Winter Palace

“ In the summer portion of the palace the walls of enormous thickness, the dimly lighted apartments, the marble lattices, the lace-like spandrels through which passed, without obstruction, the lightest breeze, the perpetual ripple of waters, banished from the minds of the inmates even the idea of the discomforts of a semi-tropical climate. The winter palace, of larger dimensions, while certainly not inferior in elegance to the remainder of the edifice, afforded less opportunity for the display of architectural magnificence. ”

“ It is true I have seen marble fresh from the mountains of Carrara tugged along by teams of bullocks, but I have nowhere witnessed so much power brought to bear as in the transit of the granite used in the immense memorial to the Empress Catherine.
The art collections in St. Petersburg may give the traveller pleasant occupation for several weeks; indeed if the tourist be an art student he will find work for months. The Winter Palace, adjoining the Hermitage, on the Neva, is like the palace at Versailles, conspicuous for rooms or galleries commemorative of military exploits. ”

“ The Imperial family were in residence at the Winter Palace, and the long salon resounded nightly to the laughter and jests of the Court circle. Not a cloud apparently marred the harmony and well-being of Petersburg.
All without was bright and brilliant; the sun shone on the dazzling snow, the merry sleigh-bells rang out on the frosty air, and the Nevski arcades were thronged with richly-dressed mondaines, who laughed and chatted, and tossed over the costly trifles in the Circassian shop with careless fingers. ”

“ More emphatically it shows itself in the immense amount of gold which overlays every thing they wish to adorn. Even the domes of their churches blaze in gold, so that each one looks like a rising sun.
The crown jewels of Russia are the chief object of interest in the Winter Palace, for it is dreadfully tiresome to be led over miles of polished floors to look through room upon room, in endless mazes lost, seeing the same things substantially everywhere, and hearing the same story over and over again about the kings and queens that slept here and died there ”

“ The Hermitage, of which the world has read and heard so much, is a spacious building adjoining the Winter Palace, with which it is connected by a covered gallery, and is of itself five hundred feet long. It is not, as its name might indicate, a solitude, but a grand and elaborate palace in itself, built by Catherine II. for a picture-gallery, a museum, and a resort of pleasure. It contains to-day one of the largest as well as the most precious collections of paintings in the world, not excepting those of Rome, Florence, or Paris. ”

“ The Winter Palace at St. Petersburg is also a palace of unsurpassed splendor. More than a thousand persons habitually dwell beneath the imperial roof. No saloons more sumptuous in architecture and adornment are probably to be found in the world ”

“ The Winter Palace is grand in every respect. Its size may be divined when we realize that it accommodates six thousand persons connected with the royal household. With the exception of the Vatican at Rome, and Versailles near Paris, it is the largest habitable palace in existence, and is made up of suits of splendid apartments, reception saloons, drawing-rooms, throne rooms, banqueting-halls, etc. ”

“ The houses on either side look like palaces, for all are white, and many have columns; and there are also absolute de facto palaces; for instance, the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, and the Marble Palace, on one side, and the Academy of Arts, on the other. The water in the middle is stirring with boats, leaping and sweeping through the stream, with lofty, old-fashioned sterns, painted and gilded within and without. ”

“ Even in the Czar's two palaces—the Winter Palace and Hermitage—there were theatres, where the court actors and actresses made their début. One leader of fashion carried the theatrical mania so far that he never travelled to his country-seat without taking his troop with him; but, the main difficulty there being to find the audience, he had a collection of wax figures made—generals, statesmen, and elegant women—and with these figures he filled his stalls, to give the illusion of a full house. ”

“ Father said, “Never will I or my son accept the throne with the help of the enemy.”
We learned that the Winter Palace had been plundered and that many of its treasures were in the hands of foreign bandits from both hemispheres who came to our country to rob, take and plunder. They pulled down our tricolor flags—white, blue, and red. White stands for snow, blue for the heavenly sky and red for the blood spilled in defense of our country. They hoisted their own flag over the Winter Palace. ”

“ A GRIM BEGINNING OF A REIGN
“What are we to do now?” asked Pauline of Wilfrid, when, as their carriage drew near to the Imperial Square, they found approach to the Winter Palace impossible by reason of the dense crowd. “We can’t expect these good people to open a way for us to the front, and yet, as we are, we shall see nothing!” ”

“ Petersburg are for the most part only of brick and stucco. That this assemblage of all that is splendid in the city gives it at first sight a magnificent ensemble, I do not deny; but, like everything Russian, the showy [52] façade only hides what is mean behind. In the same tableau we see the Admiralty, on a line with which is the Winter Palace itself, facing the War-office; in the intermediate space stands the Alexander Column, with the bronze angel on the top, whose head is bowed in adoration, and who bears a golden cross in his arms. ”

“ So any one desiring to approach the throne must pass altogether through five cities, seven gates, and five bridges, and in the Imperial city one must walk through five halls and five courts ere the throne itself is reached.
The conception of all this is as grand as it is masterly. Nowhere is the idea of majesty enhanced so infinitely, and nowhere is power adorned to such an extent as in China. The Winter Palace and Windsor Castle are merely private dwellings, and even Versailles loses much [164] of its grandeur when compared to the Imperial Palace in Pekin. ”

“ The great salons of the Winter Palace were turned into workrooms and there every day society flocked to sew and knit for our soldiers and sailors fighting such incredible distances away, as well as for the wounded in hospitals at home and abroad. My mother, who was one of the heads of committees giving out work to be done at home, was constantly busy, and we obediently followed her example.
Every day the Empress came to inspect the work, often sitting down at a table and sewing diligently with the others. ”

“ The smart Americans went in motors, as was fitting, but the rest of us made a long procession of rickshaws, and jogged happily along the dusty streets, out through the gates of the legation quarter, past the North Glacis, through the gates of the Imperial City, and finally, after half an hour's run, reached the Pei Hei Gate, leading into the old and abandoned Winter Palace. ”

“ That she attained the ease and happiness she sought, is more than doubtful.
“Depend on it, my lads,” observed Cousin Giles, “that powerful but bad woman was far from happy amid all the luxury which wealth could give her. Nothing but a good conscience, void of offence towards God and man, can bring happiness, and that she had not got.”
The Winter Palace is next to the Hermitage. Though much larger, it is far less interesting, as the interior was burnt down in 1837, when many fine paintings and articles of value were destroyed. ”

“ But they are seldom allowed to see into the depths of the huge cauldron at the top of this pink terrace, for, by the order of the King, soft clouds of steam cover it, which are rarely lifted. Some favoured ones who have looked into the boiling depths say the forests and beauteous flowery forms there are even more wonderful than those you see here at the entrance of the Winter Palace.”
“Oh! look!” cried Hal excitedly to Cis just as Red Cap ceased speaking ”

“ Here manufactured goods are exposed for sale, and here most of that class of shopping which requires the joy of deliberation and selection is done. The space enclosed by the Crystal Palace is, however, a good deal larger than is required for these purposes, and a considerable part of it is used as a Winter Garden—the whole forming a permanent exhibition of a most attractive character, whilst its circular form brings it near to every dweller in the town—the furthest removed inhabitant being within 600 yards. ”

“ And together they rode off to the Araktseieff Palace.
There are no old palaces in St. Petersburg. The whole city only dates back a century and a half. The palace of the favorite official of the Czar is situated on the Nevski Prospect, and is built more for comfort than for elegance. During the winter the whole building is heated throughout with hot-air pipes; every window has treble cases ”

“ They have tacked on to her venerable palaces and graceful towers, stucco mansions and straight hideous streets, and staring walls covered with advertisements, and barren boulevards studded with toy trees that are cropped as soon as they presume to grow a leaf, and have striven all they know to fit her for her fortunes, as her inn-keepers, when they take an antique palace, hasten to fit up a smoking-room, and, making a paradise of gas jets and liqueurs, write over it "Il Bar Americano." ”

“ Petersburg. Stay in London. Mr. Buchanan's reminiscences. Arrival in St. Petersburg. Duty of an attach. Effects of the Crimean War on the position of the American Minister and his suite. Good feeling established between Russia and the United States. The Emperor Nicholas; his death; his funeral. Reception of the Diplomatic Corps at the Winter Palace by Alexander II; his speech; feeling shown by him toward Austria. Count Nesselrode; his kindness to me. Visits of sundry Americans to St. Petersburg. Curious discovery at the Winter Palace among the machines left by Peter the Great. ”

“ Driving through the great fortress gate, we saw first the red palace of Akbar, sandstone prelude to the jeweled marble halls of Shah Jahan, the greatest builder of all the Moguls. The first or private audience-hall, the Khas Mahal, lies across the Grape Garden, its windows set in the solid battlemented walls that rise sheer from the moats. It is a dream in white—arches and walls of pure white marble carved in scrolls, traceries, and flowers in low relief, the windows filled with marble lattices. ”

“ England means stability—the fireside and the altar, home here and heaven hereafter; and this is the secret of the power that she wields in the affairs of the world, and the charm that she diffuses over the domain of thought. Such a temple as St. Paul's cathedral, such a palace as Hampton Court, such a castle as that of Windsor or that of Warwick, is the natural, spontaneous expression of the English instinct of permanence; and it is in memorials like these that England has written her history, with symbols that can perish only with time itself. ”

“ The paintings of the great masters collected in the galleries of the Hermitage and Winter Palaces, accumulated by the Czars, are among the most renowned in Europe. The reception halls and audience chambers and ballrooms and dining halls of these palaces are designed and intended to dazzle and impress whosoever are given the chance of beholding them. ”

“ Do we deem it advisable, for sanitary or other purposes, to turn the people out of the ancient market where they keep their stalls under the old palace walls happily enough, summer and winter, like so many Dutch pictures, we build a cage of iron and glass like an enormous cucumber frame, inexpressibly hideous, and equally incommodious, and only adapted to grill the people in June and turn them to ice in January. ”

“ Old persons were alive in London, not very long ago, who remembered having seen, in their childhood, the window, in the end of the Whitehall Banquet House—now a Chapel Royal and all that remains of the ancient palace—through which the doomed monarch walked forth to the block. ”

“ What the flower-garden is to the bees, attracting them to gather honey from its sweets, the Grand Exhibition has been to many a candidate anxious to take his place in the ranks of authorship. The book before us is one of the proofs of its stimulating powers. It fully and ably accomplishes all which the title-page leads us to expect, setting forth the causes and progress of that wondrous festival of industry at which the world is to meet in Britannia's Crystal Palace. ”

“ The Palace was built of blocks of ice, filled in with snow, and arched over with a graceful snowdrift for a roof; while lofty colonnades of snow, supported by pillars of ice, led the way to the audience chamber, which glistened with diamonds and crystals of the most sparkling brilliancy. The Snow-King wore on his head a crown of ice-diamonds, while from his shoulders hung gracefully a pure white cloak, fringed with glittering icicles and fastened at the neck with a crystal brooch. ”

“ The show is certainly a great one, greater in extent, in variety, and in the excellence of a large share of its contents, than the world has hitherto seen. The Crystal Palace, which covers and protects all, is better than any one thing it contains, it is really a fairy wonder, and is a work of inestimable value as a suggestion for future architecture. It is not merely better adapted to its purpose than any other edifice ever yet built could be, but it combines remarkable cheapness with vast and varied utility. ”