Chapter VIII: Part 8

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.