AN ACCOUNT OF THE WINTER PALACE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1923, 23 April 1880, Page 3

AN ACCOUNT OF THE WINTER PALACE.

[Abridged from the “Pall Mall Budgefc.”[ The Winter Palace stands on the left bank of the Neva on the site of a house which belonged to one of Peter the Great’s admirals, Count Apraxin, who left it by will to Peter 11. The Empress Anne, after living in Apraxin’s house for some time, caused it in 1754 to be lulled down and replaced by an edifies on a arger scale. The new building, however, was not completed until eight years afterwards, when (1762) the Empress Catherine had ascended the throne. In December, 1837, the Winter Palace, as completed by Catherine, was burned to the ground. The Emperor Nicholas determined to have it rebuilt within the shortest possible time, and in scarcely more than a year a new palace was erected on the foundations of the old one. The bricklayers and masons were kept employed night and day, without regard to the inclemency of the weather, which sometimes rendered it all but impossible to proceed with the work. The Winter Palace, as rebuilt by Nicholas, is 455 ft in length and 350 ft in breadth. It is in four stories, and rises to the height ot 80ft. The principal entrance through the “ Porch of the Ambassadors ” is from the river, and it leads by a flight of marble steps direct to the State apartments. These form a series of magnificent picture galleries, for there is scarcely a room in the Winter Palace which is not adorned with paintings of more or less interest.

Adjoining the State apartments and galleries is the Ronmanoif portrait gallery, where the likenesses have been collected of all the Russian Sovereigns since the time of Michael, the first of the dynasty, who in 1612, after the expulsion of the Poles from Moscow, was elected by a general assembly of popular delegates to tbe vacant throne. In the Roumanoff gallery the attention of the visitor cannot but be attracted by a green curtain on one of the walla, where it conceals a table inscribed with the very curious rules which Catherine the Great caused to be observed at her assemblies. These regulations were as follows : “ (I.) Leave your rank outside as well as your hat, and especially your sword. (2). Leave your right of precedence, your pride and any similar feeling, outside the door. (3.) Be gay, but do not spoil anything; do not break or gnaw anything. (4.) Sit, stand, walk as you will, without reference to anybody. (5) Talk moderately and not very loud, so as not to make the ears and heads of others ache. (6.) Argue without anger and without excitement. (7.) Neither sigh nor yawn, nor make anybody dull and heavy. (8.) In all innocent games, whatever one proposes let all join. (9.) Eat whatever is sweet and savoury, but drink with moderation, so that each one may find his logs on leaving the room, (10.) Tell no tales out of school; whatever goes in one ear must come out at the other before leaving. “ A transgressor against these rules shall, on the testimony of two witnesses, for every offence drink a glass of cold water, not excepting the ladies, and, further, read a page of the ‘ Telemachida’ aloud. [The ‘ Telemachiad’ was the work of a very feeble and evidently much-despised poet named Trediakoffsky.] Whoever breaks any three of these rules during the same evening shall commit six lines of the * Telemachiad’ to memory ; and whoever offends against the tenth rule shall not again be admitted.” In the Jewel Room the celebrated Orloff diamond is to be seen —a stone of the highest value, to which an interesting history is attached. It is needless, however, to tell once more the story of the diamond, which served as eye to an idol in an Indian temple until it was plucked out by a French deserter, who brought the precious jewel with him to Europe, where, after passing through various hands, it at last came into those of Count Orloff, who purchased it for an enormous sum of money and presented it to his Imperial mistress Catherine the Great. The soldier, it is said, sold his prize to a sea-captain for £2ooq, 'who Bold it to a Jew trader for six times the amount. It was sold by the Jew to an Armenian, and by the Armenian to a merchant of Amsterdam, from whom Orloff purchased it for half a million roubles, an annuity of 2000 roubles, and a patent of nobility. Among the jewels and bejewelled ornaments, the Imperial crown of Russia will not be lost sight of. In shape it is as much a mitre as a crown ; and it thus suggests the double function —at once head of the Church and head of the State—which the Russian Emperor is supposed to exercise. It is surmounted by a cross formed of five beautiful diamonds, and supported by an immense uncut but polished ruby. The ruby rests upon eleven large diamonds, which in their turn surmount rows of pearls. More magnificent even than the crown of the Emperor is the coronet of the Empress, which is supposed to present the most beautiful mass of diamonds ever brought together in a single ornament. In this constellation of glittering stones four large diamonds of the purest water are especially remarkable ; the other diamonds, some sixteen or eighteen in number, are of secondary attractiveness; :nd there are besides seventy or eighty diamonds which would have to be placed in a third category. Those, however, who care more for personal associations than for precious stones will consider the most interesting room in the Winter Palace to be that in which the Emperor Nicholas died. The apartment remains precisely as it was when he occupied it for the last time. The news of Russian reverses at the hands, not of the French and English, but of the Turks, had grieved him beyond measure ; and partly to the agitation this cause, partly to his imprudence, recklessness indeed, in exposing himself during a review which he insisted on holding in spite of the rigorous weather, must be attributed the fever which after a very few days killed him. The narrow bed on which he reposed is of a simplicity which our own Duke of Wellington would have approved. The room is destitute of all furniture but that of the most essential kind; and one of the first objects which strikes the eye is a statement or report on the subject of the Russian Guard, presented by the officer of the day only a few hours before the Emperor breathed his last.