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Chap. XXL
THE PALACE.
315
worth seeing.” I didn’t dispute the point, but followed
my own devices. I plead guilty to a taste for visiting
the interior of uninhabited houses, royal, patrician, and
plebeian: it’s the taste of an idle man—a flaneur,
perhaps, who has nothing better to do; but I like a fine
suite of rooms, richly-moulded and painted ceilings,
and in all the buildings of Frederic IV. you have these
to perfection. I never saw his plaster-work surpassed
in any country. Then there are rich old cabinets and
mirrors, finely-carved sofas and consoles; a bureau of
marqueterie, much used by our friend Juliana, an
exquisite piece of furniture, falling to decay among
the rest. The Danes are fearfully ignorant on these
subjects, or, rather, the royal “ mobilier ” is in the hands
and under the direction of people unfitted for the charge
and ignorant of its value. They should follow the
French fashion,—establish the “ Garde meuble de la
Couronnehave the furniture sorted according to its
date, and a sale or bonfire made of the rubbish, I am
certain that in the three or four deserted royal palaces
I have visited, with a little judgment and
restoration, there would be found sufficient furniture to render
them habitable and a credit to the country. Sneer,
if you like, but the history of civilization is as much
illustrated by the furniture and objects of luxury of its
century as by the progress of manufactures, machinery,
guns, cannons, and implements of war. The hall where
the celebrated treaty was signed (though this is now
become a disputed point) is grand and imposing. I was
sorry to see the roof defective and the water streaming
in over the pictures painted to celebrate the event.
The palace is a most habitable abode ; the bedrooms
have all separate exits into the gallery which surrounds
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