the two emperors, were watched with great anxiety;
if he presented the coffee first to his own master, the furious
conqueror, before whom the sovereign of India and all his courtiers
trembled, might order him to instant execution; if he presented it
to Nadir first, he would insult his own sovereign out of fear of the
stranger. To the astonishment of all, he walked up with a steady step
direct to his own master. ‘I cannot,’ said he, ‘aspire to the honour of
presenting the cup to the King of Kings, your Majesty’s honoured guest,
nor would your Majesty wish that any hand but your own should do so.’
The emperor took the cup from the golden salver, and presented it to
Nadir Shah, who said with a smile as he took it, ‘Had all your officers
known and done their duty like this man, you had never, my good cousin,
seen me and my Kussilbashees at Delhi; take care of him, for your own
sake, and get round you as many like him as you can.’”
The _Dewanni-Khas_ is now all desolate and forlorn. It is a
matter of heartfelt regret to see the barbarous ravages that have been
committed in picking out the different precious stones. There is a
mark of violence on one of the pillars, which the Mahrattas attempted
to break. No rose-beds or fountains about the building now--only the
bare skeleton of it is standing. The Great Mogul’s hall of audience
was, till lately, used as a museum, the contents of which have been now
removed to the new Delhi Institute.
The freest public lounge is not more open to access than is now the
seat of Mogul jealousy--the _Seraglio_. “There was scarcely
a chamber that had not a reservoir adjoining it--with parterres,
beautiful walks, groves, rivulets, fountains, grottos, jets of water,
alcoves, and raised terraces to sleep upon, and enjoy the cool air
at night.” Now that everything has disappeared, this description of
Bernier seems to be almost imaginary--an account of the “baseless
fabric of a vision.” The “parterres,” “walks,” “groves,” “grottos,” and
“raised terraces” have all ceased to exist.
EDINBURGH CASTLE
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Meditative people will find a charm in a certain conancy between the
aspect of the city and its odd and stirring history. Few places, if
any, offer a more barbaric display of contrasts to the eye. In the very
midst stands one of the most satisfactory crags in nature--a Bass Rock
upon dry land, rooted in a garden, shaken by passing trains, carrying
a crown of battlements and turrets, and describing its warlike shadow
over the liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the new town. From
their smoky beehives, ten stories high, the unwashed look down upon
the open squares and gardens of the wealthy; and gay people sunning
themselves along Princes Street, with its mile of commercial palaces
all beflagged upon some great occasion, see, across a gardened valley
set with statues, where the washings of the old town flutter in the
breeze at its high windows. And then, upon all sides, what a clashing
of architecture! In this one valley, where the life of the town goes
most busily forward, there may be seen, shown one above and behind
another by the accidents of the ground, buildings in almost every
style upon the globe. Egyptian and Greek temples, Venetian palaces and
Gothic spires, are huddled one over another in a most admired disorder;
while, above all, the brute mass of the Castle and the summit of
Arthur’s Seat look down upon these imitations with a becoming dignity,
as the works of Nature may look down upon the monuments of Art. But
Nature is a more indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in
no way frightened of a strong effect. The birds roost as willingly
among the Corinthian capitals as in the crannies of the crag; the
same atmosphere and daylight clothe the eternal rock and yesterday’s
imitation portico; and as the soft northern sunshine throws out
everything into a glorified distinctness--or easterly mists, coming up
with the blue evening fuse all these incongruous features into one, and
the lamps begin to glitter along the street, and faint lights to burn
in the high windows across the valley--the feeling grows upon you that
this also is a piece of nature in the most intimate sense; that this
profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock, is
not a drop-scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of every-day
reality, connected by railway and telegraph-wire with all the capitals
of Europe, and inhabited by citizens of the familiar type, who keep
ledgers and attend church, and have sold their immortal portion to a
daily paper. By all the canons of romance, the place demands to be half
deserted and leaning towards decay; birds we might admit in profusion,
the play of the sun and winds, and a few gypsies encamped in the chief
thoroughfare: but these citizens, with their cabs and tramways, their
trains and posters, are altogether out of key. Chartered tourists, they
make free with historic localities, and rear their young among the
most picturesque sites with a grand human indifference. To see them
thronging by, in their neat clothes and conscious moral rectitude, and
with a little air of possession that verges on the absurd, is not the
least striking feature of the place.
[Illustration: EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND.]
The Old Town, it is pretended, is the chief characteristic, and, from
a picturesque point of view, the liver-wing of Edinburgh. It is one
of the most common forms of depreciation to throw cold water on the
whole by adroit over-commendation of a part, since everything worth
judging, whether it be a man, a work of art, or only a fine city, must
be judged upon its merits as a whole. The Old Town depends for much of
its effect on the new quarters that lie around it, on the sufficiency
of its situation, and on the hills that back it up. If you were to set
it somewhere else by itself, it would look remarkably like Stirling
in a bolder and loftier edition. The point is to see this embellished
Stirling planted in the midst of a large, active, and fantastic modern
city; for there the two re-act in a picturesque sense, and the one is
the making of the other.
The Old Town occupies a sloping ridge or tail of diluvial matter,
protected, in some subsidence of the waters, by the Castle cliffs,
which fortify it to the west. On the one side of it and the other the
new towns of the south and of the north occupy their lower, broader,
and more gentle hill-tops. Thus, the quarter of the Castle overtops the
whole city and keeps an open view to sea and land. It dominates for
miles on every side; and people on the decks of ships, or ploughing in
quiet country places over in Fife, can see the banner on the Castle
battlements, and the smoke of the Old Town blowing abroad over the
subjacent country. A city that is set upon a hill. It was, I suppose,
from this distant aspect that she got her name of _Auld Reekie_.
Perhaps it was given her by people who had never crossed her doors; day
after day, from their various rustic Pisgahs, they had seen the pile of
building on the hill-top, and the long plume of smoke over the plain;
so it appeared to them; so it had appeared to their fathers tilling the
same field; and as that was all they knew of the place, it could be all
expressed in two words.
There is a silly story of a subterranean passage between the Castle
and Holyrood, and a bold Highland piper who volunteered to explore its
windings. He made his entrance by the upper end, playing a strathspey;
the curious footed it after him down the street, following his descent
by the sound of the chanter from below; until all of a sudden, about
the level of St. Giles’s, the music came abruptly to an end, and the
people in the street stood at fault with hands uplifted. Whether he was
choked with gasses, or perished in a quag, or was removed bodily by the
Evil One, remains a point of doubt; but the piper has never again been
seen or heard of from that day to this. Perhaps he wandered down into
the land of Thomas the Rhymer, and some day, when it is least expected,
may take a thought to revisit the sunlit upper world. That will be a
strange moment for the cabmen on the stands beside St. Giles’s, when
they hear the drone of his pipes reascending from the bowels of the
earth below their horses’ feet.
Of all places for a view Calton Hill is perhaps the best; since you
can see the Castle, which you lose from the Castle, and Arthur’s Seat,
which you cannot see from Arthur’s Seat. It is the place to stroll on
one of those days of sunshine and east wind which are so common in our
more than temperate summer. Upon the right, the roofs and spire of the
Old Town climb one above another to where the citadel prints its broad
bulk and jagged crown of bastions on the western sky.--Perhaps it is
now one in the afternoon; and at the same instant of time, a ball rises
to the summit of Nelson’s flagstaff close at hand, and, far away, a
puff of smoke followed by a report bursts from the half-moon battery
at the Castle. This is the time-gun by which people set their watches,
as far as the sea-coast or in hill farms upon the Pentlands. And while
you are looking across upon the Castle Hill, the drums and bugles begin
to recall the scattered garrison; the air thrills with the sound; the
bugles sing aloud; and the last rising flourish mounts and melts into
the darkness like a star: a martial swan-song, fitly rounding in the
labours of the day.
EDINBURGH CASTLE
JAMES NORRIS BREWER
The Castle of Edinburgh was originally denominated _Castelh Mynyd
Agned_, that is, “the fortress of the hill of Agnes;” and the hill
itself was termed _Mynyd Agned Cathre-gonion_, which implies
in the language of the ancient Britons, “the Hill Agned nigh the
fortress.” From which appellations it would appear that the Castle
was founded after the introduction of Christianity to Scotland. At a
subsequent period, the fortress was called _Castrum Puellarum_,
because, as some assert, the daughters of the Pictish chiefs received
“their education” in the Castle. It is beyond a question that a very
short period would have been sufficient for all the instruction
which the rude chieftains of the Picts were anxious to bestow on
the daughters; but the Castle answered a more needful purpose, by
protecting those high-born damsels from the indignities to which they
might have been subject in a residence of less strength, while their
fathers and brothers were despoiling neighbouring territories, and
making free with the families of conquered rivals. Some persons have
wished to ascribe a very remote origin to Edinburgh Castle; but it is
certain that a battle was fought on the site of the building by Arthur,
King of the Britons, towards the close of the Fifth Century.
The ground-plot of the fortress occupies about six acres. At the
western extremity is the outer barrier, which is formed of strong
palisadoes. Beyond this are a dry ditch, a drawbridge and a gate,
defended by two flanking batteries.
In the south-east quarter of the castle, state-prisoners were formerly
kept, and here, in an apartment called the _crown-room_ it is by
some pretended that the regalia of Scotland are still deposited. It is
well known that they were lodged here, with much formality on the 26th
of March, 1707.
Neither history nor tradition records any circumstance in which
Edinburgh Castle is conspicuous, till the year 1093. On the authority
of Fordun and Dalrymple, the following story concerning that period
is related:--when Malcolm Canmore was slain in battle, his widow,
Queen Margaret, took refuge in the Castle of Edinburgh, where she very
shortly died. “Donald Bane, uncle to Malcolm’s children, having usurped
the throne, now besieged the Castle in which the orphan-heir to the
crown resided. The usurper, presuming from the steepness of the rock
that Malcolm’s children could escape only at the gates, ordered them
alone to be guarded. But those in the garrison, knowing this, conveyed
the body of the Queen through a postern gate on the west side of the
Castle, to the church of Dunfermline, where it lies interred: and the
children escaping to England, where they were protected and educated by
their uncle, Edgar Atheling.”
After the murder of James I. at Perth, the son and successor of that
Monarch, who inherited the crown at the age of seven years, was
placed under the care of Crichton, the chancellor, while Sir Thomas
Livingstone was appointed regent. But a quarrel occurring between
the two great officers of state, James was detained, in splendid
confinement, at Edinburgh Castle, by Sir William Crichton. But the
Queen-Dowager, who favoured the opposite party, resolved to rescue
her son, and place him in the hands of the regent. In pursuit of this
purpose, she paid a visit to the youthful Sovereign, during which
she affected to display great friendship towards the chancellor,
and asserted an intention of never interfering in matters of state.
Crichton was deceived by these assurances, and readily granted the
Queen permission to remove certain articles from the Castle, which
would be wanted by her in the course of a pilgrimage to a church in
East Lothian, which she was on the point of undertaking. The effects
were conveyed from the Castle at an early hour of the morning, and
among them, concealed in a trunk, was removed the young King, who was
supposed to be asleep and secure in his chamber. A vessel was ready,
and he, the same night, reached Stirling, where he was received with
open arms by the triumphant Queen and regent.
But the fruit of the Queen’s ingenuity was soon wrested from her by the
superior address of the chancellor. Crichton knew that the King hunted
frequently in the woods near Stirling, and he watched an opportunity
during the absence of the regent, to conceal himself, and a determined
band, in the deep shade of a wood through which it was likely the King
would pass. James fell into the snare, and the chancellor, with many
protestations of respect, and much show of real courtesy, conducted him
to his former place of secluded residence.
The over-weening power and extreme insolence of the _Earl of
Douglas_ caused a reconciliation to take place, shortly after
this event, between the chancellor and the regent, who were mutually
apprehensive of the ill consequences of a division in the state, while
the ambitious Douglas was daily increasing in authority and turbulence.
Convinced of the inefficacy of the executive power to inflict justice
on the Earl, or to put a stop to his oppressive proceedings, the two
new co-adjutors resolved on proving the sincerity of their alliance, by
the assassination of their rival; and, for this purpose, the chancellor
decoyed him into the Castle. Lord Douglas was treated with so much
well-counterfeited respect that he felt assured of security, and
consented to share a banquet with the King and the two great officers
who ruled in the Monarch’s name. Here smiles and hilarity prevailed:
the regent flattered the pride of Douglas, and the chancellor pressed
his hand, with warm assurances of attachment. But, towards the
conclusion of the entertainment, _a bull’s head_ was set before
the unsuspicious guest. Douglas understood the fatal symbol, and sprang
from the table; but he was instantly surrounded by armed men, who
dragged him, in spite of the King’s tears and supplications, to the
outer court of the Castle, where he was murdered.
LAMBTON CASTLE
WILLIAM HOWITT
Lambton Castle is a perfect and expressive image of the feudalism
of the Nineteenth Century; of feudalism made easy, to the present
generation; of feudalism which has never ceased to exist, whatever
concussions shook the empire, or whatever spasms rocked the
constitution; which has for the greater part of a thousand years fought
its way, whether in steel jacket or in scarlet broadcloth, with spear
or with musket; which has never failed to hold its own, and to hand
down the huge domains which it won in England, under the banners of
William of Normandy. It is now polished indeed, but it is still strong;
it prides itself on its most ancient style of habitation, but over
and around that habitation it has poured the grace of modern art, and
filled it with all the amenities, the comforts, the softnesses, and
intellectual resources of a busy, scientific, refined, and luxurious
age. Such is the entire character of Lambton Castle. You see before
you, indeed, Gothic towers and battlements, but around them spread
lawns such only as England and the England of our day knows. You
approach it by roads not made for the hoofs of old war horses to
disturb, but for the wheels of gay chariots to roll over; and within
you find a glittering and sumptuous succession of books, paintings,
statues, marble pillars, gorgeous vases, soft carpets of richest
dyes and softer beds, curtained into silken privacy; and all the
nameless and numberless little articles and marks of taste, which, to
a true old castle-dweller, would form a wilderness of contemptible
baubles, and a heap of articles that he would never even wish to want.
[Illustration: LAMBTON CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
At the time that I visited Lambton Castle, its possessor was even then
seeking relief from indisposition in the south of England, and serious
fears were entertained that his life would not be long. That curious
old legend of Lambton, of which we shall have presently to speak,
seemed still, in the physical condition of the existing lord, to assert
that it was more than a superstition of the old times, but was founded
on an influence fatal to the longevity of the race. Though the period
of the spell was said to terminate in General Lambton, as the ninth
in descent from the slayer of the Worm, yet neither his son nor his
grandson has been longer lived, nor have they died at home.
It was not without a more sensible interest, that, reflecting on these
circumstances, I went through the grounds and the Castle of Lambton.
Here were all that nature and art could effect in combination to make a
noble abode for its possessor; but a mysterious fiat of destiny seemed
to be pronounced over the race, of short and embittered enjoyment of it.
The Wear here performs some of its most beautiful windings, for
which it is so remarkable, and its lofty banks hung with fine woods,
presented the most lovely views whichever way you looked. A new bridge
leads across the river, and a winding carriage-road conducts you by
an easy ascent through pleasant woodlands up to the Castle. You pass
under a light suspension bridge which leads from the Castle, along the
banks above the river, through the woods of great beauty, and where you
find the most pleasant solitudes, with varied views of the river and
sounds of its hurrying water. The Castle, in all its newness of aspect,
stands boldly on the height above the river, with beautiful green
slopes descending towards it. As you approach the Castle, and enter it,
everything impresses you with a sense of its strength, tastefulness,
and completeness. The compact and well-built walls of clam-stone; the
well-paved and well-finished courts; the numerous and complete offices;
the kitchens, furnished with every convenience and implement that
modern skill and ingenuity can bring together; all tell you that you
are in the abode of a man of the amplest resources. As you advance,
elegance and luxury are added to completeness; and you are surrounded
not by the rude and quaint objects of our old houses, but by the
rich requisites of present aristocratic existence. The snug boudoir,
the lord’s dressing-room, the bath, the library, the saloon, the
drawing-room, and all the various apartments of a noble modern house,
into which are sometimes crowded several hundred guests--we shall not
attempt to describe.
One of the most remarkable things about Lambton, is that Legend of the
Worm, and the popular ideas attached to it, to which we have already
alluded. The story of the Worm of Lambton cannot be better told than
in the words of Surtees: “The heir of Lambton, fishing, as was his
profane custom, in the Wear of a Sunday, hooked a small worm or eft,
which he carelessly threw into a well, and thought no more of the
adventure. The worm, at first neglected, grew till it was too large
for its first habitation, and issuing forth from the _Worm Well_,
betook itself to the Wear, where it usually lay a part of the day
coiled round a crag in the middle of the water; it also frequented a
green mound near the well, called thence ‘_The Worm Hill_,’ where
it lapped itself nine times round, leaving vermicular traces, of which,
grave living witnesses depose that they have seen the vestiges. It
now became the terror of the country; and, amongst other enormities,
levied a daily contribution of nine cows’ milk, which was always placed
for it at the green hill, and in default of which it devoured man and
beast. Young Lambton had, it seems, meanwhile, totally repented him
of his former life and conversation; had bathed himself in a bath of
holy water, taken the sign of the Cross, and joined the Crusaders. On
his return home he was extremely shocked at witnessing the effects of
his youthful imprudence, saw that the Worm must be at once destroyed,
and immediately undertook the adventure. After several fierce
combats, in which the crusader was foiled by his enemy’s _power of
self-union_, he found it expedient to add policy to courage, and
not, perhaps, possessing much of the former quality, he went to consult
a witch, or wise woman. By her judicious advice, he armed himself in
a coat of mail, studded with razor-blades, and thus prepared, placed
himself on the crag in the river, and awaited the monster’s arrival.
At the usual time, the Worm came to the rock, and wound himself with
great fury round the armed knight, who had the satisfaction to see his
enemy cut in pieces by his own efforts, while the stream washing away
the several parts prevented the possibility of re-union. There is still
a sequel to the story. The witch had promised Lambton success only on
one condition--that he would slay the first living thing which met his
sight after the victory. To avoid the possibility of human slaughter,
Lambton had directed his father, that as soon as he heard him sound
three blasts on his bugle, in token of the achievement performed, he
should release his favourite greyhound, which would immediately fly to
the sound of the horn, and was destined to be the sacrifice. On hearing
his son’s bugle, however, the old chief was so overjoyed that he forgot
his injunctions, and ran himself with open arms to meet his son.
Instead of committing a parricide, the conqueror again repaired to his
adviser, who pronounced, as the alternative of disobeying the original
instructions, that no chief of the Lambtons should die in his bed for
seven, or, as some accounts say, for nine generations--a commutation
which, to a martial spirit, had nothing probably very terrible, and
which was willingly complied with.”
Popular tradition assigns the chapel of Brigford as the spot where
Lambton offered up his vows before and after the adventure. In the
garden-house at Lambton are two figures of great antiquity. A knight,
in good style, armed cap-à-pie, the back however _not studded with
razor blades_, who holds the Worm by one ear with his left hand,
and with his right, thrusts his sword to the hilt down his throat; and
a lady, who wears a coronet, with bare breasts, etc., in the style
of Charles II.’s Beauties--a wound on whose bosom, and an accidental
mutilation of the hand, are said to be the work of the Worm. A real
good Andrea Ferrara, inscribed on the blade 1521, notwithstanding the
date, has also been pressed into the service, and is said to be the
identical weapon by which the Worm perished.
The scene of the Worm’s haunts, and the combat, is at a considerable
distance from the Castle; in fact, about a mile and a half from the
_old_ Lambton Hall, where the Lambtons then dwelt. It is on the
north bank of the Wear, in the estate of North Biddick, and now in
quite a populous location. The Worm Hill is a conspicuous conical mound
of considerable size, but having all the appearance of an ancient
barrow, or other artificial tumulus. It stands in a meadow just at
the backs of some houses, is perfectly green with grass; and now,
whatever it might do formerly, bears not the slightest trace of the
place where the worm coiled itself. It is about eighty yards from the
river, and the well lay twenty-six yards from the hill. Half a century
ago the Worm Well was in repute as a _Wishing Well_, and was one
of the scenes dedicated to the usual festivities and superstitions of
Midsummer Eve.
ARANJUEZ
EDMONDO DE AMICIS
In leaving Madrid by the southern route, you traverse an uninhabited
country that recalls the poorest provinces of Aragon and old Castile,
just as happened on your arrival by the northern. These are vast,
yellowish, and dried-up plains; you would say that if you beat upon it,
the earth would resound like an empty box, or crumble away like the
crust of a burnt tart; occasionally you see miserable villages, of the
same colour as the land, which look as if they would ignite like a heap
of dry leaves, if any one were to bring a match to the roof of one of
the houses. After an hour’s travel, my shoulder sought the side of the
carriage, my elbow a leaning-place, and I fell into a profound sleep,
like a member of Leopardi’s _Ateneo d’ Ascoltazione_.
I looked around me: the vast deserted plain was transformed as if by
enchantment into an immense garden full of delightful groves, crossed
in every direction by great avenues, dotted with little country houses
and rustic cabins covered with vines; and, here and there were tossing
fountains, shady nooks, flowery meadows, vineyards, little footpaths,
and a greenness, a freshness, an odour of spring, a breath of joy and
delight that wafted your soul to paradise. We had arrived at Aranjuez.
I left the train, threaded my way down a beautiful avenue shaded by
two rows of gigantic trees, and in an instant found myself opposite the
royal palace.
[Illustration: ARANJUEZ, SPAIN.]
Castelar, the minister, wrote recently in his _memorandum_ that
the fall of the ancient Spanish monarchy was foreseen on the day that
a herd of populace with abuse on their lips and anger in their hearts,
invaded the palace of Aranjuez to disturb the tranquil majesty of its
sovereigns. I was precisely on that spot, where, on March 17, 1808,
occurred the events that formed the prologue to the national war
and the first word of the sentence, as it were, that condemned the
ancient monarchy to death. I immediately looked for the windows of the
apartment of the Prince of Peace; I pictured him, fleeing from hall
to hall, pale and dishevelled, hunting for a hiding-place, amidst the
echoing cries of the multitude that mounted the stairway; I saw poor
Charles IV. place the crown on the head of the Prince of the Asturias
with trembling hands; all the scenes of that terrible drama passed
before my eyes; and the deep silence of this place and the sight of
that shut and abandoned palace chilled me to the heart.
The palace is built like a castle; it is of brick with corners of white
marble, and covered with a slate roof. Every one knows that Philip
II. had it built by the celebrated architect Herrera, and that nearly
all his successors embellished it, and lived there during the summer
season. I entered: the interior is splendid; there is a resplendent
hall for the reception of ambassadors, a beautiful Chinese cabinet of
Charles III., a superb dressing-room of Isabella II., and a profusion
of precious ornaments. But all the riches of the palace are not worth
the view of the gardens. Expectations are not deceived. The gardens
of Aranjuez (Aranjuez is the name of the little town situate a short
distance from the palace) seem to have been laid out for the family
of Titan Kings, to whom the parks and gardens of our Kings would have
appeared like terrace parterres and sheep-folds. Avenues, extending
as far as the eye can reach and bordered by trees of an inordinate
height uniting their branches and leaning towards us as if bent by
two contrary winds, in every direction cross a forest the boundaries
of which one cannot see; and through this forest the wide and rapid
Tagus describes a majestic curve, forming here and there cascades
and basins; a luxuriant and flourishing vegetation abounds amid a
labyrinth of little avenues and cross-roads; everywhere is seen the
whiteness of statues, fountains, columns and high jets of water that
fall in sheets and rain and spray on all the flowers known to Europe
and America; and to the majestic sound of the cascade of the Tagus is
joined the song of innumerable nightingales that pour their trills into
the mysterious shade of the lonely paths. Beyond the gardens, rises
a little marble palace, modest in appearance, which contains all the
marvels of the most magnificent royal residence, and where one still
breathes the atmosphere of the life of the Kings of Spain. Here are
the little secret chambers the ceilings of which may be touched by the
hand, the billiard-room of Charles IV., cushions embroidered by the
hands of queens, musical clocks that amused the idle children, little
stairways, tiny windows that preserve a hundred little traditions
of the caprice of princes: and, finally, the richest toilet-room in
Europe, due to a whim of Charles IV., and which contains in itself
so much wealth that one could draw enough from it to build a palace,
without depriving it of the noble pre-eminence it boasts above all
rooms appropriated to the same use.
Beyond this palace, and around the woodlands, extend vineyards,
olive-trees, plantations of fruit-trees and smiling meadows. It is a
veritable oasis surrounded by a desert which Philip II. chose in a day
of good humour, as if to alleviate the black melancholy of the Escurial
with a gay picture. On returning from the little marble palace to the
great palace of the Escurial down these long avenues, beneath the shade
of these large trees, in this profound peace of the forest, I thought
of the splendid pageants of ladies and cavaliers that formerly followed
the steps of the gay young monarchs and capricious and unrestrained
queens to the sound of love-songs and hymns, celebrating the grandeur
and the glory of unvanquished Spain, and I repeated sadly with the poet
of Recanati:
“... All is peace and silence,
And one speaks no longer of them....”
GLAMIS CASTLE
LADY GLAMIS
To the lover of Shakespeare, the name of Glammis (as it was sometimes
spelt) will recall the act of treachery and murder which tradition
gives as having taken place there, when King Duncan was done to death
by the hand or at the instigation of the ambitious and unscrupulous
Lady Macbeth; although there is no possibility of proving or testing
the truth as to the details or locality of the tragedy.
To the antiquarian, the Castle must be of immense interest on account
of the great age of the central portion, or keep, which is known to
have been standing in 1016, but “whose birth tradition notes not”;
while to the romantic and superstitious it is associated as a place
where ghosts and spirits moving silently down winding stairs and dark
passages are wont to make night fearsome. This feeling of eeriness is
not confined to the naturally nervous, for Sir Walter Scott, who spent
a night at Glamis in 1794, writes:
“After a very hospitable reception, ... I was conducted to my apartment
in a distant part of the building. I must own that when I heard door
after door shut, after my conductor had retired, I began to consider
myself too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead.”
[Illustration: GLAMIS CASTLE, SCOTLAND.]
Additional interest attaches to this castle from the fact that its
venerable walls enshroud a _mysterious something_, which has for
centuries baffled the curiosity and investigations of all unauthorized
persons; this secret is known only to three people--the Earl of the
time being, his eldest son, and one other individual, whom they think
worthy of their confidence.
Most people have theories upon this subject, and many ridiculous
stories are told; but so carefully has the mystery been guarded, that
no suspicion of the truth has ever come to light. One version of the
story is as follows: Several centuries ago the Lord Glamis of the time
was entertaining the head of another noble family then resident in
Angus; and in the course of the evening they commenced to play cards.
It was Saturday night, and so intent were they on wagering lands and
money on the issue of the game, that they did not recognize the fact
that Sunday morning was approaching until an old retainer ventured to
remind them of the hour. Whereupon one of the gamblers swore a great
oath, with the tacit approval of the other, that they did not care what
day it might be, but they would finish their game at any cost, even if
they went on playing till Doomsday! It had struck midnight ere he had
finished his sentence, when there suddenly appeared a stranger dressed
in black, who politely informed their lordships that he would take them
at their word, and vanished.
The story goes on to aver that annually on that night three noblemen,
or their spirits, meet and play cards in the _secret room_ of the
Castle, and that this will go on till Doomsday. In corroboration of
this story, it is said that on a certain night in the autumn of every
year, loud noises are heard, and some of the casements of the Castle
are blown open.
Glamis Castle stands in the centre of the vale of Strathmore, in a
picturesque and well-wooded part of Forfarshire; the heather-clad
sides of the Sidlaws, which divide Strathmore from the sea, rising to
the south, while away to the north tower the Grampians, which form a
magnificent background to the ancient pile of buildings, whose turrets
rise some hundred and fifteen feet above the level of the ground.
The poet, Gray, in a letter, describes the exterior of the castle in
the following words:
“The house, from the height of it, the greatness of its mass, the many
towers atop, and the spread of its wings, has really a very singular
and striking appearance, like nothing I ever saw.”
The oldest portions of the Castle are formed of huge irregular blocks
of old red sandstone, which time and weather have mellowed into a
beautiful grey, pink colour. The walls in many places are sixteen
feet thick, which in the olden days had the essential recommendation
of great security, and also of allowing space for secret rooms and
passages as means of escape in times of peril; and as a matter of
fact, two secret staircases have been discovered within the last
five-and-twenty years, and possibly there are others which still remain
forgotten and unused.
The narrow windows appear at irregular heights and distances in the
central building or keep and left wing (the right wing having been
burnt down and rebuilt early in 1800, is not so interesting), but the
great staircase added by Patrick, Lord Glamis, in 1605, is very fine,
occupying a circular tower, the space for which has been partly dug
out of the old walls of the keep, and rises to the third story. This
staircase (the designing for which has been attributed to Inigo Jones)
is spiral, with a hollow newel in the centre, and is composed of stone
to the summit. It consists of 143 steps, 6 feet 10 inches in width,
each of _one_ stone.
The staircases, which were in use before 1600, are very narrow, dark,
and some of them winding, the steps steep and irregular in height, worn
into hollows by the many feet that for centuries climbed them. Up two
flights of these dimly lit, uneven stairs, the wounded king, Malcolm
II., after having been treacherously attacked and mortally wounded
by Kenneth V. and his adherents on the Hunter’s Hill, about a mile
from the Castle, was carried by his followers to die in the chamber
that still bears the name of King Malcolm’s room. This murder of King
Malcolm is the first authentic event mentioned by the chroniclers in
connection with Glamis.
In the time of King Malcolm, Glamis was a royal residence, and remained
so till 1372, when Sir John Lyon, “a young man of very good parts
and qualities, and of a very graceful and comely person, and a great
favourite with the king” (Robert II.), was made Lord High Chamberlain
of Scotland. At that time the king’s daughter, the Princess Jean,
fell in love with this young knight, and was given him in marriage
together with the lands of the thanedom of Glamis, “_pro laudabili
et fideli servitio et continuis laboribus_,” as the charter bears
witness, March 18, 1372. Ten years later Sir John fell in a duel with
Sir James Lindsay of Crawford, and was buried at Scone among the kings
of Scotland. He left one son, from whom the present family of Lyon have
descended without a break from _father to son_ to the present day.
Fifty years later, Sir Patrick Lyon (Sir John’s grandson), who was one
of the hostages to the English for the ransom of James I. from 1424 to
1427, was created Baron Glamis, and appointed Master of the Household
to the King of Scotland. For the next hundred years nothing of interest
occurred till John, sixth Lord Glamis, married the beautiful Janet
Douglas, granddaughter of the great Earl of Angus (Bell-the-Cat), and
died in 1528. Lady Glamis married, secondly, Archibald Campbell, of
Kepneith, whose relative, another Campbell, fell in love with her.
Finding, however, that his addresses were but ill received by this
lady, who was as good as she was lovely, his love turned to hate, and
he revenged himself by informing the authorities that Lady Glamis, her
son, Lord Glamis, and John Lyon, his relative, were conspiring against
the life of the king, James V., by poison or witchcraft. They were
tried for high treason, and wrongfully convicted! Lady Glamis and her
young son were both sentenced to be _burned_, and the estate of
Glamis was forfeited and annexed to the Crown by Act of Parliament,
December 3d, 1540. However, these brutal judges, on account of the
extreme youth of Lord Glamis, feared to bring him to execution, so the
boy was kept in prison, with the death sentence hanging over him, while
the beautiful Lady Glamis was dragged forth and burned at the stake on
the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, July 17th, 1537. Those were days when
acts of violence and cruelty were regarded with an indifference that
we cannot now realize, although when she stood up in her beauty to
undergo this fearful sentence, it is recorded that all heads were bowed
in sorrowful sympathy. When this infamous execution was accomplished,
remorse seems to have come over Campbell, who was visited by visions of
his victim looking at him with sad, reproachful eyes. When, some years
later, his death was drawing nigh, he confessed that his evidence at
the trial was altogether false. Lord Glamis was therefore released from
prison, and his estates and honours restored.
To return to the Castle. The exterior is much ornamented with ancient
armorial bearings in carved stone, while a round niche over the
front door contains a bust of Earl Patrick. The principal entrance
is a striking feature. The doorway is small and low, and a stout
iron-clenched oaken door, thickly studded with nails, is guarded on
the inside by a heavily grated iron gate, which opens right on to
the staircase. A flight of steps to the right of the entrance leads
down to the dungeons, vaults, and the old well (now filled up) which
supplied the inmates with water in times of siege; while another stair
to the left leads up to the Retainers’ Hall (or Crypt as it is now
called), low, and fifty feet in length, with walls and arched roof
entirely composed of stone. Of the seven windows, which are small, four
or five are cut out of the thickness of the walls, and make recesses
just large enough to form small rooms, which might have been used as
sleeping chambers in old days. Lay figures, clad in complete armour,
stand in the recesses, which, especially in the dusk, give an eerie
effect to this part of the Castle. It is said that a ghostly man in
armour walks this floor at night--possibly the original of one of those
armoured figures standing silently in the crypt year after year, who
may, perchance, have ended his life in the dungeon that lies exactly
underneath.
CHÂTEAU DE CHINON
J. J. BOURRASSÉE
To the traveller who arrives at Chinon from the south or west, the
aspect of the old castle is imposing. What an effect it must have
produced at the period of its full splendour! Originally it was a
fortress situated on an eminence commanding the course of the Vienne
and the fertile plain of Veron. It might be regarded as the key of
lower Touraine. Therefore we see the Romans, the Visigoths, the Franks,
and, later, the Counts of Anjou and Touraine, the Kings of England and
France sparing no efforts to secure its possession. In 462, Frederic,
brother of Theodoric King of the Visigoths, having advanced as far as
the banks of the Loire, seized the Castle of Chinon: up to that time
the Romans had occupied it, and by its favourable position it had
become the last citadel of their power in this part of Gaul. Ægidius
Afranius, the Roman governor of Gaul, hastened into Touraine to recover
Chinon; but he could not do it by force of arms. Despairing of carrying
the place of assault, the Romans blockaded it. The defenders were at
the last extremity from lack of water when a violent storm poured
abundant rain within the ramparts. The Romans raised the siege and the
Visigoths remained masters of the castle until the defeat of Alaric in
the plains of Vouille. The conquering Clovis understood the importance
of this military post and made it one of the ramparts of his kingdom.
The Frankish princes installed themselves there so well that no foe
ever thought of disputing its possession with them. The Carlovingians
were still its masters when feudalism transformed to the profit of the
great barons the precarious title that they held by the confidence of
the sovereign. Thibault the Trickster had Touraine as his share in this
vast parcelling out of France. He had the Castle of Chinon repaired and
often resided there, as in an impregnable fortress. Thibault’s lot in
the partition of the territory was not in the least an agreeable one,
for he had to defend it against the envy of his neighbors. Touraine
for about a century was a prey over which rival powers fought. In
the end it remained with the strongest. The Count of Anjou became
completely master of it after the battle of Nouy, fought on the heights
of Montlouis in 1044. Even in the bosom of this powerful house there
were quarrels over the possession of the Castle of Chinon. An unequal
partition between Geoffroy le Barbu and Foulques le Rechin led to war
between those two brothers. Abandoned and betrayed by his followers,
Geoffroy was made prisoner and cast into the cells of the Castle of
Chinon, where he remained closely immured for the space of eighteen
years with such rigour that he almost lost his reason. Nothing less
than the intervention of Pope Urban II. in 1096 was required to have
him set at liberty.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE CHINON, FRANCE.]
Thanks to a marriage, the house of Anjou mounted the throne of
England and Chinon became a royal possession. Henry Plantagenet,
great-grandson of Foulques le Rechin, brings this fine residence into
new relief. Henry II. made it his favourite manor. He made it the
seat of a royally privileged domain, comprising Cande, Champigny,
La Haye, L’Île Bouchard, Saint Epain, Sainte Maure, Azay le Rideau
and Bourgueil. Henry II. added to the Castle of Chinon a fortress
distinct from the other buildings, with its own ramparts, moats, gates,
drawbridges, buildings for the accommodation of the King, his court
and his archers, and its church dedicated to St. George. From his
donjon keep, the King of England ceaselessly laboured to increase his
territory and his influence on the Continent. By means of his marriage
with Eleanor of Guienne, repudiated by King Louis VII., he had become
more powerful than his sovereign. It seems as if nothing could stay the
course of such success, were it not for discord in his own family. At
war with Philip Augustus, and with his own son the famous Richard Cœur
de Lion, the King of England retired to Chinon. Necessity compelled
him to sign with the King of France the humiliating peace of Azay sur
Cher. “Shame!” he cried, “shame to the vanquished king! Cursed be the
day I was born! Curses upon my two sons!” This fit of fury sent him to
the tomb, July 6, 1189. He was carried without pomp to the Abbey of
Fontévrault, near Chinon, where he had desired to be buried.
Ten years later, another train took the same road: it was that of
Richard Cœur de Lion. Being mortally wounded at the siege of Chaluz,
that prince caused himself to be taken to Chinon, where he quickly
succumbed in cruel agony. He was buried beside Henry II. in the Abbey
of Fontévrault, that celebrated house that has had as abbess fourteen
princesses of the royal blood, and that had deserved the name of
_King’s Cemetery_. In an obscure corner are still to be seen the
admirable statues of the counts of Anjou, masterpieces of the statuary
at the close of the Twelfth Century.
At that time, nothing presaged that the Castle of Chinon was to leave
the hands of the Kings of England, when suddenly a protracted cry of
horror and indignation resounded through the world. John Lackland had
just got rid of his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by a cowardly murder
at Rouen. Philip Augustus summoned the murderer to appear before the
court of the peers of the realm. After several adjournments regularly
notified, the criminal, not having presented himself, was condemned to
lose the fiefs held from the French crown. The sentence was easy to
deliver, but not so easy to execute. The King of France hastened to
Touraine at the head of an army and took possession of Tours, Loches
and Chinon.
It must be admitted that the Castle of Chinon was valiantly defended;
it was carried by assault after an obstinate struggle in 1205. Philip
Augustus gave it a good garrison. After that day, the English never
set foot in it; and when during our intestine discord they profited by
treason and dominated many of our provinces, the Castle of Chinon was
the last refuge of the monarchy. From there were struck all the blows
that gave France back her independence.
Feudalism had greatly lessened the royal power. Noble efforts had
been made to restore the authority that the king ought never to have
lost. These attempts had produced memorable results; but the great
feudatories were discontented. They wanted to profit by the minority
of Louis IX. and the regency of a woman to recover the power that had
escaped them. Events called St. Louis and Queen Blanche to Chinon. The
young king held a parliament of twenty days at the castle gates. The
rebel lords refused to attend, but their plans were rendered abortive,
thanks to the activity of Blanche of Castile.
Philip Augustus had partly rebuilt the Castle of Chinon: the Thirteenth
Century work is easily visible amid the later constructions. Under the
reign of St. Louis, further works to render this fortress as a whole
more formidable were executed.
In 1308, a great bustle was manifest in the Castle and town of Chinon:
Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Order of the Templars, Hughes de
Péraldo, Visitor of France, and the Commanders of Cyprus, Aquitaine and
Normandy had just been brought in. Other Knights of the same Order had
already been confined there. They were all to be taken to Poictiers
where were Pope Clement V. and Philippe le Bel, King of France; but
several of them had fallen ill on the road, so the sovereign pontiff
deputed three cardinals to proceed with the investigation at Chinon.
Every one knows the result of these grave proceedings: the Order of the
Templars was suppressed, and those who were prisoners at Chinon only
left their cells to go to the stake at Paris. They had confessed their
crimes in the question to which they had been put; but most of them
retracted amidst the flames. This frightful execution took place in
1313.
Towards the end of the Fourteenth Century, Charles VI. ceded the duchy
of Touraine and the county of Chinon to his brother Louis, Duke of
Orleans, who was afterwards assassinated by order of John the Fearless,
Duke of Burgundy. This period recalls the most mournful memories of our
history. Our land was ravaged by bands of English, skilful to profit by
our dissensions. At last the hour of deliverance has arrived. France
will now see more prosperous days; and Charles VII., the Victorious,
will stretch his sceptre over the territory formerly subject to his
ancestor.
Charles VII. established his court at Chinon. Joan of Arc came to see
him there and to inaugurate her extraordinary mission beneath the
castle arches. Everybody knows the details of the heroine’s arrival
at Chinon: how she recognized the disguised king in the midst of his
courtiers, revealed a secret known only to himself and God, showed
herself full of confidence in the cause that she was to make triumphant
and finally succeeded in inspiring the hearts of others with the
enthusiasm that overflowed her own.
Thus the first public deeds of the providential mission of Joan of
Arc are connected with Chinon. At this moment, Charles VII. had by
his side another woman of generous heart and strong spirit: this was
the queen, Marie of Anjou. Her influence was greater than historians
have recognized; it was much more salutary and efficacious than that
of Agnes Sorel. When the latter appeared at Chinon for the first time
before the eyes of Charles VII., it was already six months since
Joan of Arc had gone to the stake at Rouen. Is not that enough for
us to say that France had already been saved and that the advice and
remonstrances of Agnes Sorel came too late?
However that may be, the presence of Agnes Sorel at the court of Chinon
was insupportable to the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. He even made
it a pretext for a conspiracy against his father. These designs of an
unnatural son did not succeed, but they poisoned the King’s last years.
In 1461, Charles VII. died at Mehun sur Yèvre, and Louis XI. succeeded
to the throne. Louis XI. took up his abode by preference at the Castle
of Plessis-lez-Tours: he often came to Chinon. It was in the environs
of that town, at the Castle of Forges, that he felt the first attack
of the malady that carried him off. Philippe de Commines, Seigneur
d’Argenton, governor of the Castle of Chinon, informs us how this
accident, which was nothing less than an attack of apoplexy, came upon
him.
In the very year of the death of Louis XI. a famous personage in
buffoon literature was born at Chinon. François Rabelais is the most
cynical of writers, and if, as some people assert, he tried to hide his
philosophy beneath the masque of folly, it must be acknowledged that he
succeeded.
After the reign of Louis XI., the Castle of Chinon was very little
frequented by the court. Catherine de’Medici was there in 1560, and
the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henri III. appeared there at the head
of his army, marching against the Reformers, who were to be so rudely
chastised in the plains of Montoncour.
In 1629, the Princess de Conti, who possessed Chinon by virtue of an
exchange of property with Henry of Lorraine, Duke of Chevreuse, sold
the castle with all its dependencies to Cardinal Richelieu. The sale
gave the signal, so to speak, for the demolition of the royal castle of
the Plantagenets and French monarchs. When the Revolution, that piled
up so many ruins arrived, it found nothing more to do here.
The remains of the old manor are still gigantic. Those high walls,
dismantled curtains, crenellated masonry, and discrowned turrets
harbour glorious memories; but it is not always easy to distinguish
what belongs to each century, or clearly to discern the work of
the Romans or the Visigoths, of Thibault the Trickster, Henry II.,
Philip Augustus, Charles VII., or Louis XI. The greater part of these
ruins, however, is characteristic of the Fifteenth Century. Scarcely
anything remains intact except the belfry tower, now called the _Tour
de l’Horloge_, twenty to twenty-five meters in height. These
picturesque ruins belong to the town of Chinon, having been left to it
by the house of Richelieu.
THE SUMMER PALACE
MAURICE PALÉOLOGUE
THE last time that I saw the Imperial Palace of Pekin was on a morning
in the last of April. The air was fresh and limpid, and the vault of
heaven seemed to have lifted itself to a prodigious height. It was
not that somewhat misty atmosphere of spring in France, which seems
impregnated with damp and vegetable odours, and which bathes the
unstable outlines of objects; neither was it that tenuous light of
those mornings in the East that overspreads the distances, envelops
objects, and defines their planes. It was a very dry air, for five
months had passed since a drop of rain had fallen, with an almost
brutal clearness which seemed to bring the horizon nearer and which
harshly exhibited the forms of the buildings and the lines of the
landscape.
I went out very early, and the windings of my course took me to the
Imperial City, one of the three cities that compose the capital of the
Middle Kingdom. The streets differed in appearance from those of the
quarters I had just traversed, the shops became rarer, the roadways
wider, and the temples and palaces closer together. But at this early
hour there was still greater animation here, and a crowd of horsemen,
pedestrians, and carriages made passage difficult.
I was about to turn in order to return to the French Legation, when
a cart, peculiarly constructed upon two wheels placed almost at the
back, and escorted by two horsemen, made my horse stand aside; it was
a Tartar carriage from the court stables: a black mule harnessed with
yellow leather and led by a groom, also in yellow livery, drew it along
with great strides.
In front, visible between the open curtains, a young woman was seated
with her legs crossed beneath her. She was clothed in a large mantle of
salmon-pink silk bordered with blue and gold lace and ornamented down
the front and on the sleeves with clusters of flowers embroidered with
very delicate brilliancy and delicious harmony of colour. This vestment
almost entirely covered her gown of a pale and dead green that fell in
folds about her.
Her hair, gathered up on the top of her head, was divided in two thick
folds, crossed here and there by long pins of gold, surmounted by
butterflies of silver filagree, and artificial flowers of the strangest
forms and hues. Also, as is customary among ladies of quality, her
face was entirely painted with ceruse; but the cheeks and the dimple
of the chin and the lips were coated with a thick layer of carmine,
while a line of antimony immoderately lengthened her eyes out towards
the temples, and two black _mouches_ stuck near the cheek-bone,
gave a peculiar appearance, a sort of air of morbid coquetry, to this
depressing face in which life seemed to have been extinguished.
[Illustration: THE SUMMER PALACE, CHINA.]
She held herself in a paralyzed immobility, with a hebetated fixity of
gaze and a doubtful glimmer of intelligence, oscillating like a waxen
puppet or an idol in a procession, at each jolt of the carriage. She
was, doubtless, judging from the livery of the driver and the escorting
horsemen, a young Tartar lady of the court, one of the Empress’s maids
of honour, or one of the imperial princesses shut up in the Palace.
I set out to follow her at a distance. Her chariot ascended the
inclined plane of a bridge, the flooring of which was of marble; the
balustrade, also of marble, supported some sculptured dragons.
Beneath the arches, the waters of a lake glittered. The light of the
sun, still near the horizon, barely touched the liquid surface but
spread its brilliancy everywhere else. In certain spots, lotus flowers
blossomed and made the lake look like a meadow floating upon the clear
and sleeping waters. It was the “Golden Lake,” a dependency of the
Imperial Palace, whose high walls and golden roofs could be seen in the
background.
Light buildings, such as kiosks and temples, reached to the shore. The
vast number of these roofs assumed rosy hues and the slightest details
of their complicated architecture stood out clearly, looking in the
liquid air that enveloped them, elegant, graceful and fresh amid the
apricot trees and blossoming mimosas that covered the banks.
North China was, in fact, just emerging from her long winter’s
mourning, and the impression given by that spring-tide picture of
earth’s new awakening was exquisite.
The Tartar chariot continued to advance with the rapid steps of its
mule: it was now passing at the foot of an artificial hill, planted
with green trees, at the summit of which rose a Buddhist obelisk that
stood out almost harshly against the blue of the sky.
But along the shore of the lake, the tints had already become deeper,
and the lines less sharp. The kiosks, the pavilions, and the temples
that rose upon the banks exhibited the original type of Chinese
buildings, a canvas tent with turned up corners. The extreme profusion
of ornamental details did not succeed in hiding the poverty of the
original conception: dragons, chimeras, phœnixes, and tortoises, an
entire fabulous and fantastic zoology of sculptured wood or terra
cotta, surcharged the ridge-poles; figurines and painted flowers of
clay weighed down the cornices, the larmiers, and the pediments; gaudy
colors made a motley mixture upon the capitals of the columns and the
architraves; but beneath this bristling and unrestrained decoration,
you always found the absolute and invariable type that China has
uniformly adopted at every epoch of her history and throughout her
entire empire.
However, I had by this time arrived at the fortified enclosure of the
palace. High above me a rampart reared itself, thirty feet high and
surrounded by a wide moat. At regular intervals, towers with turned-up
roofs jutted out over this line of stone which extended so far that it
seemed to shut in an entire city. A few trees had crossed the sloping
wall, and the shadows of their branches spread over the dark and
stagnant waters of the moat.
A large gateway, surmounted by an enormous square tower, gave access to
the interior of the palace, and three gigantic black letters engraved
upon a golden panel at the summit of the tower seemed a mysterious
inscription placed at the threshold of an unknown world.
And at the moment when the Tartar carriage became engulfed under the
arch and was lost in the Imperial enclosure, I experienced still more
powerfully the impression that I had received three years before in
Morocco in front of the palace of the Sultan Moulay-Hassan. There also,
in the old city of Islam shining in the sunlight, I had felt myself
transported into the midst of a new world, but I saw the barriers
broken down, I was able to pass through the great pointed doorways of
Dar-el-Mechouar, and the Court of the Scherifs was opened before me, as
a scene of fairy-land or dreamland unfolds in a dazzling brilliancy of
light and colour.
Here, on the contrary, everything remained closed and impenetrable.
However, the topography of the palace was not entirely unknown to me;
I had already studied the plan made by the Jesuit missionaries who
visited it in the Eighteenth Century, and, indeed, from the heights
of the ramparts of the Tartar village, I had been able to recognize
the general arrangement and distinguish the regular succession of its
rectangular courtyards and gardens containing forty-eight enormous
palaces and about the same number of pavilions, kiosks, arches and
gateways.
Only the tops of the principal buildings rose above the surrounding
wall and into the clumps of verdure. Very far away, in the south, near
the “Gate of Eternal Purity,” I perceived the temple of the ancestors
of the dynasty of Ta-Thsing now reigning, where the Emperor comes at
stated dates to accomplish the sacred rites of the official cult.
Then nearer, three buildings, taller than the rest, stood in a row, and
the sculptured dragons on the ridge-poles and the glazed tiles on the
roofs were resplendent in the sunlight: these were the three palaces
of the “Sovereign Concord, Medium Concord, and Protective Concord,”
where the Sovereign attends to the affairs of state and traces with
his vermilion-steeped pencil the characters that express his decisions
and that are laws venerated as the figured and material form of the
Imperial will. There, every morning at two o’clock, the Emperor
presides at the Grand Council of the Middle Kingdom; five ministers
only have access to it. There, no matter what their age or fatigue,
they must remain standing the whole time, or bow their foreheads to the
ground when, from his throne, a stage of gilded wood raised six feet
above the floor, the Son of Heaven addresses them. During the minority
of the sovereigns, as is the case with the present Emperor, the Empress
Regent is present also in the council, but she is not considered as
there, and a screen of yellow silk hides her from all eyes.
Then I saw a confused mass of houses of imperial princes, Manchus,
chamberlains, daughters of Emperors married to Mongol princes and
immured in the palace until their death, wives of the second degree and
concubines of the deceased sovereigns, ladies of honour, mistresses
of ceremonies, and eunuchs, an entire population, a wisely arranged
hierarchy amounting to more than eight thousand persons. Towards the
east, in the dazzling sunlight, appeared also the barracks of the three
banners of the guard, the treasury, the shops of porcelain, silver,
and silk, ornaments, garments, tea, religious objects destined for the
Son of Heaven, and manufactories where things are prepared for his
exclusive use; the armoury, the stables, the Imperial library where
the oldest annals of the world are kept, the “Pavilion of the Literary
Flowers,” whither the Emperor repairs in the second moon of the year
to interpret the sacred books; and the temple of the Tchouan-sin-tien
where the sacrifices to the memory of Confucius and the great
philosophers are performed.
Finally, very near me, behind the gardens that ran along the length
of the wall of the enclosure, I caught a glimpse of the “Palace of
the Superior Terrestrial Element,” which recalled the memory of that
unfortunate Empress Aluteh, who died in 1875 at the age of eighteen.
She was the daughter of a Manchu prince. When very young, barely
fifteen years, a decree proclaiming her for the Emperor tossed her
brusquely into the Court of Pekin from her province in Tartary, and
shut her up in the palace which she was to leave only with her life. On
November 16, 1872, at midnight, she entered in bridal toilette through
the “Gate of Celestial Purity”: she wore a robe of red silk embroidered
with dragon and phœnix, a large scarlet veil enveloped her from head to
foot. Three years later she went out dead through the “Flowered Gate
of the East”: she had killed herself on learning of the death of her
husband, the Emperor Tong-Tche: an unusual luxury was lavished upon
her funeral procession, and embroideries of pale blue silk upon white
satin embossed with gold covered her coffin.
However, the hour was advancing; the meeting of the Council was over;
the couriers of state were departing for the provinces; the great
mandarins came out of the palace, and after making interminable bows,
got into their chariots, and I returned to the French Legation.
BERKELEY CASTLE
ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN
For sylvan beauty and pastoral loveliness there is no fairer
countryside in all England than the broad domains of which the old
feudal stronghold of the Berkeleys is the centre. A mile to the
westward, the Severn’s broad flood sweeps slowly to the Bristol
Channel, only twenty miles away. Five miles or so to the eastward,
the last spurs of the Cotswold Hills sink to the level of the plain.
There is Stinchcomb Hill with its flat bare top dotted with the white
tents of its summer camp. Beautiful Dursley lies in a neighbouring
hollow. Nibley Knoll, where begin the beeches of Westridge Woods,
amid which are the earthworks of a Roman or Saxon fort, can be easily
distinguished by the column by Teulon that rises about one hundred feet
to commemorate the part William Tyndale took in the Reformation. The
little valleys running into these hills (locally called _bottoms_)
hear the call of spring long before the uplands, and along the margins
of their streams the snowdrops wake to nod graciously at their
reflected beauty; and then, before the Westridge Woods are clothed in
green, among the shielding trunks the primrose spreads a cloth of gold
above the last year’s leaves.
This whole district is thronged with historic memories; many a Norman
cross and church lies within a circuit of twelve miles’ radius.
Tortworth Court is close at hand. A few miles down across the river,
stands mighty Chepstow with the Wye washing her ruined walls; but
Berkeley is still intact and inhabited after seven centuries’ assault
by Time and civil strife. This is what renders Berkeley so remarkable
among English castles: it retains its ancient shell, and it has always
been owned and inhabited by a lineal descendant of the original owner
and builder.
The “Faire Vale of Berkeley” was always famous for its beauty and
fertility. William of Malmesbury describes it as “rich in corn,
productive in fruits ... enticing even the lazy to industry by the
prospect of a hundredfold return.... Neither has any county in England
more numerous or richer vineyards ... the wine is but little inferior
to that of France in sweetness.” The vineyards have long disappeared,
and the only vines now seen are those that beautify the walls and frame
the latticed casements of the cottages.
In Domesday Book, Berkeley appears as a royal demesne and borough: one
of the trees mentioned as a boundary of the hundred is still pointed
out in the Deer Park, and known as King William’s Oak. The Conqueror
gave the manor to Roger de Berkeley who erected the Keep about 1093. At
first this was only a military hold to keep the neighbourhood in check,
but buildings were gradually added till the castle assumed its present
form and the lord took up his residence here under Cœur de Lion, a
century later.
[Illustration: BERKELEY CASTLE, ENGLAND.]
Situated on a little rise, its strong battlements and towers look
across the tops of the beautiful trees that now shade its useless
moat, and the visitor enjoys a lovely view in every direction. Situated
midway between Gloucester and Bristol, the baron, predatory doubtless
as was the custom of the age, was in a fine position to levy toll
on merchant caravans that must pass through the vale. The form of
the castle is that of an irregular circle. The drawbridge leads to a
portcullised gateway in massive walls between two hexagonal towers. The
donjon is a square tower with turrets at the angles, built on higher
ground than the other constructions to dominate the rest of the castle.
It was erected in 1342. It is called Thorpe’s tower after the family
who held lands in tenure from the lord in return for acting as its
warders. The strong keep also still stands and shows the warder’s walk
fifty-eight feet in length, in perfect preservation. The dimensions of
the great hall are forty-eight by thirty-three feet. Its great chimney
is adorned with mediæval armour and antlers. The ancient kitchen and
other offices still exist, and so does the chapel with its Decorated
style of architecture. The sacrarium is of special interest since it is
divided into two floors, each with a separate entrance and fireplace,
the lower for the use of the retainers and the upper, or Oriel, for the
family and guests. The living-rooms contain many pictures by famous
masters, and some historic furniture. Among the latter, are some ebony
chairs and a table that Drake brought home from the Spanish Main.
Rich as the castle is in antiquarian remains, however, the interest
of these walls is multiplied a hundredfold by their historical
associations. When we take our stand on the summit of the Donjon and
look around and below us, what memories are evoked! When we recall
the history of the family, we cannot but marvel that the ancient line
is still in possession; for a turbulent race were the Berkeleys, and
often arrayed against the Crown. Roger de Berkeley joined Stephen
against the granddaughter of his father’s benefactor, and therefore
Henry Fitz-Empress confiscated his fief, and conferred it upon Robert
Fitz-Harding, Governor of Bristol, of royal Danish descent, at the
same time making him a baron. The latter’s son, however, married
Roger’s heiress, and thus the Berkeleys were restored in their son
Maurice. Robert, the son of the latter, joined the barons against John,
who seized the castle, and was there in the last year of his reign.
However, Robert’s brother Thomas managed to get it restored, in 1233,
by Henry III. Maurice, the son of Thomas, was in rebellion with Simon
de Montfort twenty-five years later, and, as a result, Berkeley was
again confiscated. His son Thomas served Edward I., the “Hammer of the
Scots,” so well in the North that he got back his ancestral honours
and domains and was summoned to Parliament as Baron Berkeley in 1295.
This lord and his son and grandson were rich and powerful, and all the
beautiful “Edwardian” stone-work is of this period. Much of the older
work was cleared away for the new buildings of the loveliest style of
English Gothic. But what a deed of violence was perpetrated in the
narrow chamber in the adjoining building below us! We have reached the
dark memory that above all else enshrouds Berkeley. The effeminate king
who lost Bannockburn and handed over the reins of government to the
unworthy Gaveston and De Spencers, decimating the English baronage at
their behests, and revelling in Oriental vice and ferocity, finally
succumbed to his wife and her paramour at Kenilworth early in 1327.
The Lord of Berkeley now was Thomas, the grandson of the favourite of
Edward I. To him and to two knights named John Maltravers and Thomas
de Gournay was entrusted the custody of the dethroned Edward II. The
two latter removed their captive secretly and treated him with every
indignity: they crowned him with a crown of hay and shaved him with
ditch-water along the way. A circumstantial account tells how he said
therefore he would supply his own hot water with tears! On Palm Sunday,
Baron Thomas received him kindly and treated him with consideration,
whereupon he received a reprimand from Queen Isabel, bidding him
“use no familiarity with Edward, the late king;” and so, fearing for
himself, he “departed with heavy cheere, perceiving what violence was
intended.” Lovely as was the view from his window, the long summer from
April to September brought no joy to the prisoner. The _Berkeley
MS._ says that “this poor, foolish king did nothing but lament for
his wife, singing love-songs in a low voice and grieving that she would
neither see him nor permit his son or any of his relatives to come near
him. The Queen was afraid that the Church would compel her to live
with him again, and therefore urged his death.” At first, his keepers
tried to ruin his health by piling putrid carcases in the pit below his
chamber; then they kept him half-starved and half-clad. Yet the Queen
reproved them for excessive clemency! Marlowe quotes the historian in
noble verse when Edward complains:
“In mire and puddle I have stood
This ten days’ space; and, lest that I should sleep,
One plays continually upon a drum.
They give me bread and water, being a king,
So that, for want of sleep and sustenance,
My mind’s distempered and my body’s numbed....
O, would my blood dropped out from every vein,
As doth this water from my tattered robes.
Tell Isabel, the queen, I looked not thus,
When for her sake I ran at tilt in France,
And there unhorsed the Duke of Cleremont!”
The night of September 22nd heard the shrieks of the tortured king:
that they reached the ears of people in the town, who crossed
themselves and prayed for the passing soul, is doubtless a statement
due to the historian’s sympathy, for the walls are thick. In the
morning, the citizens of Bristol were called to gaze upon the distorted
features of their dead king, who otherwise bore no sign of violence.
All were afraid to bury Isabel’s victim, till the Abbot of Gloucester
bravely undertook the task. The next year Isabel and Mortimer actually
visited Berkeley, and were entertained by its wealthy lord. The latter
kept twelve knights to wait upon him, each of whom was served by two
servants and a page. He also had twenty-four esquires, each of whom
had a horse and an attendant. There were about three hundred in his
household who fed at his board. The Lord of Berkeley was a mighty
baron in those days. The blame had to be shifted, however, and so he
was brought to an irregular trial before twelve knights, instead of his
peers: he was finally acquitted of complicity in the crime in 1330.
In that year, his son and successor, Maurice, was born. He fought in
Granada and Gascony, and was so desperately wounded at Poictiers in
1366 that he died at Berkeley two years later. His son Thomas was also
a warrior who unfurled his banner in Spain, France and Scotland. He
entertained Richard II. at Berkeley in 1386, but this did not prevent
his voting for Richard’s deposition in favour of Bolingbroke in 1399.
The direct male line fails soon after this and the Berkeley heiress
marries a Talbot. A collateral branch comes in and the descendants have
rival claims and start what is usually called the longest law-suit on
record: it is not finally settled till 1609. In the course of this
suit, occurs the last battle that was fought between independent
noblemen in England. Lord Lisle of Wotton, the grandson of the great
Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, claims Berkeley which is held by William,
a fiery youth of nineteen. (Wotton-under-Edge lies under the edge of
the hills three miles beyond Nibley Knoll.) On March 22nd, 1470, the
Viscount sends a challenge to Berkeley to settle all differences by
combat: it is eagerly accepted. There was bustle in the castle that
night. The meeting was at Nibley Green. Long Lane still preserves
memories of how the men of Berkeley chased the men of Wotton into the
churchyard till the grass was heavy with crimson dew. Berkeley far
outnumbered Lisle; moreover the latter were taken as they were marching
unawares, and an arrow entered their leader’s open visor and a dagger
afterwards finished him. The victors proceed to Wotton and sacked
Lisle’s house. His widow gave premature birth to a dead son amid the
carnage, and the Lisle claims were ended. The Wars of the Roses were
still raging and a little affair of that kind passed unnoticed.
Margaret of Anjon rested once at Berkeley in her campaigning. Richard
III. created Viscount Berkeley an Earl, but, true to his race, he went
over. When Henry of Richmond landed at Milford Haven, Berkeley joined
him and, to spite his heir, made over to him his castle and domains.
After Bosworth, Henry created him a Marquess, but his avarice induced
him to keep the property. In default of heirs male, however, on the
death of Edward II., it lapsed to the Berkeley heirs again. The new
lord of Berkeley was a mighty hunter and delighted in his beautiful
deer park. On one of her progresses, Good Queen Bess paid him a visit.
He happened to be absent, but his venison proved useful in victualling
the courtly following. Everybody knows what it cost to entertain that
locust-swarm! When Lord Henry returned, he was greatly enraged at the
havoc, and ordered his park to be disparked rather than let it be a
future temptation. Elizabeth heard of this and sent him a quiet hint
to “beware of his words and actions, for the Earl of Leicester greatly
desired the castle for himself!” One of the rooms in this “Naboth’s
vineyard” is still called Queen Elizabeth’s room. Other royal guests
who have visited the castle are George IV. and William IV.
The Earls of Berkeley no longer own their ancestral home, in fact they
maintain that the title is not rightfully theirs. This celebrated
romance of the peerage started with the fifth Earl. Some of his
children were born before the only marriage he could prove to the
satisfaction of the House of Lords, though he maintained that he and
the lady had previously gone through a secret marriage ceremony. The
Earl left the castle and estates to his eldest son, and the Crown
created him Baron Fitzhardinge. The late Earl of Berkeley never took
his seat in the House of Lords nor assumed his title in any way since
the decision that set the baton sinister in the escutcheon of the elder
sons of the fifth Earl.
THE CASTLE OF CHILLON
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Further onward we saw a white, ancient-looking group of towers, beneath
a mountain, which was so high, and rushed so precipitately down upon
this pile of building as quite to dwarf it; besides which, its dingy
whiteness had not a very picturesque effect. Nevertheless, this was the
Castle of Chillon. It appears to sit right upon the water, and does not
rise very loftily above it. I was disappointed in its aspect, having
imagined this famous castle as situated upon a rock, a hundred, or for
aught I know, a thousand feet above the surface of the lake; but it is
quite as impressive a fact--supposing it to be true--that the water
is eight hundred feet deep at its base. By this time, the mountains
had taken the beautiful lake into their deepest heart; they girdled it
quite round with their grandeur and beauty, and, being able to do no
more for it, they here withheld it from extending any farther; and here
our voyage came to an end. I have never beheld any scene so exquisite;
nor do I ask of Heaven to show me any lovelier or nobler one, but only
to give me such depth and breadth of sympathy with nature, that I may
worthily enjoy this. It is beauty more than enough for poor, perishable
mortals. If this be earth, what must Heaven be!
It was nearly eight o’clock when we arrived; and then we had a walk
of at least a mile to the Hotel Byron. I had forgot to mention that
in the latter part of our voyage there was a shower in some part of
the sky, and though none of it fell upon us, we had the benefit of
those gentle tears in a rainbow, which arched itself across the lake
from mountain to mountain, so that our track lay directly under this
triumphal arch. We took it as a good omen, nor were we discouraged,
though, after the rainbow had vanished, a few sprinkles of the shower
came down.
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF CHILLON, SWITZERLAND.]
We found the Hotel Byron very grand indeed, and a good one, too. There
was a beautiful moonlight on the lake and hills, but we contented
ourselves with looking out of our lofty window, whence, likewise, we
had a sidelong glimpse at the white battlements of Chillon, not more
than a mile off, on the water’s edge. The castle is wofully in need of
a pedestal. If its site were elevated to a height equal to its own it
would make a far better appearance. As it now is, it looks, so to speak
profanely of what poetry has consecrated, when seen from the water, or
along the shore of the lake, very like an old whitewashed factory or
mill.
This morning I walked to the Castle of Chillon with J----, who sketches
everything he sees, from a wild flower to a castle or a range of
mountains. The morning had sunshine thinly scattered through it; but,
nevertheless, there was a continual sprinkle, sometimes scarcely
perceptible, and then again amounting to a decided drizzle. The road,
which is built along on a little elevation above the lake shore, led us
past the Castle of Chillon; and we took a side-path, which passes still
nearer the castle-gate. The castle stands on an isthmus of gravel,
permanently connecting it with the mainland. A wooden bridge covered
with a roof, passes from the shore to the arched entrance; and beneath
this shelter, which has wooden walls as well as roof and floor, we
saw a soldier or _gendarme_, who seemed to act as warder. As it
sprinkled rather more freely than at first, I thought of appealing to
his hospitality for shelter from the rain, but concluded to pass on.
The castle makes a far better appearance on a nearer view, and from
the land, than when seen at a distance and from the water. It is built
of stone, and seems to have been anciently covered with plaster, which
imparts the whiteness to which Byron does much more than justice, when
he speaks of “Chillon’s snow-white battlements.” There is a lofty
eternal wall, with a cluster of round towers about it, each crowned
with its pyramidal roof of tiles, and from the central portion of the
castle rises a square tower, also crowned with its own pyramid to a
considerably greater height than the circumjacent ones. The whole are
in a close cluster, and make a fine picture of ancient strength when
seen at a proper proximity; for I do not think that distance adds
anything to the effect. There are hardly any windows, or few, and very
small ones, except the loopholes for arrows and for the garrison of the
castle to peep from on the sides towards the water; indeed, there are
larger windows at least in the upper apartments; but in that direction,
no doubt, the castle was considered impregnable. Trees here and there
on the land side grow up against the castle wall, on one part of which,
moreover, there was a green curtain of ivy spreading from base to
battlement. The walls retain their machicolations, and I should judge
that nothing had been altered, nor any more work been done upon the old
fortress than to keep it in singularly good repair. It was formerly a
castle of the Duke of Savoy, and since his sway over the country ceased
(three hundred years at least), it has been in the hands of the Swiss
government, who still keep some arms and ammunition there.
We passed on, and found the view of it better, as we thought, from
a farther point along the road. The raindrops began to spatter down
faster, and we took shelter under an impending precipice, where the
ledge of rock had been blasted and hewn away to form the road. Our
refuge was not a very convenient and comfortable one, so we took
advantage of the partial cessation of the shower to turn homeward,
but we had not gone far when we met mamma and all her train. As we
were close by the castle entrance, we thought it advisable to seek
admission, though rather doubtful whether the Swiss _gendarmes_
might not deem it a sin to let us into the castle on Sunday. But he
very readily admitted us under his covered drawbridge, and called an
old man from within the fortress to show us whatever was to be seen.
This latter personage was a staid, rather grim, and Calvinistic-looking
old worthy; but he received us without scruple, and forthwith proceeded
to usher us into a range of the most dismal dungeons, extending along
the basement of the castle, on a level with the surface of the lake.
First, if I remember aright, we came to what he said had been a chapel,
and which, at all events, looked like an aisle of one, or rather such
a crypt as I have seen beneath a cathedral, being a succession of
massive pillars supporting groined arches,--a very admirable piece of
Gothic architecture. Next, we came to a very dark compartment of the
same dungeon range, where he pointed to a sort of bed, or what might
serve for a bed, hewn in the solid rock, and this, our guide said, had
been the last sleeping-place of condemned prisoners on the night before
their execution. The next compartment was still duskier and dismaller
than the last, and he bade us cast our eyes up into the obscurity and
see a beam, where the condemned ones used to be hanged. I looked and
looked, and closed my eyes so as to see the clearer in this horrible
duskiness on opening them again. Finally, I thought I discerned the
accursed beam, and the rest of the party were certain that they saw it.
Next, beyond this, I think, was a stone staircase, steep, rudely cut
and narrow, down which the condemned were brought to death; and beyond
this, still on the same basement range of the castle, a low and narrow
[corridor] through which we passed, and saw a row of seven massive
pillars, supporting two parallel series of groined arches, like those
in the chapel which we first entered. This was Bonnivard’s prison, and
the scene of Byron’s poem.
The arches are dimly lighted by narrow loopholes, pierced through the
immensely thick wall, but at such a height above the floor that we
could catch no glimpse of land or water, or scarcely of the sky. The
prisoner of Chillon could not possibly have seen the island to which
Byron alludes, and which is a little way from the shore, exactly
opposite the town of Villeneuve. There was light enough in this long,
grey, vaulted room, to show us that all the pillars were inscribed
with the names of visitors, among which I saw no interesting one,
except that of Byron himself, which is cut, in letters an inch long
or more, into one of the pillars next to that to which Bonnivard was
chained. The letters are deep enough to remain in the pillar as long
as the castle stands. Byron seems to have had a fancy for recording
his name in this and similar ways; as witness the record which I saw
on a tree of Newstead Abbey. In Bonnivard’s pillar there still remains
an iron ring, at the height of perhaps three feet from the ground.
His chain was fastened to this ring, and his only freedom was to walk
round this pillar, about which he is said to have worn a path in the
stone pavement of the dungeon; but as the floor is now covered with
earth of gravel, I could not satisfy myself whether this be true.
Certainly six years with nothing else to do in them save to walk round
the pillar, might well suffice to wear away the rock, even with naked
feet. This column and all the columns, were cut and hewn in a good
style of architecture, and the dungeon arches are not without a certain
gloomy beauty. On Bonnivard’s pillar, as well as on all the rest, were
many names inscribed; but I thought better of Byron’s delicacy and
sensitiveness for not cutting his name into that very pillar. Perhaps,
knowing nothing of Bonnivard’s story, he did not know to which column
he was chained.
Emerging from the dungeon-vaults, our guide led us through other
parts of the castle, showing us the Duke of Savoy’s kitchen, with a
fireplace at least twelve feet long; also the judgment-hall, or some
such place, hung round with the coats-of-arms of some officers or
other, and having at one end a wooden post, reaching from floor to
ceiling, and having upon it the marks of fire. By means of this post
contumacious prisoners were put to a dreadful torture, being drawn
up by cords and pulleys, while their limbs were scorched by a fire
underneath. We also saw a chapel or two, one of which is still in good
and sanctified condition, and was to be used this very day, our guide
told us, for religious purposes. We saw, moreover, the Duke’s private
chamber, with a part of the bedstead on which he used to sleep, and be
haunted with horrible dreams, no doubt, and the ghosts of wretches whom
he had tortured and hanged; likewise the bedchamber of his duchess,
that had in its window two stone seats, where, directly over the head
of Bonnivard, the ducal pair might look out on the beautiful scene of
lake and mountains, and feel the warmth of the blessed sun. Under this
window, the guide said, the water of the lake is eight hundred feet in
depth; an immense profundity, indeed, for an inland lake, but it is
not very difficult to believe that the mountain at the foot of which
Chillon stands may descend so far beneath the water. In other parts
of the lake and not distant, more than nine hundred feet have been
sounded. I looked out of the duchess’s window, and could certainly see
no appearance of a bottom in the light blue water.
The last thing that the guide showed us was a trap-door, or opening,
beneath a crazy old floor. Looking down into this aperture we saw
three stone steps, which we should have taken to be the beginning of a
flight of stairs that descended into a dungeon, or series of dungeons,
such as we had already seen. But inspecting them more closely, we
saw that the third step terminated the flight, and beyond was a dark
vacancy. Three steps a person would grope down, planting his uncertain
foot on a dimly seen stone; the fourth step would be in the empty air.
ROCCA MALATESTIANA
CHARLES YRIARTE
The name of Malatesta illuminates every step in Rimini. The
fortification that serves to enclose the town, strengthened by
towers of defence and by windows that resemble our modern casements,
is certainly due to them. The celebrated fortress known under the
name of Rocca Malatestiana still commands the city, although it is
now dismantled and converted into a prison, and upon the square,
San Francesco, there rises the Temple of the Malatestas (Tempio
Malatestiano), the purest building, perhaps, of the most beautiful
period of Italian art, upon the pediment of which you read the pompous
inscription: “To Immortal God Sigismond Malatesta, son of Pandolphe.”
[Illustration: ROCCA MALATESTIANA, ITALY.]
In 1294, Malatesta da Verucchio built the castle upon the same site,
and he made of it at once a sumptuous residence and a solid fortress
to which was given the name of Gattolo dei Malatesta. It is from there
that Verucchio dates his will. The great Ghiberti, the sculptor of
the “Gates of Paradise,” tells us, in his _Commentaries_ that
in 1400 he made some enamels for the apartments and that he painted
some frescoes. Alas! nothing of these remains for us. In 1446, comes
Sigismond, son of Pandolphe, the great warrior and conqueror, he who
has been nicknamed Poliorcète, skilful in making fortifications,
pupil and soon the rival of Roberto Valturco, the celebrated author of
the volume of _Re Militari_; he battered down the Gattolo, or,
at least, he changed it from roof to basement at the moment when the
discovery of artillery had changed all the conditions of the attack
and defence of old castles. It was during this transformation that
the frescoes and all the ornamentation, of which Ghiberti speaks,
disappeared. Two superb inscriptions, one Gothic, the other of the
first half of the Fifteenth Century, surmounted by the escutcheon of
the Malatestas with the helmet crowned by elephants’ heads and the
chess-board, are sure guarantees of these serious modifications. In
order that they should be proved with more certainty, Matteo de’ Pasti,
a pensioner of the lord of Rimini, struck, by order of his master, the
superb commemorative medal representing the Rocca Malatestiana. Piero
della Francesca, the great artist to whom we owe the greater number
of the beautiful portraits of the Bentivoglios, the Montefeltros, and
the Malatestas, brings us, in his turn, an unexceptionable proof,--the
day when, in the temple of San Francesco of Rimini, the pantheon of
the Malatesta family, he represents the lord of Rimini kneeling before
Saint Sigismond, and gives the view of the Rocca as a background for
his precious fresco.
So imposing a mass should certainly have triumphed over time, but it
has been disfigured at the pleasure of succeeding generations. Upon the
ground where we walk while regarding the present façade, is dug the
first enclosure, a large moat a hundred feet wide and thirty-five feet
deep, to-day filled up and forming a platform. We find no longer the
six towers, eighty feet high, destroyed by Urbain VIII. (1625), who has
also given his name to the building for more than a century,--Castello
Urbano. Finally, in 1826, the first circuit was razed, and, the moat
having already disappeared, they did away with the drawbridge. It is
nothing more than a prison, through the gratings of which we see the
red caps of the prisoners who come to gaze upon a bit of blue sky.
Another tradition insists that the Malatestas, sons of Verucchio,
lived, during the lifetime of their father, in a dwelling near the old
gate of San Andrea; but the house designated, dating at most from the
last centuries, belonged to the Graziani, and to-day it serves as the
residence for the family of the Ugolini Micheli. One sees how difficult
it is to establish anything even after long inquiry; however, the
conclusion of the historian, Tonini, must also be our own: the cruel
scene must have taken place in Rimini, and probably in the Gattolo
de Santa Colomba, that is to say in the fortress known to-day under
the name of Rocca Malatestiana, a residence greatly disfigured and
modified, where it would be impossible to identify the exact spot of
the murder, but which, according to a number of chronicles, was at the
moment this murder was accomplished, a princely residence, “containing
noble apartments,” with the exterior appearance of a castle.
Since Francesca was born in Ravenna, why has posterity unanimously
designated her under the name of Francesca da Rimini? Logically she
should be Francesca da Ravenna; but she lived in Rimini as the wife
of Giovanni Malatesta, and it was there that she expiated her crime,
or her weakness, by death; it was there that her tomb was made, and
posterity will therefore forever call her by the name of Francesca da
Rimini. Moreover, if we sum up the opinions of the chroniclers and
historians, it is understood by the most of them that the deed was
accomplished in this town, and they doubt it so little that the idea
never occurs to them to support a contrary opinion. Marco Battaglia,
Benvenuto da Imola, Fra Giovanni da Serravalle, and Baldo di Branchi
furnish proofs that might be considered as negative; but if they do not
cite the name of Rimini, it never occurs to them to mention any other
town. As for Jacopo Della Lana, Gradinego and Boccaccio, all three name
the city of the Malatestas, and later, when Silvio Pellico and many
other dramatic poets of other nations will write their dramas, their
poems, or their stories, they will not hesitate to place the scene in
the same city. Count Odoardo Fabri will not do otherwise, and if Lord
Byron had realized the plan he conceived and which he made known to
Murray, his publisher, in the letters which are now in everybody’s
hands, Rimini would still be the scene. Is it necessary to speak of
our compatriot, M. Auguste Thomas, the composer of _Mignon_, who
having written the score of _Francesca da Rimini_, dedicated it to
M. Tonini, the librarian of the Gambalunghiana.
Francesca then is not Francesca da Ravenna, she is and she will ever
remain “Francesca da Rimini.”
She belongs to the history of this town, or if you prefer, to its
legend. It is in vain to turn over the leaves of the archives, you
cannot deprive the city of the Malatestas of its touching picture.
Before formulating our conclusions we will note, merely for the
curiosity of the fact, a singular document taken from a volume printed
in Rimini in 1581, by Simbeni, entitled _Il Vermicello della
seta_, signed under the name Giovanni Andrea Corsucci da Sascorbaro,
and cited by Luigi Tonini:
“A few days ago in the church of Saint Augustin, in Rimini, they found
in a marble sepulchre Paolo Malatesta and Francesca, daughter of Guido
da Polenta, lord of Ravenna, who were put to death by Lancilotto, son
of Malatesta, lord of Rimini, brother of the said Paolo found under
the accomplishment of a dishonest deed, and both miserably killed with
the blows of a poignard, as Petrarch describes in his _Triumph of
Love_. Their clothes were of silk, and, although they had been shut
up in this sepulchre for so many years, they were found in a perfect
state of preservation.”
Upon what document Sascorbaro relies for this statement no one can say;
there was no inscription, no medal and no sign whatever that could
certify to the identity of the skeletons; but the legend was evidently
established, since Boccaccio and the greater number of chroniclers had
said that the two bodies were united in the same tomb. The assertion
of Sascorbaro, deprived of all proofs as it is, has come to confirm
the opinion of the Florentine story-teller. Rimini persists in its
legend, if legend it is; and I also discovered a few days ago, at
Gambalunghiana, the bit of silk tissued with gold, and placed in a
frame upon which the erudite son of Tonini, successor to the historian
of Rimini, does not willingly call to the attention of learned
historians, because history desires authentic proofs; but the common
people view with great pleasure a contemporary relic of Francesca and
Paolo.
THE WARTBURG
L. PUTTICH
The Wartburg lies on the north-western slope of the Thuringer Forest
at the top of a spur that commands an extensive view over the fruitful
fields and woody Thuringian ridges. If the traveller has enjoyed the
prospect during the ascent, he is engrossed by other feelings as soon
as he has passed through the gateway into the old stronghold and
mentally rehabilitates the entire castle as it was in days of yore.
For the Wartburg is not only memorable as having been the abode for a
century of the powerful landgraves of Thuringia who had their court
here from the time this hold was built by Ludwig II. at the end of the
Eleventh Century (1080 A. D. is usually considered the year
of its completion) to the extinction of his line with Heinrich Raspe
in the middle of the Thirteenth Century, but it has also acquired a
classic repute in German history by three important occurrences: the
famous Singer-war, the life of Saint Elizabeth, and Luther’s sojourn
here.
[Illustration: THE WARTBURG, GERMANY.]
The Singer-war, also called the war of the Wartburg, was brought about,
as is well known, by the Minnesong-enthusiast landgrave, Hermann I.
and his art-loving wife, Sophia. In 1206, they assembled six of the
most celebrated Minnesingers,--Walter von der Vogelweide, Heinrich von
Ofterdingen, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich (the virtuous writer),
Johann Bitterolff, and Reimer von Zwethin, partly native and partly
foreign,--and arranged a singing-contest among them. Heinrich von
Ofterdingen sang of the knightly qualities of the Archduke Leopold II.
of Austria; Eschenbach celebrated the fame of the King of France; and
Walter von der Vogelweide, the preëminence of the landgrave Hermann;
whilst the other singers extolled other princes. But this gave rise
to a serious strife, and the irritated contestants agreed (so it is
said) that the defeated singer should die by the executioner’s hand.
The landgrave strongly forbade such a bargain over his undertaking, but
nevertheless when Ofterdingen was declared the loser, the protection
of the landgravine, to whom he fled, was necessary to save him from
his adversaries. The landgrave adjusted the quarrel by arranging
a new contest, to which Ofterdingen had to fetch from Hungary the
world-famous meistersinger, Klingsor, to act as umpire. About a year
afterwards, therefore, the latter appeared with Ofterdingen and the
contest began again. Klingsor, however, would not decide in favour of
any one singer, but rather sought to reconcile the parties. In this he
was successful, and so the “War of the Wartburg” ended in feasting and
revels which the landgrave provided.
Although its original features have been destroyed, the Minnesinger
Hall in which the contest took place still stands, and might easily be
restored; but fragments of the poems of the Wartburg war are preserved
in the _Maneseichen_, _Docenschen_, and other collections. It
has been held, however, and not without good grounds, that the poems
still extant of that contest were first collected a century after it
was held. It seems certain, nevertheless, that the kernel of the matter
is largely contained in these collections.
Saint Elizabeth, the daughter of King Andrew II. of Hungary, became
the wife of the landgrave Ludwig VI., the Pious, in 1221; and resided
at the Wartburg with him. She was a model of simplicity, piety
and gentleness; and during a famine and accompanying pestilence
that ravaged Thuringia, she displayed these great virtues to the
highest degree, proving herself a true mother of her country by her
self-sacrifice in nursing the sick and dying.
Luther had left the Diet at Worms; he had been outlawed, and the
safe-conduct granted to him by the Emperor Charles V. was soon about
to lapse, for it was limited to twenty-one days. His friends and
protectors therefore feared for his life, and, in order to hide him,
Luther was snatched up by masked servants while passing through the
Thuringer Forest, and brought to the Wartburg. It is scarcely to
be doubted that this happened by the contrivance of the Kurfurst
Friedrich, although at first he may have avoided all knowledge of
Luther’s retreat, in order to be able to meet all official inquiries.
Luther arrived at the Wartburg in May, 1521, under the name of a knight
Görg. Here, for nearly a year, he lived in a little chamber, in a wing
to the right of the chief tower, very simply adorned and furnished only
with the barest necessaries. It still exists in its original condition,
and it is with awe that the visitor enters the little abode wherein the
great man partly accomplished his undying work,--the translation of the
Bible. The castle chapel in the landgrave’s quarters still contains
the pulpit from which Luther often preached to the inmates.
When we approach the castle from the east, where the carriage road
leading from the town of Eisenach first winds through a wooded valley
up to the tree-clad ridge, the Wartburg sits enthroned high above on
the top of the mountain. From this point we see the landgrave-abode,
and to its immediate right the residence built in 1791, and fortified
walls stretching to the gate-house, or knight-house (_Ritterhaus_).
The ridge on which the castle extends from north to south is long and
narrow and of very irregular form. It was formerly entirely covered
with buildings that surrounded the inner courtyard. The single main
entrance originally consisted of three or four gateways constructed
one behind another with intermediate spaces, on the north-east. The
outermost of these, supplied with a high tower, stood close to the
narrow and steep approach which is cut in the rock and leads to the
top of the mount. This outermost tower, it is conjectured, overhung
this steep path, so that in case of attack the foe might be more
easily repelled. The innermost gateway, which led into the stronghold
itself, is the only one now standing. Formerly it was furnished with a
drawbridge which recently has been changed to a strong bridge of stone.
Above the gateway, rises the so-called _Ritterhaus_ (knight-house)
which retains evidences of having been much higher formerly than it
now is. It probably formed the tower-gate which, in 1558, was partly
demolished and brought into closer relations with the other buildings.
The _Ritterhaus_ served as the dwelling of the knights whom the
landgrave assembled about him for the defence of the castle: it is
now the dwelling of the Castellan. The style of those buildings still
standing shows that they belong to the Fifteenth Century, and only
the lower part of the walls is of the date at which the castle was
founded, at the end of the Eleventh or some time during the Twelfth
Century. The relief carved on the wall over the gateway also belongs
to the same date. Its meaning cannot be solved. Popularly, it is
called the Jonah; but it represents a knight about to be devoured by
a dragon. The coat-of-arms hanging at the knight’s neck appears to
bear the imperial eagle. Another perhaps equally ancient relief, which
is found on the west wall not far from the square tower, is also to
be noted. It represents a man sitting on a lion and tearing its jaws
apart: it refers to the fact that the landgrave Ludwig the Good once
single-handed bound a lion that his father-in-law had sent to him, and
that had escaped from its cage in the courtyard.
Through the door under the _Ritterhaus_, we enter the courtyard
of the Wartburg, and see to the west one of the continuations of the
_Ritterhaus_. Adjoining this to the south, are other buildings;
among others, that containing Luther’s chamber. On the left, to the
east, runs a long high wall from the _Ritterhaus_ to the chief
building standing on that side. This wall is covered with a defence-way
of very simple form resembling those still occasionally found in old
city walls. The first chief building already mentioned on that side
was formerly called the _Musshaus_ (house of ease and leisure).
Between it and the above-mentioned wall at the end of the courtyard,
was originally a high wall with a wide doorway, so that the whole rear
part of the castle, the residence of the ruling family, was separated
from the front part where the knights and attendants dwelt. According
to ancient report, the _Musshaus_ was only a tall, plain block,
though the interior was not devoid of luxury, and here the landgrave’s
family dwelt.
Adjoining the south side of the _Musshaus_ was the _Landgravenhaus_
(landgrave-house), also called the great or high house, which was
devoted to ceremonials in the days of the landgraves. It is a stately
structure that originated perhaps in the time of Ludwig III. in
the middle of the Twelfth Century. In Germany it stands alone as a
princely private building of such dimensions that still preserves its
original form in the Byzantine or Roman style of architecture. In these
respects, there is no ancestral secular building that can compare with
it abroad also. On the west, it is connected with the Minnesinger Hall
which formerly formed the chief entrance to the above hall through
broad windows, divided up into round arches by little columns, for the
other three sides had no entrance. The columns rest upon a low sill, so
that people can look between them into the hall; so that it is to be
presumed that the passage thus formed was intended for spectators. The
little columns are ornamented with delicate capitals and volutes. They
have Attic bases. In the time of Friedrich I. this hall was adorned
with mural paintings of battles and other memorable occurrences of the
life of the period. Traces of these paintings were still visible at the
beginning of the present century.
CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE
JULES LOISELEUR
The Castle of Amboise is placed at the entrance of Touraine like the
jealous sentinel guarding the entrance to the Garden of the Hesperides.
It is not a palace like the castle of Blois, nor a villa of a royal
mistress like Chenonceaux, nor a sort of immense convent full of
mysterious cells like Chambord: it is a military place, a veritable
fortress of the Middle Ages upon which is grafted a castle of the
Fifteenth Century.
This formidable military position has been at all times the key of this
beautiful province. When Cæsar marched against the Armoricans, there
lodged here a Roman garrison. From the height of these impregnable
rocks, the counts of Anjou, and later the Plantagenets, their
descendants, these worthy sons of the Black Falcon restrained within
their talons the slightest movements of Touraine, while they kept a
jealous watch over the counts of Blois and Champagne, who possessed
but a few leagues away the sombre fortress of Chaumont. Amboise and
Chaumont were the two advanced sentinels of these two impregnable
neighbours. These solid walls served under Charles VII. as the rampart
for the monarchy menaced by the English invasion; they protected the
Catholic royalty of Francis II. against the stroke of Renaudie; they
have enclosed turn by turn the illustrious victims of royal ingratitude
like the Marshall de Gié, powerful rebels like the princes of Vendôme,
accomplices of Chalais, state prisoners like Fouquet and Lauzun, and
the vanquished like Abd-el-Kader. When you interrogate these enormous
towers, these menacing battlements, and these inaccessible walls, you
draw from them no memories of joy, peace, or love; nothing but bloody
deeds spring from them; nothing but memories of mourning are evoked.
Buildings have, even more than mankind, their own physiognomy upon
which their history is reflected. History and physiognomy are here in
perfect union. No romancer, even were he possessed with Melusine’s
enchanted ring, would dare to place an intrigue of love behind these
walls impressed with deep wounds of gun-shots, or, if he did so, it
would doubtless be on account of that law of contrasts, so loved of
Nature, that places the nests of the warbler in the mouths of deserted
cannon.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU D’AMBOISE, FRANCE.]
Stop upon this old bridge constructed by Hugues d’Amboise, one of the
heroes of Tasso. From here you will take in the entire imposing and
truly Roman view of the powerful citadel, from the Gate of the Lions,
which opens upon the moat dug by Cæsar, as far as the two towers, now
decapitated, of the ancient donjon above the trunks of which rises
the slender spire of the Chapel of St. Hubert. Remove by imagination
the narrow and common dwellings that encroach upon the old castle.
Throw into the Loire the modern levee and quay that obstruct it
here, and picture the noble river freely beating the base of the
fortress. The great tower erected by Charles VIII. casts its shadow
upon the Loire, on which opens a door that forms on this side the only
entrance to the castle. Further back, and as if lost in the shadow of
the immense tower, is the principal building of this habitation, the
base of which dates from the counts of Amboise and whose five windows
pierced at a considerable height on the side overlooking the Loire,
although they are on the ground floor on the side of the court, seem
like vigilant eyes upon the country. Then by mental effort throw down
the terrace in front of these windows, the work of Louis-Philippe, who
caused this façade to lose some of its crabbed countenance; close up
the five rounded bay windows, also the work of the same King, which
light the kitchens; in a word, leave nothing that juts out upon that
straight and perpendicular façade except the balcony that overhangs
the five casements of which we shall speak, and upon which open the
large windows of the royal apartment. You will then have an approximate
idea of what Amboise was in the time of Henri III., when Du Cerceau
conceived the plan in 157–.
This balcony from which you look upon the Loire, is the work of Louis
XII.: it is an historical monument. Nothing could be less complicated,
nothing could be more formidable in its simplicity. It was upon this
balcony that the chief ringleaders of the conspiracy against Amboise
were hanged. The bodies, attached to these solid bars, hung in the
open air; the stroke of a poignard cut the rope and they fell into the
Loire: a means of burial as rapid as had been the judgment and the
execution. Such is the Castle of Amboise seen from the Loire.
The tunnel, the stairway, and even the vault are modern works, which
in moulding this old castle to our ideas of comfort deprive it of its
feudal character. It is by the southern tower that we must ascend if we
wish to be deeply impressed by this character. In the time of Charles
VIII., this tower was the only entrance for knights and litters, for
the one on the north corresponding to it bathes its foot in the Loire,
as we have said. It was through the southern tower that Charles V.
entered when he crossed France in 1539. This solid and immovable work
is certainly the largest construction of the kind in France. The thick
masonry that forms the nucleus of it is in itself a respectable size.
The stairway turns four times from the base to the summit around this
hollowed-out centre, and reaches a height of more than 600 feet.
This stairway, or rather these steps in helix, rest upon an ogival
vault. Carvings sustain the points from which the large arches spring
and terminate the nerves of the little arches. These carvings present
all kinds of little figures, some of which are fantastic, others
grotesque, and others again indecent, for the artists of the late
Gothic period were willing enough to execute the latter to please their
patrons who enjoyed these grotesques and the laughter they caused far
more than fine arabesques. Monks abound in these sculptures. This
one holds his stomach in both hands, like a gastronome punished by
his exploits; this one, suffering from a terrible toothache, makes a
grimace like one possessed. Most of these figures have been mutilated
with blows of the bayonet by the prisoners who for about fifteen
years were shut up in this tower in 1815. Louis-Philippe began its
restoration.
About one-third of the way up, a little stone step, pierced in the
outer wall, leads to a kind of hollowed-out rostrum, where, if we may
believe tradition, Louis XII. harangued the multitude, when an attack
on the municipal franchise aroused the inhabitants of the town of
Amboise, or Petit-Fort. Happy time! when revolutionary uprisings could
be calmed by orations!
At the top of this tower you see the gigantic horns of a stag that
formerly ornamented the base of the Chapel of Saint Hubert. This is
more than ten feet high, and was made at the order of Charles VIII.
with such art and truthfulness of imitation that allows the guide
to show it to unsophisticated tourists for the natural horns of a
full-grown and gigantic stag killed in some forest in the Brobdinagian
country.
The donjon, the first dwelling of the lords of Amboise, occupied the
west, the space comprised between the two little headless towers which
still exist.
On the side of the Loire, opposite the building of the Sept-Vertues,
there rise other buildings belonging to Amboise, but they were restored
by Charles VIII. and completely changed by Louis XII. and Francis I.
There are to be found the apartment of the King and Queen, due to
the last prince, and close beside it, that curious chamber which was
supported by four massive pillars of masonry, and to which no entrance
was possible except by a single opening pierced through the floor. This
was the work of Catharine de’Medici, after one of her astrologers had
forewarned her of the fall of a great edifice. She thought that, by
means of these material precautions, she could escape the menace of
Fortune which allowed her to see the fall of quite a different edifice
to Amboise: that of the Valois dynasty, so laboriously restored by her
efforts.
The chapel is the perfect antithesis of the castle.
Just as the one is sombre, severe, dominating and sinistrously
beautiful, on account of its mass and size, the other is bright,
efflorescent, and smiling, delicately embroidered and pierced like lace.
This charming chapel, proudly encamped upon a rocky peak, is one of the
best products of the third ogival style of that period of Flamboyant
Gothic that immediately preceded the Renaissance. But it is not, as
has been believed until now, the work of Italian artists brought
from Naples by Charles VIII. That is an error in which even M. Jules
Quicherat shared, but which was obliterated at the recent discovery of
an itemized account of all the expenses of furnishing and decorating
the Chapel of Amboise and for the contiguous apartments in the towers.
This precious document states that the expenses commenced in 1490
and continued until 1494. Now the year 1494, in which Charles VIII.
finished ornamenting and furnishing the Chapel of Amboise, is precisely
the one in which he started on his expedition to Italy. The honour of
this charming conception then reverts wholly to native artists.
The façade is entirely occupied by a large ogival entrance, the top
of which presents one of those great, circular rose-windows,--the
characteristic sign of the Flamboyant Gothic. An authority no less
exact for the construction of this façade is shown in the form of
the two doors cut in the entrance, these showing that surbased arch
so common in the English buildings of the reigns of Henry VII. and
Henry VIII., and which derives from them the name of the Tudor arch.
These two doors, separated by a pilaster and niche, support a stone
bas-relief, the principal motive of which is the conversion of Saint
Hubert.
A gigantic stag stands in the centre of the composition. Between his
horns there rises a flamboyant cross. The ardent huntsman stops in
terror at this sight, he bends one knee, and with one hand restrains
his horse, while with the other he salutes the miraculous sign destined
to convert him to Christianity: instead of the Aquitaine Nimrod, the
persecutor of the forests of Ardennes, he is only an apostle, the
successor of Saint Lambert. A host of wild animals form the accessories
of this picture, as if the entire population of the forests is taking
part in the conversion of the patron of huntsmen. Saint Anthony, in a
corner to the left, contemplates Saint Christopher bearing his divine
burden.
This bas-relief, somewhat clumsy in workmanship, does not give the
slightest idea of the charming delicacy of the interior. The banal and
rather strained comparison of lace woven by the fays, is more than a
truthful one here. Imagine two rows of _point d’ Alençon_, half a
metre high, festooned the entire length of the walls to form a series
of canopies and niches in corbelling, diversified by graceful little
columns with prismatic arches. Carvings and figures, inexhaustible in
variety, terminate the pendentives of these niches. Not one of these
motives is repeated a second time: vine leaves, acanthus leaves, holly
leaves, oak leaves, cabbage leaves, and thistle leaves,--the entire
architectural flora of the Fifteenth Century is here under our eyes
mingled with a host of real and fantastic animals. There are also some
human figures: a little monk in a corner by the side of the altar blows
the trumpet in a whimsical manner, exactly like the one that serves for
a reading-desk in the _Temptation_ by Callot.
Upon this profusion of lace, of foliage, of crockets, and stags’ horns,
upon this mass of curled leaves, pinked leaves, and leaves turned and
twisted in a hundred fashions, there falls a glowing light, sifted
through the windows, where vermilion, orpiment and ultramarine are the
dominating colours. These windows, upon which saints are represented
in life-size, were made in Sèvres, some of them after the designs of
the Princess Marie d’Orléans. Perhaps there is a slight false note in
the selection of these strong colours. Light tones and yellowish and
whitish tints were generally preferred at the end of the Fifteenth
Century. It was this gradual abandoning of colour that fifty years
later engendered the _grisailles_.
Before it was restored by Louis-Philippe, this church had been used for
twenty years as the hall for the castle’s police. One may judge by that
alone of the seriousness of the mutilations.
BLARNEY CASTLE
MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL
Few places in Ireland are more familiar to English ears than Blarney;
the notoriety is attributable, first, to the marvellous qualities of
its famous “stone,” and next, to the extensive popularity of the song,--
“The groves of Blarney, they are so charming.”
When or how the stone obtained its singular reputation, it is difficult
to determine; the exact position among the ruins of the castle is also
a matter of doubt; the peasant-guides humour the visitor according to
his capacity for climbing, and direct, either to the summit or the
base, the attention of him who desires to “greet it with a holy kiss.”
He who has been dipped in the Shannon is presumed to have obtained, in
abundance, the gift of that “civil courage” which makes an Irishman
at ease and unconstrained in all places and under all circumstances;
and he who has kissed the Blarney stone is assumed to be endowed with
a fluent and persuasive tongue, although it may be associated with
insincerity; the term “Blarney” being generally used to characterize
words that are meant neither to be “honest nor true.” It is conjectured
that the comparatively modern application of the term “Blarney” first
had existence when the possessor, Lord Clancarty, was a prisoner to Sir
George Carew, by whom he was subjected to several examinations touching
his loyalty, which he was required to prove by surrendering his strong
castle to the soldiers of the Queen; this bet he always endeavoured
to evade by some plausible excuse, but as invariably professing his
willingness to do so. The particulars are fully detailed in the “Pacata
Hibernia.”
It is certain that to no particular stone of the ancient structure is
the marvellous quality exclusively attributed; but in order to make
it as difficult as possible to attain the enviable gift, it had long
been the custom to point out a stone, a few feet below the battlements,
which the very daring only would run the hazard of touching with their
lips. The attempt to do so was, indeed, so dangerous, that a few years
ago Mr. Jeffreys had it removed from the wall and placed on the highest
point of the building, where the visitor may now greet it with little
risk. It is about two feet square, and contains the date 1703, with
a portion of the arms of the Jeffreys family, but the date, at once,
negatives its claim to be considered the true marvel of Blarney.[7]
A few days before our visit a madman made his way to the top of the
castle, and after dancing around it for some hours, his escape from
death being almost miraculous, he flung this stone from the tower;
it was broken in the fall, and now as the guide stated to us, the
“three halves” must receive three distinct kisses to be in any degree
effective.
[Illustration: BLARNEY CASTLE, IRELAND.]
The age of the song has been satisfactorily ascertained; it was written
in the year 1798 or 1799, by Richard Alfred Millikin, an attorney
of Cork. The author little anticipated the celebrity his lines were
destined to acquire; they were composed to ridicule the nonsense verses
of the village poets, who, with a limited knowledge of the English
language, and a smattering of classical names, were in the habit of
indulging their still more ignorant auditors, by stringing together
sounds that had no sense, but conveyed a notion of the prodigious
learning of the singer.
Millikin’s song has been injurious to Ireland; it has raised many a
laugh at Ireland’s expense, and contributed largely to aid the artist
and the actor, of gone-by times, in exhibiting the Irishman as little
better than a buffoon--very amusing, no doubt, but exciting any feeling
rather than that of respect.
It is impossible to contemplate the romantic ruins of Blarney Castle
without a feeling more akin to melancholy than to pleasure; they bear,
so perfectly, the aspect of strength utterly subdued, and remind one
so forcibly that the “glory” of Ireland belongs to days departed. The
castle stands--
“as stands a lofty mind,
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind.”
The stronghold of Blarney was erected about the middle of the Fifteenth
Century by Cormac MacCarthy, surnamed “Laider,” or the Strong; whose
ancestors had been chieftains in Munster from a period long antecedent
to the English invasion, and whose descendants, as Lords of Muskerry
and Clancarty, retained no inconsiderable portion of their power and
estates until the year 1689, when their immense possessions were
confiscated, and the last earl became an exile, like the monarch whose
cause he had supported. The castle, village, mills, fairs, and customs
of Blarney, with the land and park thereunto belonging, containing
1400 acres, were “set up by cant” in the year 1702, purchased by Sir
Richard Pyne, Lord Chief Justice, for £3,000, and by him disposed of,
the following year, to General Sir James Jeffreys, in whose family the
property continues. Although the walls of this castle are still strong,
many of the outworks have long since been levelled with the earth; the
plough has passed over their foundations, and “the stones of which they
were built have been used in repairing the turnpike-roads.”
The small village of Blarney is about four miles north-west of Cork;
a few years ago it was remarkably clean, neat, and thriving; its
prosperity having resulted from the establishment of several linen
and cotton factories, the whole of which have been swept away, and
the hamlet is now, like the castle, an assemblage of ruins. In the
vicinity, however, there is yet a woollen-manufactory and a paper-mill,
both in full work. The scenery in the neighbourhood is agreeable, but
the grounds that immediately surround the castle are of exceeding
beauty. Nature has done much more for them than art; although there
is evidence that the hand of taste had busied itself in the duty
of improvement. “The sweet Rock-close” is a small dell, in which
evergreens grow luxuriantly, completely shaded with magnificent trees.
At its termination, are the “Witches’ Stairs”; a series of rugged stone
steps which lead down through a passage in the rock to a delicious
spot of greensward forming the bank of a clear rivulet--and where some
singular masses appear to have been “the work of Druid hands of old.”
CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES
J. J. BOURRASSÉE
The traveller who visits Loches for the first time is greatly struck by
the picturesque position of the town on an elevation--gently sloping
down to the meadows watered by the Indre. Above the houses rise the
turrets of the castle, which in turn are dominated by the pyramids
of the old collegiate church of Our Lady, above which again appears
the ancient mediæval fortress in its somewhat austere majesty. The
combination forms an enchanting view seen under the first beams of the
rising sun from the edge of the forest on the Montrésor road.
About the beginning of the Sixth Century, St. Ours came to Touraine
to settle at Loches. There several monks placed themselves under his
discipline. The monastery of St. Ours made a town of Loches. As has
often been remarked, the people of the country like to group around
these religious houses where they find at the same time a church with
its spiritual aid, a refuge always open against the persecution of the
mighty, a school, a hospital, and a model farm with its agricultural
and industrial instruction. In a few years the collection became
sufficiently important for the establishment of a _castrum_. This
strong castle, which was already in existence at the time of Gregory
of Tours, was placed in a position that was very easy to defend: it
was protected on one side by that elbow of the mountain to which St.
Ours had retired and by the escarpment towards the Indre, a flank that
was rendered almost inaccessible by the river and the valley marshes;
on another, by the natural depression of the vale of Mazerolles; and,
on the third, by a deep and wide cutting in the chalky tufa. The castle
which crowned the hill and commanded the surrounding country was so
strong for that age that all conquerors contended for its possession.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE LOCHES, FRANCE.]
After the Romans, we find the Visigoths here, and then the Mérovingian
princes, the feudal lords, the counts of Anjou and Touraine who became
kings of England and the kings of France after Philip Augustus. At the
foot of the ancient castle of Loches, a hundred fights of chivalry were
settled. Under the feudal rule, the surrounding fields were thronged
with bands of men marching under various banners.
The counts of Anjou, whose ambition was the scourge of our province,
had become masters of Loches, thanks to skilfully calculated
matrimonial alliances. The citadel of Loches became the boulevard of
their warlike enterprises in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.
The Eleventh Century fortress, whose square donjon commands the
surrounding country, is not so well preserved as the collegiate church.
Nevertheless, the learned who study our national antiquities consider
it one of the most precious remains of the military architecture of
that remote age. Picture to yourself an imposing mass, formed of two
bodies of buildings shoulder to shoulder rising to a height of forty
_mètres_. The principal building is 25 m. 33 cm. long while
the other attains only half this length. The interior disposition
of the small tower is visible at the first glance on account of the
disappearance of the floors that formerly divided it into four stories.
In the lower portion is a low hall from which rose a stairway of from
thirty-five to forty steps, with two landings, by which to reach the
principal rooms. At the top of this stairway is the door that gave
access to every part of the donjon. On the first story, it opens into
a hall of the great tower, the dimensions of which are so vast that
it could contain five hundred men; then, at the same level, into the
corresponding hall of the little tower; and lastly by a secret passage,
twenty-four _mètres_ in length, hidden in the thickness of the
wall, one could descend to the vaulted hall that occupied the base of
the donjon, and that served as an arsenal, a treasury and a prison.
Three flights of steps, at present interrupted and set in the interior
of the walls, led to the upper stories. The donjon probably terminated
in an exterior wooden gallery resting on a movable scaffolding intended
for repulsing assaults; the numerous holes to be seen at the top of the
wall authorize this supposition.
Thus established, the Roman donjon of Loches is one of the most
remarkable monuments of its kind. The beauty of its size, the masterly
skill of its construction, the imposing amplitude of its mass, half
disguised by round buttresses that rise to the summit, the artifice of
its military dispositions, the ingenious multiplicity of its defences,
the boldness of its outline, and the proud aspect of the whole, all
recommend it to the attention of the antiquary and the artist. To-day
it is of no military importance; but for the town of Loches it will
ever constitute a picturesque element of the first order.
In 1194, Richard Cœur-de-Lion, being delivered from the prison in which
he was unjustly kept by the Emperor of Germany, made haste to Touraine,
his possession of which was being disputed by Philip Augustus. Nothing
could moderate his boiling heat. After having captured and ransomed
Châteauneuf de Tours, the King of England hastened to Loches. The
castle was defended by twenty knights and eighty archers under the
command of Guy de Laval. The governor at first defended himself
resolutely enough; but Richard attacked the place with such fury, and
himself directed the assault with such energy, that it was necessary to
yield. Guy de Laval was made prisoner with some of his most intrepid
knights. But the struggle was far from being ended: it only slumbered
for a few years. Richard, wounded at the siege of Chaluz, in Limousin,
died at Chinon at the age of forty-two, April 6, 1199. He was buried at
Fontevrault, leaving behind a troubled and more especially a greatly
disputed heritage. Queen Berengaria, his wife, received Loches and
Montbazon with their domains and dependencies as her dowry.
In 1204, we see Philip Augustus reappear in Touraine. In consequence of
the confiscation pronounced against John Lackland, the King of France
himself came to take possession of the principal places and towns in
the province. Tours opened her gates at the first summons. Loches did
not show herself so obliging. The castle was defended by Girard d’Athée
and other lords devoted to the interests of England.
It was necessary to lay a regular siege. After a year of struggle and
toil, the place was forced to capitulate on account of the failure of
provisions and ammunition. Philip Augustus gave it in recompense to
Dreux de Mello, constable of France, a brave knight, celebrated for his
exploits in France and Palestine, whither he had accompanied the King.
Afterwards this gift was bought back by St. Louis, by an act dated
December, 1249, on the banks of the Nile in Egypt.
On returning to France, St. Louis spent several days at Loches. In 1301
and 1307, Philippe le Bel rested eight days at the castle of Loches on
his way to talk to Pope Clement V. about the affair of the Templars.
Half a century later, John II. arrived at Loches at the head of the
flower of French chivalry on his way to Poictiers to give battle to
the Black Prince. Fortune appeared to be smiling upon him and victory
seemed to be assured; but instead of accepting the advantageous
propositions made by his adversary, he wanted to crush the army of
the foe. He then fell victim to one of those disasters that leave a
long and sad echo in history. The evils that overwhelmed France were
horrible. Anarchy was complete, and reigned in every rank of the
hierarchy. The English retook Loches, and for more than half-a-century
the foreigner trampled on and desolated our provinces.
At length came Charles VII. When he first visited Loches, he was
still only the King of Bourges. A poor suite followed him; but he was
accompanied by Marie d’Anjou, a princess of rare prudence and a courage
proof against everything. This virtuous queen was France’s good genius.
In spite of the miseries of the time, she never despaired of her
country. Her confidence was not deceived: Joan of Arc soon accomplished
her glorious mission: France was saved.
In 1436, Charles VII. reappeared at Loches; but this time the queen was
not alone. In her company was a young girl whose timidity seemed to
recommend her, but whose position was no mystery to anybody: she was
Agnes Sorel, born in the village of Fromenteau in Touraine. Charles
VII. gave her the castle of Beauté in Champagne, it is said, so that
she might be _Dame de Beauté_ by title as well as in reality.
Agnes possessed a small house at Beaulieu where she sometimes stayed
to hide herself from the eyes of the courtiers. So the King had the
tower built at the Castle of Loches that still bears the name of Agnes
Sorel. This tower stands in a delightful spot: it commands the smiling
vale of the Indre, and from it the view embraces a charming panorama.
The eye is arrested by a curtain of verdure formed by the ancient oaks
of the forest and then wanders with pleasure over the freshest meadows
imaginable. Agnes Sorel is in the choir of the church at Loches. Her
white marble tomb, with her statue also of white marble, the feet
resting on two little lambs and hands clasped, is now to be seen in the
castle tower that bears her name.
The strong position of the castle of Loches gained for it at an early
date the sad honour of becoming a state prison. Behind its beautiful
and solid walls, great lords came to expiate their ambitious intrigues,
or the simple misfortune of having displeased those more powerful than
themselves. Geoffroy de Saint-Aignan was shut up here and strangled in
the Eleventh Century; Thibault, Count of Tours, suffered the severest
treatment here after his defeat at Nouy; and John, Duke of Alençon, was
cast into a deep cell here by order of Charles VII. for having aided an
ungrateful son in his attempts at rebellion, a son who was always ready
to foment trouble in the realm. But it was Louis XI. who made the most
frequent use of the Loches cells.
Charles VIII. often inhabited the castle during his early youth.
Charlotte of Savoy, his mother, was treated in it almost like a
prisoner by the suspicious Louis XI., who never exhibited a very lively
friendship for his wife. On his accession, Charles did not forget
Loches; he began the great tower that was completed by his successor,
and he took his graceful wife, Anne of Brittany, thither. Louis XII.
constructed the building that connects the round with the square tower.
In this is found the low room in which Louis le More was confined in
1505. The Duke of Milan spent several years in his prison at Loches, in
a truly sinister cell.
The soldier became an artist, and on the sombre walls of his cell
he laid a strange and original composition, full of grandeur and
character. Over the chimney-piece he placed his portrait, more than
life size, with casque on head as on the day of battle, and vizor
raised. The energetic features of this profile, the aquiline nose,
prominent chin and upper lip curled in a disdainful smile, depict for
us the entire man. Between the lines _pens_ are ranged, punning
allusions to the pains he suffered. The whole cell is decorated in
three colours, yellow ochre, red brown and almost blue black, combined
with the white of the walls. It was with this work that Sforza occupied
the interminable hours of his solitude. Travellers view these paintings
with curiosity as if to probe the secret thoughts that filled the
bitter heart of the dethroned prince. One cannot help shuddering at
the thought that the unfortunate Duke of Milan lived here for long
years, shut up in this _in pace_ by the good Louis XII. However,
Ludovic did not remain forever in this cell. Towards the last, the
King permitted him to occupy the upper apartments of the palace under
surveillance of some Scottish soldiers.
Another noted prisoner deserves mention. John, lord of Saint Vallier,
father of Diana of Poictiers, allowed himself to be drawn into the
conspiracy of the Duke of Bourbon. The plot was revealed by Louis de
Brézé, who had no idea that he was implicating his father-in-law.
Saint Vallier was arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Loches.
From his prison, September 19, 1523, he wrote touching letters to his
children begging them to appeal to the King in his favour. But Francis
I. showed himself hard and impenetrable. The guilty man was condemned
and led to the Place de Grève, more dead than alive, to be decapitated.
At the moment when the sentence was about to be carried out, an
archer came from the King, bringing, not a pardon, but a commutation.
The unfortunate man, whose hair had turned white in a night, was so
affected by the preparation for his death that he almost lost his
reason. Ever afterwards he was afflicted with a nervous trembling,
accompanied by fever, which became known as the _fever of St.
Vallier_.
By a singular irony of fate, splendid _fêtes_ were held in this
same castle, whither so many wretches came to groan. Thirty years had
not elapsed since the Duke of Milan had breathed his last sigh, when
the conqueror of Pavia was received at Loches by him who there had lost
“all but honour.” Francis I., like a generous prince, on this occasion
displayed extreme magnificence: he came to meet his rival, December
12, 1539, accompanied by his queen, Eleanor, and followed by his whole
court. The entertainments were numerous and splendid, and only ended
when the Emperor had arrived on the frontier of the Low Countries.
The splendour of _fêtes_ shone anew at Loches in 1559, when Henri
II. and Catherine de’Medici passed through ten years afterwards; Henri
III., while still the Dauphin, stayed there for several days, at the
moment when he was going to take his place at the head of the army
concentrated in the environs, on the eve of the victory of Moncontour.
Here also were seen Charles IX., Henri IV. and Marie de’Medici. The
latter was a fugitive, taking refuge here for a few moments after
leaving the Castle of Blois, whence she had succeeded in escaping.
From that epoch, silence has invaded the vast halls and towers, the
terraces and gardens. Nothing has interrupted it except the savage
cries of the Revolution. To-day the palace of the Kings, discrowned and
almost deserted, keeps only the memory of magnificence gone forever.
THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The park gate of Blenheim stands close to the end of the village street
of Woodstock. Immediately on passing through its portals, we saw the
stately palace in the distance, but made a wide circuit of the park
before approaching it. This noble park contains three thousand acres
of land, and is fourteen miles in circumference. Having been, in
part, a royal domain before it was granted to the Marlborough family,
it contains many trees of unsurpassed antiquity, and has doubtless
been the haunt of game and deer for centuries. We saw pheasants in
abundance, feeding in the open lawns and glades; and the stags tossed
their antlers and bounded away, not affrighted, but only shy and
gamesome, as we drove by. It is a magnificent pleasure-ground, not
too tamely kept, nor rigidly subjected within rule, but vast enough
to have lapsed back into nature again, after all the pains that the
landscape-gardeners of Queen Anne’s time bestowed on it, when the
domain of Blenheim was scientifically laid out. The great, knotted
slanting trunks of the old oaks do not now look as if man had much
intermeddled with their growth and postures. The trees of later date,
that were set out in the Great Duke’s time, are arranged on the plan
of the order of battle in which the illustrious commander ranked his
troops at Blenheim; but the ground covered is so extensive, and
the trees now so luxuriant, that the spectator is not disagreeably
conscious of their standing in military array, as if Orpheus had
summoned them together by beat of drum. The effect must have been
very formal a hundred and fifty years ago, but has ceased to be
so,--although the trees, I presume, have kept their ranks with even
more fidelity than Marlborough’s veteran’s did.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM, ENGLAND.]
After driving a good way, we came to a battlemented tower and adjoining
house, which used to be the residence of the Ranger of Woodstock
Park, who held charge of the property for the King before the Duke of
Marlborough possessed it. The keeper opened the door for us, and in the
entrance hall we found various things that had to do with the chase and
woodland sports. We mounted the staircase, through several stories,
up to the top of the tower, whence there was a view of the spires
of Oxford, and of points much farther off,--very indistinctly seen,
however, as is usually the case with the misty distances of England.
Returning to the ground-floor, we were ushered into the room in which
died Wilmot, the wicked Earl of Rochester, who was Ranger of the Park
in Charles’s time. It is a low and bare little room, with a window in
front, and a smaller one behind; and in the contiguous entrance-room
there are the remains of an old bedstead, beneath the canopy of which,
perhaps, Rochester may have made the penitent end that Bishop Burnet
attributes to him. I hardly know what it is, in this poor fellow’s
character, which affects us with greater tenderness on his behalf than
for all the other profligates of his day, who seem to have been neither
better nor worse than himself. I rather suspect that he had a human
heart which never quite died out of him, and the warmth of which is
still faintly perceptible amid the dissolute trash which he left behind.
Methinks, if such good fortune ever befell a bookish man, I should
choose this lodge for my own residence, with the topmost room of the
tower for a study, and all the seclusion of cultivated wilderness
beneath to ramble in. There being no such possibility, we drove on,
catching glimpses of the palace in new points of view, and by and by
came to Rosamond’s Well. The particular tradition that connects Fair
Rosamond with it is not now in my memory; but if Rosamond ever lived
and loved, and ever had her abode in the maze of Woodstock, it way
well be believed that she and Henry sometimes sat beside this spring.
It gushes out from a bank, through some old stone-work, and dashes its
little cascade (about as abundant as one might turn out of a large
pitcher) into a pool whence it steals away towards the lake, which is
not far removed.
Passing through a gateway on the opposite side of the quadrangle, we
had before us the noble classic front of the palace, with its two
projecting wings. We ascended the lofty steps of the portal, and were
admitted into the entrance-hall, the height of which, from floor to
ceiling, is not much less than seventy feet, being the entire elevation
of the edifice. The hall is lighted by windows in the upper story, and
it being a clear bright day, was very radiant with lofty sunshine, amid
which a swallow was flitting to and fro. The ceiling was painted by
Sir James Thornhill in some allegorical design (doubtless commemorative
of Marlborough’s victories) the purport of which I did not take the
trouble to make out,--contenting myself with the general effect, which
was most splendidly and effectively ornamental.
We were guided through the show-rooms by a very civil person, who
allowed us to take pretty much our own time in looking at the pictures.
The collection is exceedingly valuable,--many of these works of Art
having been presented to the Grand Duke by the crowned heads of England
or the Continent. One room was all aglow with pictures by Rubens; and
there were works of Raphael, and many other famous painters, any one
of which would be sufficient to illustrate the meanest house that
might contain it. I remember none of them, however (not being in a
picture-seeing mood), so well as Vandyck’s large and familiar picture
of Charles I. on horseback, with a figure and face of melancholy
dignity such as never by any other hand was put on canvas.
After passing through the first suite of rooms, we were conducted
through a corresponding suite on the opposite side of the
entrance-hall. These latter apartments are most richly adorned with
tapestries, wrought and presented to the first Duke by a sisterhood of
Flemish nuns; they look like great, glowing pictures, and completely
cover the walls of the rooms. The designs purport to represent the
Duke’s battles and sieges; and everywhere we see the hero himself, as
large as life, and as gorgeous in scarlet and gold as the holy sisters
could make him, with a three-cornered hat and flowing wig, reining in
his horse, and extending his leading-staff in the attitude of command.
Next to Marlborough, Prince Eugene is the most prominent figure. In the
way of upholstery, there can never have been anything more magnificent
than these tapestries; and, considered as works of Art, they have quite
as much merit as nine pictures out of ten.
One whole wing of the palace is occupied by the library, a most noble
room, with a vast perspective length from end to end.
The next business was to see the private gardens. An old Scotch
under-gardener admitted us and led the way, and seemed to have a fair
prospect of earning the fee all by himself; but by and by another
respectable Scotchman made his appearance and took us in charge,
proving to be the head-gardener in person. He was extremely intelligent
and agreeable, talking both scientifically and lovingly about trees and
plants, of which there is every variety capable of English cultivation.
Positively, the Garden of Eden cannot have been more beautiful than
this private garden of Blenheim. It contains three hundred acres, and
by the artificial circumlocution of the paths, and the undulations, and
the skilfully interposed clumps of trees, is made to appear limitless.
The sylvan delights of a whole country are compressed into this space,
as whole fields of Persian roses go to the concoction of an ounce of
precious attar. The world within that garden-fence is not the same
weary and dusty world with which we outside mortals are conversant;
it is a finer, lovelier, more harmonious Nature; and the Great Mother
lends herself kindly to the gardener’s will, knowing that he will make
evident the half-obliterated traits of her pristine and ideal beauty,
and allow her to take all the credit and praise to herself. I doubt
whether there is ever any winter within that precinct,--any clouds
except the fleecy ones of summer. The sunshine that I saw there rests
upon my recollection of it as if it were eternal. The lawns and glades
are like the memory of places where one has wandered when first in love.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A guide for travellers, furnished by the villages.
[2] Court of the magistrate attached to the palace.
[3] “The following account of Akbar’s Pachisi-board is from an old
Agra periodical:--The game is usually played by four persons, each of
whom is supplied with four wooden or ivory cones, which are called
‘gots,’ and are of different colours for distinction. Victory consists
in getting these four pieces safely through all the squares of each
rectangle into the vacant place in the centre,--the difficulty being
that the adversaries take up in the same way as pieces are taken
at backgammon. Moving is regulated by throwing ‘cowries,’ whose
apertures falling uppermost or not, affect the amount of the throw
by certain fixed rules. But on this Titanic board of Akbar’s, wooden
or ivory ‘gots’ would be lost altogether. Sixteen girls, therefore,
dressed distinctively--say four in red, four in blue, four in white,
four in yellow--were trotted up and down the squares, taken up by an
adversary, and put back at the beginning again; and at last, after many
difficulties, four of the same colour would find themselves gliding
into their _dopattas_ together in the middle space, and the game
was won.”--_Bholanauth Chunder._
[4] Oluf, called God-dreng, who reigned before King Ring, is by Adam of
Bremen supposed to be the real Holger Dansk: he accompanied Charlemagne
to the Holy Sepulchre, and helped to place Prester John on the throne
of India.
[5] In 1538 the citizens of Lund received orders to pull down the stone
churches in disuse since the Reformation, and forward the materials
to Copenhagen to be employed for the building of the new castle; and
again, in 1552, a second supply was sent. Even Laura Maria, the big
bell purchased with the legacy of Bishop Absalom, was not spared; she
got cracked on the journey, was melted down and recast into two little
ones, which still hang in the clock-tower of Kronborg. Laura Maria was
looked upon almost as a saint, and Valdemar Atterdag, who believed in
nothing, when on his death-bed is said to have roared out in a paroxysm
of pain, “Help me, Soro! help me, Esrom! help me, Laura Maria, you big
bell of Lund!”
[6] The Maiden’s Tower.
[7] The Rev. Matthew Horgan, the parish priest of Blarney, informs
us that “the curious traveller will seek in vain for the _real_
stone, unless he allows himself to be lowered from the northern angle
of the lofty castle, when he will discover it about twenty feet from
the top with this inscription:--
Cormac MacCarthy Fortis,
Me Fieri Fecit. A. D., 1446.”
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
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