The record-union., 1897-08-15
PETERHOE.
Where President Faure Will Stay
During His Visit.

w mere 1TcSA0CAt = ~ IA w 49, ~~~S
During His Visit.
President Faure, when he gets TO
Cronstadt, win have one reason at an"
rate to congratulate himself that he Is
not a crowned head. If he were ne
would have to be put up in st. Peters
burg And in August St. Petersburg
can be as hot as Hyderabad, say, and
perhaps more wickedly dusty The
President, however, will be housed ut
Peterhof, a decidedly enjoyable place
of sojourn.
Peterhof stands on a sixty-foot cliff
overlooking the Gulf of Finland. It
has stood there since ePter the Greats )
time. 1t dates from somewhere be-
tween I'LL and 1920. The chateau was
designed and built by Leblond and the
domain laid out after the model OF YER
sailles-a good way after. There Is
more marble and granite about 1t now
than the original building could boast
of That. like all the Peterine palaces,
was not architecturally imposing. Like
them too 1t was colored yellow. 1el-
low it remained until comparatively re-
cent times To-day it shows red and
white facade, painted iron roof and
gilded domes.
The customary park, of the usual
Russian proportions, surrounds it. To-
ward the sea garden slopes away IN
terraces, where the President will find
fountains splashing for him, and water
falls making music, under good deal
more favorable hydraulic conditions
than obtain to-day at Versailles. Water
power is cheap at Peterhof. The ba-
sins, the swans and storks, the Nep-
tunes and the nymphs the tritons and
the dolphins, the painted rocks and grot-
toes that figure in this show were, how
ever. not of NJ. Leblond's designing. He
or his successors got them from the
iconography of a once famous English
art of Gardening"
Touching these same fountains M.
Faure will find conspicuous the Sam
SON. that fronts the palace. A colos-
sal bronze athlete is opening lions
Jaws, whence spouts jet with an up
ward range of eighty feet, the pride or
Peterhof. From the topmost terrace
he will obtain striking view OF the
island and the fort of Cronstadt, with
its low granite bastions, and, beyond,
of ST. Petersburg, all white, with shin
ing cupolas and lacework spires, and
houses topped in polychrome.
Inside the three-storied palace the
| President will find probably the largest
| collection of bibloterie his eyes have
rested upon yet The article of vertu
is the leading article here, though there
| is a fair acreage of tapestry, and por-
celain, malachite and marble find their
place. One salon is all Chinese lacquer.
There is a yellow drawing-room hung
with pictorial representations of the
naval victories his Scots admirals Won
| for Orloff There is a red room lined
with the 36S presentments of feminine
| loveliness which Count Rotari culled
| from the fifty provinces of the Empire
! for the Semiramis of the north. There
you behold every variety of the Slav, in
every variety of attitude, and in every
variety of her national costume-a
| gathering quite unique, though one
rather wonders what Semiramis want
| ed with 1t.
| From this apartment one may pic
| ture the President passing to the Sale
| de la Couronne, where the great Peter
| kept his crown of the Order of Malta
| and where his old inlaid Dutch bu-
reau still stands. And should fur
! ther contrast be wanted, it will be
| found in the shell grotto underneath
at which the Empress Elizabeth is said
to have labored between whiles with
, those imperial hands of hers, which
were as deft in the manipulation of a
cooking pot. That batterie de cuisine
of her majesty still exists. You shall
find ii preserved at Monplaisir, b;
| Adams fountain. Monplaisir. like
| Marty. is one of the little houses
| which it was, and is still, the fancy
of tho Russian autocrat to dot about
a park like that of Peterhof. Mon
plaisir was erected by THE carpenter
| of Saardam," after the Dutch fashion
| In this quaint cottage he lay oowr
| to die upon the bed that is to be seer
there STILL Here he kept the Dutct
| and Flemish pictures he had bough
| during his stay among those people
| And here the Empress, his successor
gave those little soupers in times wher
she cooked for her company.
Then there is Marty another modes
habitation. You get a good view o
the gulf from there also, though no
so good as that which is TO be enjoyed
from Alexandria, the private demesn'
of the Gar From Marty the frs
Emperor of Russia was wont to watcf
his newborn fleet at anchor unde
Cronstadt From Alexandria, on thd
roof of a cottage there, through a nov
venerable Dollond. to which the pres
ent writer has been privileged to ap
ply his eye. and which may possibl!
be in position still, our friend the, Mich
olas of the Crimean days, would TAX
his observations of the Anglo-Frencl
warships, prying about the nut the.
never cracked. In the gardens below
a little mill stre.-n turned a little mill
When General Fevrier had turned trai
tor ,tEe sometime little miller becam
another friend of ours, Alexander II.
He built Babbigon. yet another cot
tage reached through what is calle'
the English Park" from some tradi
ton that an English landscape garden
er laid out. Babbigon shows you Dori
on Coiinthian, and black granite col
umns with white marble capitals. Be
side it the famous cottage of Semira
mis- makes but a poor showing out
wardly. Within. this historic bicoqu
, is ''all-glorious" with plate glass an
gliding, though less suggestive of tn