Palace Yard

“ Henry was delighted with his new residence, and proceeded to add new buildings, and to enclose nearly all St. James's Park up to the site of Buckingham Palace. Covering a vast extent of ground, the palace rambled from Scotland Yard along the riverside, to where Downing Street now stands, and spread across the roadway by means of a long gallery. Never so beautiful as Westminster, the Whitehall of the Tudors was a mass of brick buildings, erected without any particular scheme just as occasion required, resulting, as Besant declares, in a building "without dignity and without nobility." ”

“ The stage represents a grass-grown prison-yard which, on the right side, is adjacent to the gardens of a Herodian Palace, divided from them by a low wall, which continues in a right-hand direction to the centre of background. On the left side of background a higher wall, and entrance with heavy doors. To the left, the clumsy pile of the prison buildings and a door. In the garden wall is a gate, over which hangs the green foliage of the garden beyond, which bounds the right side of background. ”

“ There are 130 police stations in the metropolis, and by a telegraph signal a Police Commissioner at White Hall, in Parliament street, which is contiguous to Scotland Yard,—the headquarters of the Metropolitan Detective force, who are separated in their duties from the Old Jewry or City of London Detective force,—can concentrate in an hour and a half as many as 6,000 men for instant duty. This vast force, each man receiving but three shillings to three and sixpence a day, is really under a wonderful control. ”

“ Fitzalan went to Hampton Court with the usual crowd of German, Italian, and French hair-dressers, waiters, cooks, and restaurant-keepers, besides native cockneys of all classes except the upper.
The noble old Palace welcomed this mass of very common humanity with such a pageant of beauty as never greeted the eyes of its royal builders. Centuries of sunshine seem to have melted into the rich reds and grays and cream-color of its walls, under which runs a quarter of a mile of flower-border, a glowing mass of color, yet as full of delicate and varied detail as the border of an illuminated missal. ”

“ The governor’s palace, a great square building, stands on a magnificent open space; next to it is the library; and opposite, the chief guard-house rears its splendid front, graced with pillars. The coffee-houses here are very large; they are kept comfortably and clean, particularly that on the great square, which is brilliantly illuminated every evening.
Women and girls appear dressed in black; they are usually accustomed to throw a wide cloak over their other garments, and wear a mantilla which conceals arms, chest, and head. ”

“ The Front of the Palace on the Court-side consists of a main Pile of Building, in the Centre between Two very narrow Pavilions; and at the Entrance of each is a great Gate: The middlemost, which is the principal, is very darksome, and leads into a very spacious Area, arch’d over, where several Coaches may turn at one and the same time: This separates Two Square Courts of the same Size and Structure, encompass’d with a Range of Free-Stone Pillars, that form a Piazza which runs all round it. ”

“ A few lights glimmered dimly from the street lamps as the queen entered the carriage, guarded by soldiers, and was conveyed through the somber streets to her last earthly abode. The prison of the Conciergerie consists of a series of subterranean dungeons beneath the floor of the Palais de Justice. More damp, dark, gloomy dens of stone and iron the imagination can not conceive. ”

“ Inside, the rooms are large and lofty, and the stairs of greyish marble or even wood; but neither in doors or out are there any fine statues or sculptures.
The Palace of the governor is as I before said, a magnificent building—one that would be an ornament to the finest city in the world. It is built in the form of a horse-shoe, with a handsome cupola in the centre: the portico, as well as both the wings, is supported upon columns. The internal arrangements are as bad as can possibly be imagined; the supper-room being, for instance, a story higher than the ball-room. ”

“ Let barracks, stables, shops of all kinds run under the river wall; let there be narrow lanes winding about among these courts, connecting one with the other, and all with the Inner and the Outer Bailly and the Palace stairs. This done, you will begin to understand something of the extent and nature of the King’s Palace in the fourteenth century. Add to this that the buildings were infinitely more picturesque than anything we can show of our own design, our own construction, our own grouping. The gabled houses turned to the courts and lanes their carved timber and plaster fronts ”

“ Through this the judges and barristers find their way into the passages, into the guardhouse, down into the prison cells, and to the entrance to the Conciergerie.
The private chambers of all the examining judges are on different floors in this part of the building. They are reached by squalid staircases, a maze in which those to whom the place is unfamiliar inevitably lose themselves. The windows of some look out on the quay, others on the yard of the Conciergerie. ”

“ A large gravelled platform stretches itself before the basement of the palace, taking the afternoon sun. Parts of the great structure are reserved for private use and habitation, occupied by state-pensioners, reduced gentlewomen in receipt of the Queen’s bounty and other deserving persons. Many of the apartments have their dependent gardens, and here and there, between the verdure-coated walls, you catch a glimpse of these somewhat stuffy bowers. ”

“ It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. The invasion of the Tuileries is beginning. Let us glance at the palace and get a notion of the apartments through which the crowd are about to rush. On approaching it by way of the Carrousel, one comes first to three courtyards: that of the Princes, in front of the Pavilion of Flora; the Royal Court, before the Pavilion of the Horloge; and the Swiss Court, before the Pavilion of Marsan. The assailants enter by the Royal Court, pass into the palace through the vestibule of the Horloge Pavilion, and climb the great staircase. ”

“ The gratings are every day carefully examined by jailers, whose herculean proportions and cold pitiless expression prove them to have been chosen to reign over their subjects for their superior activity and intelligence. The court-yard of this quarter is enclosed by enormous walls, over which the sun glances obliquely, when it deigns to penetrate into this gulf of moral and physical deformity. On this paved yard are to be seen, -- pacing to and fro from morning till night, pale, careworn, and haggard, like so many shadows, -- the men whom justice holds beneath the steel she is sharpening. ”

“ The court at entry, and wings for offices seem too near the street, and that so very narrow and meanly built, that the corridor is not in proportion to the rest, to hide the court from being overlooked by neighbors; all which might have been prevented, had they placed the house further into the ground, of which there was enough to spare. But on the whole it is a fine palace, built after the French pavilion-way, by Mr. Hooke, the Curator of the Royal Society. There were with us my Lady Scroope, the great wit, and Monsieur Chardine, the celebrated traveler. ”

“ The walls are white, the ceiling is unornamented, and the floor is of stone.
When you have seen the royal Palace, you go out of the building, cross the square, and re-enter the great door. A guide joins you and you pass through the large entrance to find yourself in the Kings’ courtyard. Here you gain an idea of the enormous structure of the building. This court is entirely shut in by walls; opposite the door is the façade of the Church. Above a wide stairway stand six enormous Doric columns; each of these supports a large pedestal, and each pedestal upholds a statue. ”

“ As the procession entered the city, they found the streets through which they were to pass densely lined on each side by the citizens who had assembled to witness the spectacle. Through this vast concourse the embassadors and their suite advanced, and were finally conducted to a splendid palace which had been prepared for them in the heart of the city. The garrison of the city was drawn up at the gates of the palace, to receive them as they arrived. When the carriage reached the gate and the embassadors began to alight, a grand salute was fired from the guns of the fortress. ”

“ The weather was warm, too. A few minutes walk, guided by our obliging cicerone, Mr. Wyllie, carried us to the Palace.
It is a large, square-built villa, spaciously piazzaed and windowed, surrounded by pretty plantations of shrubbery and fruit-trees. At the gateway a guard of Kanaka infantry presented arms, the royal standard was unfurled from the flag-staff and floated to the breeze. Passing up a broad, gravelled alley, we ascended a flight of steps to the piazza, and were again saluted by a double line of officers, who were supposed to be the black rods in waiting. ”

“ Behind each court is an open passage-way, walled in by displays usually of homely wares and fabrics, mainly of iron, or brass, and behind these again are other courts, more open and irregular than the former, devoted to Castings, Metals, Ores, and the ruder forms of mineral wealth, occasionally giving place to the Refreshment Saloons wherewith the Palace is abundantly provided—to Committee Rooms, Jury Rooms, and other incidents of the Exhibition. ”

“ Soldiers are very much alike all the world over.
The Palace was a four-roomed, and whitewashed mud and timber-house, the finest in all the hills for a day's journey. The King was dressed in a purple velvet jacket, white muslin trousers, and a saffron -yellow turban of price. He gave me audience in a little carpeted room opening off the palace courtyard which was occupied by the Elephant of State. The great beast was sheeted and anchored from trunk to tail, and the curve of his back stood out grandly against the mist. ”

“ Because of the local habit which wealth frequently manifests of shrinking into concealment behind a plain exterior, the magnificent homes are apt to be no more striking in outward appearance than their inglorious surroundings. The palace, a plain one-story building, was recognizable as such only from the large guard of colonels and generals who lined its sidewalk, and from the presence just across the way of the principal military barracks, with protruding towers from which machine-guns could sweep the surrounding streets in case of insurrection. ”

“ I told Nur An, "and without knowing something of the regulations governing the coming and going of the inmates of the building, it would be suicidal to attempt to reach the avenue beyond the palace by that route."
"What do you suggest then?" he asked.
"The ground level of the palace is a busy place, people are coming and going constantly through the corridors. Doubtless some of the upper levels are less frequented. Let us therefore seek a hiding place higher up and from the vantage point of some balcony we may be able to work out a feasible plan of escape." ”

“ When our burglary took place, king, court, and government offices had been removed to York for over five years. Under mediaeval conditions the eye of a vigilant task-master was an essential condition of efficiency. It followed then that during Edward’s long absence things at Westminster were allowed to drift into an extraordinary state of confusion and disorder. Affairs were made worse by the fact that even kings were not always free to choose their own servants. Thus the king’s palace at Westminster was in the hands of an hereditary keeper. ”

“ The measures adopted for guarding the King were rigorous with respect to the entrance into the palace, and insulting as to his private apartments. The commandants of battalion, stationed in the salon called the grand cabinet, and which led to the Queen's bedchamber, were ordered to keep the door of it always open, in order that they might have their eyes upon the royal family. The King shut this door one day; the officer of the guard opened it, and told him such were his orders, and that he would always open it ”

“ CHARLES DICKENS Hard by the cathedral stands the ancient Palace of the Popes, of which one portion is now a common jail, and another a noisy barrack: while gloomy suites of apartments, shut up and deserted, mock their own old state and glory, like the embalmed bodies of kings. But we neither went there to see state-rooms, nor soldiers’ quarters, nor a common jail, though we dropped some money into a prisoners’ box outside, whilst the prisoners themselves, looked through the iron bars, high up, and watched us eagerly. ”

“ Nevertheless there are Faults in the Building which are shocking to such as have the least Skill in Architecture; insomuch that they who have a Taste for that Science are sorry that a Building which has been so expensive has been no better conducted. The Situation of this Palace is indeed very fine, at the end of the City, and of a very noble large Street, which like all the rest runs in a strait Line. The Palace, which has a great Square329 before it, consists of a large number of Lodging-Rooms, with a great high Pavilion in the middle, and two advanc'd Wings, with ample Pavilions at the ends ”

“ After passing through various chambers of the palace, now silent and sombre, but which I had traversed in former days, on grand court occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII., when they were glittering with all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great saloon, with high-vaulted ceiling incrusted with florid devices in porcelain, and hung with silken tapestry, but all in dim twilight, like the rest of the palace. At one end of the saloon the door opened to an almost interminable range of other chambers, through which, at a distance, we had a glimpse of some indistinct figures in black. ”