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Chap. XXH. MADALENA’S PALACE. 329
the manumission of the royal serfs appertaining to the
widowed Queen Sophia Madalena, most creditable to
her memory, some twenty-seven years, too, before
serfdom was finally abolished by her grandson ; then we
arrive at a square deserted place, backed by fine woods,
surrounded by water, in the centre of which a hideous
church marks the spot where once stood Denmark’s
Versailles, the far-famed palace of Hirschholm.
There is absolutely nothing to see, beyond the
interest attached to the locality: it boasts no site, no
commanding view; like Versailles, it was the triumph
of art and the handiwork of man, or rather woman;
Nature lent no aid, or, by her smiles, countenanced,
Madalena’s extravagances. Still, when horse-chestnuts
blossom, and the fruit-trees scatter their petals like
roseate snow-flakes on the turf below—when spring is
young and verdant, and the sun shines brightly, Art may
snap her fingers at Nature—she planted them—you no
longer think about the ups and downs of this world—its
mountains and its valleys—but content yourself with
the beauties before your eye, such as Hirschholm, riant
in her desolation* now still affords you. We visited the
church—as ugly as Calvin himself could have desired.
The sacristan pointed out to us a broken, old, carved
oak chair, once covered with stamped leather, as a relic
of Caroline Matilda, and turned it round to exhibit the
initials C. M. and a crown (burnt by himself, I dare say,
peace of 1669,” he adds, “ the peasants were well to do: in every
house you would see a piece or two of silver plate, gold rings, silver
spoons; and the women wore gold ornaments; and quantities of
feather-beds and bolsters, not only to lie upon, but cover them in lieu
of blankets.” The peasantry of Denmark have neither lost their taste
for one nor the other.
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