The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-08-03

! Oh the most varied and beautiful scenery
lake, mountains and valleys. The King
visited the place fifty-two times while the
building was in progress Gt was begun in
1873, and from the time when the Galerie
! des Glaces was finished its 5000 wax candles
were always lit up for him at night. The
| villagers who live on the lakes shore tell
| you Of the strange effect that was produced
by the blaze of light streaming through the
seventeen large windows when all around
was gloom.
People used to come out in boats to
watch the sight; it appears to have been
thought in those times that the King was
| building the palace in fulfllment of VOW,
and that when it was finished he would re-
nounce his solitary habits and invite Princes
from all parts of the world to enjoy his hos
FATALITIES. He must have dropped some
words to that effect, for the hosts of artists
and artisans, masons and upholsterers,
painters and decorators spread descriptions
OF guest chambers which were to be as
grand as the apartments for the Kings own
use. However, it is only the principal
slate-rooms that have been completed. OF
the two wings that were to flank the main
building one is but half finished, and the
other has only the foundations. The BAN
quoting nall, the theater, guard-room, and
second grand staircase OF bronze, FORM
Ing companion to the marble staircase, up
which tourists ROW pass, were to have been
completed in the year when the King died,
but the works have been stopped, and there
Is little chance OF there ever being carried
on. The private gardens, with their fOun-
tains, are ready, but the park, which was
to Daye covered the whole island remains
wilderness, while the avenue leading
from the lake to the grand entrance is only
marked out, and the trees planted on either
side of ii are but saplings.
Yet the palace, as it stands, offers splen-
doris enough TO safe any sight-seer Louis
Ii was very Pharaoh
AS REGARDS HIS FACULTY
For making people work Every task be-
gun had to be pushed on night and day, and
as fast as the walls of room were dry
painters and furniShers were turned into it
to make 1t habitable. Thus, all the apart
ments open to the public are complete as to
the least of their fixtures, and it must be
confessed that the paintings en- panels and
ceilings. the marble scnlpturings and the
WOOD carvings ill one with aimazement as to
how work SO good can have been executed
with such rapidity. The idea animating the
design of the whole building is French.
The palace was to have been one worthy of
Louis XIV, and the golden sun, which was
the emblem of the Roi Soleil, is seen
| everywhere about. This has suggested
| the little joke that Louis IL was not
| mo0nstruck, but had a sunStroke; he
was, In truth, SO much under the glamour
| OF the old court at Versailles that he
| bent the talents of his Bavarian artists in q
| direction which was unnatural to them.
| This makes their performances in imita-
tion OF French art all the more wonderful,
and Tor the rest it must be owned that most
vi the ronms in Herrenchiemsee are i'm
| provemeDts on the Versailles models. The
| Hall of Mirrors, for instance, is ia meters
! in length-that is, - meters longer than
the Gallerie des Glaces. 1t is also wider
and loftier, while the mirrors are much
larger and finer than those which the
Ernn ah Li.1cr nhf ni,,n II,
| seventeenth century. The hall contains
800 mirrors, 80 crystal chandeliers, and A
| monumental bronze-gilt candelebra. The
| SetteeS are covered with dark blue velvet,
| with golden lilies worked in relief upon
them. Finally, this unique hall, which is
| decorated with busts of Roman Emperors
and with countless stands for flowers,
has seventeen bow-windows draped in
royal blue velvet
1T is always amusing TO hear the remarks
| oil humble folk upon the pompS of palace
| like that of Herrenchiemsee. An honest
| Bavarian couple Of the Hermann ana Do
rothea type were following the Dlue-coated
| guide from room to room in a condition
like that OF the Queen of Sheba after her
| visit to Solomon. The lady held up most
bravely as beseemed her sex. but she, too.
became limp when the state bedroom was
reached, and the blue man pointed to the
embroidery of real pearls on the curtains of
moss-green velvet. Then all remnant of
spirit was crushed out of her when she
learned that the toilet table service was all
OF massive gold. Hermann, using both
hands, and with his teeth clenched, could
just lift the basin; Dorothea found it as
much as she could do to handle the sponge
bowl. Lonis IL never slept in this state
room, the bed of which-as Dorothea Cb-
Servantly remarked-is larger than the en-
tire bed chamber of some people; but the
room in which he did sleep, which has a
matchess toilet service of turquoise blue
Dresden, is hardly less sumptuous. A
small staircase deseends from it into the
bathroom, where stained glass windows
and pink silk hangings throw
ROSY LIGHT
Upon marble basin, six feet deep and
thirty feet in circumference. Here the King
bathed twice day-or rather twice night
In water warmer than most people could
bear it. The contiguous dressing-room is
furnished with crushed trawberry silk,
embroidered with silver, ana is entirely
paneled with mirrors. Like Anne of Aus
| tria and the Man with the Iron Mask, Louis
| Ii had passion for fine linen, and none
could be too soft for him. lie changed his
costumes pretty often, and was fond of at
firing himself in velvet clothes of sixteenth
century fashion. Out of doors lie wore
Tyrolese suit, but after the Franco-Ger-
man war, during which he sported uniform
| for six months, lie was scarcely ever seen
| in military attire. In the course of his
whole reign he only once passed review
| of troops.
"The newest of the Kings highland pal
aces, Hohenschwangau, is ut a four hours
! drive from Linderhof, and is remarkable
| from the fact that it was sold in 1870 for
200 tlorins, ZIG 9s. Its neighborhood had
been devastated by succession of wars,
and nobody thought the place tit to dwell
IN Twelve years later it was purchased by
Crown Prince Macmillan, who restored it
outwardly and inwardly, 50 as to give it
| the look of an old baronial castle. 1t has
none OF the grandeur of Schoss Neuschwan-
stein. which stands close by ON the heights
OF the Tegelberg The rocks form sheer
precipices on three sides of this eminence,
and the castle looks from distance like q
powerful medieval citadel. AS you ascend
to 1t by its own approach, and as the gigau-
tic proportions of its Roman architecture
become visible, you are assailed by
the thought which is ever recurring in
the contemplation of Louis IFS works,
namely: How the King managed to
achieve all these things without running into
debt more deeply than he did. Tie mere
carrlage OF granite and timber up TO the
Tegeiberg must have been mighty feat,
and you have only to look at the scaffolding
on the western side of the rock, where new
buildings were to be erected, to reckon
| what stupendous amount of labor ana in
| genuity the construction of this castle must
have cost from first to last. The King
'.Ho'o 6Shiuo anu Ouclky ouppilcu tnc HlU-
tive power to so much human skill was
certainly no common man. Admiration
compels the acknowledgment that it was
| only mind supremely gifted that could
have designed palaces like his and filed
them with art treasures so rare. Painters,
sculptors and artficers OF all kinds lost an
unsurpassed patron in the King, who would
have nothing about him that was ugly, and
bought without bargaining any object that
pleased his delicate taste as a connoisseur.
with every sympathy for the Bavarian
Minister of Finance, who has had to set
King Louis's money affairs straight, and
himself TO disencumber the civil list, one
can only say, as the Bavarian peasants do,
that If the late King had been as other men
the world would have missed great deal
that was worth seeing and worth paying
to see"
~ A