A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to SwitzerlandCooper, James Fenimore
History
A Residence in France: With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland
Cooper, James Fenimore
France -- Description and travel; Germany -- Description and travel; Switzerland -- Description and travel
Ludwigsberg is the Windsor, the St. Denis, of the Princes of Wurtemberg.
There an extensive palace, the place of sepulture, and a town of five or
six thousand inhabitants. We went through the former, which is large and
imposing, with fine courts and some pretty views, but it is low and
Teutonic--in plain English, squat--like some of the old statues in
armour that one sees in the squares of the German towns. There is a
gallery and a few good pictures, particularly a Rembrandt or two. One of
the latter is in the same style as the "Tribute-money" that I possess,
and greatly encourages me as to the authenticity of that picture. The
late Queen of Wurtemberg was the Princess Royal of England, and she
inhabited this palace. Being mistaken for English, we were shown her
apartments, in which she died lately, and which were exactly in the
condition in which she left them. She must have had strong family
attachments, for her rooms were covered with portraits of her relatives.
The King of England was omnipresent; and as for her own husband, of
whom, by the way, one picture would have been quite sufficient for any
reasonable woman, there were no less than six portraits of him in a
single room!
As one goes north, the style of ornamenting rooms is less graceful, and
the German and English palaces all have the same formal and antiquated
air. Ludwigsberg does not change the rule, though there was an unusual
appearance of comfort in the apartments of the late Queen, which had
evidently been Anglicised.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account