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394
DESTRUCTION OF
Chap. LVII.
smoke, curling and dispersing itself in the misty
atmosphere. Those glorious minaret-like spires, capping the
castle turrets—in vain I strained my eyes—they were
not. The gate-house stood before us intact, and then in
one moment the whole building lay discovered before
us, rising from its very bed—roofless, blackened, still
burning—a ruin. It was a sad sight. There was the
council-chamber, which spanned the waters—now a
red Bridge of Sighs—gutted; those glorious towers,
triumphs of the northern Renaissance, were there
no longer — the last had fallen at eleven o’clock,
shaking the very earth as it fell; of Caroline
Matilda’s window, too, not one vestige remaining; the
fire still rising from time to time, licking away the
woodwork around the stone-mullioned windows, as
though it were grease: never was devastation more
complete. Then, as we passed the gateway, there stood
the chapel half consumed—the riddersaal, that gem of
art, all fallen in—and, turning into the outer court
beyond the moat, oh I what a sight it was! that splendid
palace — unique in its style in Europe — a tottering,
blackened ruin, and all around frozen. The mischief
was complete—all need of exertion now over; men
walked up and down sad and astounded. The court was
heaped with furniture, pictures, and hundreds of objects
besides, snatched from the fury of the devouring
element ; and what rubbish had been saved! what pots
and pans, commodes and chairs, shields of the Elephant,
shields of the Dannebrog. My first inquiry was after
the fate of the gallery: all gave a different answer. The
pictures from the riddersaal had been saved: strange
fate those portraits—they alone escaped the
conflagration of Christiansborg in 1796. But the billiard-room ?—
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