Imperial palace

“ Besides, it gained much dignity from its location, near the southeast corner of the great Forum of Rome, that most famous of all city squares, and under the very shadow of the Imperial Palace, the walls of which towered nearly three hundred feet above it, where it crouched as it were, on a site scooped out of the huge flank of the Palatine Hill. ”

“ The Imperial Palace was a roughly constructed edifice. It had no earthen walls, but was surrounded with bamboo fences. Common people boiled tea and sold it in the garden of the Palace under the very shadow of the Cherry of the Right and the Orange of the Left. Children came and made it their playground. On the sides of the main avenue to the Imperial pavilion they modelled mud toys; and sometimes they peeped inside the blind that hid the Imperial apartments, but no one was visible within. The Emperor himself lived on money gained by selling his autographs. ”

“ And right in the centre of it all is the Forbidden City, enclosing with its high pink walls the palaces which are full of warm-blooded Manchu concubines, sleek eunuchs who speak in wheedling tones, and is always hot with intrigue. At the gates of the Palace lounge bow and jingal-armed Imperial guards. Inside is the Son of Heaven himself, the Emperor imprisoned in his own Palace by the Empress Mother, who is as masterful as any man who ever lived.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hence the royal children are distinguished by the epithet of Porphyrogeniti or “born in the purple.” The edifice is square, and the roof rises to a point like a pyramid. The walls and floors are covered with a rare species of speckled purple marble imported from Rome. [216] Hence its name. All parts of the Imperial palace are profusely adorned with statues, some mythological, others historical, representing rulers of the Empire, their families, or prominent statesmen and generals. Chapels or oratories dedicated to various saints are attached to every important section of the building. ”

“ At this time, which is devoted to Mirth, there is a Ball at Court, and on the Flesh-days there is commonly a great Masquerade representing a Country-Wedding. In the Palace there is a very magnificent Theatre, which indeed is almost the only thing there that is worth seeing, for the Imperial Palace is so wretched a Mansion that few Monarchs are lodged worse than the Emperor. ”

“ The Imperial Palace is large, but has nothing else scarce to boast of, for the Apartments are low, dark, and without Ornaments, and the Furniture is very ancient, tho’ scarce any Princes have a finer Treasure in Tapistry; and why ’tis not us’d, I can’t imagine: The Apartments of the Empress Dowager were the only ones fit to lodge in ”

“ The general plan excepted, there was little to distinguish the Imperial Palace from the mansion of a great nobleman or minister of State. The latter consisted of a principal hall, where the master of the house lived, ate, and slept—there being no practically recognised distinctions of dining-room, sitting-room and bedroom,—and of three suites of chambers, disposed on the north, the east, and the west of the principal hall. In the northern suite the lady of the house dwelt, [2] the eastern and western suites being allotted to the other members of the family. ”

“ Bulgarians, Slavonians, Russians, occupied the provinces of the Greek; but the lands were tilled, and the revenue maintained.
As for the imperial palace, it was a miracle of splendour. Situated between the hippodrome, the church of St. Sophia, and the gardens, it gradually grew in extent and magnificence during eleven centuries. Every emperor who was a builder, added something or replaced something to show his taste; the long suite of chambers was decorated with paintings, statues, and mosaics of precious stones and marbles. ”

“ The Western palace is used for the reception of the Chinese ambassadors. The gates of the outer city proper, and inner city, or palace, are named in high-sounding phrase, such as “Beneficent Reception,” “Exalted Politeness,” “Perfect Change,” “Entrance of Virtue,” and the throne-room is styled “The Hall of the Throne of the Humane Government.” The Chinese ambassador of 1866 spent the night in that part of the royal residence called “The Palace Reserved for the South,”—“the south” here evidently referring to the imperial favor, or the good graces, of the emperor. ”

“ Almost everything used by him or in his service is tabooed from the common people, and distinguished by some peculiar mark or color so as to keep up the impression of awe with which he is regarded, and which is so powerful an auxiliary to his throne. The outward gate of the palace must always be passed on foot, and the paved entrance walk leading up to it can be used only by him. The vacant throne, or even a screen of yellow silk thrown over a chair, is worshipped equally with his actual presence, and an imperial dispatch is received in the provinces with incense and prostration. ”

“ The imperial residence in Japan is a very different structure from anything that European ideas of palaces would expect, being chiefly built of wood and other materials so inflammable that a palace has been reconstructed and destroyed within a year. When we read of each emperor, at an early date, building a palace for himself, it is not to be supposed that these were either expensive or very durable buildings. ”

“ At the centre I would build a palace for your Majesty and the princes of the imperial family—a vast and splendid edifice, including in its arrangements all the public offices—the staff offices, courts, museums, cabinet offices, archives, police, the Institute, embassies, prisons, bank of France, lecture-rooms, theatres, the Moniteur, imperial printing office, manufactory of Sèvres porcelain and Gobelin tapestry, and commissary arrangements. ”

“ I wish my apartments to be very near those of the Empress, and on the same floor. Finally, I wish a palace that would be comfortable for a convalescent, or for a man as age approaches. I wish a small theater, a small chapel, etc.; and above all great care should be taken that there be no stagnant water around the palace."
The Emperor carried his passion for building to excess, and seemed more active, more eager in the execution of his plans, and more tenacious of his ideas, than any architect I have ever known. ”

“ Hard though it is to believe, there are palaces that [Pg 107] have been twenty years in the process of building and are still not completed. When a new monarch comes to the throne it is not unusual to have his palace refurnished from top to bottom. Entertaining at these courts means a great expenditure of money, for their china-closets are crowded with priceless china, finest glass, silver and gold service for all occasions. ”

“ And under the mountour are conduits of beverage that they drink in the emperor's court. And beside the conduits are many vessels of gold, with which they that are of the household drink at the conduit. The hall of the palace is full nobly arrayed, and full marvellously attired on all parts, in all things that men apparel any hall with. And first, at the head of the hall, is the emperor's throne, very high, where he sits at meat. It is of fine precious stones, bordered all about with purified gold, and precious stones, and great pearls. ”

“ When a hundred years have flown," and upon an eminence, overlooking the whole, stands the palace of the duke, the whole front, of twelve or thirteen hundred feet, having a grand Italian flower garden, with its urns, vases, and statues in full view over the dwarf balustrades that protect it; the beautiful Grecian architecture of the building, the statues, fountains, forest, stream, and slope, all so charmingly combined by both nature and art into a lovely landscape picture, as to seem almost like a scene from fairy land. ”

“ The name of fortress would be more appropriate than any other, for the Old Palace; it is a great mass of stone, without columns, without frontal, without order of architecture. Time has gilded the walls with beautiful vermilion tints which the pure blue of the sky sets off marvelously, and the whole structure has that haughty and romantic aspect which accords well with the idea that one forms for oneself of that old Palace of the Seigneurie, the witness, since the date of its erection in the thirteenth century, of so many intrigues, tumults, violent acts, and crimes. ”

“ Through the fresh young leaves the sunshine fell, dappling the glades and thickets, bathing the gray walls of the Palais du Sénat, and almost warming into life the queer old statues of long departed royalty, which for so many years have looked down from the great terrace to the Palace of the King. ”

“ On the inner side of the palace are large buildings with halls and chambers, where the Emperor’s private property is placed, such as his treasures of gold, silver, gems, pearls, and gold plate, and in which the ladies and concubines reside. He occupies himself there at his own convenience, and no one else has access to it. ”

“ It is a clean and cheerful city, though it can boast of little architectural beauty. The Royal Palace is its finest building, but even this, on close inspection, proves to be more 18 useful than ornamental, and well suited to a nation forced to practice strict economy. ”

“ The lanes and alleys, which I could not enter, but only viewed them as I passed, are from twelve to eighteen inches. The town is capable of holding five hundred thousand souls; the houses are from three to five stories; the shops and markets well provided.
The emperor's palace is in the centre of the city, where the two great streets meet. It is enclosed by a wall of two foot high, and twenty foot distant from the buildings. I had his majesty's permission to step over this wall; and the space being so wide between that and the palace, I could easily view it on every side. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This palace contains a gorgeously-decorated throne-room and a fine picture-gallery, the grand staircase leading up to the state-apartments being of marble. The gardens of Buckingham Palace cover about forty acres: in them are a pavilion and an attractive chapel, the latter having been formerly a conservatory. At the rear of the palace, concealed from view by a high mound, are the queen's stables or mews, so called because the royal stables were formerly built in a place used for keeping falcons. ”

“ Not that the temple differed much inside the courtyard and the sanctuary from the other temples I have seen, all was the same ruin and desolation, only after I had climbed up many steps, roughly made of stones and earth, we came upon a platform from which the roof was visible. The Emperor's Palace, they call this, or the Bright-roofed Temple, and truly it is well-named. Its roof, with dragons running up all four corners, is of bronze covered with gold, and gleams and glitters in the sunshine. ”

“ But it is refreshing for once to change this unsatisfactory position, and, instead of always looking straight in the faces of kings, and queens, and generals, and ministers, to catch, by a side-glance, a view of the times, as they appeared to men occupying a less central and less abstract position than that of the general historian. If we look at the Palace of Versailles from the terrace in front of the edifice, we are impressed with its broad magnificence, but we are soon tired, and all that is left in our memory is a vast expanse of windows, columns, statues, and wall. ”

“ Beneath the arcades of the first fortress-looking palace, and around the pedestals of the duke’s statues, were grouped the market-women, with their heaps of fruit and baskets of flowers, as if they were offerings to propitiate the stern warriors who frown above on their battle-steeds. ”

“ Although the occasion for adhering to primitive methods has long since passed away, yet the buildings are conformed to the styles of structure necessary before the introduction of modern tools and appliances. To build a new palace therefore for a new emperor involved by no means such an outlay of time and work as might be imagined. ”

“ What a world in miniature, (and not on a very small scale either,) is this Palais Royal! A palace that would cover two or three of our squares, in the heart of the city, was converted by its proprietor, the late Duke of Orleans, into an immense bazaar; the entrance from every part being from the interior court, which is a long promenade of itself, adorned with rows of trees, fountains, and gardens. The lower floor of the palace is divided into stores, in the arcade fashion, in which are displayed every article, almost, which can be imagined or desired, for use or ornament. ”