At daybreak I also repaired to the spot. The Emperor of Austria had gone thither at the first news of the disaster. Several battalions of infantry, animated by his presence, preserved order, and did all they could to check the progress of the flames, without much apparent success. From amidst the snow-covered roofs arose dense clouds of smoke, which in turns hid and lighted up the burning building itself. Every now and again an explosion more violent than the rest literally caused burning beams to drop from on high. A shower of smaller flames threatened the various parts of the pile with total destruction. The yawning walls suddenly disclosed vast rooms, superb galleries crammed with precious furniture and art-treasures, which almost immediately became a prey to the fast-advancing monster. The pictures and the statues were flung headlong into the gardens and into the courts. If they escaped destruction by fire, they were shattered to pieces on the flagstones or saturated with the jets of water and the molten snow, which had converted the ground into a kind of quagmire. One magnificent gallery, decorated with a number of statues by Canova, could not be saved. Its floor had given way; and at that moment a feeling of profound consternation seemed to have taken possession of the enormous crowd. It was not surprising, for the Razumowski Palace constituted one of the sights of Vienna. It had taken twenty years to build it. Several times since the opening of the Congress, Emperor Alexander had borrowed it of his ambassador. It was in these vast apartments that he had given some of the fêtes rivalling in pomp and splendour those of the Austrian Court; it was at the Razumowski Palace that he had gathered around a table of seven hundred covers all the political celebrities of Europe; it was at the Razumowski Palace that, but three weeks previously, he had so fitly celebrated the birthday of his sister, the Grand-Duchess of Oldenburg. Such, in short, were the splendour and charm of this magnificent palace that Empress Elizabeth had, it was said, seriously thought of renting it during the spring as her private residence. For many, many years Razumowski had made a point of embellishing the place with every art-treasure that wealth could buy. The rooms themselves were decorated with as much taste as sumptuousness. Side by side with galleries containing masterpieces of pictorial and statuary art, there was a library, perhaps matchless anywhere, inasmuch as the rarest manuscripts and books were collected there. In short, the building was a unique specimen of Asiatic magnificence, carefully toned down by European taste.